Changes On the Home Front

This is a year of changes.

"Your couch has fleas on it," she said to me over the phone.

"No, YOUR couch has fleas on it," I wanted to respond like an eight year old child.

My house is slowly beginning to wear on me, so the idea that the fleas may have been reborn in between cold spells already here in Austin and have run their buggy little selves into my house and onto my couch from my cats who I didn't give anti-flea medicine to in January because it's JANUARY and why would fleas be alive in January anyway...

But it's not the fleas. They were just the most recent annoyance (and I'm not even convinced yet that they're here although I have of course treated all the animals and am buying stuff to spray the yard and bomb the house with this weekend...)

The flooding started it. And now I have a room that I know was never registered to be up to code and so floods unnecessarily and does god only knows what else to my house. Does it have insulation? How is its even staying attached to my house? Is it straining the roof? When is the next downfall of rain that will bring more water in from the floor? Should I get gutters or change the leveling of the dirt? Or do I re-do the room?

But then I got vertigo. Now what in the world do my ears have to do with my house, you may ask and rightfully so. But when I went to an ENT doctor and he begin examining my ears and my nose, he asked me if I wanted to do something about my allergies. "Yes," I replied. "I've actually been asking my doctor to help me with that for years now."

"Well I can help you."

And next thing I know I'm being given shots twice a week, using neti-rinse every morning and nose squirts and buying a bedding cover and an air purifier and tearing up the carpet in my house because, you guessed it, I'm allergice to dust mites.

And cats.

And we're back to the house issues.

No. I'm going to talk to y'all about the cat allergies, I don't even want to hear about it. My ENT and I already argued over the issue.

Back to the carpet. See pulling up carpet means doing something with the nasty mess underneath. Do I put down wood or laminate flooring? Too expensive (even if it ups the value of my house) and I'm allergic to almost every wood tree. Do I stain the concrete? Is it even salvagable in that way? What about tile? Too expensive? Too hard for the dog to walk on? Do I get rugs to cover the floor or does that defeat the purpose of no carpet?

AUGH!

"Don't go outside." That was my ENT's first recommendation for treating my allergies. "But since that's probably not an option, let's look at some other things you can do."

And that's how we ended up at the carpets. I need a personal house manager. I need my own Holmes on my Home.

New game plan. Marry a construction worker who doesn't take shortcuts.

Changes people. Big changes.

And I'm not sure I have the money or the courage to make them.