come what may

To live in this household is to be free of what should be true. Because whatever you though should be true is inevitably proved to not be true. What you expect to happen doesn't.

I haven't experienced a quite, peaceful day in such a long time. I'm growing weary of the details. I don't know what to believe, that it will all work out, or that there still a lot of work to do. Cleaning the garage on Saturday was a 14 hour day. Wow I'm tired.

Laurie just signed in, and is about to try to catch up on her work. Data entry, billing, ... lots of time and stress for here. Especially trying to adjust for the change in schedule. She'll have her work cut out for her.

The wedding party we decided to move entirely to the house, bypassing the activity center. This will help tremendously with the amount of setup and cleanup required. It will also simplify the coordination. I hope that's all right with my sister who is getting married.

I leave you with - My 46"TV is broke and I can't seem to fix it. But hey, my garage is clean and I can put a car into it. yeh!

Philip

Making Sawdust

Today was a easy going day. Laurie woke me up asking if I might bring some tarps over to the church garage sale to lay some of the clothes on. I got up, threw some jeans and a flannel shirt on and was on my way. I spread the tarps on the grass and helped out a bit at the garage sale, enjoy a couple of breakfast tacos, found some golf shoes for $2.00 and was on my way to do some errands. To the bank, a quick stop into Academy to get some racquetballs and then on to Home Depot for a couple of hours.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been compiling a fairly lengthy list of small stuff I need to get at the hardware store. I use my treo's task list and list all of the stuff we need. Ended up being there the better part of two hours. It felt good to work out the little problems, find solutions for some future projects and just have some man fun.

With no time pressure I could have stayed longer but I was getting hungry by this time and still needed to go buy groceries for the week.

I get home hoping to find a package from Austin Homebrew with three kits in it, but nothing on the front step. Darn! I guess I'll just start installing, repairing the things I could with the stuff I just bought at Home Depot.

The first thing was to see what the cabinet doors look like under the white paint. I had two of the doors in the garage, taken off when I installed the stove several years back. I used some paint remover, and a little elbow grease to clean it up "real nice like" Unfortunately the doors are press wood and not a higher quality wood we could remove the paint and stain. So this means if we want to upgrade the kitchen cabinets we will need to re-paint them or replace the doors, or the whole entire set of cabinets. Something will need to be done before the graduation party in May. The cabinets are looking sorta dingy.

I had purchased some weather-proof electrical fixtures to replace the mess in the corner of the patio. I had an extension cord coming down supplying power to the patio amp and tuner. It was definitely not to code. But before I could install that I thought I'd better build something to house the amp and tuner. They've been on a short plastic table covered with a tupperware box for the longest time. So now to the sawdust part.

I clean off the crud from on top of the table saw. The leftovers from making Donovan and Mira's blocks were there. That brought back a bunch of fun memories. I look around the garage for material to build the cabinet with and find what I need and commence making sawdust. I'm still sawing when Laurie come home from a seminar she's been attending. When I start to try to assemble the cabinet I find that the wood glue I had was almost solid. The top was open and it had hardened. Ok, so now we need to go back to the hardware store. I need some more glue and the hardware for the cabinet.

Laurie was up for going with me. I think she really wanted to go by Ross or Michaels. She didn't complain too much we I was trying to figure out the hinges issue.

It's a good thing I didn't have good glue cause I remembered I needed to drill holes for shelf brackets and prepare the cabinet for hanging on the wall. It would have been awkward trying to do the drilling after the unit was assembled.

When we got home it was time for dinner. I cooked bacon wrapped filet mignon in a mushroom sauce and French cut green beens , and a mixture of corn peas and brown rice. We cleaned off the dining room table and ate in candle light with the piano player serenading us. We took our time eating and talking. Great dinner.

After dinner I drilled the holes and then assembled and clamped the cabinet. It should be set in the morning.

We get to visit with Brian, Laura and play with Mira tomorrow, but time for bed now.

Planning for the Future

With the near term set now, I want to try to find the positive in the events.

Lower Stress now: I'm tired, so first thing I'm going to try to do is rest more. That might be difficult without making L feel alone in her evening workings.

No more howling destructive dog around. Jeeves is so young and inexperienced compared to Joey. I was working in the back yard Saturday, Jeeves was sitting in the corner of the yard toward the 4 way stop just howling at every different car noise. I would laugh, reassure him he was doing a great job running off those big bad cars, trucks and buses. Either he felt he did enough or just got tired, but finally he had enough and went and laid down to bit on a chew toy. Meanwhile Joey, looked up each time from her sunny spot whenever I spoke with Jeeves and I imagined was smiling. Maybe it was a learning moment for the dog. Now I can devote some more time to rewiring the lighting he's torn up. Maybe the grass will come back and the garden will get prepared without pesky poop's everywhere.

We can clear out some of the old furniture. With the church garage sale coming up, I will consider donating a significant amount of furniture that is currently crammed into the house.

Maybe we can make one of the upstairs rooms into a music/recording studio. A place we can go to practice, play, relax and have fun.

All those extra dirty dishes that magically appeared in the kitchen sink throughout the day will be gone.

I won't have to wonder where that kitchen utensil went this time. They moved all the time. It was sorta a game we played. Where in the world is waldo, for the kitchen.

I don't need to leave the AC/Heat on during the day. I'll be able to reduce my exaggerated water and electricity bill.

Well I need to get back to it. More later.

It's not working out

To make this a win-win situation, Love and Logic suggest asking what is it we get out of your moving back in. The response you hope for is, oh I'll do the chores your doing, or I'll paint the garage or something. If that doesn't work then you have to become the landlord you are. If they don't contribute in a positive way but instead undermine the fleeting little respect other's have for us then it has become a loose-loose situation. We are not really helping anyone out by continuing to put up with it. Not that her moving in hasn't increased the contact and interaction (good and bad). But if I'm measuring whether I've gained anything, I have to say it's definitely been a negative gain on most fronts.

Anyone else want a border?

With love and logic I resign the position of designated flunky.

How do you convince someone their making a big mistake?

I don't know, but we have tried a bunch of different tactics. Attempts range from the chatting, offering bribes and consequences, washing away the ugly (my kids will relate).
Help

Back to the Grind

Today seems especially hard for me. Suffering from lack of sleep, I attempted to get up and get to work at a descent hour and only partially succeeded. Got there by nine but was in some what of a frumpy mood. I woke up at 7 am with Kt's departure for school in Freddy. Freddy for those who don't know is a 1980 4 Runner with a bunch of miles and a low pressure muffler system that rumbles sorta loudly. After she left, I thought for a second and realized how empty the house was, just L and I. Wow, how quiet and peaceful.

Ahhhhhh.

Don't get me wrong having all of the kiddo's and grand kiddos around was a bunch of fun, but it was tiring.

Not 15 minutes later I hear Freddy come rumbling back down the street, then a door slam, the front door slam, racing feet up the stairs and a hard knock on the door; A urgent and slightly freaked out Kt said, "I need some gas money, the gas warning light came on as I was on my way to school. " Little did she realize that a quick pull off of the road and a call back to us and I would easily explained that she had about 20 miles to go if the light just came on, plenty to drive to and from school.

After L raced around for a couple of minutes to find some cash, she ran back out the door, now hopeless late for dance try outs for modern.

And now we lay back down for one more minute of peace and can't get the whole Kt thing still going round in our heads.

The day went on with this mood for most of the day. I did take a short walk around the campus during lunch time. It had an energizing effect, especially with how cold it was. I was able to get some work done, still with a sorta half-hearted pace.

Home, and right to a meeting with a sales lady who we purchased long-term care insurance from. It's a lot less than I thought it would be.

Off to church for an hour or so to plan the music for Sunday. With that done I called my brother-in-law J. We had agreed to meet at the house. He was borrowing my USB HDTV stick for the big game Thursday.

Now it's time for a bit of sleep. Night all.