Monday, July 7, 2014
It has been such a long time since I last posted a blog and there is a reason – or excuse – for that.  It goes something like this.

I haven’t been working out.  Over the past three weeks, I have done one 21-minute run and little else other than work.  Work however, has been intense.  I had picked up two new clients for whom I am do miscellaneous jobs around their homes in addition to forming a new business with my son, Jason.  Our business – J & J Home Maintenance – was formed primarily to do rehab work on bank-owned properties being reconditioned for resale.  We went to look over a property we’d been given to consider and toured the house with a work order outlining all that needed to  be done.

“This place is an absolute mess,” I said as we toured the 3,600 square feet of a house that had not been lived in in over two years.

“Yeah – they’re not normally this bad,” Jason said.  He’d done some work with a friend on a similar property and from that experience, gotten the idea that we should do them together.

The entire interior of the house had to be painted – ceiling, walls, trim, and anything that had a coat of paint on it already.  This would necessitate the removal of extensive amounts of disgusting wallpaper, which is never an easy feat.  It also required the removal and replacement of two bathroom cabinets, counters and sinks, three toilets, eight light fixtures, two concrete steps, two garage doors, shower heads and plumbing, and over 50 feet of paneling and drywall, warped and moldy, from a finished basement.  It was a major undertaking for our first project and would have to be done in our free time since we both worked full time positions already.

“I’m willing to give it a go if you are, but there is no way we can do it in a week.  We’ll tell him two weeks and see what happens,” I said.  He agreed.

The company heading the renovation project, Market Ready, tried to get us to agree to one week, but I simply said, “give it to someone else – there is no way we can do it that quickly.”  He called me back 20 minutes later and said, “do it.”

I spent 90 hours there over the next two weeks painting, cleaning, hauling and rehabbing.  Because we couldn’t get answers quickly enough on portions of the work that were unclear, we were unable to meet the two-week deadline, which was last Thursday, and continued to work through the holiday weekend.  As I write this, we’ve still got another 20-30 hours of work to do before completion, but the end is in sight.  The question will be, ‘should we do another one?’  I’m not sure, at this moment.  For the most part, I have spent three weeks working and sleeping, which has kept me in shape, but it’s no life.  I won’t make much money on an hourly basis, but I’ve gotten a tremendous crash course in home remodeling and spent quality time with Jason. 

My feet are killing me.  They were very sore after the first day of painting.  I’d spent over 10 hours on them and figured it was that…and the shoes.  I switched out to my hiking shoes for the second day, but it was no better.  They remained sore, but it lessened over the next week until I went for that 21-minute run.  That evening, I could hardly stand the pain.  I’m wondering what the next run will be like.

I’d like to say this is the beginning of a consistent return to the blog, but I suspect I will remain sporadic.  I began the blog with two thoughts in mind.  First, inspiration to readers…and to me…to exercise more.  Second, to work on my writing skills.  I’ve accomplished both, but there is no end to keeping fit or to improving writing, so I have to keep going.  My life is stressful right now and writing, or the need to, can either relieve or heighten that, depending on the day.  Today – it’s a relief.