“Everyone coming has been here before”

These things seem so obvious, once I‘m up to my neck in them, but it appears I will breath my last still learning things the hard way.

What I learned today is, don’t ignore all your home maintenance projects until the week before your daughter’s wedding at said home. Yeah, I know. Duh. And presume that at least one major appliance or fixture will break, leak or die.

The thing is, they seem important until now when everyone will be marching through my backyard and house noticing things. What? They won’t notice? I can never be convinced of that. And yes, fixtures have leaked and died, so the last several days have included calling the plumber and buying a new printer.

Then I set about taking down the old, tired vertical blinds that have been ignored for 20 years. Once down, nail holes had to be spackled, matching paint had to be dug up in the garage and then, of course, a fast facelift to the stained walls above the window. The exciting news is it actually worked and looks pretty good.

Oh, did I mention I tried to touch up my living room with glossy instead of flat? So, while I had the paint out, I re-touched up the touch ups. Then I noticed those paint splatters that predate our arrival. I went after them with solvent and a knife and they are at least less obvious. It seems paint gets rather set after 20 years. Imagine.

I then spotted dirt run-off to clear from around my patio and bailed out the rainwater from the hot tub. This required every rag towel I owned (I own a lot), which then led to several loads of laundry.  Next, should I weed the patio bricks, and spray in a lame effort to discourage spiders from making webs for the next seven days? I have already sprayed twice. The spiders keep rebuilding. I think they are the same indestructible ones that bit Spiderman.

I believe I will stop now and go scrape the paint off my fingers. I’m going to have some iced tea and repeat my mantra, “Everyone coming has been here before and knows what my yard/house is like. They still speak to me. It will be fine.”

Jean Gillette is a freelance writer soundly stricken with pre-party “oh-my-gosh-would-you-look-at-this” OCD. Contact her at [email protected].