The handymen have arrived!

 

As I write this, the work on fixing my wall has started.  The sheet rock panel behind these tiles have been removed, and the studs and the sheet rock of the apartment adjacent to mine is now visible.  The work my brother did about 15 years ago finally failed, and the handyman gave me a simple explanation as to why it happened - we didn't mount the replacement sheet rock correctly.

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My brother has gone from having several dead-end jobs in his youth to being a lead financial comptroller in a multi $100mm corporation.  While raising a family, he bought a house needing a lot of TLC, and learned how to take care of all of its repairs himself - he couldn't afford any help to do most of the needed work.  Now, he's able to spend some coin to do the kind of repairs to his place that is not worth his effort to do himself.

Why do I mention this?

I give my brother a lot of credit for improving his life under a great amount of stress.  Now, he plays catch-up with his life, and I hope he's happy with the trade-offs he has had to make to get by.  I did not have to make the same trade-offs, as I was widowed almost 30 years ago, never had children, and didn't need to buy a house to "keep up with the Jones's."  Yet, at this stage of life, I wouldn't mind having some of what he has.  And he wouldn't mind having some of what I have.

It was a good thing that my dad got to see both my brother and I develop the skills to live life on our own without parental assistance.  A wise friend once said that a parent's job is to raise children so that the parent is no longer needed, but will always be wanted and always loved.  That's one thing my dad did well.

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One thing I learned from my dad is that some jobs simply need to be done, and others needed to be done well.  In the case of the bathroom tile wall, this time the job needed to be done well.  So I hired it out to a professional.  I could have done a crappy job myself, then need to do a bigger repair in a few years.  Instead, I spent some coin (which I am lucky to have) to do it right and to forget about it.  I hope my dad would be happy with how I make my decisions now, as I still think of what he might do had he been in my position in life.

Taking care of business (part 2)

Today, I had two things on the docket.  One would cost me some chump change, and the other some coin.  Either way, I had to present myself as Mario to the world.  It was just as well, as it looked like we'd have some scattered thunderstorms today.

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I got up at 8:00 am, so that I could make it to Mavis Tires for the New York's mandated yearly safety/emissions inspection for my car.  Reaching Mavis by 10:00 am, I was out of the shop an hour later, and proceeded home to nap, work on cleaning up some mess in the apartment, and to meet the handyman who'll do work on the tiled wall next to my bathtub.

Since I've been sleep deprived for the past few evenings, I took my nap first - and awakened by 3:30 pm.  I got dressed, and started to clean up my place when the handyman arrived.  As expected, he will need to tear out some sheet rock and replace it as part of his efforts.  So I gave him a 25% deposit for materials, and will pay him the rest when he returns over the weekend.  

Tomorrow, it'll be off to the tile store to see if I can get a box of tile similar to that on my 65+ year old bathroom wall....

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This weekend will likely be a "Cluster F" of scheduling headaches, as both RQS and I will need to be up much earlier than usual and stay in the apartment while work is done here.  I am not looking forward to this, but I have no choice, as the work needs to be done no matter what.  I am tempted to ask her if I could come down after work is complete (or, have her come here), so that she isn't as disturbed as she will be when the workers are taking up space in the bathroom.

Assuming that the work is done in one day (which I doubt), we will have Sunday free to do things for ourselves. But what might we do?  At least, I have several days to think about this, as tomorrow, I will have to go to a couple of tile stores to see if they have tile that matches the scheme of the remaining tile on my walls.