Reflections on the Twelfth Week of Winter   

    Make it shine looped through my mind while Spence and I worked extra days this week to prepare our Cleveland house for sale. Our handyman had said, “Think of an old house like a used car. If you want it to sell, make it shine.”

   To prepare the dining room for paint, I swept the ceiling with a soft nylon broom then a hard straw broom. Paint chips showered, but flakes still clung to the ceiling. I climbed the ladder, reached above my head, and hand sanded. Because I looked up, my Sherman Williams hat fell off, and paint chips lodged in my hair. Next I held a long pole and rolled bright white paint onto the ceiling. Pin-prick-size white dots speckled my glasses and face. When I scrubbed the chandelier, grime and dirty water streaked my shirt. White satin wall paint dripped onto my pants and shoes. Trim paint blotched my forearms with semi-gloss white.

   On hands and knees, Spence guided the buzzing hand sander over the bedroom floor, cleaned with the shop vac, then painted the wood with polyurethane.

He also worked on steps. Because a contractor had improperly installed oak trim to the treads with wire brads instead of nails and screws, the wood cracked over time. Spence screwed in new oak noses, sanded, and sealed them. Last he sanded the treads on the second floor stairs. Sawdust covered his polyurethane streaked shirt.

    Though the house started to shine, we looked and smelled like we'd crawled out of a contractor's garbage bin.

   We returned to Wells Wood where our Spotlight amaryllis bloomed. Red and white petals stretched into cone shapes then curled back to open flowers. Without any effort on our part, the near-spring sun lit each flower to make it shine.