Opportunity Knocking

Weekend projects are fun! You have your list in front of you, full of the things you have wanted to get done for a few weeks (be honest... years and years) and you have finally found (set aside) the time to get them done. Nothing feels better than check marking those boxes as complete. It gives you great pleasure to sit back and look at your masterpiece (at least for your sake I hope it is) and say, "I did it!!! And it wasn't that bad. It wasn't the teeth yanking, hair pulling, mind boggling project I thought it was going to be."

Well my husband and I had that adventure this last weekend. We woke early in the morning (early in my house is 9 am on a Saturday) and set out for the day ahead. I went after a few needed items to complete some of the work and my wonderful friend Sophie accompanied me. (She loves a good project day just as much as I do.)

We are getting our home ready to put on the market and so we have to get a few things done to it. My husband got up and headed out the door, after I left, to begin his part of the adventure.

When Sophie and I returned to the fun station (my home) she left to go get some lunch and return with 2 little helpers; aka her 2 oldest children. My children were of course thrilled at this! Not only were their friends there with them, but they were sharing the workload. This makes for happy parents (since the whining is then held to a minimum).

My husband was busy trimming bushes that were as tall of the Empire State Building. (It was either trim them, or start charging a fee to view the city from the top of them. Although earning extra income would be exciting we figured it would all be lost in insurance and personnel so we decided it was best to go with trimming them.)

I began power-washing our front porch. If you have never power-washed anything, let me just say, WOW! This is an amazing experience! I had to control my urge to power-wash the entire house. I had to focus on the list and get those things accomplished first. (But the power-washer will return, hehe.)

Sophie took a closet door off it's hinges and took it to the backyard to begin the transformation. We are painting it white to match the trim ( we should be getting a medal of honor for this or something because we are getting rid of the orange tinted stain that it had been for many years). My husband brought her our brand-new (bought 2 years prior to sand and paint the doors then) electric sander. He then proceeded to the front of the house where I was still blasting away at the dirt invading my front porch and sidewalk and made this statement... "You women are always taking the mens' pride moments." I did not understand what he meant so I asked him to elaborate for me.

He then began a long and pitiful story of how I had taken both of our vehicles over the 100,000 mile mark and that he didn't get to watch the dial role over on either one of them and so on. He ended by pouting about how Sophie was getting to use his sander before he was. She was breaking it in and he had not had the opportunity to do so! She, a woman, had stripped him of this vital right as a man, just as I had done with the vehicles and other such things.

Now let me remind you... said electric sander had been purchased 2 years prior to this day and 104 weekends had passed when there had been opportunity to advance himself in the "man kingdom" and break in this tool. But is was, of course, the fault of the one who had "heard opportunity knocking" and had answered the call.