Sunday

I got stuff done. I took a bike ride in the AM, though I can't quite tell how far I went. I'm guessing somewhere between 7-10 miles. It was pretty peaceful - the streets were kind of empty, so it was nice. We decided to skip the Israeli Day parade; dragging the kids in the heat on the train probably would have been bad, and I think they're both sick anyway.

Got home from the ride, and began the day's project. Mrs. had gotten tension rods for the kids' sort of closet, and they kept falling down. I got the bright idea that I could get something at the Home Despot that would work better. Believe it or not, I actually succeeded. I'm vaguely handy, but it tends to be in the area of assembling prefab things. This time I went whole hog.

Big orange sells these closet rod brackets, so I got those, and Mrs. said she preferred wood rods to metal. I found the dowels, and for once they made it easy. They left a cart in the aisle with a tape measure and a few saws, and I was able to hack off the length I needed instead of trying to get a 10 foot long pole in my Civic. Plus I only had to pay for what I needed.

I had shopped on Weds, so yesterday I went about the process, and I did pretty well on the whole. Measured twice, cut once, etc. Of course, the studs on one side didn't line up properly, but I was able to work it out. Though they were off by three inches for the second rod, so I had to use anchors, which I wanted to avoid. Oh well. I did get to use my jigsaw (I thought the circular would be a bit much for an inch & a quarter pole) and orbital sander, which was fun. I'm actually pretty proud of myself, including that I took care of the project in three or four days instead of six months.

I will say that finding three empty beer bottles (we don't drink, wouldn't up in the attic if we did, and we've been in the house three years) up next to the central air unit was NOT pleasing. It may explain the quality of some of the work, though.