Yesterday was the first day of spring but I was completely oblivious until a text message from my friend Jelena greeted me with “Happy Spring!”
Whoa! How could I forget such a welcome arrival?
How could I forget? Easily. For days now the weather has been cold, overcast, gray, snowy and all around miserable. I had taken my sister’s dog, Kaya, for a walk and I couldn’t wait to get back indoors. This is rarely the case with me, even on coldest days, for I love to walk. But the biting wind was so frigid and bitter, it penetrated through my thickest jacket and scarf and gloves. My hands were icy and my cheeks red and raw, but Kaya didn’t seem to mind at all. This is her kind of spring day.
Kaya on our walk
Every day, since last Thursday, we have been working on our new house. Doug, our general contractor, and his crew have demolished the old kitchen. They took out the old appliances, the cabinets, the counter-tops, the old linoleum floor and parts of drywall. They adjusted the plumbing and installed new electrical lights and outlets.
Tomorrow, Mike the floor guy and his crew come in to install new wooden floors in the kitchen. The rest of the house already has wooden floors and once we paint the walls and everything else is complete, Mike will come again and refinish the floors throughout. But a lot needs to happen between now and then.
Jeff worked on filling in holes and smoothing the walls last weekend, and the plan was to start paining one room after another. But there’s been a bit of unwelcome news. While demolishing the kitchen, Doug discovered that the house isn’t insulted. So, now we are getting estimates from insulation experts for something called drill & fill. Holes have to be made throughout the house (in our case on the inside walls) and filled with insulation foam. It is a costly and messy process, but what choice do we have?
Jeff and I are trying to stay positive, we just hope that nothing else comes up. Nothing big, that is. For at this stage of our lives we both recognize that a million little, unexpected details will emerge that we could never have even imagined. Things never, ever go according to the idealized, unrealistic plans that we set for ourselves. We have been good about reminding each other of this fact when things don’t go according to plan.
So in the late afternoon of the first day of spring, as meager sun-rays trailed purple, lumpy clouds before quickly disappearing behind bare Michigan oaks of my sister’s back yard, Jeff and I sat down for our daily powwow. We have gotten in the habit of doing this, relaxing a bit with a glass of wine and talking about our day, our children, our new house. What is new today? What needs to be done?
Kaya happily groaned and stretched out on the floor between us, relaxed and content with the world. For Kaya, every day is the first day of spring.
Happy Spring to all my readers!
Kaya after the walk
