For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 22, 2018

touché, John

When I went from being an apartment renter to being a home owner, that the desires to mow my own lawn, fix my own sink, and paint my own walls were very low on the list of reasons to buy a home.

I assumed the punchline would be John offering Phil a rake to get some lawncare practice in. But no.

Nope, nobody else….not for free anyway.

I’m allergic to grass, so I’ve always said, "If I can’t afford to hire a lawn service then I still can’t afford a house!

Hate mowing the lawn, it is a stupid chore like making a bed, you do it over and over and over and it never ends.

Those are chores for some but represent being sure it’s done right for others. For me, the work is a part of the natural cycle of my life and at least one task where I can look back at it and see the difference. Can’t say that for lots of jobs I have held over the 6 decades since high school.

Yep. And when you get tired of that, you don’t have to move back to an apartment if you still want a house. The next step in this progression is a gated community. Your HOA fees pay for all that kind of maintenance. Yeah, I’m living in one now in Florida. Sure beats the next step: assisted living facility.

After 20 years of it, I’ve come to the conclusion that home ownership is waaaay overrated.

“Why would anybody do drugs when they could just mow a lawn?” -Hank Hill

John’s absolutely right. Every homeowner knows truer words have never been spoken. The only way things get done around the house, is when you do them !

I do it all myself because I do a better job.

I hired a landscaper to take care of the lawn and gardens. He also plows the snow and does the power washing. As for housework: Merry Maids every two weeks.

P.S. to my last — I do my own laundry once a week and do the dishes every night by hand before I go to bed.

A wise man once told me, "You can have a “house” or a life!" but I didn’t listen; now my life is mowing and fixing and mowing and cleaning up storm debris and mowing and then comes the raking and mowing and picking up storm debris and the repairs on the siding and the mowing and then comes the shoveling and …

Years ago; we moved from our house to a new house and instead of selling, we rented it out. The rent covered the mortgage plus a nice profit to put in the bank. Everything was great for a while; till I started getting calls at all hours from the renters about anything that happened that they wanted fixed immediately. It was a 40 mile round trip to fix a running toilet. We finally had to sell it.

My mother, even after my father’s passing, kept her own house until she died at 89 years old. She was fiercely independent, and didn’t like relying on outside help, but as she grew older, grudgingly accepted the it.

It irritated her that the lawn crew came in, with their big power equipment, and had the lawn cut and walks trimmed, etc. within less than 15 minutes – and they got paid $25 ! for doing it. She remembered the days when either Dad or me spent hours ( for free ! ) doing it.

Of course, this is the same woman, after my brother and I had hired a cleaning woman to come in a couple of times a week to help her with the heavy housecleaning stuff, would run around and clean the house before the cleaning woman got there, because she didn’t want anyone to think she kept a dirty house !