Surface Day

Yesterday was Surface Day. Several "surface" projects were completed at our house; the deck, doors and driveway.

Andrea and I decided that our goal is to have our house finished by Thanksgiving. We have been using much of our free time to tackle as many projects as we reasonably can.

Last week, I borrowed a friend's power-washer for a project at church. I was inspired by that experience to buy one of my own. Yesterday afternoon, I came home early and power-washed the deck. It took about three hours, but I got it finished before I lost sunlight. I took the picture above after I had finished the first two sections. I thought it made a noticeable difference. Sometime very soon I will stain/seal it.


Andrea and Sara worked on priming and painting doors. Many of the doors in our house were unfinished. Some had hundreds of surface scratches that look like they were from a dog. After finishing the first coat, Andrea commented, "Now I actually feel like I'm at home."

While this was all taking place, I was having the driveway sealcoated. They repaired the cracks as well. It didn't look like that had been done before, so I will probably have it done next Fall as well to build up a good base.

It was a productive day. I feel good when I can scratch a few more projects off the list.

Pyramid

I think I need to stop going to Lowe's so often. Strange things keep happening to me there.

Last week, while making my daily trip to Lowe's, I noticed that they had spring water on display right as you entered the store. The price was cheaper than at the grocery store so I thought I would grab two cases to keep at my office.

I put the first case in my cart.... without incident. Then I grabbed another case from the top of the stack and two-thirds of the giant water pyramid tumbled to the ground. I have no idea how that happened. I immediately faced the woman who was working at the customer service counter and said, "I have no idea how that happened." She didn't seem to care. Another employee came over and immediately began rebuilding the pyramid. I offered to help, but she declined my offer.

I felt like I was on some sort of hidden-camera TV show. It seemed like someone must have been hiding behind the water, waiting for some goof to walk through the door and grab a case, while they pulled the display down with a rope. That's still my best explanation.

Trip to Lowe's

Since the end of August, Andrea and I have been working our hardest to get as many projects as possible completed in our new house before we actually moved in. The house needed a lot of work (nothing structural, just cosmetic-type repairs).

The bushes outside the house were extremely overgrown and needed to be removed. I spent quite some time cutting them down and then hired a tree service to grind out all seventeen stumps. Then I began the process of planting some new, more manageable shrubs. This involved multiple trips to Lowe's.

One of the major differences between living in the Poconos and living near Philly is the temperature. September days in the Poconos are extremely comfortable and almost never muggy. The same cannot be said for this area. It was over 90 degrees and very humid for most of the days that I worked outside. (Maybe I should have timed that better).

Anyway, during one particular trip to Lowe's, I realized that one of the employees in the garden section was staring at me funny. It seemed quite odd to me. He kept staring and I was puzzled at how overt his staring seemed. I couldn't think any obvious reasons as to why he would be doing this, so I just ignored it, paid for my plants, and pushed the cart out to my van.

As I was loading the van, I realized why he was staring at me. I was so sweaty from working outside that the sweat seemed to pool on my shorts. It looked like I had surely wet my pants.

I wonder how many others saw me in that state, but were more discreet in their response.