'Stache

As I was primping in the mirror the other morning, I discovered that I reached my first milestone on the path to "middle aging."

I had the beginnings of a mustache.

In fairness to myself, all women have a little bit of facial hair. I'm at a disadvantage because I have very fair skin, dark hair, and Norwegian ancestry, so I'm genetically screwed as far as visually appealing hair goes.

Still, literally coming face to face with signs of aging wasn't a pleasant experience. I've become a little paranoid that I'm going to wake up one day and have a mustache that rivals that of a 70's anchorman, or perhaps the Pringle's Chip Man.

Gate

Taylor's dad, Larry, was in town for business. He had Friday off however, and he asked what he could do to help us around the house.

"Build us a gate," I said.

"Well," Taylor mused, "We could use some help with the car -"

"Build us a gate," I said.

"But the hot water heater is also having problems -"

"Build us a gate!"

In the end, Larry and Taylor decided to build a gate. Initially, they were going to use pre-built fencing material, but after seeing how low-grade it was, they decided to build the whole thing from scratch.

This is what I got to come home from work to. Needless to say, I was very pleased!



They bought pressure-treated planks, cut them in half, and dog-eared the top edges.

There were a lot of intricacies to the building of the fence, but you'd enjoy it so much more hearing it from Taylor, so I'll let you ask him about it.

It's a real improvement over the redneck chicken-wire setup we had, but the downside is that it emphasizes how bad our current landscaping is! But we'll get to that as time and funding permits.

It is finished!

Taylor's dad came to town on Wednesday, and that provided the push we need to finally get our last bedroom painted, as well as do some touch up in the upstairs bath.

If you remember, the upstairs tub was a pink nightmare. Taylor spent four hours last week sanding, priming, and painting with a special tub paint. It's now a brilliant and clean looking white, a vast improvement.

For my part, I painted the wood trim, the vanity, and the medicine cabinet. While I like the beige paint we chose, it blended too closely with the wood trim. Now it feels stylish but casual, and I'm really pleased with how it came out.

Finally, the guest bedroom has been painted a sunny yellow. The trim we used isn't really doing it for me - it's far too creamy and doesn't jump out enough, but frankly, I don't really care right now.

I'll repaint the trim eventually, probably in ten years when we plan to sell. In the meantime it's such a relief to be done with the inside. Now we just have to finish unpacking!