Home improvement

Monday morning's pillow talk was about how hot the weather was getting and how we really needed to be able to park our cars in the garage soon. That meant I needed to finish unpacking my stuff that was preventing that particular use for the garage. So when Dave pulled away for work that morning to deal with a flooded clinic, I set to work. It didn't take me long to realize we had a big problem: we had almost no storage space in the garage beyond the floor. I did as much as I could but Dave came home to one frustrated organization freak.

His solution: let's build shelves! I of course didn't want to do that project on a weeknight, but Dave pointed out that if we didn't do it right then, it wasn't going to happen for at least a week since had other commitments, including being on call. So, off we went to Home Depot for family home evening. I'll be honest, I had my doubts about our ability to build sturdy shelves in one night, especially since our planning session lasted about 10 minutes and involved one family member consultation. But we needed shelves. So off we went.

One hour later we were home, trying to make our plan a reality. It was 9:30 pm. Dave swore we would be done by midnight. My experience has taught me to double Dave's time estimates in my head so I don't get frustrated. He is optimistic. I am realistic. We make a really good team.

10:30 p.m.

11:45 p.m. We weren't going to be done by midnight...

12:27 a.m. By this time Dave had knocked his water cup over twice. He blamed me for both occurrences, even though I was out front sawing both times. He claimed my mere presence was enough (it's usually ME knocking over water/soda cups).

1:07 a.m. FINISHED! I was really proud of us. We really are a great team. We sang 50s tunes while we worked thanks to Pandora and only had to re-cut one section of boards. Not one cross word the entire night, either. Not bad for an on-the-fly home improvement project! And it even holds our boxes (pictures to come)!