Alan the Pro!

 

2018, Notice the gap around the mirror.

The word 'pro' is actually an abbreviation of the word professional. I am not that. The pro that I am, is pro-crastinator. Not that I'm lazy. I don't think that I am. It's just that when I have a task to do, one that is more complicated than washing the dishes, I have to prepare mentally. I have to have the whole thing planned out in my mind and I have to convince myself that I will do it to completion. Mark would always nag me to finish things. Like the hallway off of our bedroom. Six years ago he told me to paint it. I still have the paint and some of the tools to do the job. I simply have to wrap my head around taking the pictures off the walls, and taping up the parts I don't want to get paint on. And then there is the big part, bringing the can of paint up from the basement along with paint brushes and rollers.... which I would have to go out and buy. Sorry Mark, that you didn't live to see me finish that job. It weighs heavy on my mind every time I look at the scuff marks on the hallway walls. Another job I started before Mark passed away was the bathroom mirror/medicine cabinet. I began that one four years ago. I opened up a hole in the wall where the 1970s mirror hung, and mounted Mark's flea market find in the hole. A lovely medicine cabinet with two sconces on either side that is age appropriate for our building. The problem is that I left it like that. It didn't quite fit and there was a gap about half an inch wide all the way around it. It was another thing that bothered me, that Mark never got to see finished. These things really do bug me. So why do I procrastinate? It's because filling in that gap would require tile, tile glue (mastic), and grout. I had to get that all straight in my head before starting. I needed a spackle knife, sponge, clean rags, along with the tile and tile cutter. My brain kept telling me that was too many variables. Anyway, over the weekend I sucked it up and pulled everything together. The job is now done. I think it looks just fine. If Mark were still around, he would look at it and shake his head as he walked away. Keeping his thoughts to himself, banking my crappy tile job for some later argument. Which is good enough for me.

2022, Finished