Okay, let me clarify: a LOT of painting sucks. That’s what I did last weekend. A LOT.

The plan (there’s that word again!) was to finish the living room side of the house so we could “move” into it for the time being, and then work on the bedroom side.

Good plan. As always, taking longer than expected . . .

Since we picked up the paint for the bedroom side and the doors—same color, one interior, one exterior—it was that time. And, since the bedroom side wasn’t ready, the doors were on the list.

Four doors. One solid day of painting.

Three of the doors apparently were, at one time, yellow. At least the trim around the glass was yellow; you could still sort of see that. A little.

The fourth door was gunmetal gray, except for the trim. And filthy, in the stained kind of way.

Now, normally, painting dark over light is relatively easy; the dark covers really well. Not this time.

I’d brush it on, I’d see yellow; I’d add more paint, I’d see yellow.

I thought my eyes were going kaput.

Yellow, yellow, yellow.

It took three coats on each door, plus some more touch-ups. And I’m betting that when I go back down to the farm and take a look, there will be MORE SPOTS TO PAINT.

And lest you think that being “in good shape” means you’ll be fine after a full day of painting, allow me to correct you with two words:

Different muscles.

My right arm fared the best, since I use it the most anyway, but I thought the left one was going to fall off the next day. Yes, I paint with both. I’m ambidextrous, to a point. And while, yes, I’m pretty sloppy, there’s no real difference as to which hand I’m using.

No, I don’t tape. It takes extra time and I’ve discovered that it never seems to work the way the commercials show—my brush will inevitably slip under that tape. Tarps? Oh, please! They don’t stay put and, if I’m going to dribble, it’s NEVER where the tarp is lying. NEVER.

So I’d much rather take time afterwards to wipe up the mess. Or scrub. Or paint over it.

My husband, bless his heart, spent his weekend putting up drywall on the new walls.

So I’d have more to paint.

Anyway, this coming weekend is Labor Day Weekend—ha, “labor,” get it? But we won’t be doing much in the way of construction. We plan to go to the river, canoe in the pond, barbeque, go to the rodeo, and have some target practice.

And maybe put up a zip line. Maybe.