The front living room window was broken for what, five years? Ever since my son rammed into it with his elbow in a vain attempt to discover who was leaving secret gifts on our front step.

This year, right after taxes in April, the window salesman visited. I bought three windows. I’ve bought from them before, so there was a 10 percent discount, which was exactly how much the cost of windows had gone up in a year. I paid half down. A worker came to measure the window spaces more exactly, and said new windows would arrive in about 8 weeks.

In the meantime my kitchen ceiling is damaged, the light fixture dangling, and the garbage disposal stopped working completely. I set a rule: fix only one thing at a time, so as to stay within the budget. We went through a lot of baking soda and vinegar getting the disposal to drain; of course we didn’t stop using that side of the sink.

Eight weeks came and went. We were busy with camps and writing and planning for the next year’s classes. I didn’t call them. Twelve weeks passed. The first week of August came and I put, ‘call the window company,’ on my to-do list. The next day they called! ‘Windows have arrived. Can we install them right away?’ I about fell down in my haste to get it on the calendar.

Two workers pried out the 1940s-era wood frame windows with their aluminum storms and screens. The new windows fit right in, as entire units. I asked if 1940s windows came as units or were they built in place? The workers said windows came as units back then, too, and assured me they had seen many much older windows in Fort Wayne.

The workers cut my lilac bush away from the window space; there’s no longer a branch touching the glass. Previously two birds came and pecked the glass in wonder, twittering to each other and looking wide-eyed. They flew away when I stood up. I think their tweets meant, Fly Away! There’s a human in there!

The new windows are lower E glass than whatever was in them; the sunlight streams in but with a difference. They’re also amazingly clean. I have not washed windows in a very long time, and there are spider webs between the old panes anyway. I like the new windows.

I was walking outside a couple days later and saw the hostas in front had been squashed flat, amazingly flat, in a circle, almost as if someone had sprayed them with a power washer or stepped on them with an elephant. It took me a couple hours to remember that the hostas are right in front of two new windows.