Would You Believe - I'm Afraid of Heights?

However, necessity inspired me to once again conquer my fears in order to get some house painting done.  We have been painting one side of the house each year.  We did the front first, but already it was in need of a new coat.  I suppose we will just plan to keep rotating around our house, painting until the end of time.

As usual, we were in a time crunch due to weather and other projects (kitchen and dining room!) taking precedence.  So this past weekend we plowed ahead.  Paul set up the scaffolding.  Paul is fearless, and has no problem getting up on the highest point (top level of scaffolding with an extra half-height plank) in order to reach the yellow tongue and groove boards at the top of our house.  I can manage the top level, moving very slowly, often hanging onto the support braces for dear life.  I was up there twice for two different sections. Each time I worried that I would be too afraid to climb back down the ladder, much like a cat who climbs a tree but then can't get back down (visions of firetrucks having to rescue me!). But I just blocked all thought out of my head other than gripping supports and ladder rungs and placing one cautious foot down after the other.  

I suppose we shouldn't be doing this.  But house painting is so expensive.  Anyway the worst is over, the scaffolding is down.  I worked a lot on the front porch today, and Paul and I are going to try and finish up tomorrow morning.  We'll still have all of the balusters to paint and the top trim, may not get to them before the cold.  I'll post a photo of the finished front soon.  In the meantime, here I am, crazy lady on a scaffolding:

By the way, I do NOT recommend this to anyone!