"Too"-ing Ourselves

 I always say... Don't "too" yourself out of anything...  I'm too old / busy... to take part in that. When the boys were just bitty nuggets I moved into this gross trailer.  It's what I could afford. The first night the boys and I were sleeping in this old swivel rocker recliner the previous owners left behind (furniture was to come), and James was wheezing because the trailer was moldy and, like I said, gross. My proverbial walls were caving in, as they say, not just because it was a 10 x 50 ft home. I couldn't stay here.  This wasn't working.  I was tired.  Extremely tired.  But I didn't "too" myself out of it, and I got up and started ripping up carpet. This isn't some majestic boast... I am sure I whined and swallowed tears the whole time. Back then one had to be a bit more earnest about wanting to learn to conquer construction.  You couldn't just watch a uTube video on how to build an addition. We went to the library, and after a sweet visit to the Children's Room for cloudy meatballs, we borrowed books on framing.  When I sold four years later I made a tidy profit which would get me into my next house.

Fast forward a few decades and here I am faced with another reno (let's not forget the odd flip and our old house that took 18 years to fix up). Our new home needs a lot of work. Which in financial terms is spelled D-I-Y. I am TOO tired, TOO out of shape, TOO old, TOO busy to take on this work.  A friend tries to motivate me by sending along a video of a woman who does all these home reno projects, how I am this girl.  Nah... I still don't want to do it.  I want to hire it all out.  I've been this woman, have conquered these tasks, don't need to recheck those boxes. But the budget says otherwise: I am doing the work.  And I am NOT going to like it.  Trent is a good sport, is working as well despite not being in love with the house from the get-go.  He apparently likes the whole accomplishment thing.  He claims the electric and plumbing as his hobby for the next 6 months. Or maybe the rest of our lives.  We will see. Most nights when I am so tired it hurts to climb up the stairs from my desk to the rest of the house, I take on some small project that moves our work forward. On the weekends usually I have a bucketful of steam I work through, usually stop when I get hurt. Previous owners have been bastardizing this house for years.  Nothing is straight.  Nothing is correct.  There is a dilemma behind every action we need to take. 

We did hire out for the exterior, because the idea of roofing and reframing part of the trusses is not practical. Tom and his brother James (don't call him Jim as it's not professional, says Tommy) set about adding PVC siding, black-framed windows, a roof, doors.  This is most our budget.  It's hard work and they earn it. They aren't the fastest workers in the world, but they are smart and personable and honest workers.  I only mind their slowness when it's single digit temps outside and there is a 5-foot-wide hole in the side of the house. They are on site for more than four months, and I enjoy the company each day.  As I work I listen to them bicker and joke like brothers who love one another do. They sing along very poorly to country songs on their radio.  They become secondary sons, handy ones!

Early on they open the roof over the kitchen to address some sagging and find there has been structural settlement and apparent attempts at repair of the trusses.  Tom takes pictures and puts them into an email to me even though he is standing beside me.  He is a bit scared and won't touch them. What do I want to do? he asks.  In my work, when I go in the attic and see this I call for a structural engineer report.  I tell him to close it up.  We have a very large hole in our roof, and it would take weeks or longer to get an engineer to tell us... that it needs to be fixed?  that it's fine?  Maybe some day we will find out.  But for now, we will live with the sag.