MANUAL WORK

On my last day of work last week, someone asked me if I was looking forward to kicking back this week and relaxing. I looked at him cross-eyed, as if to say, “What’s that?” But in all seriousness, I don’t know that I know how to relax. And besides, I already knew in my head that this week was going to be a busy one. Just with a different kind of schedule.

For the first time in many months, I have days stretched out in front of me with nothing on the calendar. But those days have been quite full, and will continue to be for at least a week. For I have a considerable amount of manual work on my agenda.

We’ve decided to tackle our hallways, in terms of prepping them to be painted and them painting them. Having painted two rooms in our first five years of homeownership, we did a third room in less than a week and are now tackling two floors’ worth of hallways. I can’t begin to tell you how much masking tape I’ve already used and how sore my fingers are from applying that tape to the oddest of nooks and crannies in our house. And those posts on your typical staircase? Taped and cleaned each and every one of them.

I have a newfound appreciation for the manual worker. For sitting in front of a computer in a nice, air-conditioned office seems like a veritable vacation compared to squatting, stretching, and straining in tight spaces, on a ladder, or even outdoors in the heat and humidity. I have consumed too much water and Gatorade to calculate, my whole body aches in areas I didn’t know I had muscles, and I think I’m starting to hallucinate about walls peeling and dripping.

But it’s not all bad. I can’t wait until the end and the satisfaction of completing a hard task. I think of our little one and how she will be able to look at nicely painted walls and ceilings as she explores her new home. And I sleep like, well, a baby. Besides, next week school starts up again and I’ll have plenty of time in front of a computer then.