Foolish Mansion

 

Rushville, IN – It’s funny how time away can give you a different perspective on time spent at home, or on home itself.

 

It has been three years since we bought Foolish Mansion, and in that time we have gotten a lot of work done. Unfortunately, we still have a ton of work left.

 

Once we recovered from the bike trip, I decided that we need to finish Foolish Mansion sometime in the foreseeable future. I sat down and made a financial plan and a project plan for doing this. Now we have every weekend scheduled, both the work weekends and the fun weekends. There is room for serendipity, but not a whole lot.

 

The weekend before last was a house work weekend (week actually, as school had not yet started) . Joseph and the kids scraped, primed and painted the downstairs hallway, the lower stair cases, the south living room and the living room ceilings. Chris and Patrick tiled the bathroom tub wall.

 

Joseph was so determined that the painting be completed by last Sunday morning, that he and Patrick painted until 7 am. Joseph worked 19 hours straight. This was his summer legacy to the family.

 

When Chris and I got up at 7:30, the walls on the staircases were still wet.

 

When we had gone to bed, the kids were still working on the trim. They had not even started the color on the walls. When we got up, it looked like a different house. The living room is grey-blue with white trim. The stairs and hallway are green with white trim.

 

It took the girls two days to scrub up the paint splotches, clean the floors and get the rugs and furniture back into place.

 

Joseph was done. He packed and I drove him back to Purdue last Tuesday. He slept the entire way there.  Patrick, as usual, showed no visible signs of fatigue.

 

On other fronts…

 

I managed to ride my bike to Indianapolis twice in the last two weeks. I rode with Jenny and Patrick to the cousin’s house one week. I rode to Chris’ work another week. It feels great to ride, but I strongly miss our bike trip. So many things remind me of the great time we had.

 

I am much faster now, with no luggage to carry, full tires and no dragging brakes. Jennifer and Patrick cannot keep up with me. I find this shocking. I was the caboose for so much of our trip. Now I am out in front, nagging them to hurry up. In all fairness, Jennifer had low tires and dragging brakes on the day of our ride. She will leave me in the dust once they are fixed.

 

Mary Elizabeth rode to Shelbyville and back with me one day. It was a scorcher.

 

Meanwhile, back at home….

 

Last week we attended a meeting for parents of cross country runners. Mary Elizabeth is in cross country. We learned vital information at the meeting, such as…. our children cannot run on empty stomachs so we must be sure to feed them. They need to get a good night’s sleep. They need to attend practice.

 

I asked Mary Elizabeth, “Is the basic assumption is that all parents are idiots?”

 

She said, “Pretty much.”

 

I learned that I will be working at the concession stand to help the team earn money, and I will be bringing snacks and drinks for the team a couple of times over the season.

 

My plan is to over salt the popcorn at the concession stand and to bring some horrible whole wheat snack with grated carrots, chopped prunes and no sugar. They will never ask me to do anything ever again.

 

In the meantime Mary Elizabeth can run to glory on all the home-cooked meals she, Jenny and Patrick prepare.

 

And then there was fun…..sort of.

 

This past weekend we drove down to visit Robert (26) in Evansville, for a weekend of family fun. Unfortunately, the car keys were (we think) pick pocketed at the mall Saturday evening. In addition, I discovered on Friday evening that I had left the hose to my CPAP machine at home. This meant that I had a hard time breathing and sleeping at the same time.

 

Robert took us to meet his friends on Saturday morning, which I managed to stay awake for. No offense to the friends.

 

On Saturday afternoon we all went to visit the fire house where Robert is a volunteer firefighter. Patrick and Mary Elizabeth got to shoot the hose (not the real one, the one used for cleaning out the bay floor), climb up on the trucks and try on the fire gear. Mary E only tried on the oxygen tanks and hat but Patrick tried on everything.

 

After piling about 80 lbs of gear onto Patrick, all of which was way too big, Robert told Patrick to run up the stairs. He had a fire ax in his hands and he was wearing oxygen tanks, mask, helmet, boots, gloves , overalls and jacket. Patrick staggered up the stairs yelling “Here I come!” while Chris stood at the top of the stairs taking pictures. We were all doubled over laughing.

 

By Sunday I had a sore throat and was so exhausted that I missed Mass and spent the rest of the day lying around like a slug. Chris had put in 16 hours of overtime the week before and was not much better off than I was. He had more work to do on his computer on Sunday afternoon. We were not very good company. Fortunately, this did not stop Robert.

 

While Chris worked and I laid around, Robert took the kids to New Harmony where Patrick, apparently, came to the realization that he cannot live without a dulcimer. The kids went down to the Wabash River to hang out.

 

Finally, John arrived with the extra key to the minivan and we took off.

 

Mary Elizabeth did much of the driving to and from Evansville and only came close to giving Chris a heart attack once. She is required to have 50 hours of driving instruction; 10 hours more than are required to get a pilot’s license. I can’t decide if this ridiculous law is designed to encourage all parents to instruct their children in how to lie to authorities or to keep the children of honest parents off the road until they turn 21. Mary Elizabeth is still working on her hours and she is almost 18. She has had her permit for two years.

 

What’s up next…

 

This coming weekend Chris is supposed to finish the bathroom tile and Jennifer is supposed to start work on the bathroom drywall. Mary Elizabeth is supposed to paint a door at a rental property. Unfortunately, the same rental property has a broken dishwasher and a leaking frig, all of which were reported this past week. Chris is going to have his hands full this evening.

 

In case anyone is wondering what I do on weekends, don’t. Saturday is the only day I have the car so that is the day I do all the shopping. If getting a second car would mean that I had to drywall or something like that, I would stick with the one car. I know a good thing when I see one.

 

My mother is scheduled to get into town tonight. My brother and I will be sharing her for a couple of weeks. She has a high tolerance for construction and, fortunately, is very flexible. The kids think she is crazy and thus “very cool”. I think she is either crazy, very brave, or has a very short memory. The last time she was here, I took her on a trip with me to the city dump to unload construction debris (no, I did not make her help me unload).

 

She will either have a good time or go home at the end of her visit thanking the good Lord that her trip is over. I am betting on the latter.

 

There is nothing like a trip to put your home life in perspective.