The Thing Which Scares Me

I passed up a road-trip to St. Louis this weekend.  Supper on The Hill.  A hockey game.  Hilarity with a long-time friend.  Why?  So I could work on my house.  I think I got my house mojo back, what do y'all think? 

So today (after a very long nap, of course) I went right out there, leaned a ladder against the house, dragged a broom, a rake, and a trowel up the ladder with me, and went up on the roof.  Bravely, I might add.  (Y'all must recall my well-documented fear of heights.)  I attacked the giant pile of leaves and sticks that had accumulated up there, scooped about a bushel of pecans out of my gutters, and then...and then...I had to face getting back down the ladder.  Yikes. 

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "Do one thing every day which scares you."  Yeah, well.  With all due respect to Miz Roosevelt, she never had to deal with this schidt.  There's a reason why we've never seen photos of ol' Eleanor up on a roof.  She did a lot of amazing and inspirational things in her life, but I bet she never walked around on the roof of her house with a phone in her bra trying to psych herself up to climb back down that ladder. 

Help arrives.

And when I finally did scoot to the edge of the roof (backwards, at that) and put one foot on a rung of the ladder, it went a little sideways and screeched along the gutter for two or three inches.  Or maybe that was me screeching.  Anyway, to put it like my bestie Sharon would, "I was a-scared."  I scrabbled back up onto the roof.  And then it occurred to me:  No one knows I'm up here.  I broke the South Street Rule.  And since nobody knows I'm up here, I better hope someone's available to come over and hold the ladder for me while I climb down it, or it's gonna be an extremely long night.  Fortunately, someone was.  My beloved son, Dylan, who's home from work recovering from minor surgery to his wrist. 

Let's see...climbing up the ladder and then back down...I surely think that counts as two scary things, so I'm good for tomorrow.  No need to be a risk-taker tomorrow.  Tomorrow I'll just scrape and caulk.  Safely.  No climbing about on top of the house.

If you follow me on Twitter, then you already saw that pic and read about my other shenanigans.  If you don't follow me, I'd sure like it if you did.  You can click on "join the conversation" on the Twitter badge to the right, or on the highlighted word "Twitter" in this paragraph.  Thanks, y'all.