Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Wrench Monkey...

Remember when auto mechanics used to be called Wrench Monkeys? I do not know where that came from but I have one in my house!
In our family I think I am the only one who actually will work on a car. My father never worked on cars and my mother never did as well. I do not remember my brothers ever working on their cars either.
So my youngest daughter, the one who was the cheerleader, model, actress and all around girly girl gets a new car. Well it is not new but new to her and there has to be some work to be done on it. So she keeps asking, "daddy, when are we going to work on my car?" and I keep telling her soon. Well the day came where we went out to work on her car.
And guess what? She went to town! She was pulling bolts, getting grease on her hands and was an all around great help as we tore the top of her motor down. She actually had the intake manifold in her hands, that she took off!
And then we put it back together and it still worked! Even better!
So never judge a book by its cover, those french manicured nails might just be hiding some grease beneath them!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Camping

The family and I are looking at going camping for a few days. Now with a family of six this is not a small excursion by any means. We have two boys who would be fine in the woods for three weeks if they have enough to eat. No showers, no teeth brushing, no hair brushing, they would be fine and probably enjoy it. My number one daughter would be somewhat OK but I am not sure she would want to be without technology that long. My number two daughter wanted to know what the rooms looked like. I told her we would be camping in a tent and she said, well just you boys right? She thinks roughing it is sleeping in a Holiday Inn when the cable is out.
And then there is my wife. God bless her, we don't have the disposable funds right now to go and stay in a condo for week, or a hotel for a few days for that matter but camping is not really her thing. But she is all for it, even though there are going to be bugs, and it is going to be hot, and we really don't have all the gear to really camp out, but she is game to go.
Should be fun and I am looking forward to a little family bonding as we spend a few days out in the wilderness, well as close as we want to get to wilderness.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Fireworks...

It never ceases to amaze me how grown men can turn into children when they walk into a fireworks tent. Our church does an annual fund raiser where we man a fireworks tent. It takes a lot of work but it does a couple of things for our church besides raising money.
1) It gets outside the four walls. Too many times the church gets confined by the four walls of the structure that they never get outside of it. I spent the last weekend talking to guys who had too much to drink, gals who had not enough on, and people whose language would not be welcomed in most churches. You see when you explain to a guy that big hunk of fireworks is a 16,000 piece fire cracker, they usually use an expletive before they grin. It is good for our people to get out and interact with those we never see in our normal day to day lives. It lets us invest in their lives ever so slightly, who knows what might be sown.
2) It creates opportunities for team building, for conflict management and for problem solving. We needed all three when working with a rotating staff over an entire week where most were spending at least six hours a day in almost triple digit heat. Tempers did not have to go far to reach the boiling point when the tent was 120 degrees. And we also got to build team as the setup and tear down crew jumped in and did what needed to be done in record time. You should have seen them organize the battle plans when a huge thunderstorm headed our way. Everyone knew what they needed to do, how they needed to do it and when they needed to do it. I love it when a plan comes together!! And we had to solve problems. Like how do you tie down a loose tent flap, why with duct tape and a zip tie. How do you patch a hole in a tent? Well with the afore mentioned duct tape. How do you cool down hot tent workers? Well with an ice cold bottle of water or a diaper soaked in ice cold water. Hopefully that diaper was not the "used" kind.

Friday, July 1, 2011

It is finished...

Yes, those immortal word Jesus spoke while hanging on the cross. Well they were finally uttered from my mouth last weekend as we finally finished the bedroom.
Actually calling it a bedroom is not doing it justice, we now call it the master suite.
It all started ten years ago when we bought this old two story house. It wasn't the layout, the paint color or the landscaping that you see on these home shows today that made me want to "say yes to the Address", we bought it because it was cheap, and could sleep six.
It had its share of warts and bumps though. The weekend after we moved in we found that the main sewer line was somewhat collapsed when we our washing machine started letting water out on the floor instead of down the drain. Digging about sixty feet of sewer line and holding the section that was collapsed in your hands while one of your kids flushed the toilet is a memory I will never forget.
So we got that fixed, and then we found another problem that winter. All the water lines in the house were so corroded that at the first sign of a cold snap they would freeze up. There is nothing fun about six people getting up at the same time to get ready for the day and find that there is no water in the house. That has a tendency to ruin your whole day, not to mention that you look like a homeless person as you can't shower, shave or even brush your teeth. So we went to work on that and replaced all the old copper and iron pipe lines with this new plex line that will not freeze, or burst. Such a breakthrough in technology!
And then we decided to take on the bathroom. Our house was designed with an indoor running track. I am not sure if that was the intended design, but you could make the circuit from the living room, through the kitchen and into the bathroom, exiting to one bedroom and then end up where you started in the living room again. It was really convenient for those cold mornings when you did not want to go outside to run, but not so convenient on those using the bathroom as you ran through. Since the bathroom was almost as big as the bedrooms we decided that one large bathroom could be divided up into two regular size bathrooms so off to work we went again. We finished the main bathroom in a few months working around the plumbing but the master bathroom was a different story. It took all of almost four years to finally complete the master bath. Pretty much there were labor disputes from the start, I did not want to do it and no one could make me. But we eventually got there and finished the master bath just as our first child headed off to college. Bad timing on my part as it would have been better to have those high school years of sharing one bathroom not exist but life goes on.
So the next project was, the master bedroom. First off our bedroom was really two rooms, one we kept the bed in which had a really small closet, the other room we kept all the other junk in. It slowly became a man cave, as in it evolved over time. First an overstuffed chair ended up in there to hang clothes on, and then a actual chest of drawers to put clothes in that were stacked on the chair. And then someone brought an old color TV which went on top of the chest of drawers. A bookshelf, filing cabinet and eventually musical instruments and the man clothes filled the room. My wife started calling it my "sanctuary" as man cave was too rudimentary. Well we decided to remove the wall and open up the bedroom, expand the closet and really make it into something we could enjoy. So over five months we redid the closet for his and her sides in a walk in closet where we can throw all our clothes anywhere we want and then shut the door and no one knows. We redid all the wall finishes eliminating the old wood paneling and lathe and plaster and installed new Sheetrock and insulation in the walls so the neighbors could not hear us snoring at night. We put a new window in to replace the one that allowed the night air (both hot and cold) to come into our bedroom, new painted walls, new trim even a new beamed accent ceiling and lighting enhanced our master bedroom look. Throw in a new bed, new comforter, a fancy red chair, reading lamp and bedside tables along with the new plush carpet and we finally had our master suite which was sweet.
So last Saturday when we finally got everything moved back into the room after the carpet installation we kicked off our shoes, sat in our red chair and relaxed and said, "it is finished"...