"You say, go slow. I fall behind"....
That is exactly what it feels like when you rent a van at Home Depot to haul the stuff you haven't yet bought on a Saturday when everyone else is at the depot to get their garden and deck stuff.
After switching back to summer tires yesterday (and thinking the guy at Country Tire was cute and doing absolutely nothing about it) I decided that I needed to finish the front retaining wall for the flower beds. It looked kind of dumb half-done on one side. So off I went to Home Depot after calling to make sure that I could rent a van from them (none in Airdrie of course) since 500lbs of stuff in the trunk would not be good for my little Mazda...a new way to look at having a lot of junk in the trunk but probably not a good idea.
Anyway, the guy there gave me 45 mins to get my stuff and then I had an hour and a half to get home, unloaded and back with a gas receipt proving I had filled up again.
If you've ever seen Home Depot on a Saturday then you know that this is a lot like running a gauntlet...get to the garden centre at the far end of the store, find a flatbed cart, try not to get distracted by all the plants and trees and shiny things, locate the bricks and start loading, crush a finger between two bricks; utter obscenities and realize you've snapped a nail, continue, tour the plants section and pick up a few shrubs and some flowers, realize the till is lined up 15 people deep so head inside with the cart weighing about 400 lbs, check out and load van, realize you need gravel, head back inside, search the garden centre and give up on the kind that you want and pick some that is probably twice the price, time check 1 hr 20min left to get home and unloaded and back, check out again, load the van next to 2 guys casually loading their truck who make no effort to help or get out of the way, look at the time and decide against a 3rd trip into the store for fence stuff, hit the road, stop and lock the van doors due to fear that they will open on the Deerfoot and create a scene, get onto the Deerfoot which is under reduced speedlimit for construction, get home and haul ass unloading stuff, head back with 20min to get there with gas stop....make it just under the wire, sweating and with brick dust in a lot of places that it shouldn't be - eyes, ears, nose and down the front of my tanktop, locate the car and head home.
On the way home I decided I needed a slurpee so I stopped at the local 7-11 and discovered a new favorite flavor - pink grapefruit!
After switching back to summer tires yesterday (and thinking the guy at Country Tire was cute and doing absolutely nothing about it) I decided that I needed to finish the front retaining wall for the flower beds. It looked kind of dumb half-done on one side. So off I went to Home Depot after calling to make sure that I could rent a van from them (none in Airdrie of course) since 500lbs of stuff in the trunk would not be good for my little Mazda...a new way to look at having a lot of junk in the trunk but probably not a good idea.
Anyway, the guy there gave me 45 mins to get my stuff and then I had an hour and a half to get home, unloaded and back with a gas receipt proving I had filled up again.
If you've ever seen Home Depot on a Saturday then you know that this is a lot like running a gauntlet...get to the garden centre at the far end of the store, find a flatbed cart, try not to get distracted by all the plants and trees and shiny things, locate the bricks and start loading, crush a finger between two bricks; utter obscenities and realize you've snapped a nail, continue, tour the plants section and pick up a few shrubs and some flowers, realize the till is lined up 15 people deep so head inside with the cart weighing about 400 lbs, check out and load van, realize you need gravel, head back inside, search the garden centre and give up on the kind that you want and pick some that is probably twice the price, time check 1 hr 20min left to get home and unloaded and back, check out again, load the van next to 2 guys casually loading their truck who make no effort to help or get out of the way, look at the time and decide against a 3rd trip into the store for fence stuff, hit the road, stop and lock the van doors due to fear that they will open on the Deerfoot and create a scene, get onto the Deerfoot which is under reduced speedlimit for construction, get home and haul ass unloading stuff, head back with 20min to get there with gas stop....make it just under the wire, sweating and with brick dust in a lot of places that it shouldn't be - eyes, ears, nose and down the front of my tanktop, locate the car and head home.
On the way home I decided I needed a slurpee so I stopped at the local 7-11 and discovered a new favorite flavor - pink grapefruit!
Then I started on the wall and when I went to place the bricks I realized that I had the wrong kind...or half of the wrong kind...for them to stack together properly. After an almost meltdown I decided that it was only 2 rows so wasn't a structural issue and that I wasn't going to haul back half the bricks and go through the exercise above again. Of course it is bugging me a bit that it's not quite done right but I'm hoping that will pass. In any case it looks better than before. Unfortunately, it also looks like the grass needs mowing again (in less than a week!) and it needs to be trimmed back from the walk.
This was the house before:
Today I still need to plant the shrubs and decide if I want any more - I'm thinking I may just buy a couple of bigger ones for the back or I may just save my energy for the upcoming fence that has to be torn down and rebuilt. And yes, suggestions for getting rid of the horrible dogwood that I have been chopping at for 3 summers now are welcomed.
Most recent run: screw the running...I hauled 38 x 9lbs of bricks plus 5 x 40lbs of rock plus misc. plants = a homemade workout
Days left to train for run: see above
Dates since last post: 0...including one recent chattee from online who informed me he's now "seeing someone that looks like it has potential so sorry and good luck"...I can't decide if this is better than just disappearing (which I have also been guilty of), laughable or what. Maybe I need more new tires...
1 comments:
ok now that I see the picture again I'm not so sure that's a dogwood. Er, not that that makes much of a difference to potential destruction methods. Roundup followed by a chainsaw would be my recommendation.
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