April 29, 2007
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The Last of the Boxes and the Beast’s projects start !
Since the Son’s visit, I managed to finally unpack the last of the boxes that were my responsibilty to unpack and find a place to put everything. I managed to do that with small bursts of activity that I forced myself to make due to the continuing backpain. I figured that all the UNactivity was not good for the muscles and would probably exascerbate the injury in the long run. I also think it’s actually working since I seem to be able to keep more active each day. Heck, I even managed to do all the housewifey things we need to do the past few days, including making actual meals.
The Beast has been spending a lot of time in the garage. He bought some cabinets and installed them in his effort to finish packing up HIS boxes (at least he SAID he needed them and that’s why it was not done yet). I decided yesterday to go ahead and take a look at his progress. I was stunned that he STILL has boxes he has not unpacked and no more places to install any more cabinets.
So I step down into the garage to view the mess and what do I find him doing? Installing the AC air handler to heat and cool the garage. I kid you not. As I looked around, I said casually….”Well, I guess getting the garage organized is going to take longer than you expected.”
He looked at me with surprise and said, “Oh no. Won’t take me long now that I got those last two cabinets put up.”
So I arched my one eyebrow and asked him why he was starting a project before he had all his boxes unpacked and stuff put away. He actually looked at me like I was clueless and informed me that the air handler was ONE OF THOSE BOXES and he needed to get it installed and up off the floor for the ROOM!!!!I really figure that he can’t face completely putting away all his stuff and not having some sort of project going on. At least he is doing stuff that doesn’t require me to be constantly “giving him a hand” right in the middle of me crocheting or preparing a meal. That is usually how his projects work. No wonder women go nuts when their husband’s retire and they are around 24/7. I can relate.
Let me outline some of the projects he is already either planning OR has started buying the *bones* to do. #!…he wants to make a decorative berm around the base of the pink dogwood tree he just planted out front. This will require a couple layers of decorative stones in some design he has in mind (“I don’t want it just ROUND”), some dirt to build it up and then lot s of decorative flowers and plants. #2….a garden. He STILL has not definitely decided where the garden is going to be placed for our tomato, bush beans, green pepper, watermelon and other veggies. We DO, however, have seeds started all over the place on the back deck that will need to be put in the ground shortly. I could see his reluctance to make a decision if he has to use a regular rototiller but he’s got one that installs on the back of the John Deere mini-tractor he bought last year so I can’t figure out his problem there. #3…..he wants to get the AC installation for the garage (it will have it’s own two-ton AC split unit to keep it cool in the summer and heat it in the winter so he can *do his thing* out there all year long. He has the equipment to do a lot of stuff with wood already in place and I hope he actually DOES keep busy. I plan on crocheting afghans for all my kids and grandkids between now and next spring. I don’t need HIM underfoot all the time or he will make me crazy. #4…he hates the grass in our yard. We bought several palates of bermuda grass last year and placed them on the worst of the bare spots. BUT…he also brought back a palate of some other type of grass that looked half dead from his visit to Chicago last summer and it’s something totally different (and it actually looks wonderful right now ). Exactly HOW he is going to remedy this is not clear to me but involves several bags of soil and a couple boxes of grass seed. I don’t think he has thought this through yet. He complains about the weeds in the yard (they look VERY healthy and green) but I can’t seem to motivate him to pick up and spread Weed and Feed although we have the pull-behind spreader for his John Deere sitting out in the mini-barn. How hard can it be?
I can’t even begin to tell you how many other *little* projects he has brought up on an almost daily basis. I really and truly think he just can’t stand the thought of not having something to do one day. It’s almost sad but I let him go on about them and nod my head at the appropriate places. I figure if he runs out of projects, he can take over the vacuuming or even the cooking since he seems to be getting pretty good at that. He makes some killer spaggetti sauce these days.
Anyway, he tells me that he should have the garage totally organized within the next two days. We shall see. I would like to see all the boxes GONE and places for everything so I can have a regular routine in place. This house is so small compared to the last two homes we owned that I can pretty much clean everything thoroughly within an hour or two every day if I felt so inclined. We HAVE developed a routine of working together in the evening to clean up the kitchen, get coffee ready for the morning and dishes all in the dishwasher every evening before we settle in to watch TV before bedtime. It’s really kind of nice.
Have a great day.
