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We began our list of repairs for the house this weekend. It's a long list of what will need to be done before we sell and get a larger house. It just so happened that we did #1 on our list even though it wasn't intended that way. That was to replace the shutters. One of the poor things had lost most of the louvers (is that what they're called?) and the complete bottom half. When we began taking it off, it pretty much crumbled in our hands. Yes that's right, a wooden shutter crumbled in our hands. We found out something important though. Wooden shutters rot, are more expensive than the non-rotting vinyl counterparts, have to be sanded and painted, and are nailed into the brick. Vinyl shutters can be painted or, as in our case, come already colored. They also don't rot, cost about half as much and are put in with screw things that make them easy to replace. So here's the thing: why would you buy wood shutters? The look is exactly the same. I can't tell a difference. Even on my neighbor's house which has the exact same shutters we had. I don't understand this. When we first went to look at them, we had decided to get something that wouldn't rot even though we figured the unpainted, wooden ones would be cheaper. Uh, excuse me. Wooden ones were $61 and the vinyl were $35. What?! As far as I know, neither adds value to your house. I just don't get it.

Anyway, we now have beautiful new burgandy shutters which of course then required that our front door be painted burgandy as well since it was the same blue as the previous shutters. That was not a bad job. And now every time I come home, I think how pretty it looks. Especially since the kids and I also cleaned up the yard while helping Daddy hang the shutters.

Yesterday he was off so we spent it intending to buy our new patio door. Spent a lot of time there looking again at the one we had already picked out but will it be delivered soon? Uh no. We didn't buy a blooming thing. A whole day spent doing nothing. A whole day without kids! It is my intention that we will go to get the new pool pump this weekend whether we get the door or not though. It seems to be that if we don't do it when we're talking about it, it never gets done. Or it takes at least 6 months. And I would like to have a working pool this summer. I figure getting a door has already gone bust until fall. Oh well.