So I’ve been a homeowner for two weeks now, and the renovations are well underway.

I feel like, in the nearly seven years I’ve been drawing this comic strip, I’ve managed to retain a healthy level of appreciation for what I get to do for a living. I still wake up every day thankful that I am fortunate enough to do something that I love. It can still be a lot of work… fourteen-hour days are not entirely uncommon… but I’m always mindful that I could just as easily be spending those fourteen hours at a job I hate. And so I remain appreciative of what we have going here.

But I’ll tell you, rarely has that appreciation been driven home as clearly as in the past couple of weeks. I knew that purchasing this house was going to be a big deal for a while, and a lot of work. We have three months before we move in, and so our goal is to get as much done before then as possible, because it’s more difficult to renovate a space you’re trying to live in at the same time.

And the project as certainly lived up to expectations regarding the amount of work involved. It has, for the foreseeable future, altered my entire routine. A couple of long days are spent in the office, getting a few comics drawn up in advance, so that I can then spend the next seven days over at the house working. Rinse and repeat.

Construction/destruction can be exhausting work, clearly. I’ve probably gotten more nasty bruises and scrapes in the past couple of weeks than I did in the past two years combined. I ache at the end of the day, and I’ve started naming my blisters, since it appears we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. And despite all that, I love it, and I’m energized for it, because I know I’m working on and improving something that I own, something that I’ll live in and enjoy for years to come. That said, you could not pay me enough money to do this for some stranger’s house.

I guess what I’m saying is that over the last couple of weeks I’ve gained a huge amount of respect for people that do this stuff for a living. So, contractors, electricians, plumbers, landscapers, etc… my hat’s off to you. That shit ain’t easy.