My brother, Joey, loves dogs. Growing up, he was the only one in our family who regularly brought home stray, bedraggled dogs. All my siblings have dogs, and my sister-in-law is an advocate for animal welfare.  

  I never felt the need to have a dog because, quite honestly, I’m a little afraid of them. Maybe I was spooked when I was young, but I’m always a bit skittish when a dog comes around, especially a big dog.

  As my boys grew up and asked for a dog, I talked them into having other pets – guinea pigs, hamsters and goldfish. We managed to avoid dogs until our neighbor’s dog had puppies.

  Our youngest boy fell in love with the puppies, and one look at our his tear-streaked face convinced us he had to have a dog of his own.

  We found a “Heinz 57” puppy, and Chris was instantly that puppy’s faithful owner. All through grade school, Sparky slept right next to Chris, keeping watch over him.

  In high school, Sparky waited by the back door for Chris to come home and seldom left his side once he arrived.

  When Chris went off to college, Sparky’s care fell to my husband, and he grew quite fond of that aging dog. I had to admit Sparky earned my admiration for taking such good care of my boy for so many years.  

  And when Sparky passed away, we cried for days.

  So when another dog came our way, I reluctantly let Channell into the house but I wasn’t going to get close to this dog because she was a pet. I wasn’t going to let her take advantage of the fact that she was a rescue dog.

  No lounging on the couch.

  No sleeping on the beds.

  No filching food off the kitchen table.

  Sure I patted her on the head and kept her food and water bowl filled, but I looked at Channell as my husband’s pet, not mine. She seemed to sense my unease, and she’s always kept a respectful distance.

  But all that changed this weekend.

  My granddaughter wanted to go swimming, so she and I changed into our swimsuits, grabbed some towels and headed to the back yard. Channell bounded out in front of us, raced to a spot behind the pool and began barking.

  This wasn’t a friendly bark – she was sounding the alarm. She was circling and jumping around something in the grass, barking frantically the entire time. I got a little closer and noticed it was a big, coiled-up snake.

  I quickly picked up my granddaughter, took her inside and called Channell back into the house. She didn’t want to leave her post, but when she saw my granddaughter, she came inside and stood next to her.

  When they were both safely indoors, I went back outside with my camera so we could identify what kind of snake was in the yard. But he was gone, scared off by the maniacal barking of our dog.  

  Never again will I gripe about Channell being a pain or a responsibility. That morning, she was our protector, and she saved us from possible harm.

  I went back inside, looked at Channell and she looked back at me with her trusting brown eyes. I scratched behind her ears, leaned down and hugged her neck.

  She wagged her tail, licked my hand and then plopped down by the back door, once again guarding us against any and all enemies.

  Channell has earned her keep for the long haul. And any time she wants it, a spot at the end of the bed.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

 

 

  Being a Catholic from south Louisiana, family get-togethers are anything but small, quiet affairs. So when we asked my mom what she wanted for her 80th birthday and she said for all of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to sit down together for a family meal, we should’ve realized the immediate guest list would number over 60.

  Her request didn’t surprise us. Dee Hebert, Siti to her grandchildren and Sit-Siti to her great-grandchildren, is a giving, loving person with a quick sense of humor. She’s well known for her off-the-cuff comments, including her infamous advice to my single brother.

  “Go to the family reunion,” she told him. “There’ll be girls there.” An unforgettable story about finding a parking spot at the airport is priceless as is the time she made a milkshake with my nephew and they forgot to put the lid on the blender.

  Then there were the afternoons when she encouraged her youngest granddaughter to make soup, and that little girl put everything in the pot but the salt shaker.

  She’s also the blueprint for being a fantastic grandmother because she never holds back her love. Every grandchild will tell you she doesn’t like one more than the other, but then, they’ll lean over and whisper “But I’m really her favorite.”

  She never asks for anything for herself, and nothing makes her happier than fixing somebody something to eat.

  The second-best way to make her happy is to have her seven children, 19 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren – there’s no “step” as far as Mom’s concerned – all together under her roof. Add in her nieces and nephews, and my mom is one happy camper.

  This year marks her 80th birthday, and we’ve been asking for months what she wanted. She always gave us the same answer – to have a nice meal with her children and their families.

  Finally accepting her simple request, we realized having that many people in one place was going to be difficult, but my sister-in-law found The Bennett House, a family-owned business, specializing in wedding receptions and family parties, less than two miles from Mom’s house.

  Everybody chipped in to make the day special. Siblings opened their homes and services to out-of-town guests. One granddaughter took care of designing and ordering the cake and another granddaughter picked up party favors for the great-grandchildren.

  Two granddaughters had a brilliant idea to make place cards bearing Mom’s zany sayings. One sister printed dozens of family photos to spell out a giant eight and a zero.

  My sister and niece surprised mom with a gift she didn’t expect. Weeks before the party, they sent out secret messages to relatives and Mom’s friends, asking them for their favorite story about her.

  The response to the secret Facebook site was overwhelming. Some stories we knew, others were surprises, yet the steady undercurrent was that Mom always made her friends and family feel special and loved.

  My sister created 80 envelopes, each one containing a separate memory, and she gave them to Mom at the party. Mom said she spent hours reading and re-reading the letters, and she was still on Cloud 9 days later.

  I’ve seen my mom happy, but I’ve never seen her happier than the afternoon we spent celebrating her 80th birthday. It wasn’t that she was the center of attention. It was that when she looked out over the room, she was surrounded by happy faces she loved and who loved her back.

  And each person in that room was thinking the same thing – “I’m so glad I’m her favorite.”

  I love you, Mom.

  Happy birthday.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Jane stirred her coffee, took a sip, and put the lid on her to-go cup. Strangers, we struck up a conversation in the hotel lobby as I was waiting for my sister.

As she laced up her sneakers, Jane continued naming all the places she’s been in the past couple of years – Guam, Haiti, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Those visits weren’t for pleasure, however.

Jane volunteers with the Red Cross and she was in south Louisiana, helping people whose homes had flooded in Plaquemines Parish due to heavy rains, courtesy of the slow-moving rain-maker, Hurricane Isaac.

In her mid-50’s, Jane said she was a therapist when she wasn’t working with the Red Cross, and she specialized in mental health services for people in the suburbs surrounding Washington D.C.

Jane never thought about working with people affected by disasters, but she heard the agency was in need of volunteers and she thought “why not.”

Working with the Red Cross had taken Jane to places she never dreamed she’d see, even though she was viewing them through the worst possible conditions. Floods, fires, tsunamis – you name it, she’s been there.

“The only disaster I haven’t worked is a volcano eruption,” she said.

Over the course of the morning, about a dozen weary Red Cross workers came through the hotel’s lobby, each one wearing a plastic workers’ vest, name badge and sensible work shoes. One group didn’t speak English, but their shirts reflected their affiliation with the Red Cross.

One gentleman, Ron, was from Arkansas; and as he checked his papers and cell phone, he told me he’d been all over the United States working disasters.

In fact, he and Jane had been in Louisiana together on two separate occasions, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, and he said the stories they heard from people who lost everything they owned in raging flood waters were heartbreaking.

Reasons for going into such a demanding volunteer position varied. Ron was retired and wanted to stay physically active and help communities.

Jane said she also wanted to give back in some way. She’d known about the Red Cross, and she researched what volunteers would be asked to do before signing up.

She couldn’t build bridges or haul lumber, but she could listen and help people rebuild their lives. And that’s what she did, disaster after disaster.

I’ve always believed there’s a special place for volunteers who step up when there’s an emergency. They give of their time, something most of us guard like the secret to the sauce for a Big Mac, and they carry out the grungiest of duties with a smile.

They load sand bags and then, in the pouring rain, arrange them in front of stores and homes to keep the flood waters at bay. They sit in make-shift shelters, listening to people as they cry because they’ve lost their home or, worst of all, a loved one in the disaster.

These volunteers are drinking warm, weak coffee, eating cold cheese sandwiches and taking quick cat naps on cots so they’re refreshed and ready to go when the next wave of displaced people come through the tent.

No matter what they’re asked to do, these volunteers leave their homes with little warning and travel to far ends of the earth because somebody needs their help.

Most have a smile on their faces and spend their days helping people pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. The reward, Jane said, is seeing that first smile after the storm clears.

That’s a reward better than any paycheck.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

When my family first moved to Louisiana, the scariest folk tales we heard were about seeing alligators crawling in the street and mosquitoes the size of a Volkswagen.

Hurricanes were way down the list, and neighbors had hurricane parties when weather forecasters said a storm was coming through.

My dad would put masking tape on the windows, we’d put our Eveready flashlights on the kitchen table and fill a bathtub up with water, but that was about it.

That was until Hurricane Katrina.

That was before forecasting the weather became a science, not a guessing game.

That was before we saw the devastation a hurricane, even a Category 1 storm, can unleash.

Thanks to biting my nails through some terrifying storms, I’ve now become a weather junkie. I watch The Weather Channel and weather station Websites are bookmarked as favorites.

I’m a frequent visitor to the Weather Underground Website, and I know the difference between a tropical depression and a tropical storm.

I have some fellow weather junkie friends, and the minute we read about a tropical storm brewing, we’re emailing and texting each other.

“Gotta go,” one will abruptly say. “Steve’s on.”

Steve Lyons with The Weather Channel is the granddaddy of weather reporting. If Dr. Steve says get out, then people, get out.

Same goes with TWC’s Jim Cantore. Although he looks more like a body builder, meteorologist Cantore makes it look easy standing on a pier, pelted with wind and rain, while talking about 80-mile-per-hour winds.

Although Isaac isn’t slated to affect southeast Texas, forecasters on the Houston weather stations are going into overdrive, covering everything about the storm from hotel occupancy rates to the rising price of gasoline to what weather gurus Neil Frank, Frank Billingsley and Gene Norman think every hour on the hour.

As the storm makes landfall, thousands of Gulf Coast residents who haven’t lost power yet are glued to the television, watching Isaac bully his way up and over the Gulf Coast.

My family members in Louisiana were prepared – they’ve been stocking up on supplies and they made sure their generators were gassed up and running. One of my sisters lives in Alexandria, a good distance from the coast, but she and her family stocked up with everything they thought they’d need to wait out the storm.

They have good reason to be a bit skittish. After Katrina, my sister and hundreds of weary residents in northern Louisiana worked in the shelters as dazed evacuees from the New Orleans area poured into their cities. Volunteers rallied around those who’d lost everything, finding them food, clothing, toys, furniture and money to start over.

Neighbors in Houston and other parts of the country reached out, but people affected by the storm didn’t travel very far. They yearned to stay close to home where creamy white magnolias dot the country side in the spring and where Spanish moss hangs lazily from the limbs of centuries old oak trees.

Those who live in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast know they take the good with the bad. Living close enough to the water so one can fish whenever one wants means those waters can occasionally turn ugly and mean.

We accept that contradiction, turn to our masterminds on The Weather Channel and weather-junkie Websites and wait for them to tell us when we can start cleaning up and get back to “laissez les bons temps rouler” – let those good times roll.

This article was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

The sun’s beating down on the concrete marching band pad, and it’s only 9:30 in the morning. Scattered around the edges of the pad are red, blue and orange Igloo water coolers so the musicians can stay hydrated in the hot Texas heat.

Nearby, groups of young men wearing football pads, helmets and T-shirts are running drills, catching footballs and hitting the grass, making sure everybody understands what plays to run and how to protect each other during a game.

Rolling carts filled with water and Gatorade dot the sidelines, and trainers make sure the coolers stay full as well as watching for signs of heat exhaustion.

It’s summer, but these teens are rising above the heat and humidity. At least a month before school starts, band members spend the morning practicing their marching routines.

After they finish on the practice pad, they spend the afternoon in a classroom, sections playing together so they’ll have one unified sound.

The dance team and cheer squad are also practicing for hours every day, right alongside the flag twirlers who must match their movements with the band’s music. It looks easy, watching them throw their flags up in the air, but to choreograph those movements between a dozen teens and a 200-member marching band takes an incredible amount of practice.

Adults are out there every step of the way. Wearing oversized hats and sunglasses, they’re shouting directions into a bullhorn, redrawing patterns or looking for small mistakes so that when the time to perform arrives, they’ll be flawless.

Once school starts, dozens of teens will be staying after school practicing for the upcoming school musical, and teachers will be right there with them, singing songs, practicing lines and choreographing dance moves.

Athletes will be in the weight room, preparing for the upcoming winter and spring sports, knowing that if they work hard now, their chances of making the team are greatly enhanced. Nobody’s standing over them – they’re working hard because their hearts tell them that’s how champions behave.

I heard a speaker this week, Brad McCoy, father of legendary University of Texas and now Cleveland Browns’ quarterback Colt McCoy, speak about the importance of having passion and determination in life. It’s impossible to reach our dreams, he said, unless we have passion for what we’re doing and a willingness to go the distance to achieve our goals.

That passion is evident in these students who spend hours making sure they’re always giving their best. They’ve found a place to plug into the community, and the entire school is better because of these individuals.

So often in school, children become lost in the system. Either they feel as if they don’t fit in, they have a difficult time with routines or they’re overwhelmed with homework and the amount of class work required.

Schools are, after all, institutions where the primary directive is to learn – how to write a research paper, how to use the Pythagorean theory or how a chemical reaction works.

But schools are also places where young people learn that anything worth having means working extra hard for it and opportunities abound in our schools.

Passion is what separates people from those who sit back and let life pass them by and those who get up and actively engage in what life has to offer.

And for those who participate in the heat of the summer, after school or on Saturdays when they could be home playing video games or taking a nap, you’re learning an important, life-long lesson – anything is possible when you have a passionate determination to join the game.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

I enjoy having people over for dinner. I love spending time with friends, chatting about politics or what’s going on in our lives . But I’ve had company for the past three weeks, and I’m ready for this visitor to move on.

This pesky guest butts into conversations, is loud and makes sleeping practically impossible. The culprit is a hacking cough, courtesy of a summer cold.

I seldom catch a cold, and when I do, it’s usually gone in a couple of days. But this cough is stubborn and refused to leave when the cold fled the premises. After two weeks of almost non-stop coughing, I broke down and paid a visit to the drug store.

The cold and flu aisle designate an entire section to coughs. Is it a cough due to allergies? A cough due to colds? How about a cough due to the flu? I have a nagging cough that’s due to an unwillingness to leave the building.

Not one bottle stated it was good for that kind of cough.

There’s cough suppressants and expectorants, and I had no desire to start spitting in addition to the coughing. So I read the labels on the suppressants. These meds are primarily used at night, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to sleep through the morning alarm, so I kept looking.

Finally, the tried-and-true methods won out, so I picked up a bottle of Robitussin as well as my mom’s remedy for colds – Vicks Vapo Rub. Many a night we went bed with Vick’s Vapo Rub all over our chests and a clean cloth diaper keeping the messy goop off our pajamas.

At 3 a.m., when the Robitussin wasn’t doing its job and I was desperate, I fired up the computer and started searching for cough remedies on the Internet.

Home remedies came up first, and dozens of people have their own cough cure – steamy, hot showers, hot teas and adding turmeric to hot milk. I haven’t a clue what turmeric is and no idea where to start looking for it in the store.

A little less confusing is the home remedy of boiling a stick of cinnamon in water and then drinking it. If that didn’t work, one person suggested crushing a clove of fresh raw garlic in a small bowl and mixing that with honey followed by a chaser of butter pickles.

I think I’d rather have the cough.

The home remedy of sipping Jack Daniels every time the cough came around sounded like a sure-fire way to get stumbling drunk and then we’d probably not care if we were coughing.

One site claimed that if you cover the bottoms of your feet with Vicks Vaporub, put on thick socks and go to sleep, the cough will magically disappear. Somehow I’m just not sure how covering my feet with menthol will do something for a cough, but when that cough got me out of bed at 3 a.m., I was willing to try anything.

So I glopped on the Vicks, pulled on some thick socks, went back to bed and was up at 6 a.m., still coughing but with feet that smelled like a eucalyptus tree.

I think I’ll go back to my sure-fire method for getting over a nasty cold or cough – wait it out – and see if I can find a cure for coughing that includes Blue Bell ice cream and Dove chocolates. Those might not cure the cough but that cure sounds a lot more appetizing than butter pickles and garlic.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

As someone who trips over her own feet, I’ve been watching the 2012 Summer Olympics games with amazement. From archery to wrestling, the Olympics allow the world’s top athletes to compete on an international level, and there’s been incredible highs and gut-wrenching lows.

Watching Serena Williams take the gold, individually and then with her sister Venus, was incredible. The “Fabulous Five” surpassed the media hype surrounding the gymnastics competition as did the women’s soccer and volleyball teams that kept advancing.

Teenager Missy Franklin was all smiles as she won swimming medals as did the incomparable Michael Phelps who won eight Olympic gold medals and set a world record. But at the end of the competition, it didn’t matter if the viewer knew the athletes or not – the dedication they showed to their sport was inspiring.

Of course, NBC news has turned the Olympics into an “event,” complete with logos, theme music and short segments highlighting every athle

te they deemed “newsworthy.” We probably know more about Jordyn Wieber, Ryan Lochte and Gabby Douglas than we do some of our own relatives.

Olympic commercials have especially played on our heartstrings as they showcase athletes preparing for the Olympics. With Morgan Freeman narrating and violins playing against images of children thanking their mothers for their sacrifices, it’s impossible to stay dry eyed.

Televising the back story of how an athlete went from a 4-year-old doing somersaults in the living room to turning in almost perfect gymnastics routines makes for an interesting back story, but what the hype doesn’t show is the day-in and day-out grueling training schedule, money and sweat that goes into an Olympian’s performance.

Every athlete at the games has put in hours to fine tune their performance. Their parents have been getting up early, taking them to practice or working an extra job to pay for coaching lessons. They’ve allowed their children to live far from home, just so they could train with a better coach.

In preparation for the games, these Olympians were up at 5 a.m., swimming countless laps in the pool before school started or turning endless flips on a sweaty gym mat before they tackled their homework.

Although most athletes never make it to the Olympics, what they do share with those in the games is a dedication to practice and perfection. Serious athletes understand that commitment to physical fitness and pushing themselves beyond what they think they can accomplish.

Teenage boys are already on the football fields, sweating and practicing blocks and tackles. They’re in the weight rooms, building muscle mass and fine tuning their coordination skills. Coaches are putting them through the drills, both physical and mental, to make them the best they can be.

Amateur runners are racking up miles running on subdivision roads early in the morning or late in the evening. Accountants and teachers are lacing up their sneakers after work and running up and down stairs to get in shape.

People are in the pool at the YMCA early in the morning, swimming lap after lap. There aren’t any crowds to cheer them on nor are there coaches shouting support from the sidelines. The only encouragement they have is the voice inside their head.

No cheering crowds at the finish line. No product endorsement. No television interview with Bob Costas. Just the inner satisfaction of knowing they accomplished their goal. And, after all, that’s what every athlete dreams about.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Just wait.

That’s what my mother said when I wanted to play in her make-up bag.

“You’ll be old soon enough,” she said, putting away her tubes of red lipstick and containers of pressed powder.

I didn’t understand why I had to wait. The grown-up world was mysterious and exciting, much more so than being a little kid who had to leave the room when adults were talking in low voices.

Just wait.

“Your face will freeze like that,” my mother said to me on more than one occasion. My face didn’t freeze with my tongue sticking out, but those crow’s feet and wrinkles did eventually show up, just like my mother told me they would.

Just wait.

That’s what my high school teachers told me when I questioned why we had to follow the outdated dress-code rules. How did the length of a boy’s hair or a girl’s dress keep them from learning?

When we got into the real world, our teachers said, we’d understand the reasons for these grown-up commands, and we could change the rules when we got to be adults.

Just wait.

That’s what I told my children whenever they’d misbehave. You’ll be a parent one day, and you’ll understand what it means to be at the end of your rope with 10,000 things to do and not enough time to do them. One day, I told them, you’ll understand.

Just wait.

That’s what we do when we go in for a checkup and the doctor tells us she needs to run a few more tests because something doesn’t look right. We wait for the phone call with words that will either put us on Cloud 9 or send us to the depths of despair.

The moments waiting are spent in either denial, agony or deal making – “Lord, just get me through this and I’ll be good forever.”

Waiting.

That’s where we spend most of our lives. We wait in long, slow moving grocery lines while playing mindless games on our cell phones to pass the time. We wait in bumper-to-bumper traffic, our anger growing with every annoying red light and every slow poke in the left-hand lane.

Waiting.

For that first kiss, our first job, our first child and especially the day we’ll retire. When that day comes, we tell ourselves, we’ll be on Easy Street, able to kick back, put our feet up and enjoy life. No worries, no work and no bills, we think, just rest and relaxation.

But not now because we’ve got kids in school, the car needs new tires and the water heater isn’t going to make it another six months. We believe our golden days are ahead of us or out of our reach, but if we can just wait out the next six months or the next few years, we’ll eventually end up free from aggravation.

Except during all those impatient moments, a quiet symphony plays out around us – an afternoon watching children dancing in the sprinkler, the give-and-take rhythm of family dinners or relaxing on the back porch, waiting for the sun to set.

So no more griping about waiting for the traffic to clear or thinking everything will be okay when that raise comes our way. No more gritting our teeth while waiting for the kids to grow up and move out. No more waiting for the good times or the right time.

Because while we’re complaining about having to wait, we’re missing out on what’s happening all around us.

And that’s life.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

When I was in middle school, the priest at our church agreed to allow girls on the altar as servers, or altar boys, during Mass. I was thrilled I might have the chance to be the first girl to serve in our home parish.

My dad, however, said the altar was no place for women, and I was crestfallen as I watched other girls serve. My dad thought his girls could accomplish anything they wanted; however, there were limits to what women should be allowed to do.

In my lifetime, I’ve watched women hammer away at that glass ceiling, and we lost one of the best, Sally Ride, to pancreatic cancer this week. Most Americans know why she’s in the history books – she was the first American woman to fly in space.

But Sally Ride was more than a notation on the history timeline. After the space program, she started her own company, Sally Ride Science, where middle-school girls were introduced to the excitement science offers.

She made sure chemistry, physics and science were presented in a fun and educational way to girls across the country. The positive impact she made on young women is just as important as the historic Ride made in that space shuttle.

Despite the gains my gender has made since women gained the right to vote in 1920, it’s sad that many women fail to appreciate the females like Ride who cracked open the glass ceiling for them.

Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony fought long and hard for women’s rights in the early 1920s and went to their graves without ever stepping into a voting booth.

Love or hate their politics, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug were activists in the 1960s and 1970s who railed against the myths and stigmas associated with being a female.

Here in our own community, there are countless women who’ve pushed for positive changes. In the late 1800’s, Polly Ryon was instrumental in expanding her father’s lands, turning the George Ranch into a successful business.

In our lifetime, Viola Randle and Frances Smith both served as mayor for the city of Fulshear back in the 1970s when many women felt they had to wear pantsuits and imitation ties to be taken seriously.

Some of our public schools are named after local outstanding female educators like Antoinette Reading and Cora Thomas. Jane Long Elementary and Susana Dickinson Elementary honor women who hold a place in Texas history.

Numerous female judges, attorneys, doctors, dentists and teachers hailing from different races and cultures leave their positive mark on this community through their civic efforts.

But let’s not forget the trailblazing women who quietly work behind the scenes. They might not be orbiting the earth in a spaceship, but these women are running our food and clothing banks, personally reaching out to others in need.

They might not be heads of major corporations, but they are standing up for abused children in the Fort Bend County judicial system.

These women might not have an office in Washington D.C., but they’re helping battered and physically abused women get back on their feet.

There are men performing the same courageous acts, and we owe them our gratitude. Women, however, owe the females who came before them and chipped away at society’s prejudices.

Thanks, Ms. Ride, for your contribution to NASA but especially for encouraging young girls to reach for the stars. Because of some brave female pioneers, they really are there for the taking.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Paint brush. Check.

Drop cloth. Check.

Carpet cleaner, soap and water. Check.

It’s painting time over at my son and daughter-in-law’s new place, and the two grandmothers volunteered to paint our grandchildren’s rooms.

Decorating and how-to articles make painting look so simple. Why with a gallon of paint and a little elbow grease, they promise, anybody can turn boring harvest wheat beige walls into a bold, artistic statement or a calming oasis.

But there’s a whole lot decorators leave out in between deciding to paint and sitting back in the La-Z-Boy enjoying another episode of “Duck Dynasty.”

First there’s picking out the paint color and paint finish. Sherwin-Williams has over 1,500 paint colors, including 169 warm neutrals. I’m not exactly sure what the big difference is between a warm neutral and a cold neutral or the subtle difference between powder blue or blue cruise but choosing takes hours.

There’s also the choice of the type of finish – eggshell, satin, flat, or whether you want the primer mixed in with the final paint color.

Once you decide and lug home two heavy gallons of paint and all the supplies – a roller, roller pads, trays for the rollers and the trim work, a couple of paint brushes and a drop cloth – you can begin the thankless task of prepping the room.

Some people clear the room completely, but I take the lazy way out and pile all the furniture in the middle of the room and then cover the mountain with a drop cloth. I spend a lot of time climbing over and around beds and dressers but I convince myself that’s the easiest route.

Once the furniture’s out of the way, it’s time to protect the woodwork with blue painter’s tape. I used to think I had a steady hand and didn’t need the tape. After years of putting on eyeliner, how hard could it be to follow a piece of baseboard and not get paint on the wall or carpet?

It’s practically impossible. So I learned to use the tape, and that task takes about an hour, scooting along the baseboards and then climbing up and down the ladder to tape off the ceiling.

And let’s not forget the drop cloths. Some of us think we’re not going to drip any paint and skip this step. That would be a mistake because paint splatters are difficult to remove from the carpet and the tops of furniture one was too lazy to move out of the room.

Once all that preparation work is finished, then it’s time to actually paint. I start by rolling paint on the wall because it’s the most satisfying part of painting a room.

The new color appears immediately and you can actually see progress, unlike the painstaking job of trim work that takes forever.

Once all the painting is finally finished, it’s time to clean up. I used to faithfully wash out all the rollers and pans. But when I discovered disposable pan liners, inexpensive rollers and cheap drop cloths, clean up is now a breeze.

The last step is going back and wiping up all the paint splatters, a big job for me because I drip paint on the carpet no matter how many drop cloths I use. I also splatter paint all over the ladder and my clothes, the windows and the doors.

So the next time I read an article on how easy it is to transform a room with a simple gallon of paint, I’m going to sit back in the La-Z-Boy, look at my already painted harvest wheat walls and smile.

The best paint job is the one that’s already finished.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.