A Hard Day's Work

I am not cut out for manual labor. After the first day of painting I thought, “This is nice, working with my hands.” Then, my back starting hurting in ways I never thought possible. My hands were cramping from holding the paint roller for hours on end. I have callouses, callouses I tell you! While I love seeing all the color on the walls of the house, I’m so glad that our painting (for now) is coming to a close. After 2 full weekends and a few weeknights, I finally learned how not to get paint in my hair and I don’t back into wet walls anymore.

Such physical work really takes it out of you. It will somehow allow you to manage to drop a giant glob of butter down the front of your shorts while making corn casserole. You will smash the butter between the front of your thigh and the cabinet so that it doesn’t plop on the floor presenting Sadie with a butter smorgasbord. You will laugh uncontrollably in a fit of hysterics while your husband shakes his head. He shakes his head even more pathetically when you ask if you can still use this butter in the recipe since it didn’t touch the ground. He is equally as exhausted but prepared his portion of the meal, barbecue chicken, with no such trouble.

You are so tired that even though it’s an unseasonable 86 degree October day, you won’t be able to walk your poor dog who has been neglected all weekend because of said painting. She is no longer allowed at the house during painting owing to an unfortunate incident last week where she ended up with orange paint on her butt. All you can do is lounge on the couch. At night, you are beyond fatigued but cannot sleep because you keep thinking about how good your walls look from all your hard work.

We finally move in on Friday and I know it will all be worth it. Maybe then the scale will rebound. Even though hour after hour of painting and cleaning seems like it would burn a ton of calories, I don’t think it’s making up for the amount of times we’ve eaten out in the last two weeks and the lack of cardio in my normal routine. Come October 17^th, it’s back to being homeowners, living the dream, and working the daily healthy grind.