Renovations...maybe...and another recollection, for sure

I am hoping to get my bathroom done over in 2023...hoping being the key word.  My sister, Maureen, also needs to have her bathroom done over; hopefully, we can get a group rate.

Maureen needs a walk-in shower with a seat, while I am hoping to get a claw-foot tub...it will take up a lot less room than the shower/tub combination that is currently in there.

The problem, as always, is the nuisance of having work done, but I would just deal with that if another problem did not exit.  That problem is that the back stairs leading to the second floor (where Maureen's apartment is located) have to be replaced in order to get her old bathroom fixtures out and get the new ones in.  Because they are back stairs, they fall into the "structure of the house" catagory, and I will have to come up with half the cost.  I can feel my bathroom renovations being put on hold, and it is not a good feeling.

On a happier note, I told Calla about the planned renovations,  and I even told her the colors I am looking at for the rest of the house.  Being the ever efficient Library Director and Type A personality that she is, she looked everything up online so she could picture it.  

Naturally, I told her that the color samples will probably still be taped to my walls a year from now, but nothing dampens her enthusiasm.  She is very excited about the prospect of everything being done over - bathroom completely renovated, and all the rooms reorganized and painted - by the time she visits again.  

In all the time we have been friends, as this blog already mentions, we have had three visits...one in South Dakota and two in Connecticut...so it is not as though I am expecting her to be here within the next year or two; still, it is a great motivator. 

Writing that paragraph made me think of something.  I suspect I never did a post about Calla's visit when she was 22 and just out of college.  Bear with me while we take a side trip back in time.

She had been wanting to come to see me ever since my visit to her parents' farm, but that was the first chance she had.  Time has a way of moving way too fast.  

To this minute, I am so grateful that she came to Connecticut in October 2009, as that visit allowed her the chance to meet Daddy.  Their initial "hellos" brought tears to my eyes.  She was glad to meet him, and he was thrilled to meet the young woman he had been calling his South Dakota granddaughter since she was a teenage girl.  The two of them sat up talking long after I had gone to bed.

Daddy died in January of 2010, and Calla and I have both said many times that it was as though he had waited just to meet her.

Another person who got to meet Calla during that visit was Miss Billie, and I am still very happy about that.  Back when I was planning my trip to South Dakota some years earlier, it was Miss Billie who had taken the "wrath" of my aunts, who were sure I was going out to meet a family of axe murderers.  She told them that she had travelled alone all of her life, and came back unscathed.  They had to accept the fact that I was a grown woman, and that I had my own life to lead.  

The three of us, plus Maureen, went out for bagles that morning, and then Calla and I went to the Fall Festival here in town.  We walked back to Miss Billie's house after that for something else to eat...between breakfast, the Fall Festival food and the toast from Miss Billie, we were well fed that morning.

Getting back to the renovations that started this post, when Calla does visit I know she will be surprised to see the changes since the last time she was here...and I hope the paint samples are not still taped to the walls.