Last Vacation of the Summer - Take Two
Note: I had a really great, long post written, and blogger ate it. All I could recover is what follows...not even half of my post. I am too aggravated to rewrite it now. In summary, we painted the garage doors too, which was a project in itself, and moved Youngest Son back to school on Labor Day. I did some long overdue transplanting of stuff, of which I took photos and might post about separately when I get over being peeved at blogger. For now, read what blogger didn't eat. Grrrrr!
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My last vacation of the summer is over. I am back at work. Oddly, I missed being at work when I was off. What does that say about me? Maybe it just says a lot about my job.
The week off was a busy one, as I said it would be. We successfully accomplished the power-washing and restaining of our deck (photos to follow), with the assistance of daughter and son-in-law, who came over one afternoon to help us get the project completed in at least half the time it would have taken the two of us alone. We repaid them with a BBQ dinner of tri-tip, roasted peppers and zucchini, green salad with tomatoes fresh from my dad's garden, and Italian bread, with ice cream for dessert. During the meal, Grandson, age 5, was stung by a wasp - the second time in as many days. The yard seemed to be infested with the darned things, and Grandson appears to be a wasp magnet. I have the magic potion, though, that stops the swelling and the pain almost immediately - Adolph's meat tenderizer dissolved in a bit of water, applied with a cotton ball to the sting and held in place for several minutes. Grandson is convinced Grammy is magic. Meanwhile, Poppy and Dad are out spraying wasps with "dead on contact" spray, knocking down wasp nests from hidden places, and stomping them to bits. Turns out there was a huge wasp's nest right next to the swingset on a post used to hold up the tarp covering our boat. Grandson was swinging when the first sting came - on his face next to his mouth. The second sting came while sitting on our wrought iron picnic table eating dinner. The little yellow striped buggers had made nests in each of the four open-ended pipes that made up the legs of the table - right under Grandson's seat. Lucky kid.
Once the staining was finished, it was on to the trim. The deck is 800 square feet of cedar with slate blue fascia and railings that are a combination of slate blue, white vinyl lattice, and white vinyl handrails. All the blue trim had to be painted - carefully so as not to get any paint on the newly stained deck surface. You have no idea how much work that involved. Backbreaking work that could only be done after 2PM when shade hits the deck. Spouse did 95% of it. All I did was get the small art brush and do the places that were too small or precise for his big brush. (subsequent paragraphs gobbled by blogger)
