Beat, Dead, Tired

If Abigail were an amp., she’d go to 11.

I’d heard it before, but now know it’s true. Everything you used to do without a kid is now twice as hard with a kid. It’s like I ran an extra marathon (if I ever ran a marathon) or something.

Saturday started with work on the kitchen pantry. After five years, our shelves were starting to show a little wear (i.e. sag in the middle).

The original plan was to add a bunch of new shelves and supports in addition to moving a couple that were already there. Quickly seeing how hard it was to do anything with Abigail around and realizing there’s a shit ton more stuff to do elsewhere around the house, we opted for the simple center brackets to take up the sag.

From there it was outside to fix a vine issue we had over the winter. We have this nice variegated vine that grows on our pool fence. It’s been growing for a few years now, enough that it started growing out into the air when it ran out of vertical fence space. Having a couple feet of vine sticking out into the air and a bunch of snow this winter finally broke the pool fence where the top is latticed. Ugh.

I started with the hedge trimmers, but ended with the chainsaw to get the vine cut back enough to get to the broken fence. Once it was cleared away, I could make the necessary repairs, cross my fingers and hope the vine grows back.

Now it looks like crap.

Abigail did not help out with this project.

But she did help me cut the ornamental grasses back. Jen had put her down for a nap then went to take a nap herself, but Abigail wasn’t napping. Since I still had things to do, I put her in the kid backpack and went about cutting and hauling off the grass. She was hanging out on my back for at least an hour doing all kinds of yard chores. She hardly made  a peep unless some birds flew overhead or we played fetch with Gretchen. It was kind of cool and kind of nice, but I think my back’s killing me today because of it.

In the evening I posted a few new albums of Abigail on the gallery. You can check them out here.

Up at 5:45am and back at it today, Abigail and I first tackled installing the screen for the sliding glass doors.

I take it down each fall for a better view, then have to go through the headache each spring re-installing. At least Abigail had a good time with her new toys on the deck.

After the screen door it was downstairs to the garage to gather up any remaining cardboard and sort the recyclable plastic bags.

The entire bed of my truck was full of cardboard. I hadn’t been to the recycling center since before Thanksgiving and I needed my truck for other things today. While I was off doing the recycling, Abigail was napping. Lucky kid.

After the recycling it was off to pick up a new toy for me. Well maybe me, maybe Jen, and maybe Abigail one day.

It’s an old (really old) steel Burly tandem (Duet I think). A friend of mine got it years ago, then scared the crap out of his wife going downhill and they never rode it again. You should have seen the dirty look on her face as I was rolling out of the driveway with it. I figured we’d try it out and maybe take it off his hands. It’s currently in “ridable” condition, but could certainly use a few enhancements. We’ll see.

Once I got the bike back, I headed out for a hike with Sean and Yoshi. It was good to get the dogs out for a run. It’s so funny how Yoshi tries to pull her “Blue heeler tricks” on Gretchen (i.e. nipping at Gretchen’s hind legs), but she’ll have none of it. Gretchen just turns on her and goes for the neck. Yoshi backs off and they happily go running through the woods after chipmunks.

After the hike (and Abigail’s second nap) it was back to work.

We haven’t been able to park both our cars in the garage for nearly a month since the basement flooded. Most of that time the furniture was still in the garage while I slowly got it pseudo waterproofed and back in the basement. The only thing left was the couch we decided to finally retire. It wasn’t damaged by the water, but 15 years of pets had taken their toll on it. Since our trash doesn’t pick up large items until the end of the month and I really wanted to park my car in the garage, the couch had to go to the truck for now.

After the couch, Abigail went to help her mother with dinner.

When she wasn’t helping with dinner, she was pulling her jeans over her head and running around blind.

No, really. On her head, then full bore run across the room or down the hall until she hit something. It was totally nuts. She was loving every minute of it.

See more here.

I think that’s about it. Damn tiring. Next weekend, I want the naps.

Speaking of naps, Abigail napped and slept like a champ this weekend. I guess we have some kind of effect on her as well.

– b