The Rose of Sharon had me pinned close to the porch slats, which made painting the porch slats an awkward and uncomfortable affair. The spider crawling across my face only added to the experience.
When you reach your mid-30s, are married and pay a house mortgage, I guess this is what happens. For my birthday, I asked for a gift certificate to a big-name home improvement store to go along with the one I had asked for at Christmastime. Now, we could finally stain the porch.
Mrs. Viper and I bought our house in the fall of 2011, and the porch was new. It needed a year and a half to season, apparently, so we waited until this summer to add some color.
Wednesday, my pregnant wife did what she does best (i.e., not take it easy) and spent her day off painting the spindles, railing and the margins around the floor of the porch. When I got home from work, she was exhausted and didn't have the energy to let me finish the job.
We both were home from work by 6 p.m. yesterday, and we almost got the rest of the porch finished. She worked on the spindles and railing on the porch steps and did some touchups while I was on roller coverage duty, staining the floor and slats around the base of the porch.
The landscaping around the porch is a deathtrap. First, the Rose of Sharon, which, yes, fine, it provides some privacy from our neighbors, but it made painting on the westward side a bitch. My wife warned me it was "tricky" — pfft! Ha! Downright deadly it was.
Did I mention the spider? On my face! In my beard! Yes, call me Spider beard! Not the superhero name I need, but the one I deserve.
The rose bush at the front of the house reminded me of the Poison song. Indeed, every rose has its thorn. I know because they were stuck in my backside. My next home improvement project will be to replace our bushes with couches for the next time we have to stain the porch.
Unfortunately, the job isn't done. We have so little left to do that it felt silly to stop where we were last night, but it was getting dark and we hadn't eaten dinner yet. We were both tired and rushing our work.
For Happy Hour tonight, I'll be finishing up the last bit. Five more slats on the eastward side of the porch and the last three steps, and it's done.
BackTalk
Wherein some people have a hard time working the Internet
Some of you (e.g., Jess, Sun Runner and Redhead) expressed shock this week when you showed up to see the layout to this site has changed. Never mind that the redesign went into effect TWO WEEKS AGO, but whatever. Let me show you around.
You get only one post per page, which lets you quickly view any witty comments from your fellow readers. All past posts are linked to the left. There's a sidebar to the right that hides until you scroll over it, and that has most of the same crap that was there in the old layout (i.e., mileage, PRs, other blogs, etc.), but not all of it would fit.
You can also change the layout to suite your preferences in the bar at top. I like the clean look, and I hope it works on whichever platform you use. Mrs. Viper hates how it looks on her iPad, so sorry guys. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know in the comments, so I can easily ignore them.
Happy Hour is nearly upon us, teammates! Have a finely brewed weekend. Run well and drink well. Cheers!
1 comment:
Good luck with all that. Something tells me that the wife should have discovered the spider on your face and promptly slapped the shit out of you to eradicate the problem arachnid. it comes with the territory of both having a pregnant wife (she would have enjoyed that) and being a homeowner. Welcome to middle age, where we spend most of our time fighting suicidal tendencies.
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