Behind the brush, for a short time

A good customer called me about finishing up and touching up some work in their house.

Since I have been anxious to get back to work, I decided to give it a shot.

First, walking up the stairs to the third floor of the house from the basement was a little tedious.  But my knee felt good.  I was able to put weight on my left leg as I climbed the stairs.  Going down was another story.  I had to climb those stairs 5 times in a 2 hour period, and boy, did I feel good about it!  I love seeing progress, day by day with this injury.

But being behind the brush is what this is really about.  I had some minor touch ups to do and it was a little weird working with the brushes and rollers.  It was like an old friend who you felt comfortable with.  I am still set on not coming back to this trade, but it felt really comfortable working the cut lines and feathering out those touch ups.

This customer gives me my own paint shop, and one of the last things I was doing before my accident was painting and organizing the paint shop.  If all customers were like these people, and treated me and our trade with respect, I might consider staying in it.  But there are just too many jerks as customers and unlicensed contractors that make for unfair competition.  Frankly, I have had enough of the condition of our marketplace and "competition".  Although I have told I am really good at what I do, I don't "feel" it.  I'm burned out...at least that's what I've been telling myself for the last few months.

I've been getting some calls from other customers who want me to do some more work.  It's funny, because these customers are the ones where I had gotten back in the field after running crews for several years.  And I didn't think I still had it in me then.