Productive and 1/2!

Saturday I created one of my infamous to-do lists. Infamous because I always set out to do waaaay more than can physically be done - and Mike gets all cheezed off because I never take into account the things that he needs/wants to do.

I had listed the following:
-Cement downstairs
-Closet rod
-Fix cedar chest
-Put in basement door
-Attic Doors
-Make basement lights work
-Get French Doors
-And Oil change for me

But knowing how these things usually go, I predicted that the first thing on the list would take all day. And that didn't turn out to be far from the truth.

Let me start at the beginning. In our basement we don't have a bulk head. I don't know why - I asked for one. Anyway, we have just a narrow, steep stairway leading up to a door to the outside. And when they poured the basement floor, they did not cement in this little space under the stairs. It was left just rocks and dirt. Mike explained that it was so that water could easily be pushed into the dirt, thus draining a wet basement if it ever got wet.

That made sense to me and we left it.

But after we created stairs from the house into the basement, Mike feared that the cats would use the space as an all natural litter box.... and he was right. So we decided to just cement it in.

That's a little history for you. Ok. So Back to Saturday. We headed off to the newly opened Lowes and picked up some cement - and I looked once again upon my french doors, which we couldn't purchase because of the rain. (It always rains when we buy concrete for some weird reason.)

But before we could even start mixing the concrete - we had to do something about the basement door to the outside. The door was currently screwed shut.

Again, let me explain. So we created the stairs from the basement into the house... but this made the house accessible from the unlockable outside door. You see, it's not just a regular door - it's just an old piece of wood on hinges without a knob or anything. So Mike put some foam insulation on the back of it, and then reinforced the whole thing with plywood and we hoped to add a locking knob to it. But we had some technical difficulties at the time and with time of the essence, Mike just put it up and screwed it shut.

Now back to saturday - we needed to get the wheelbarrow downstairs to mix concrete. So we unscrewed the door and took a chainsaw - yes a chainsaw - to the pieces of wood that were sticking out and preventing the door from fitting originally. That actually worked perfectly.

Then, on to the knob. Using a hole drilling drill attachment, we drilled both holes for the knob and - wouldn't you know - the insulated/plywooded door was too thick for it to work! Just by a CH. Frustrated, Mike took a jig saw to it and cut a recess where the knob could sit. And that seemed to work, except for one little problem - the knob was faulty! (hee hee, faulty knob - sounds like a new punk rock band.)

The thingy wouldn't spring back on its own after being opened. (You know, the little thingy on the side of the door that fits into the little hole thingy on the door jam. Whatever, shut up.) But it held and it locked so we said screw it! Plus, by now it was around 4pm... you see now how this little crap tends to take all day.


Anyway, finally we finally (finally finally!) got the wheelbarrow down stairs and mixed and poured the cement. That turned out to be the easy part. We just pried up a couple steps, and poured.

And it actually turned out pretty nice and level if I do say so myself. Anyway, by the time we finished this it was near to 6 and Mike really wanted to do that oil change for me. I begged him to put in my closet rod first, and he did, which was nice.

So then we cleared out the garage and brought in my truck. I went on a beer run while he changed my oil and, amazingly, when I got back, he asked me what else I wanted done to the truck while it was in. WELL! Boy did I have a list there. I was shocked that he asked. So then he preceded to fix my back window so it went up and down again and then, after dinner, he went back out to install my old speaker and amp. I was feeling really sick and went to bed and only learned the next day that he had been out there until 1am working on it.

I was so happy and amazed. It was like having another Christmas. Who cared that the whole list didn't get done - I got more than what I wanted.