New paint job

Hey! Guess what we did this summer? We started to paint our house... again! We started on 2007 on the back of the house because it was in worse shape, mildew, etc. Anyway, it took us from June into the end of October to paint the BACK. The BACK!!!! We had Tim Belbin, a good friend of ours and a Springfield firefighter (YEAH!), coming over on his spare time to help. Well, he's a firefighter with 3 kids and a wife going to school so you can imagine what "free time" he had. Yet we could count on him to be here several times a week, even when it meant he worked all night! He is such a great friend and a great example of what service is.

So last year, around June, we decide to start on the front porch. Oh my! I think I scraped for 5 minutes before I started wondering, "How on earth did we do this last year????" I never realize how big our house is until I'm cleaning it or painting it.

Well, Bobby and I plugged along for a couple of weeks, not getting very far with all the paint that needed to be scraped, when one day a gentleman who owns his own painting business stops by and asks if we would consider paying him to finish the job. Bobby was all over that one! Money was no object if it meant saving our arms and back from further torture!

Nick (the painter) was able to start right away and oh my, what an incredible job he did. We paid to have the house done, but figured we could handle the garage. HA! Bobby was scraping the garage with a couple of friends on a day when it's 90 degrees and 80% humidity and they were moving slow. Nick was watching them and laughing! He was actually laughing at their humble efforts. He finally walked over and said ( In a Russian accent), "I can't watch anymore, too painful. I give you discount and do garage also. We work faster." What a lifesaver!

They did in 2 weeks what would have taken us about 5 years!!! Nick actually saved our children from becoming orphans...