A "Real Home Improvement" Project

I wanted to label today Home Improvement Friday, but then I laughed aloud to myself and said, "What are you talking about (Self)? Every day is Home Improvement Day around here!" And this is indeed true, since I've been doing all kinds of moving/setting up projects all month. However, today seems like an especially handyman-ish day because I've already made a trip to Lowe's, and every time you hook on a Lowe's trip to a project, it goes from "Moving In" project status to a "Real Home Improvement" project.

Today my goal is to repair the hole in the drywall that I created last week. I consulted with our church member who is a contractor, and who reportedly knows how to do everything house-related. I really wanted to ask if he would just come over and fix it, which would have been by far the easiest soluction. However, I felt so responsible for causing the hole that I didn't really want for us to pay for someone to fix it when perhaps I could take care of it myself. So I told him that I needed to know how to repair a hole in drywall, since I had punched a hole in ours. Then I had to go back and quickly qualify that statement, explaining that I really had not "punched" a hole in the drywall, but rather pushed my foot through it while trying to move heavy furniture. He looked puzzled at the whole "foot" and "moving furniture" description, but I was glad to clarify the reason for the hole: I don't mind shaking up the typical preacher's wife image a little bit, but don't want rumours of rage issues floating through the church. (Not that punching holes in walls is such a bad thing, of course, it's just not something I struggle with at this stage in my life.) Anyway, he gave me some advice, and today I picked up what I think I need. I'll know for sure in a few hours. I was happy that he said that if I could not fix it, or perhaps I made the problem worse, he would just come over and cut around my efforts and fix it himself. So, either way I'm good.

In other home news, I did finish painting the rolltop piece of furniture, and here is the end result:

Before and After

The rolltop part was a little tricky, since I couldn't take the whole piece apart to paint it well without excessive furniture deconstruction (which was not worth it, in my opinion). The end result is that the rolltop no longer rolls - it is forever painted open. However, this is okay by me. I never rolled it down when it was green, either.

In other news, remember the ivy-covered cherub/statue? Well, when I finally freed him I discovered that it wasn't a cherub at all, but instead a small child riding on a fish that is supposed to spout water out of its mouth. (I don't know why any child would do that, but I suppose that's why I'm not in the fountain-making business.)

Here he is:

Here is his whole fountain setup.

In truth, I think I really was a little disappointed that he wasn't a cherub at all. However, this made it a lot easier to bear when a well-intentioned friend tried to clean up the fountain for us and ended up accidentally breaking the lower bowl into two pieces, rendering the fountain useless. He (the friend) was very apologetic, but deep down inside, I was kind of glad not to have try and learn to appreciate "Boy Riding Spitting Fish" on a daily basis in my backyard.

In my last piece of home news, when I left for Lowe's this morning, I noticed that our neighbors were setting up what was obviously a yard sale. This reminded me that Jason told me on one of our first days here that the neighbor said she was going to be having a sale. At the time, I thought, "How nice of Jason to remember that for me - he knows how much I love shopping at a good yard sale." Well, when I walked over to talk to the neighbor about it today, I was even more excited when she said that several houses on our street were going to also be having sales. Then she said, "Yes, I talked to your husband about it. So, if you have any thing to put in, you can bring them on over." Ah ha. Understanding suddenly dawned on me. Jason wasn't wanting me to shop at the yard sale. He was wanted me to sell things at it. Such is life, I suppose, and the fact of the matter is that he's out of town tomorrow.

No, really, I'm sure I can find some things to get rid of. Like a beautiful fountain...