Life is ugly this time of year. The snow is melting and gray and brown and gross, and underneath it are all those leaves I never got around to raking up last year. So I prefer, when I have to go out in the yard, to keep my eyes up on the house -- ignore the leaves and snow and they might go away. The problem with that is our house is old, too, and could use a little beautification. But I'm not a painting kind of guy, and I don't want college students hanging around our house all spring and summer listening to college radio and using slang like "gnar gnar," which I actually refuse to believe is a real slang word even though someone claimed it was. Plus, painting is expensive. Instead, I'm thinking about getting some new exterior shutters and using those to improve the way the house looks. The Larson Shutter Company has a website, www.LarsonShutter.com, where they sell really affordable vinyl shutters, and wood shutters, and something called "composite shutters," which sound all futuristic and tough, so I like them. They can even make them so they can open and close and are more than just decorations, and I can order them online -- so I don't need to go walk around some kind of warehouse where all the guys are manlier than I am.
