Things are going a little crazy here. In addition to all of the stuff going on inside-- there's all this green stuff growing on the outside of the house. And apparently somebody has to tame it. And apparently that somebody is me. Considering that our house has a little plot of green among a sea of stones, there is a lot of foliage growing on it. And it's all crazy-ass-- growing everywhere, haphazardly, randomly, and with great aplomb. It's jungle like out there. I am of the theory -- mow it all down and let Evolution take its course-- but of course that would require having a mower. Which I don't currently have. I went to the local version of Ocean State Job Lot (which is National Wholesale Liquidators-- a lot bigger, but not nearly as quirky) and bought a large shears, and then went to Sears and bought a weed-whacker and some weed-killer. I got talked into the electric weedwhacker-- the cheap gas one had to mix oil and gas in it, and I guess I'm a little nervous about the whole (keeping gas on the premises) Can I mention that I feel a little inadequate when I'm buying power tools? The guy's like "And this will do that" and I feel that maybe I missed the part in high school shop class where they covered the weedwhacker and it's relative benefits. I have real adequacy issues (and then have to pretend that I know what the guy is talking about-- the same thing happens when the Robison guy comes to fix the oil heater-- he starts explaining what is wrong "Ah-- it's the ground wire that's attached to the non-attached wire here, see?" You know, if I knew what was wrong, or if I could figure it out, I wouldn't need him. I could fix it myself. But I don't. Which is why I feel so damned inadequate sometimes. I met the guy next door, who is a truckdriver who is selling his house-- it's a 4 apartment monster that is bad on the outside, but he's been fixing it up on the inside-- if I had the money, I'd buy it (but I don't, and he's already in contract on it) He's had the house four years-- if I'd bought the house 4 years ago, I could have probably sold it and bought my house! Anyway, he was mowing his lawn, as I was out there with the clippers, trying to clip away some portion of the monster on the side of the wall. He was like "yeah, you should just do the work yourself, even if you don't know how. Don't be afraid to do it. Even if you screw it up and have to do it again, it will be cheaper than hiring somebody to do it." Which might be true in terms of the painting, or even the sheetrock stuff. But I am afraid. I don't want to do it wrong and have to get somebody else to do it again. I don't like to fail. And between my skills and Stephanie's picayune attention to detail, I feel like I'd be doomed to fail. Of course, in a couple of weeks, whatever's left over I will have to do myself, as I won't have any money to do anything else. Won't that be fun!