Eventful Day

My mom and dad came over this morning to help us out
(i.e. Dad--do, Mom and I supervise) and get some things done around the house. I have been complaining about my clothesline since we moved into this house. It's so short, and the lines are so close together that the clothes take all day to dry. I can't even get all of the laundry done in one day. My dad made me some new poles and came over today to put them in the ground. He also fixed the garage door. His favorite line of the day was, "I don't like to do anything the easy way." Case in point, instead of removing the topper on the truck, he left it on even though it made it really difficult to get the 8+ foot poles in and out.

It was comical for us supervisors to watch him get those out. (I should mention that Tom was at work most of the day, so there was no other male support for my dad, physical or otherwise. Poor guy!) Then, he set out to dig the holes. I went in the house to do a few things. Nearing completion of the second hole, I heard him say, "I should've known that first one went in too easy!" When I went out to see what was wrong, I learned that after digging about two feet down, he had run into some kind of plastic pipe. He had to move forward a couple of feet and dig a new hole.

Then when it was time to pour the cement in the hole he discovered that we didn't have enough. We made a quick trip to get more, then my mom and I dropped him off at home and went to get a new spring for the garage door. Well, since we were out and about we did a little shopping at Kohl's as well. Needless to say, by the time we returned with the supplies for the garage door, my dad had been finished with the poles for quite some time. He perked up just a bit when we handed him a polish sausage from a local cookout! The new poles look great! You can see (kind of) how much more room I'm going to have. I was thinking that I could do some laundry tomorrow, but apparently the cement has to settle for a few days first. The next big job will be to take the old poles out.

Sticking with the "Nothing Easy" theme, we got two springs for the garage door instead of just one. The helpful guys at Home Depot agreed that it would not be a good idea to change only one spring, explaining that this would not balance the garage door, and would probably cause the old spring to break anyway. I don't know how many times my dad was up and down and on and off that ladder!! He was wanting to find and murder whoever built our garage and left NO ROOM on the west side of the door by the time he was finished!! Note to anyone that may someday build a house or garage: It's a VERY BAD idea to run one of the garage door tracks directly into the garage wall. It leaves no wiggle room when you need to fix things!

Eventually it was all finished and working beautifully. With all of the handiness going on around me, I thought I'd do something. I decided I'd change the light bulb in the garage door opener that's been burnt out for about a month. My dad and I got quite the chuckle when I pulled a 3-way bulb out!!! We figure it must've been the same guy that built the garage door track into the garage wall!! DUH!! Tom got home from work shortly after everything was done. Isn't that always the way?! I tried talking my dad into hooking up the water/ice maker on the refrigerator while he was here, but he assured me that he had had enough fun for one day!