Ah, the relaxing weekend (except not)
OMG so sore. This has been a weekend of rushing and hefting and digging and strewing and generally assembling.
The tale of the U-Haul people (winner of the Most Frustrating Customer Service Ever! Award) and the converted garage.
So some time ago, hubby told me that there were some random offices in his building full of weight lifting equipment that was apparently just sitting there, taking up space. And it was also not on the property books. It was suggested to hubby that if he came up with a method of emptying those offices so they could be used for actual productive things, the contents of said offices would be his to keep. Woot, he said (although not really, because he never says that, but I translate into fannish for you all) and was all for it. But then they said no, never mind, can't have it after all.
Until Friday, when they changed their minds again and said he could have it if he got it out this weekend. Cue the U-Haul people and our attempt to rent a truck from them. Let me begin by saying we got it from a very small office that also doubled as a place doing tax preparation, bookkeeping, insurance sales, and I suspect a daycare, judging by the number of kids in the waiting room. All of the signs on the walls were in Spanish. All the people working there spoke Spanish. And a touch of English, but it is the kind of English you get here living ten minutes from the Mexican border, which is to say, not good. Hubby and I do not speak Spanish. There were difficulties.
I will skim over the difficulties because they get repetitive and largely center around us trying to get a four wheel dolly. You mean the two wheel dolly that tilts, asked the people. No, we said. The four wheel kind that sits flat on the ground. Oh, said the people, we have those. And then showed us a two wheel dolly. It went on like that for a while. We eventually gave up and took the two wheel version.
Now we move on to loading the truck at hubby's work, which had to be done late in the evening after everyone had gone home, because while we technically had permission to be taking this stuff, it was the sort of thing that shouldn't be generally known. The kids were somewhat pleased at this adventure, until it turned out that the hallway at the building had been, in the typical Army tradition of making things you walk on very very shiny (not just boots, you know), very highly waxed. And was slippery. I spent a large portion of the evening calming the kidlet after she fell, frequently. This also made moving large, awkward, heavy pieces of equipment down the hall on that stupid two wheel dolly very interesting. But eventually, we loaded up the truck and got the stuff home.
Assembling the machines was... well, adjectives fail me. Let me just say that eventually I got on the internet and printed out pictures of how they were supposed to look when they were done, and those saved us. So now we have a garage gym with machines that, while used, are still in good shape and would have cost a few thousand if we had bought them. That's the upshot. The downside is that while the U-Haul was parked outside our house for the night, someone hit it with their car. Going by the amount of broken glass in the road, the car lost. However, the driver declined to stick around and tell us about it.
So, very glad that we had gotten insurance on the truck, we made a police report and returned the thing. Imagine, if you will, the discussion with the U-Haul people when we tried to explain all this. It didn't go well. We spent a couple hours in their waiting room with the motion detector over the door that went boo-BEEP every time I moved. I won't go into detail here. I'm trying to block it out.
And now the story of the gravel wasteland that would be a lawn, or How to Almost Strangle Your Spouse in Three Easy Steps.
I will begin by saying we live in the desert. Our front yard is colored rock, and our back yard is dirt and sand with more rocks. Hubby would like grass back there, and so would I. We have successfully grown grass before in this same climate by the basic method of throwing grass seed on the ground and watering it. Here, however, hubby wanted to remove all the rocks from the yard (this would make you laugh if you'd seen my yard. If we took all the rocks out, I'm not sure there would be anything left.) and lay down topsoil. He wanted to do it this weekend. All of it.
So we did, interspersed with the gym equipment and U-Haul adventure. We went to Home Depot and purchased enough bagged topsoil to make our poor van's suspension wheeze pitifully. We began laying it in the backyard, after making a half-hearted effort to remove the tumbleweeds, broken concrete left by the builders, and hordes of rocks. (Our trash cans weigh a ton now. I am convinced the garbage people will take one look at them and refuse to take them.)
I started laying the soil down and hubby said no, that's too thin. It needs to be up to the level of the foundation.
Inwardly, I said Are you kidding me? The foundation is about five inches above the ground and the topsoil is two bucks a bag. Do you have any idea how much we'd need to lay it that thick? Dirt is dirt, the grass will do just fine.
Outwardly, I decided he would realize we'd run out of soil way before we ran out of yard using this method, and I let him go for it. He eventually came around to my way of thinking, mostly because he got tired of laying it out all perfectly. By the end, we were just reaching into the bags and tossing handfuls of the stuff out. Seeing that we would end up with more bags than yard with this method, I started laying it down more heavily.
No, hubby said, that's too thick. We don't want it uneven.
Inwardly, I said Oh my god, make up your mind or just do it your damn self if my way doesn't mesh with your vision. It's dirt, for crying out loud. Who cares?
Outwardly, I restrained the urge to throw expensive topsoil at him.
So now we have a backyard still full of rocks, but also full of topsoil and grass seed, and it is under the ministrations of the sprinkler at this very moment. I view this with mixed feelings, because on the one hand it'll be nice for the kids to have somewhere to play that is not gravel or pavement, but on the other, I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be the one who ends up mowing it.
After that Friday and Saturday, did we relax today? Not so much. No, we had to get up at 4 a.m. so I could drive hubby to the post, where he met a van taking him and some others up to Ft. Hood for the Lasik eye surgery. The ride is required because when he gets back, he won't be able to drive for a while.
We went to a drive through for breakfast on the way, and when I got the bag I looked inside and noticed that all our sandwiches and little boxes and such were lined up and neatly stacked. I mentioned this, and hubby said, in rather a derogatory way--oh, that's because that guy (meaning the one working the window who assembled our food) is gay. Gay guys always make things all neat and organized.
Inwardly, I yelled a lot about how that was a really dumb generalization and what's wrong with being neat and organized anyway? and also cast aspersions on his own neatness and organization with the implication that he lacked them deliberately so as to not seem gay.
Outwardly, I rolled my eyes and said I see.
Some weekends are too short. This was not one of them.
The tale of the U-Haul people (winner of the Most Frustrating Customer Service Ever! Award) and the converted garage.
So some time ago, hubby told me that there were some random offices in his building full of weight lifting equipment that was apparently just sitting there, taking up space. And it was also not on the property books. It was suggested to hubby that if he came up with a method of emptying those offices so they could be used for actual productive things, the contents of said offices would be his to keep. Woot, he said (although not really, because he never says that, but I translate into fannish for you all) and was all for it. But then they said no, never mind, can't have it after all.
Until Friday, when they changed their minds again and said he could have it if he got it out this weekend. Cue the U-Haul people and our attempt to rent a truck from them. Let me begin by saying we got it from a very small office that also doubled as a place doing tax preparation, bookkeeping, insurance sales, and I suspect a daycare, judging by the number of kids in the waiting room. All of the signs on the walls were in Spanish. All the people working there spoke Spanish. And a touch of English, but it is the kind of English you get here living ten minutes from the Mexican border, which is to say, not good. Hubby and I do not speak Spanish. There were difficulties.
I will skim over the difficulties because they get repetitive and largely center around us trying to get a four wheel dolly. You mean the two wheel dolly that tilts, asked the people. No, we said. The four wheel kind that sits flat on the ground. Oh, said the people, we have those. And then showed us a two wheel dolly. It went on like that for a while. We eventually gave up and took the two wheel version.
Now we move on to loading the truck at hubby's work, which had to be done late in the evening after everyone had gone home, because while we technically had permission to be taking this stuff, it was the sort of thing that shouldn't be generally known. The kids were somewhat pleased at this adventure, until it turned out that the hallway at the building had been, in the typical Army tradition of making things you walk on very very shiny (not just boots, you know), very highly waxed. And was slippery. I spent a large portion of the evening calming the kidlet after she fell, frequently. This also made moving large, awkward, heavy pieces of equipment down the hall on that stupid two wheel dolly very interesting. But eventually, we loaded up the truck and got the stuff home.
Assembling the machines was... well, adjectives fail me. Let me just say that eventually I got on the internet and printed out pictures of how they were supposed to look when they were done, and those saved us. So now we have a garage gym with machines that, while used, are still in good shape and would have cost a few thousand if we had bought them. That's the upshot. The downside is that while the U-Haul was parked outside our house for the night, someone hit it with their car. Going by the amount of broken glass in the road, the car lost. However, the driver declined to stick around and tell us about it.
So, very glad that we had gotten insurance on the truck, we made a police report and returned the thing. Imagine, if you will, the discussion with the U-Haul people when we tried to explain all this. It didn't go well. We spent a couple hours in their waiting room with the motion detector over the door that went boo-BEEP every time I moved. I won't go into detail here. I'm trying to block it out.
And now the story of the gravel wasteland that would be a lawn, or How to Almost Strangle Your Spouse in Three Easy Steps.
I will begin by saying we live in the desert. Our front yard is colored rock, and our back yard is dirt and sand with more rocks. Hubby would like grass back there, and so would I. We have successfully grown grass before in this same climate by the basic method of throwing grass seed on the ground and watering it. Here, however, hubby wanted to remove all the rocks from the yard (this would make you laugh if you'd seen my yard. If we took all the rocks out, I'm not sure there would be anything left.) and lay down topsoil. He wanted to do it this weekend. All of it.
So we did, interspersed with the gym equipment and U-Haul adventure. We went to Home Depot and purchased enough bagged topsoil to make our poor van's suspension wheeze pitifully. We began laying it in the backyard, after making a half-hearted effort to remove the tumbleweeds, broken concrete left by the builders, and hordes of rocks. (Our trash cans weigh a ton now. I am convinced the garbage people will take one look at them and refuse to take them.)
I started laying the soil down and hubby said no, that's too thin. It needs to be up to the level of the foundation.
Inwardly, I said Are you kidding me? The foundation is about five inches above the ground and the topsoil is two bucks a bag. Do you have any idea how much we'd need to lay it that thick? Dirt is dirt, the grass will do just fine.
Outwardly, I decided he would realize we'd run out of soil way before we ran out of yard using this method, and I let him go for it. He eventually came around to my way of thinking, mostly because he got tired of laying it out all perfectly. By the end, we were just reaching into the bags and tossing handfuls of the stuff out. Seeing that we would end up with more bags than yard with this method, I started laying it down more heavily.
No, hubby said, that's too thick. We don't want it uneven.
Inwardly, I said Oh my god, make up your mind or just do it your damn self if my way doesn't mesh with your vision. It's dirt, for crying out loud. Who cares?
Outwardly, I restrained the urge to throw expensive topsoil at him.
So now we have a backyard still full of rocks, but also full of topsoil and grass seed, and it is under the ministrations of the sprinkler at this very moment. I view this with mixed feelings, because on the one hand it'll be nice for the kids to have somewhere to play that is not gravel or pavement, but on the other, I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be the one who ends up mowing it.
After that Friday and Saturday, did we relax today? Not so much. No, we had to get up at 4 a.m. so I could drive hubby to the post, where he met a van taking him and some others up to Ft. Hood for the Lasik eye surgery. The ride is required because when he gets back, he won't be able to drive for a while.
We went to a drive through for breakfast on the way, and when I got the bag I looked inside and noticed that all our sandwiches and little boxes and such were lined up and neatly stacked. I mentioned this, and hubby said, in rather a derogatory way--oh, that's because that guy (meaning the one working the window who assembled our food) is gay. Gay guys always make things all neat and organized.
Inwardly, I yelled a lot about how that was a really dumb generalization and what's wrong with being neat and organized anyway? and also cast aspersions on his own neatness and organization with the implication that he lacked them deliberately so as to not seem gay.
Outwardly, I rolled my eyes and said I see.
Some weekends are too short. This was not one of them.