Homeownership

I cleaned the gutters today. I think it was a last minute attempt to get myself out of doing school work without feeling guilty about it. I guess I'll be spending Monday and Tuesday writing annotated bibliographies. Ah well.

Cleaning the gutters is something that should have been done long ago. Every time it rains, we have a waterfall cascading off our front porch. The problem was, I only remembered that they needed to be cleaned when it rained, which is not an opportune time to clean gutters. I knew it was bad when my neighbor kindly informed me that there was a danger of the wood behind them rotting if they didn't get cleaned. I think I was secretly hoping that I'd wake up one rainy morning and everything would be fixed, and water would be flowing smoothly. Things don't always work out the way we hope.

So today was the day. I climbed up the ladder and took a peak. I actually thought it wasn't going to be too bad. There was a thin layer of black soot blocking the hole to the downspout. I cleaned it out and thought I was done. Things don't always work out the way we hope.

Turns out that thin layer of soot rounded the corner and went down the length of the house. So I grabbed a putty knife, scraped it all out and emptied it into a plastic bag. By the time I got to the end, I was too lazy to take the ladder around to the other side of the porch to see if there was any more soot, so I climbed on the roof and walked over to the other side. Bad idea. If you know me, you know I'm afraid of heights. It's not so much the going up as it is the coming down. I suddenly realized that I was going to have to, at some point, turn myself around and precariously get back on the ladder. It must have looked hilarious, slowing turning myself around, searching unsuccessfully for something to grab on to to brace myself, panic strewn across my face. And I was probably only twelve feet off the ground! I hate heights.

But now the gutters are cleaned. It's one of those things that you don't think about needing to be done when you buy a house. I guess most people just hire someone. But hey, why hire someone if you have school work to get done?