“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” Vincent van Gogh
I am not someone who is anywhere near the van Gogh of household painting. That would be my sister. But, after eleven years of the same tired old guest bathroom, I decided it was time for a change and bought a new shower curtain, rugs, and paint to match. It is actually time for a change in my entire house, and luckily, my sister and dear friends who LOVE to paint have offered to help. I hate to paint, nor am I good at it. This is a small bathroom, however, and hard to fit more than one person and a ladder in there. Tempted, but too ashamed to ask them to do it for me while I made the lunch, I decided to tackle it myself. How hard can it be, anyway? A small room with sink, medicine cabinet, tub, and surround should only take one quart of paint and a couple of hours, in my rather naive estimate. I also had some good paint brushes that I had used with my last project, which had been carefully cleaned and stored away. Thinking I’d be done shortly, I started in with a cheerful whistle. Unfortunately, the whistle stopped immediately when I discovered that the old paint brushes were stiff and unyielding to soaking up paint, requiring a trip to the store in my old paint clothes to purchase more. Starting once again, I soon realized that whatever type of paint that I had applied those eleven long years ago was not going to be easy to cover. I am also not as agile as I was eleven years ago and found it nearly impossible to reach those high corners while standing on my tippy toes on top of the toilet tank. I also needed to lie on the floor to reach some of the corners, which made it necessary to sweep and mop the floor first. In yet another blow to my ego, I realized that an old Farm Woman who is pushing sixty does not get up easily from a cold tile floor without having to moan and groan and hug the toilet for assistance. Barney the Chihuahua, ever my hero, sensed that I was in trouble and jumped on my back to help. I noticed that he had stepped in a dribble of paint, so I cleaned his paws so he wouldn’t leave little green prints all over the floors like he did on my back. Thankfully, by that time I was out of paint had to wait until the next day for another quart and round two. Here I am, four days later, and don’t have the heart for the third and final round. Yes, three coats. I will take another day of rest before I pull up my van Goghs and start in once again.
The Minnesota Farm Woman 