All Hands on Deck!

God, I'm tired.

I'm talking bone-deep exhaustion, my feet are on strike, my brain is foggy...Holy crap.

I, along with my son and my best friend, spent the day building a deck where our back step used to be. It's nearly 31 feet by 12 feet, extending along the entire back wall of the house up to the basement steps. We're not done, but the frame is almost complete; we've got eight joists left to go. My friend's coming back tomorrow so we can get it done.

There's a reason my dream job involves sitting at a computer all day and making stuff up. Manual labor just doesn't fit in that scheme. Some people, like my son, are built for manual labor, both physically and mentally. He's just a shade under six feet tall, and has been into tools, trains and heavy machinery since shortly after leaving the womb. I, on the other hand, stretch out to 5'7 1/2" on a good day, and have a pronounced allergy to tools. More accurately, they're allergic to me. My father-in-law installed a rule board in his workshop a few years ago. It says, 'Rule 1: Glen is not allowed to touch any tools. Rule 2: If you need Glen to get one of my tools, see Rule 1.' I think that was right after I broke two hammers and three screwdrivers on one job. What can I say? I have a gift.

We actually didn't do too badly today, though; I didn't break anything. The only screw-ups on the day were when we put the supporting patio stones too close together and had to move them out further, and when my son cut a board an inch too short. Fortunately, neither screw-up was irreversible, and we took care of it. I actually wasn't responsible for any of the screw-ups, so I'm calling that a win.

My wife participated; we needed her to go buy a couple of things that we were short on; lag bolts and washers. She came back with those, and with a new patio furniture set that just happened to be on clearance. A ten-dollar shopping trip turned into over five hundred just like that. I knew there was trouble when she came back and said those famous words: "Guess how much money I saved, Honey!"

My wallet weeps.

Anyway, I'm cutting this one short today, because I'm going to bed early. And tomorrow, we get to do it all over again. We're going to get the deck and the privacy screen up tomorrow; it's going to be great. But first...sleep. And pain-killers. Especially pain-killers.