Anti-Hater Season

When I first started this post (Thursday afternoon) it had the title "Hater Season".  Wednesday and Thursday were not very good days for me.  The haters showed up in droves so I put up a new sign in my yard which read, "If you can't say something nice, just keep on walking."  Then I took it down because, well, I thought it sounded hateful and there was plenty enough of that going around.  Wednesday and Thursday I was very discouraged, so I worked hardly at all on the house.  The less said about those two days, the better.

On Friday my friend Harriet showed up.  Harriet is a retired over-the-road trucker originally from New York, and she's very outspoken.  I told her it had been Hater Season around these parts for the past 48 hours.  She was indignant.  "Do they live here?  No.  Do they help you with this house?  No.  Don't pay any attention to those idiots."  Harriet and I have a long history of being Anti-Haters.  It was Harriet who parked her car in the middle of the street, got out, and applauded long and loud on the day when the last of the shingles came off the house.

Harriet gave me the kick in the pants I needed.  (She's really good at that.)

By Friday evening the house looked like this:

 My good mood and motivation carried into Saturday, when by mid-afternoon the house looked like this:

It's just one coat of paint, but still.  The window will be a separate project.  I always treat windows as a separate project because they take so darn long to scrape and repair, not to mention how long they take to paint because I have to be more careful.  This one needs reglazing, and since I am not very good at that, WTB will be handling the reglazing duties next week.  WTB is definitely part of Anti-Hater Season.

And then I went around to the front of the house and scraped some paint there, too.  Just a little.  But, as my neighbor Floyd said, "You're gaining on it, one board at a time."  While I was out front, my neighbor Carl hollered over, "By God, you're gettin' there!  And with no help from men!"  Floyd and Carl are also a big part of Anti-Hater Season.  Not incidentally, they're both World War II vets, which in my opinion has a lot to do with how gentlemanly and positive they both are.  Men of that generation (my dad included) were built of much finer stuff than men these days.

So.  The plan for next week is:
Put the second coat of paint on the east side of the house
Buy some glazing compound so WTB can fix the window
Prime that big scraped area on the west side of the house. (Scraped last year.)
Scrape, repair, caulk, and prime as much of the front as possible.

I think I will put that anti-hater sign back in the yard, too....