At First Sight

If you’re wondering what this is… it’s a picture of me, falling in love.

Yes, with rusted, cracked, apparently duct-taped, windows… which happen to belong to this:

Look. At. All. That. Space. For. Tools.

Is there anyone else in the world who looks at this picture and gets a little weak in the knees?

This dilapitated little building has a story. I know that, even if I don’t know the whole story itself. It used to be a little gas station and that the garage once housed a hydraulic lift. I like to imagine it as a quaint little country corner store, with vintage Coca~Cola signs and little boys with scraped knees sitting out front drinking ice-cold sodas. More likely it was patronized by middle-aged overweight men who were all oil stains and plumbers cracks, which isn’t nearly such a nice visual, but it’s a story none the less.

Currently it sits –largely neglected– on three acres of property, along with a little house and an overgrown yard. The property abuts the land that MysteryMan’s grandfather farms, just down the street from his parents, grandparents, and Aunt & Uncle.

I’ve been making doe-eyes at this little shack every time we’ve driven by it for the last year and a half, and now MysteryMan’s grandpa* has bought the property, and is either going to rent it out or turn around and sell it to MysteryMan, if he wants it.

Now, maybe you don’t know this about MysteryMan, but it turns out he’s a bit stuck on me. When he said “what do you think?” I gave him that look where I lower my head and raise my eyebrows and blink at him seven or eight hundred times, because duh. You could show me a cardboard box and a piece of used tinfoil and ask “what do you think?” and I’d already have plans for how to turn it into a french country cardboard cottage.

Something like…

…this?

Maybe. I was just playing around with ideas… and wouldn’t it be great if real life was as easy as photoshop?

And I know at least some of you caught on to the fact that there is a whole house on that property to contend with. And even if MysteryMan buys the property and the building with the big windows becomes tool heaven, they won’t be my tools per se, because I have my own house and my own tools which need to say within 50 yards of my person at all times. Because you never know when you’re going to need to palm route something, okay?

But it has potential. And I’m driven by the need to reach in and find that potential, to roll up my sleeves and turn ugly old things into something both beautiful and full of character.

And have you ever known me to be able to resist a project? Seriously.

* MysteryMan’s grandpa should also be known as Superman, and can I just want to say that I want to be him when I grow up? I do. Well, first I want to be like that long line of badass women I come from, but secondly I want to be like MysteryMan’s grandpa. He has a whole barn full of tools. And tractors. I don’t even know what I would do with a tractor (well, I know one thing), but it seems like something I need to have. Obviously.