“hol·i·day n 2 : a day on which one is exempt from work.”
Doesn’t that sound nice?
Our holidays usually go something like this.
Step 1: Buy big heavy materials — this time, 9 big heavy boards to reframe half the front porch (eventually) and 7 big heavy landscape timbers to finish our leveling project along the driveway.
I get crabby pretty fast in the lumber section of HD and Lowe’s. I aso have to cross my arms really tight to keep from exploding from the sheer hell of lingering endlessly in the “fasteners” and electrical aisles.
I can’t begin to count the minutes of my life lost to (someone else’s) deliberation over nails, screws, bolts, joist hangers, receptacles, junction boxes, and the like over the past 15 years.
Sorry, gents, but no female indecision over slides or straps? slacks or capris? Dove or Olay? can hold a candle to the tedium of deciding between 1/4″ screws or 5/16″ screws. Or of examining every blessed 10-foot board in a stack of 50 five feet over your head to find 2 with no twists, no knots, nothing that would hamper a perfect job, ignoring that as soon as you get the wood home, it will twist either before it’s installed or after — it will never be perfect, NEVER BE PERFECT, and you will be forced to listen to how imperfect it is for a long, long time. And you will be asked over and over to just feel how that joist bounces (it bounces because you weigh 200 lbs and you’re jumping on it — STOP JUMPING ON IT) and just look how that stud twists (that stud will be covered up with drywall. NO ONE WILL SEE IT.), and can you believe how much a box of nails costs? (JUST BUY THE DAMN NAILS.)
Step 2: Complete several hours of back-breaking labor (who hates stripping sod? I do! I do!), another trip back to HD for 2 more landscape timbers, 2 trips to the landscape supply place for truckloads of topsoil, and 1 trip to the other landscape supply place for our “favorite” mulch (Smoky Mountain color).
Step 3: Savor the result: a neat and tidy border along the driveway, just aching to be planted with beautiful shrubs and perennials. (Couple more trips to Lowes & Wal-Mart. Few more hours of labor to plant them…eventually.)
Before — ground slopes to the left After — landscape timbers let
off the driveway — hard to mow, us add dirt to level the slope.
hard to exit a car onto, not pretty. Ready for planting!
A few of our plant purchases
awaiting their new home.
Somewhere between Steps 2 and 3, Mike took his life in his hands to replace the porte cochere light (his idea — the original, 83-year-old one worked, so was just fine in my book). It was dark by the time he finished. I passed the time by discovering you can take some nifty shots with the digital camera at night. (You can’t always tell exactly what you’re aiming at, but…the results are pretty.)
All in all, three really productive days exempt from work. I can hardly wait for the 4th of July!
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing: – “Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade.
~ Rudyard Kipling, “The Glory of the Garden”
Writing by Ear 
AtomAunt said,
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 at 7:30 pm
At last, someone who loves Lowes and HD as much as I do! Wandering up and down each aisle as I ask for the umpteenth time “what did we come in here for?”. And that annoying automated voice that keeps saying “assistance needed in the chain cutting aisle”. But what would we do without them (Lowes or the husbands)? They do have a way of making things look beautiful in the end-despite the struggle of getting there.
Maybe you should put a caption under Mike’s picture that says-don’t try this at home!!!
robbie said,
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Honey, honey, honey. You don’t need a holiday, you need to add a few important steps, 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5, aka Happy Hour!!!!!
WritingbyEar said,
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 5:33 pm
AtomAunt — thanks for stopping by! It’s funny. I actually LOVE Lowe’s, but only certain aisles (mostly the garden center and stuff that’s already assembled(!) — appliances, lighting, storage, etc. HD I tolerate because they send us more coupons 🙂 I agree — we couldn’t survive without any of them!
Robbie — what a GOOD idea — we never take time to smell the roses (or irises) or drink the bubbles.