I still remember dropping the kids off at school on a damp Tuesday and waving to Mrs. Harper next door as she watered her succulents, the way her front windows caught the grey morning light like a little stage. My two kids, eight and eleven, clamored from the minivan with backpacks bouncing, and my mind wandered to the little projects that make a house feel like ours again: swapping a tired mailbox for something sleeker, planting low-care shrubs that survive the neighborhood’s wandering squirrels, or finally painting the fence a bolder hue. Between carpools, homework and bedtime rituals, those small…