The last few
days have actually been hot and humid here, but nothing like some of my friends
south of the border have been enduring for weeks, now. This year you could
almost say we are the frozen north, as we have had a much cooler than
normal summer.
This past long
weekend found Mr. Ashbury with not just the usual three days off, but four. They
had an equipment malfunction at his place of employment late Thursday afternoon,
one that would not be repaired before Tuesday morning.
He was glad for
the extra time off. While he still loves what he does, he’s looking forward to
retirement. He’ll be sixty-two this November. In addition, he has COPD. The
latter is the reason we’re looking at heading south for at least a month this
coming winter. We’ll try to do two months the year after that. Cold weather is
not great for his breathing, because the colder the air, the smaller the oxygen
molecules.
But then,
neither is the hot and humid weather of a normal summer good for him,
either.
This past
weekend, since he had four days off, he decided he needed to do something by way
of house repairs. Our old, worn out hardwood floor in our entrance hallway
finally “sprang”. With the wear and tear, and the humidity over the many years,
the nails holding the hardwood in place, over time, rusted out to the point of
disintegration, and we had a bouncy little popup near the door that happened
about a week ago.
So early Friday
morning we headed to the local hardware store where he purchased the aspenite
sheeting, the very thin mahogany sheeting to go on top of that, and a box of
tiles to finish the job.
My beloved had
replaced the kitchen floor a couple of years ago, a vastly larger project, with
not that much difficulty. This smaller job was a bit more taxing, not only
because of the progression of the COPD, but mostly because it was such a small,
awkward space in which to work. Being by the front door, he couldn’t set up his
saw and work table in the back yard—that would be too far to carry the heavy
wood. So he had to manage it all on the front porch, a cramped work area to be
sure.
But over the
course of the four days, he prevailed, and we now have a nice tiled floor right
inside our front door.
It was
interesting, as always, listening to him as he tackled this project. He can
sometimes come up with very colorful phrases, especially if things don’t go
quite the way he wants them to. This house of ours is old, and nothing is
square, or even close to level. Each new job is a challenge for him. But he has
more patience than he had in his younger days which just might balance out the
lack of stamina.
Of course,
there are some things in this house of ours that likely never will be repaired.
We have an upstairs that he and our late son created when it was time to replace
the roof. Up until then, the upstairs was essentially an attic, but finished to
make a bit of a living area – long and narrow and only about five foot
high. When we first moved in, two of our kids had their bedroom up there. A few
years later, it became our bedroom.
When it came
time to do the roof, by adding just a couple of feet to the existing wall, they
were able to create a place that in fact doubles our living area. But it still
needs gypsum sheeting on the walls, and the flooring there is just
sub-floor. But in the summer, with fans in the windows, it was
sufficient to hold what was needed to make temporary bedrooms for our
grandchildren.
They no longer
need to come here overnight, and that area has become mainly storage space. It
was originally designed to give us a large master bedroom area, but that just
isn’t ever going to happen.
But that’s
okay. Having enough room to store the accumulated minutia of four decades worth
of marriage cannot be overrated.
Love,
Morgan
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