The lazy homeowners guide to what's what

Ok, I'm actually not lazy. My friends aren't either. But when we want to laugh, poke fun at ourselves, we usually do so by highlighting how we're lazy, unbathed, uncouth little mommies. And it's funny, because it's not true. Well, not completely.

Sometimes we are so busy in other aspects of our lives (i.e., super not lazy) that we have to let other things slide (like bathing).

As we were looking to buy the house, the fact that it was a wee bit nasty inside actually appealed to our DIY inner-selves. Chris talked about tiling, OH! the tiling he would do. I talked about painting and rebuilding and expanding. Oh yes. It was going to be fun. We were going to attack our newly acquired problems with a wrench in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, arms linked and eyes starry.

Now the truth of the matter: We've done a lot. I promise I'll take you on a tour. Walls have been painted. Rugs have been laid. New old furniture has replaced old old furniture. Some pictures have been hung. Things are taking shape.

More truth. We are busy. We are not lazy. We let things slide.

So in the spirit of a good laugh, here is the lazy busy homeowner's guide to what's what.

1) When your hallway floor starts to splinter and cave in right in the middle (and you can't reach the joists underneath without ripping out the finished basement's ceiling) you buy FLOR tiles. They are durable. You lay them down. You walk on them and hope their resiliency distributes the weight of each footstep. You hope they are pretty enough to distract from the disaster below. You hope you don't fall through the floor.

2). When your children abuse their new, personal shower... when they feel that the only way to turn the water on, to turn the water off, is by aggressively jamming the knobs back and forth until all the little doodads inside the mechanism thingy start to slip and slide and water won't stop dripping pouring from the shower head, DO NOTHING. If you wait long enough, it mysteriously just fixes itself. Go ahead. Call the plumber and get the $350 quote, sit on it for an eternity, and voila! Fixed. Free.

3) When you have no time for yard work, when you really want to remove the rotting pumpkins but can't find the energy after a long day of work, DON'T. Eventually, the squirrels will eat them all. When I saw what Snaggle Tooth Squirrel (our roommate upstairs) did to Mae's pumpkin, I dragged the rest from the front of the house and left them in the back yard - to his utter delight. This baby's only got a day and a half left, by my estimate.

Wait, WHAT? You don't know Snaggle Tooth? How have I not introduced you! Zoom in on this beauty below. (S)He lives here with us, up in the roof somewhere. Which reminds me of something else that needs taking care of - all the missing fascia on our roof. In the meantime, we're going to start charging the squirrels for their cozy housing.