Paint clothes memories

Today I was painting again.  I'm painting our doors/trim/etc with a white semi-gloss paint because last time we painted them we painted them with matte paint and they smudge and dirty so easily.

When I put on my paint clothes today, I remembered the last time I painted so clearly.

This shirt was worn on countless afternoons, evenings and weekends as Peter and I painted our first house together.  Our home was a foreclosure that had cats left in the home after the family that foreclosed had moved.  Because of the cats, and the four crazy boys that inhabited the house, we had to not only rip up all the carpet, and repair all the holes from the bb guns they played with, but we had to paint every surface.  EVERY surface.  We painted the floors, the ceilings, the closets, the pantry, the doors, the trim, ever-y-thing.  1640 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, laundry room, bonus/play room, dining room, kitchen. We were both working full time, trying to purchase and close on our house and get all of the work done before we packed up our apartment and moved into our first house together. 

There were no window treatments on the windows of the foreclosure so our neighbors probably saw this young couple working in every spare moment, with music blaring, stopping only for the occasional snack (I think there was lots of coffee, chocolate, pizza, and Mountain Dew involved).  I remembered how amazingly and overwhelming exhausted we were each night when we'd finally crash at midnight, go to work and then start again the next day.  But, despite our aching muscles, we finished (with some help from some awesome friends too!)  Blue in the kitchen, green in the bathroom, white on the ceilings, shades of brown in the living room, bedrooms, closets.  We finished all the painting and the carpet was literally just finished as we moved our stuff from our apartment to our house because our lease was up. 

So as much as I hate painting, I enjoy it because it brings back memories of Peter and I creating our first home together.  Taking a foreclosure and working to make it "ours."  I feel so blessed to live where we do and for the opportunity we had to "work for it."  And I got to do it all with my best friend.  We make such a great team, so somehow even the long days and hard work that a home requires is still enjoyable because of him, because we're doing it together.  That simple paint stained shirt so sweetly reminds me that there's no one I'd rather build a home with.