Over The EDGE

By Willie Smith Simply Hers Magazine

Over The

Over The EDGE

A new year is as good a time as any to make new and exciting changes in a home. Change is good any time, but a new year is a new start and I had hoped 2024 would be the best year ever for a change in my home. As it turned out, this change would be new, but not exciting, and it would be enough to put me over the edge.

We moved into our Florida home in 2017. We made some changes like updating the kitchen and painting the walls, but the rest would be done at another time once we recuperated financially. Almost seven years later we were finally getting to that update list which started with new flooring. Who knew it could be such a fiasco? I mean really, you take up the old, put down the new and voila!—you’re done, right? It sounded simple enough especially when the floor guy said his men would move the furniture; we just needed to get our breakables out of the way.

Sounded easy enough, so we spent a couple of days putting all those breakables in our garage. Then, because we wanted to be out of the way of the flooring crew, we made a “lounge area” on our lanai so we could read, nap, or watch TV for the three to four days the crew would be here. My husband worked long and hard to create that perfect area. You see, he has his daily routine which includes his favorite TV series and, for emergencies, he has DVDs along with his trusty tablet for games. He set up the TV with the DVD player, put Alexa out there for weather reports, grabbed his tablet, and he even had a cooler with snacks and drinks; the man was ready.

EThe crew showed up at 8:00 am and we left for breakfast at 8:03. We ate, then decided to catch a couple of rummage sales listed in the area. We got home about 10:30 and what did we find? Our “lounge area” had been disassembled. The washer, dryer, stove, one of the couches and various other items had been deposited in front of the TV. We couldn’t have watched anything if we tried unless we rearranged all that furniture of course. Oh boy! My husband was more than a little irritated. The only place to sit was in a plastic chair on the other side of the pool, right in the sun. It may be the off season here, but it’s still hot and the sun is brutal!

My joy at finally having new flooring was about to hit the skids. I love my husband, but the older he gets, the crankier he gets. He’s very set in his ways and likes things the way he likes them with no changes or deviations. Have you ever heard of the mythical creature Typhon? He was regarded as the fiercest, deadliest, biggest monster ever, but, compared to my husband when he doesn’t get his way, Typhon is a pussycat. My world just became very cold and dark. It will be a long time before my husband recovers from this.

It’s possible it may take all of 2024 for his recovery, which means it won’t be the best of years for me. I just might have to call on some friends to provide a place for me to stay temporarily until he recovers. I have to say this new flooring probably won’t be the death of me, but it’s definitely going to put me over the edge.