My grandmother happens to live in the same town as me, and I am the only family she has that lives there.  Sadly, the rest of the family moved out due to work reasons, so all that is left is me.  That being said, I feel like I need to make sure that her needs are taken care of, so I find myself over at her house helping out a lot.

For example, I was over there today helping her decide if she needed to get her carpets cleaned.  You see, the idea popped into her head when she received a coupon in the mail for a discount off of carpet cleaning.

Now, if you were to look at her apartment, you would notice that she has only a couple of rooms that do have carpet in them.  So, I called the carpet cleaning Devon company to make an appointment for them to come to her house.

I guess I will have to come back the day before they show up to help her move her furniture - I guess that is part of my responsibility of being her grandson.

My mother’s house has needed replacement windows since … well, let’s just say she recently paid off her 30-year mortgage and the windows needed replacing way back before they bought the house.

When my dad was alive, he would have wanted to do it all himself if he’d been well, but they didn’t have sufficient money to pay to have it done. Supposedly. Turns out Daddy never actually got an estimate. He assumed they couldn’t afford it.

Mother’s continued objection after he died was that she didn’t want to have to move out of her house for a week.. So I called in “the big guns,” aka my little sister. She just flat out said, “We’re doing this and the window company will be done installing shiny, new vinyl replacement windows in one day, guaranteed.” I’d already said the same thing, but alas, like Dicky Smothers, my mom always liked her best. *sigh*

The summer I was pregnant with my only child, we decided to build a deck. All we had was a set of brick steps leading down to a grassy patio area, which is to say, a muddy area.

So there I was, six months pregnant, chipping away at the old brick steps. I couldn’t wield a sledge (even if I hadn’t been pregnant), so I used a hammer and chisel. Actually I destroyed two big screw drivers until my husband gave me the chisel. I took out a LOT of frustration on those screw drivers.

Once that was done and the deck completed, there were decisions to be made I hadn’t counted on: Should we use a deck sealer? What color deck stains would complement the red brick of the house? What kind of deck cleaner was compatible with the stain we chose?

The best part of having the deck, however, came a year later, being able to watch our daughter, by then 8 months old, playing in her kiddy pool while I barbequed.