Big Trip
We headed to Mankato today to visit Home Depot. List in hand, stimulus money tucked in the wallet, ready to seek and search.
I had really read a lot about exterior paint. I feel confident that the Behr product will serve our old garage well. The garage was initially constructed with pallets that were in the area after World War II. There have been many band aids applied over the years. We believe there are many years of service yet to be gleaned. Dennis and I have promised each other that when this coat of paint begins to go shabby, there will be permanent siding put on the walls. We had the garage jacked up quite a few years ago to add 12″ concrete blocks on the foundation. The gravel floor that had been in the pickup garage then became a beautiful concrete floor that attached the pickup garage to the car garage. I remember when Kevin cut a doorway to open up access to both garages. Oh for memories.
We found everything on our list. The plastic shutters are on order. 12″ x 80″ to put on both sides of the three sets of patio slider doors. We talked about that quite a bit. The ones that had been on were of course lightweight formed vinyl. They had been removed several times as the siding on the patio porch needed painting. Each time they were removed the brittle vinyl that had experienced every bit of cold and hot temps possible. They held up and the bucks and cracks were ignored for another decade of use. The shutters really dressed up the patio porch and it tied in well with the house windows that sport shutters. The end result of us two old timers’ thoughts . . . we want to keep the property up and looking like those who live here care about their home. So be it!
When we got home, Dennis had a letter from the DMV. His application for the enhanced driver’s license needed more proof of his residency. Hmm. Of course our courthouse is closed but the phones are still working. I knew Jessica from when I was at the courthouse. This time I had “people.” Jessica looked up the info. My information flew like a cloud and my license was issued to be mailed to me on May 21st of last week. What had happened to Dennis’ as we both had submitted identical info . . . who knows. We were standing right next to each other. Jessica was able to copy our real estate taxes to submit that as well as his voting info. I thanked her dearly as we don’t need to make an appointment to come into the courthouse. Jessica said it has been very difficult serving the people during this time.
I call this a successful day. Now if the rain showers would just settle down and things could dry up a bit. For what it is worth . . . life throws us a curve once in a while with checks and balances with paperwork. It takes patience and understanding and time. I have been on the other end and I know no one purposely causes issues. When you mix humans and computers . . . there is bound to be a glitch sooner or later.