March 14 – “Colors and cold”

I’ve had just about enough of this whole “March comes in like a lion” thing.  Although in our case it has been more like a polar bear.  OK, OK. I appreciate that the Northeast is getting socked with an aircraft carrier load of snow about now, but here on our island paradise we are hitting the low 50’s again.  That’s just … too cold. 

And to make things worse, Nathan and his crew are supposed to come over today to finish up the work on the house. We still have to get done with phase two of the house work.  That would be work on the house, not mopping the floors and making the beds.  I finished up caulking all the seams of the siding and hammering down the metal water barrier.  Now all that’s left is changing out the rotten boards on the soffits.  Well, that and painting, of course. 

And speaking of painting, Chris and I went over to Home Depot last night.  We wanted to check out paint colors and look for a new swing for the back yard.  Eight grandchildren have taken their toll on the ones we have.  In fact we are already on swing number three as it is. Sadly, they had no swing.  They recommended we try McCoy’s.  That’s a rival home improvement store around here.  Guess somebody’s been watching Miracle on 34^th Street.  Isn’t that the one where Santa tells people at Macy’s that they can find what they want over at Gimbel’s instead?  Anyway, no swing.  Also sadly … too many colors.  Shades of colors in particular.  I thought Chris already had one picked out, but there are so many.  And she insists they are all different.  We want something that is somewhere between blue and gray, not too dark.  Trim will be white, so that one will be easy.  I checked out the base aisle to see if we would have to do a primer coat first.  Looks like we’ll need to do either a primer or at least two coats of the actual paint.  Exterior paint with primer built in costs over $40 a gallon.  And one of the companies, can’t remember if it was Glidden or Behr, didn’t even have five gallon buckets.  Oh, they looked similar, but the actual contents line read 4.43 gallons.  Marketing ploy to charge more without appearing to, of course. 

Well, we left Home Depot empty handed.  Unless you count the color charts Chris brought home.  I told her she had to choose the color by this morning.  Think she can do it?  Oh, but we did get to see a friend there.  Seasider and fire fighter Cody was looking for a dog door to replace his before he went on shift this morning.  Hope he got finished in time to keep this horrible winter weather at bay.

1 Timothy 4:12 says, “Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”

Father, keep us warm and the folks in the Northeast safe.  Amen.