This is MY kind of vacation!

In addition to eating blueberry pancakes, shopping, and being with family, I'm having the kind of vacation every handymama wants . . . I'm getting to do some stuff around the house! My sister is being kind enough to let me help her with a few small things to freshen up her house, which is currently on the market.

Yesterday, we hit the local Home Depot (which is slightly inferior to the one in my hometown--less inventory) and the town's homegrown hardware store. In neither store did we find what we really needed, which was a peculiarly-sized cabinet handle. So instead of replacing a bunch of hardware, we're now going to try to clean it or spray paint it.

I'm also going to try to fill a couple of screw holes in a bathroom tile that were drilled by the long-gone previous owner. The Home Depot clerk wasn't much help there. He didn't impress me with his hardware knowledge. We ended up buying a small container of premixed grout to try. We don't want to have to pry off the tile and replace it. I'm afraid I'd wreck the whole bathroom since I've never done that! So if the grout doesn't work well enough, we'll just replace the towel ring that the prior owner installed there, even though it's a weird place to put one :-)

I celebrated my 49th birthday yesterday while I was here on vacation. My brother-in-law gave me a pair of safety goggles and a mini-crowbar! My sister also gave me an adorable DIY Christmas tree ornament. The woman looks just like me, so says my daughter, right down to the crazy hair!