I was seated in the orthopedist’s waiting room the other day. Not for mends to my bones, but for a friend who’d survived a near fatal automobile accident…thankfully with only a crushed left heel. She is now a fervent believer in ‘Living Life as a Miracle’, too. Her miracle via Mercedes, a testimonial to buy one as my next car.

While I’d brought a good book and had my cell phone, with its infinite offering of play to boot, my attention was drawn, inevitably it seems, to the wall-mounted big screen. I was enjoined mid-project by the popular twins’ remodeling show on HGTV. While talented, affable, and handsome, I didn’t catch their names.

Demo was in full swing in the family room, living room, and a bedroom, with walls stripped to the studs. A floor’s ceramic tile chips were flying with each mallet pound. I couldn’t hear the pings as flotsam and jetsam hit the workers’  safety glasses and shirts, but sound effects were unnecessary because it seemed that all the dust of Creation were generated. It was going down.

These actions shots, and others, dissolved into choreographed scenes of one of the twins talking with the young couple about potential plans, actual plans, and budgetary issues. As if the crash, bang, boom wasn’t drama enough – !

Been there, done that, and not again, thank you. My husband and I bought a retiring couple’s home in 1986, intent on renovating the house to match our dreams. Our shared hobby was fix-it, build-it, and decorate-it; I used to tell people that I lived in ‘The Projects’, just to see their reaction – remember this post? Ha! https://www.pjcolando.com/we-live-in-the-projects/

Our house with good bones evolved into our much-admired home, but our bodies’  bones are achey-breaky now. No major reno projects planned. Neither of us needs plaster cast on a body part.

We have become that retired couple mentioned earlier, living in the bank that a California home property is. We have the makings of a reverse mortgage of major proportions, due to home equity, bounty earned with judicious sweat equity as well as the CA economy, entitled to feel safe.

Our home radiates love as I drive onto our street and zap the automatic opener to glide my Zippety-di-doo-dah car into its slot in the three-car garage, one of our many shared re-model projects.

Our home has all the curb appeal it needs: the love of my life is inside. He has an illness that requires our fervent, mutual efforts and attention. He has all of mine, now more than ever. He is my project.

My husband is my safe haven. In his heart, I am home.

Curbing his illness has great appeal.