A GIRL DID THIS!!!

I really did go buy some cement yesterday after I did my blog post, and I really did make a new stoop for the back door. It was very difficult! The smallest bags of concrete weigh forty pounds. Then you pour them into a tub, add water (which also weighs a ton) and mix it. We're talking serious hard labour. I have great respect for cement mixers! Then you have to shovel or pour it out again and spread it out. Then on to the next bag! I went through eight bags. Smooth it over. Good god. The worst part, really, was that once I started, I couldn't stop, or there'd be this horrible massive lump in concrete forevermore sitting behind my back door, eternally reminding me and all visitors of my failings. (At the store, they told me that you can't just do it in parts, letting some dry and then doing more overtop of it, or the whole thing just cracks to pieces.)

The result is much nicer than the little drop they left in the ground behind the back door when they filled in the trench after installing geothermal heat. (In the middle picture of the geothermal heat post, you can see our former back stoop, cast off to the side.) Also, I think I plugged up the mouse hole nicely.

I had a childish urge to carve into the concrete, "A GIRL DID THIS!!!!" But then I thought about it. Writing in concrete on your house is like a tattoo. It's going to be there forever. I had a coworker in Colorado who had been in the military, abroad, and had "Colorful Colorado" over a Colorado flag tattooed on his arm, one night when he was homesick. It was a really dumb tattoo- heartfelt at the moment, but it didn't seem as cool later on. So, I'll pass on writing, "A GIRL DID THIS!!!" in my concrete stoop, although it is tempting.

The other reason is that I'm afraid some guy will see it and say, "Oh! So that's why it tilts to the right!" A have a few friends who would say that.