This, That and What??
This was a bizarre week that tried so hard to be normal. I started the week on Sunday making a schedule of all the stuff that was going on and when I could work in the little odd jobs that needed doing. It was me at my most optimistic.
By Friday, I was going to finish the upstairs room ( Remember that room that was going to be done by April 1st no sweat??) , finish the moldings for the entertainment center at Ron and Val’s cottage, complete the cutting and fitting for Nickie’s storage shelves, build a patio by the waterfall and assemble the plastic part of the new cellar door. Plus make Mass three times, Sister Bridgets on Wednesday, the Franciscans on Wednesday night , visit with Gloria, Michelle and Beth and all the kids at State Park, have breakfast with my old Principal at JC, attend the rotary lunch, go to the Toys for Tots dinner and most importantly use my spare time to go riding. Oh yes, on Thursday, Sue Fox was going on vacation so I would take care of Tootsie the dog, (Who is helping me type this at the moment) and her cats and sometime during the week I needed to get to the zoo to plan a project I was asked to do there. And don’t forget the guitar lesson on Monday and the subsequent practice.
So, I worked out a schedule that tied everything together. Cut moldings and stain, cut shelving pieces while stain dried, use the dirt from the cellar project to build the patio etc. It was like a well planed military campaign.
Then the phone rang. A lady with a water leak she had ignored for five weeks, had been warned several times and who had been mailed a very formal letter explaining that if the leak was not repaired, we would terminate her service, was shocked that we had actually turned off her water. OK minor setback, until we arrived with the intent of quickly turning the water back on, demonstrating the leak and shutting it off again. We did do this, but only after three hours of playing with a touchy valve that didn’t want to cooperate. Back home. Still confident I could beat the week into submission, I tacked the first molding board up so I could scribe the ceiling line on it.
Just a quick note of explanation for all those people who think you buy a piece of molding, measure how long it needs to be, cut it, finish it and permanently put it up. That might work in a room where directions are spoken in terms of “left of the door” , “right of the window” etc. In the room we are redoing the directions are uphill or downhill. The outside wall is three inches higher than the inside wall. That means a regular piece of molding will look really stupid unless it is scribed so that the bottom is level and the top conforms to the ceiling. Repeat on four additional walls and you see how it goes. My plan allowed two hours because of course everything would go smoothly. Four hours later, perfection.
Except a new construction sound was introduced. Now I am familiar with the whoosh and tinkle sound as my hammer slips out of my hand and does a perfect somersault through the window, or the ever popular “thud” as the hammer smacks the wall instead of the nail head, but “Crack”?? It took a while to discover the “crack” had come from the most complicated piece of molding when it – wait for it--- cracked-- as I took it down. Four hours became the next day, which of course threw off the staining and finishing schedule.
By the end of the week, I had finished the patio, done most of the wood work and made the majority of appointments, meetings and events. But the planner in me still thinks I could have gotten it all done if that phone had not rung.