Bits and Pieces

Snowing Again: snowing again the day after Christmas. We had a white Christmas but barely. Yes it had snowed and stormed, but super cold and windy displaced the snowfall. Originally forecast at 12 to 18 inches, Chicagoland got only about 3 inches, if that. It was very cold and windy, however, and that blew the snow for poor visibility and icy surfaces.

The snow is pretty coming down. The wind has stopped so we live in a snow globe presently. Lovely. It is winter so we should expect snow and cold. It is not all bad, only if you have to walk in it or stand for a late train or bus!

Zero to 50: OK, so this is Chicago. We expect weather extremes. But 10 below with wind chills to -40 one day, and then 5 days later 52 degrees? Yes, that is the forecast for this Thursday. Wonder if the earth will crack open? Wouldn’t that be a memory!! At least we don’t live in Buffalo, New York!

Oh, How Different: And all of this reminds me how a difference of one day or season makes for a lifetime of memories. We tell our grandkids what it was like when we were young. We don’t remind our kids of those stories; they have heard them much too many times. But grandkids are always fair game.

And if they aren’t interested, our contemporaries are. In fact, that usually starts an instant gabfest. Tossing about memories from hither and yon is great fun. Here’s one: bought our first house when we were 27 or 28. It was an old place, about 75 years old. We owned it for 23 years. The work needed on it from the git go was big stuff. New roof. Foundation attention. Windows and doors were rickety and leaked cold air. Paint was falling off every surface. And the yard, what a mess.

We jumped in, cleaned out the interior, painted every wall, stripped the floors and resurfaced all of them, sealed up the windows for the first winter, and cozied in for the duration. In spring we started scraping the outside surfaces. Then sealed the cracks. Then primed the siding. Then put on a second coat of paint. 120 gallons of paint was used in the whole project. And that did not count the garage. I did that the second summer and reroofed it as well. We tackled the yard bit by bit but eventually the place was tidy and neat. Eventually we tuckpointed the chimney, replaced windows, added onto the house, and remodeled every inch of interior space for the 23 years. In fact, we did a room each year in rotation. As I recall there never was a year of inactivity on that house.

Remembering this today is exhausting. At the time it was what we expected we had to do. If we had the money, we would have hired contractors, but we did this ourselves to save money. But this is the way we earned our stripes of homeownership. We actually felt good doing it, even smug!

Living life on its terms then proves to ourselves that we survived and lived well. Nothing to be ashamed of.

December 27, 2022

 

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