PROGRESS!!!

Okay Folks! Here we are!!

I finally had to gut it out, swallow some of my very best intentions and just go with it.

After figuring out what I needed to get this thing off the ground, literally, we sat down Saturday at about 1:30 and drafted a pick list. I have learned a lot on this venture, but drafting a pick list, was well, sort of a combination of drafting a letter to Santa Clause while trying hard not to want to strangle my spouse.

This is the problem. We are both fairly smart. We're both clever enough to be able to figure out how to do things, and we're both stubborn enough to want to be the one making the decisions.

But when it comes down to it, we both don't have a clue what we're doing. Okay. Maybe a little. But it's still sort of funny, because we are both so convinced that we know we are right.

With the pick list drafted, we headed to Lowes - the local big box hardware store.

Now, this is where swallowing some of my ideals comes in. I needed lumber. I needed a fair amount. several folks have said "I have wood you are welcome to use" But never returned phone calls, or live far enough away that getting there and getting the wood sorted through and getting it loaded in SOMETHING and then getting it down here is more than this poor soul can do in a day. ALSO, I realized I needed to make some significant progress on this thing within the next several weeks, because we have other commitments coming up and I don't want to be January trying to get in. Work is expected to get hairy again in the end of November. I need to be in the office or some approximation there of, but then.

I'd loose a weekend of work to sorting through lumber I don't know if I can use, and well,... I simply didn't want to be put back that far, AND I wanted to be able to get exactly what I needed for the framing. So I did. And as Seumas, my eco-guru reminds me - wood IS a renewable resource.

So I sucked it up and bought 6x6s, 4x6s, 2x10s, 2x6s, and 2x4s, plywood for the sub flooring, Plus 50 pounds of nails, an new hammer, braces, and a few other assorted goodies. It totalled about $800 in materials. (ouch) and took about 6 hours to figure, find, pay for, load, unload, and repeat. Lord we were tired.

Today we got to work getting things set up and while I would love to say I have great pictures, I don't yet. Soon.

But I think the funniest and most enjoyable part of the whole thing was working with the spouse. At one point I was asking the Lowe's expert guy - Mike about ply wood. Mike is in his early 60's I'd guess. I'd also guess he works at Lowe's because he enjoys helping folks. So we were discussing ply wood density, and Bill came up. When Mike realized Bill is my husband he got this funny smile on his face. He said " you all are doing this together?" We chuckled and said "yep. For the moment"

Mike's eyes twinkled knowingly. He looked at Bill and said "in a case like this, you only need to remember 2 words --- Yes, Dear."

And then he looked me straight in the eye and said "You know, in Georgia there used to be a law, now it's off the books and everything, but there USED TO BE a law that a man could hit his wife one time with a stick."

I laughed a little, then he said "but it never said what size that stick was... and he could only hit her once."

then he saw Bill smirking and said "but now, that's off the books and illegal and everything, just remember to say 'yes Dear'".

We all sort of stood there grinning.

Several times today Bill's told me he's looking for that stick. But he's only had to say yes dear about a dozen times. (for those of you who know Bill, know he is a very sweet and gentle man, and wouldn't ever raise a hand to me... so no worries there)

Still it's amazing how much fun we had today.

(See we are pretty evenly matched, and didn't throw one another into that gorge...)

Anyway, we are making progress. I was putting together a saw horse and learned an important lesson. I am not good at hamming left handed. I banged the tar out of my thumb and even saw stars swirling around my head and little yellow birdies! and I always thought that Wylie Coyote and crew were making that up!! Maybe next time I'll invest in one of these..

It is a patented finger protector for holding nails!! and here Bill and I thought we were the clever ones!!