Lack of Stamina

Monday, February 22, 2010

The bug up my butt seems to have fallen asleep. I was on quite the tear of activity the previous few weekends, but all of a sudden, all of my projects have come to a grinding halt. The evidence is sitting by the front door - a crate of tools and accessories. Did I really need electrical tape in every color? The molding, which I painted last weekend, spent the whole week lounging on the back patio. For reasons unknown to me, the dear hubby stashed the light fixture trims in the hall closet. I would have never found them if I wasn't looking for the children's Mucinex. The hall ceiling has not been sanded and respackled as I had hoped.


As it happens, I have a valid excuse. Everyone in my house has been sick. I caught a cold from my son. The petri dish came back from a visit with the grand parents with yet another cold which turned into a nasty cough, and, as I discovered in my lovely visit to urgent care on Saturday afternoon, a full blown ear infection. My mother managed to catch the little guy's cold, which has turned into bronchitis for her. My husband has also been taken down and will probably be diagnosed with his own case of bronchitis today. No one with bronchitis wants to breathe in spackle dust. Not to mention, I ran out of clothes to get dirty in.

Even though my motherly and spousal duties required that I be somewhat present and participating this weekend, I did manage to squeeze in a few projects to keep things moving.

Since my sixteen year old stepdaughter was visiting for the weekend, I decided to enlist her in a quick project. She has turned into quite the surly teen, and spends her visits either sleeping or texting morosely from the couch. Every now and then, we see a glimmer of the girl we used to know and love when she plays with her little brother. That little boy LOVES his big sister. She perked up when I asked for her help, and I didn't have to ask twice. The five year old was adamant about being Mommy's Little Helper (MLH) too.

I had brought the molding into the house on Thursday. By Saturday, I felt that it had acclimated back to an indoor environment, so I dragged it back out to the garage to cut. Since the molding is of the smaller, more casual variety, I decided to go with a full blown compound miter cut and skipped the coping method. Of course, it has been so long since I used the saw that I spent thirty minutes re-teaching myself. The teen helped me measure, and I cut everything down to size and dragged it all back in. By the third trip back to the saw, I was able to get everything to fit. I rolled in the ginormous air compressor and loaded up the finish nailer. I had the teen be the dead man holding up part of the molding – I even made her a propping stick with a towel on the end so she wouldn’t scratch anything, and MLH got to hold it when she wasn’t. His big role was closing the door behind me when I ran back out to the garage to re-cut. I promised MLH that when he was grown up, he could play with Mommy’s tools. Did I mention where the hubby was? Oh yeah…cooking dinner. I announced that the women had successfully put up the molding, and he asked when he could have his testicles back. I promised him that MLH would be able to cook AND use power tools, and therefore, be the redeemer of a blended gender role family.

Sunday, I mustered some more energy, sunk the nails and filled the holes and joints. Sadly, I discovered that I did not have any white calk or glazing compound. I don’t know how that’s possible since I have just about every other substance. Oh well, back to the local hardware store tonight and then painting time. All that will be left is hanging the curtain rod and tying back the drapes. Next time, I will let the teen know that she is responsible for making the bed. Rule of parenting a teen: If you want them to do something, you have to spell it out for them. The idea never comes to them on its own.

In addition to the molding, I was able to do five loads of laundry, sort my sock drawers, sign up the kid for drum lessons, pay the bills, and reformat my PC and reinstall software. Somewhere in the next three days, on top of the normal work schedule, I have to watch a 13 hour video (Exam Cram) as part of my studying for Friday’s real estate license exam. I have put it off long enough. Cross your fingers that I remember all this useless information.  If it goes well, I will be making cheesecake.