Labor Day

Yesterday morning I had a perfectly good yard. But, no, that wasn't enough for me. I have to have a patio. First there was measuring and the driving of stakes. Then the fun really began with some digging. Then all that dirt had to be put in a wheelbarrow to be dumped down the hill.

After we'd had sucked all of the enjoyment from that, we took a trip to Home Depot where we encountered the world's dumbest man. And he picked us to "help." We loaded 15 bags of gravel and 25 bags of sand on our cart. Then we moved it from the cart to the back of the truck. Then we brought it all home where it had to be moved from the back of the truck to the back yard. After spreading it all over the yard, Dad decided we needed more. Mercifully, it was decided this would be tomorrow's activity. Thinking we would only need a couple more bags and that the tomorrow wouldn't be nearly as much fun, I decided that now would be the perfect time to start painting the living room so that the bookcases could be delivered this week. So I painted for a couple of hours.

Little did I know that Dad was thinking while I was painting. Thinking that we should rake up all of the sand we spread, buy 40 more bags of gravel, spread that, then spread the sand again. And so after another trip to Home Depot, (with all of the loading and unloading and moving of heavy bags that the first trip entailed) this is what we did. But we stopped short of spreading the sand back, because, well, we still need more gravel.

Today's highpoint, well, after all of the gravel unloading, came while I was raking sand. Dad, seated in the only shade in the yard and drinking a cold Coke, informed me that my raking was "not very precise" and "it's a good thing I don't have to make a living with a rake." Yes, it is a very good thing because I would probably be pretty poor. That's why I got all of that fancy education. It cost roughly the same amount as all of the sand and gravel I've bought in the past two days and wasn't nearly as much work.