Too many projects

Simple. It was a simple goal. "Clean the garage." Good heavens.

I knew there were some old blinds in the rafters of our garage. North Liberty is having a 'Spring Clean-Up' day later this month so I wanted to get them down and put them in the pile to go to the dump. When I got them down, I discovered they matched the width of our two windows in the garage that did not already have blinds. So "clean the garage" was replaced with "hang blinds in the garage." It probably took longer than it should have - I'm not really the Tim the Tool Man type - but I was proud of myself when I got them up. The purpose of the blinds in the garage is to block the AM sun and the PM sun from the truck - our 2007 red Ford F-150. You know, the multi-thousand dollar vehicle we don't drive unless we have to b/c the van still runs and my car - an Achieva I bought from my Grandma years ago for $5 - still runs. So, after the blinds are up, and after some time passes, a friend of my daughter calls and wants her to come over. My wife takes her over but - because our van was in the auto shop @ Sears - my son and I go to Sears, my wife leaves to take my daughter and my son and I go to Payless Shoes @ the mall to take back a pair of tennis shoes.

When we finally come home, it is 2:30 and my left knee is starting to hurt. I last until 3:00 before I get down a chair from the rafters and sit. My wife comes home a little later. Is the garage done? At that point, nope. We had worked on it since ~10:30 and here it was 3:00 and we were not done.

At that point, I didn't care. Our neighbor Margaret came over, I offered her a beer, and that was the end of working on the garage. Later, our friend Jessica came over with her 4 year old 2nd cousin she was watching as did our neighbors from across the street with their newborn son. My wife was determined to get the garage done so she chatted while the rest of us sat on our butts. The sun was beautiful and if the wind would have been just a little calmer, it would have seemed like a lazy Saturday in July.

Then, around 5:30, people had to leave and I ended up going to the store with a list from my wife. Later we ordered pizza and watched the original Willy Wonka movie on TV. I also toggled over to the UNC v. KS game - for historical reference, KS won and plays Memphis in the championship game Monday night - before finally getting tired enough to go to bed ~10:30.

In the end, the garage is clean, the blinds are up, and life is good. We are going to 8:30 Mass and it's 7:30 now so I need to go.