10:42 – Barbara, Colin, and I were down in Winston yesterday. She had some errands to run, followed by lunch with one of her friends, after which they went to the Ansel Adams exhibit at Reynolda House.
While they were doing that, I was supposed to be scrubbing down walls, preparing them to be painted. Barbara thought scrubbing and painting would be too much for us, but was willing to at least give it a try. She was right. I got a total of two walls scrubbed down in my office before I called her and said she’d been right. Constantly looking up and bending over was playing Hobb with my vertigo. It is simply beyond my capacity to do this. Barbara was relieved, because she was dreading doing the wall scrubbing and painting. We decided just to pay someone to do it for us, particularly since we have a lot of work remaining to be done up in Sparta, particularly science kit stuff. What was easy for both of us at age 30 isn’t easy at age 60+.
While I was taking a break out on the front porch, Mr. Marshall showed up with his crew to cut our grass. He cuts several of the lawns in the neighborhood, and had done some yard work for us in the past, so Barbara arranged with him to cut our grass in Winston until we sell the house. When I told him what I was doing, he mentioned that he owns 67 rental properties and has good people that do all that kind of stuff for him. He said all of his folks were good at what they did, reliable, and charged reasonable prices. I asked if he’d give us the names and numbers of the people he used for washing down walls and painting, and said he’d be happy to do so, although he didn’t have the information with him. He asked me to call him at home in the evening, which I did last night. We arranged for him to meet us at the house the next time we’re down and get the ball rolling.
When Barbara gets home from the gym and supermarket, we’ll go to work on science kit stuff. We’re running short of a lot of kits and subassemblies, so we’ll be working on those for the next several days.