Lessons in home ownership/renovation/common sense

I spent about 12 hours at the house today--well, some of that was at lunch and at Lowe's. Whatever.

I learned a few things:

1. Don't dismount a ladder that is near the corner of a windowsill without paying good attention to your surroundings. Take it from me--or from my butt, which now bears an unsightly, oddly shaped bruise--and spare yourself the painful lesson.

2. If you ever need to scrub blood off your textured ceilings, use a spray bottle to spray the ceiling with a TSP mixture before you scrub. I don't know why it took me so long to realize that, but it's GENIUS. I finished the last of the blood today in about 1/5 the time it took me before. Hurrah! Bloodbegone!

3. Drinking beers while you work all day will make you very, very, very sleepy in the afternoon. You might even fall asleep in a chair.

4. I would rather clean someone's blood off the wall than someone's hair from anywhere. Oh man, hair is disgusting.

5. Louvered doors are a fucking bitch to clean. Seriously. Fuck those doors. They can go straight to hell.

6. 93.9 literally, truly, honestly plays the same five songs over and over and over again.

7. I could do without EVER hearing that commercial for the Speedy Beverage Club again. So. So. Bad.

8. I really need a contractor to start working. Like, now. Yesterday. THREE WEEKS AGO.

I also had a really amazing, touching encounter with a dude from Craigslist. (No not THAT DUDE. Hahaaaahahaha.) I hired this guy to pick up a washer and dryer from a friend and deliver it to my place. He charged me $30 (for the 25ish mile one-way trip), and I was planning to give him $10 extra. Then it turned out that my friend added in a patio table and a couple of chairs, and we didn't have any burly help on either end of the trip, so it was just us girls helping the Craigslist guy load/unload the stuff. So, I figured I'd throw in another $10. But then the bank only gave me twenties, so, meh, ok, I'll give him $60. So the guy showed up and was super nice and friendly and helpful. I handed him the cash and thanked him, and he looked at it, and sorta confused, asked, "Do I owe you some change here?" I told him no and thanked him for being so helpful. And he paused for a minute and then said, in a really sincere, totally not obsequious way, "Well, thank you, very much. That's an answer to a prayer. We weren't sure how we were going to make it this week. Thank you." He left just after that, and I went inside and cried. I can't quite verbalize all the reasons why, but it was just really touching. I really appreciated the opportunity to meet and have that encounter with him.

It was a good day today.