Home Improvement Continued...

…or Why Home Improvement is Like Sharing Baked Goods with Wild Life

Have you read any of the children’s books by Felicia Bond and Laura Numeroff like If You Give a Moose a Muffin or If You Give a Pig a Pancake? Check them out if you haven’t—they’re a lot of fun. The stories follow a formula where one action leads to another and then to another until the characters come full circle to where they started off. You give a pig a pancake, he wants syrup. The syrup makes him sticky, he wants a bath. You give him a bath he wants a toy—and on and on until you give him another pancake and he gets sticky. Home improvement projects are just like that. 

 The brilliant Carol Kane reading "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"

In my last blog post, I prematurely suggested that my porch project is just about finished. But I’m beginning to believe you’re never really finished. You paint the walls and realize you need new window shades. With the new paint and shades the rug looks really awful so that needs to be replaced. Along the way you run out of primer, your sander bites the dust, the wood screws you have are the wrong size and on and on until the folks at Home Depot know you on sight. If do it yourself projects are supposed to save money, how to people afford to hire folks to do all this stuff?

We are approximately 24 hours away from guests arriving for Halloween. We’ll be ready—more or less (or I’d be doing more working and less writing!). I remember reading an article about entertaining years ago that suggested if you are short on time, just make sure the bathrooms are clean, turn the lights down low and light some candles. Everyone will be having too much fun to notice if the house isn’t pristine. I would add, if all else fails, make sure there is plenty of booze for the grown-ups, sugar for the kids, and pizza for everyone.
Have a spooky and fun Halloween!

Proof that I'm a REALLY good sport.