JUST A HIPPIE GYPSY

I must have been in the bathroom sneaking a smoke

Reality bites. I have to face it. Either I did not watch enough Martha Stewart when I had the chance, or I was hiding out in the bathroom smoking cigarettes during Home Ec class in high school. For what ever reasons, I just have misplaced my home making gene. It's hopelessly lost according to my realtor. She does not say it to my face, but I hear it loud and clear in what she is not saying.

Phrases such as this, "We can offer them a redecorating allowance" are a dead give away.

I had to look at my home, my cozy little cottage with a different perspective. What has been a wonderful comfortable refuge from the stresses and demands of the outside world is getting a once over and a make over is in the works.

My arms are so tired I can barely type this and lift the beer to my lips. I have been scraping paint off the front porch all day long. My han was cramped into a claw for a long time.ad to help patch the hole in the ceiling (a story I told awhile ago, though I might have left out all the really good parts, but the Monkey Brothers were involved) which involved me holding up a large portion of Dry Wall above my head and try to make it fit into a area that was not cooperating! We did it many many time. Half inch dry wall in four by five section isHEAVY.

We fixed the overhang, the broken window, fixed the concrete steps, scrapped paint, fixed wall paper, contemplated the bathroom floor, fixed the hole in the ceiling, chased out the squirrel....

Yes, the squirrel. I knew he was wintering in the back roof. The last straw came last week when I caught him red handed in the driveway with pink insulation in his mouth. He ran up the telephone pole and stopped. He thought he could fake me out with his squirrel statue routine. H runs up the tree into his summer home and laughs at me, all snug with his pink insulation nest.

Poo-Poo swears he shook his squirrel fist at him once.

He is history now.

When I finish the front porch tomorrow I will be so happy! Then the FOR SALE sign goes up.