Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: before-and-after

  • Before and After

    Everything that is good in the world
    comes from love, land, and labor.

    ~ Van Jones

    My previous Yellow Brick Road posted on August 14. Today is Labor Day, September 5, 2022. This may be the longest time between posts EVER. Or perhaps it isn’t, but it has been (for sure) quite some time.

    The great room turned out, well, GREAT! It ended up not being just a low job. I painted everything except the crown molding, the trim around the door, and the beam.

    Then I painted the library alcove. The new look is so very easy on the eyes….

    On Wednesday, August 17, our Day 6, John and I both tested negative for Covid.

    On Friday, August 19, 2022, when I saw the two red lines on John’s retest, all I could say was, “Dammit… dammit… DAMMIT.”

    My Day 8, suddenly became my new Day Zero.

    Even though Linda thought it was too late to take precautions from exposure now to John, I felt I had to. It is not easy to isolate living in a tiny house, but I was clear on my intention. We both masked any time we were in the same room. We used separate dish towels, and only paper towels to dry our hands. We switched our stuff so he used the main bath and I used the guest bath. Essentially, I moved into the guest room. We ate dinner together, but he sat at the table and I used a TV tray sitting in the little rocking chair from Bozena. He always handled the remote control for the TV.

    I was negative for Covid again on Wednesday, August 24, my second Day 6. Negative again on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – my second Day 8, 9, and 10. On Saturday, we were able to go to Norleen’s Backyard Birthday Bash, to St. John in New Buffalo on Sunday. You have to understand what a relief it was to not have to test on Monday. Woohoo!

    Coincidentally, exactly one year ago we had Covid. Exactly….

    So much has changed in the past year. On Saturday night of Labor Day weekend last year, John had the horrific anxiety, resulting in Larry Gunter’s taking him to ER on Sunday evening. The very next day, Jerry Basham had the abdominal aortic aneurysm on Labor Day. Jerry passed a few weeks later, on September 24. John had the sciatica flare all of November and December; quadruple bypass surgery in January; TIA in April; low-pressure event May 5 in the neurologist’s office. When I had the transient global amnesia in June, John was in an even worse sciatica flare. On Thursday, August 25, John got very weak and sweaty and then horribly nauseous while mowing the lawn. He was taken by ambulance to ER, and recovered well from what was likely dehydration. We have gotten through it all, and we are both doing very well!

    I had to buy more of the expensive primer because next I am going to paint the gallery wall and the furnace closet. In truth, I am going to paint all of the back hallway.

    The before and after is remarkable. TRULY remarkable….


  • Do It With Love

    “In doing something, do it with love or never do it at all.”
    — Mahatma Gandhi

    My husband, John, violated a long-learned rule of relating when he said “WE” would do something that I would never have agreed to do.

    What am I to do now?

    Gandhi’s point is to not do it unless you can do it with love.

    I did it with love when I was honest with John: It was not wholesome for you to have committed me to something without asking me first.

    Then, I did it with love when I was honest with myself: I had to either do it with love or not do it at all.

    The “IT” in question is detailing a house here in our manufactured home community for a friend. She has essentially already moved to be near her children and grandchildren. She hired someone to do the painting, but that did not go well for a variety of reasons. Partially, it did not go well because she had previously painted without proper information or experience.

    For some of it, there is no easy solution.

    Here is the before-and-after view of one corner in the master bedroom. It is amazing what a truckload of Fast ‘N Final Lightweight spackling compound can do.


    It is very good karma to lovingly clean up messes you did not make!

    I am reminded of our helping one of our friends move out of a house that our other friends were moving into.

    I am reminded of the closing of Holistic Alliance in 2005 when we had 6,000 square feet of space to be emptied out and cleaned, making way for the new owner.

    As we were there working on the house, one of our neighbors stopped in to see how it was going. She said how fortunate our friend was to have someone who was willing to step up and lend a hand. I reminded her who our friend is. Our friend works for our local hospice. She paved the way for John’s mom to get hospice care when needed, and then for his brother, Jim, as he was dying with lung cancer. Our friend had also assisted the neighbor’s husband.

    Yes, it is a clearly “compounded” mess. As I mused about all of this, I could see that I have left messes (physical and emotional) for others to deal with. We all have.

    And admittedly — even with all of our hard work this week — we have not been able to make all things right. Doing that will fall to some other at some other time.

    Obviously, universal implications….

    And, while I could not do a great job of everything, it is my intention to leave things better than I found them.

    We can all do that.

    More obviously universal implications….

    Things are improving.

    Evidenced by that before-and-after photo!