Me Being Industrious in My Own Special Way

A while back Ben's mom found his old bed frame in her parents' attic. She's been wanting us to pick it up because it actually goes with all of Henry's bedroom furniture, but we've been putting it off, mostly because we don't have a vehicle large enough to put it in. Anyway with the help of a friend and her minivan, I got it home. I had to rig it because the mattress Henry sleeps on is some weird set that for some reason is about two inches too narrow for a full size bed frame. I wasn't satisfied with the original rig, so I decided to fix that today. First, since Henry had the day off from school, we slept in late (eight is late for us now) and then since it's actually warmed up enough to go outside, after breakfast we went to the park. Everything was soaking wet from the rain last night, but it was warm and Henry had his scooter and played with some kids from a day care. On the way back home Henry and I doubled up on the scooter and rode down the sidewalk together. It was a cool ride, flying down the hill real fast, the wind blowing through our hair, underneath a beautiful, cloudless blue sky.

At the hardware store I got a bag of bird seed, potting soil, a bunch of seeds, and two 2x4s. The guy at the checkout counter let Henry scan everything and asked if I was doing a greenhouse project. I informed him that I was jerry-rigging my son's bed with the 2x4s, and yes, the other stuff was for my garden, (which I won't get to for a few months, but at least I'll have the stuff ready when I do). I had to do some quick thinking when we got to the car, because the grandpa mobile (Uncle Guzzle) is so old the back seats don't fold down. I ended up unrolling the back window and sticking them through there over the lowered passenger seat and wedging them in the floorboard beneath the dash. Then I secured the ends with a bungee, cushioned the window glass with a knit hat, and we were on our way.

At home I measured the bed frame, cut the 2x4s with a hand saw, and fixed Henry's bed. That mattress ain't going nowhere.

Wanna see? (Guess I should've properly made the bed before taking this picture. For that matter, I should've gotten Henry to clean his room a little.)


Then I got to work trying to remedy this little problem:


Yes, the old dead tree finally keeled over. I think I might have preferred if it had missed that branch and smashed part of the fence. That I could more easily fix. As it is, yeah, it makes me very nervous. Knowing that the tree is going come down no matter what, I thought I could spare the fence at least, so I hammered the two fence panels beneath the tree loose and moved them out of the way. Henry helped by hammering different parts of the fence and staying out of my way. When Ben got home I suggested that he cut the branch that the dead tree was leaning against, so he set the ladder against the beech tree to see how he might go about doing so. It's way up there, and upon closer inspection, seems to be about as thick as Ben's leg. Now we're going to make inquiries about a chainsaw.

Then at about four Henry got a phone call from one of his friends asking him to play with her at the park. So we went down there again, this time Henry rode his bike. He's still a little slow on pedaling, and on the slightest hill he needs a push, so I'm making him take his bike out as much as possible to build up those skinny legs of his. At the park we played for about and hour and then went home and made pizza.

Still on my list of things to do: a whole list of home repairs, and oh, yeah, clean the kitchen, and throw those whites in the dryer. And fold the huge pile of laundry.