Hooray For Saturday!

Intimate With Stripper

I have been getting very intimate with gallons of wood stripper and a pressure washer the past few days.

Here are a few things I have learned so far in my do-it-yourself reconditioning of our big-ass elevated wooden deck.

• Don't get cheap with the chemicals, let them do the work for you even if it takes more bottles than it says it should.
• If you let this stripper stuff stay on your skin for a while it burns like crazy, but it does get rid of poison ivy.  Bonus.
• Parts of our deck are much higher in the air than I thought they were and I have an inadequate ladder for the job.
• Just when I was about to throw in the towel on Sunday and look for estimates to finish the job, the little "Quitters never win, winners never quit!" voice started inside my head.  Thank you Coach Payne.
• If I ever have to do this job again, don't be an idiot and do it in the middle of the summer.
• There is a reason that composite decking is so expensive.  If we could afford it, we would not be having this conversation right now.  Gas and matches would have been involved on our current deck and a new composite one would be installed soon.
• When working on slats in the heat that has settled into this part of the country, it's very easy for one to start to hallucinate that they are a piece of meat on a hot grill.
• I have consumed about 764 gallons of water in the past four days.
• Pressure washers are cool, even though I'm really starting to hate getting wet from it all the time.  If I had my very own pressure washer there is a chance I would find something to wash with it at least once a week.  I appreciate the money I'm saving with the loaner from my friend Fred and not having to rent one.
• Coach Payne is an idiot, quitters would be spending time with family and leisure activities or in the air conditioning.
• It is official, I'm crazy that I thought I would be able to get this job done in a couple of days.  This could take all month.

So today when The Lady gets home, it's back outside to get stripping.  I'm hoping I will be able to finish my little soiree with the stripper tonight.

Then I can start with the sander.  Oh joy!

Stained

Chalk one up to for the I think I bit off more than I could chew idea.

I had this great idea that I would strip and stain our deck this weekend while the kids and wife went away to the out-laws house in Indianapolis.  I would be able to do this because I would work uninterrupted.

Right now it's about 164 degrees outside and the deck off the back of our house, is looking as if it's the size of the deck on this thing.

The stuff that I'm using to strip the old stain off needs to be administered without direct sunlight.  I thought surely I could use this before the deck gets in the shade.  Let's just say that when our children have times when they don't follow directions, I can now truly say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. 

I'm an idiot.

Let's see there are corrosive chemicals and a pressure washer involved.  Perhaps I should have invested in the rubber gloves.

Now the goal is to just have it stripped and cleaned, ready and prepared for stain before they get home.

Did I mention it's 164 degrees outside?

Do You Have SPF 450?

So it was a beautiful this past weekend in Northern Kentucky.  The temperature was in the upper 70's on Saturday, right about 80 on Sunday and the sun was shining bright.

Saturday was the a disc golf course challenge I played in at Boone Woods park, in Burlington, KY and Sunday it was time to groom the yard around our mansion.

Now, needless to say if you were looking at me right now you would see, my face is sunburned.  That's right, red, fried, scorched, on fire.  The skin on my forehead and cheeks is about as tight as a Stewart Copeland snare drum head. 

The tight skin of my face, with the flame coming off the back-burner, which used to be know as the back of my neck, might be a way for us to cook pancake night without even having to dirty a pan or griddle. 

I'll just lean back on the counter top and The Lady can cook a silver dollar pancake on each cheek, as the sausage fries up nice, right there above the eyebrows on the hot spot. 

I know, yummy right?

I'm sunburned.  I have learned my lesson again the hard way, as I do every year, it's time to start dunking myself in the highest SPF sunscreen I can find before I venture outdoors.

Double Edged Sword

Good thing

• One of The Little Man's favorite meals is beans and franks, or beanie weenies if you are feeling festive.  I like it because it's easy to prepare and he eats it very quickly.

Bad thing

• I get to wake up to beanie weenies and I can assure you, it's no party.

Evacuation

The Lady, Doodlebug and The Little Man just drove up to spend the night with the out-laws.

"I cooked up a big pot of spicy steak chili for dinner.  I know romance, and nothing says romance better than a big pot of chili."

I'm an idiot.

Mental note to self.  Next Valentine's Day, dry toast.

Conscious speaking.  "enjoy the silence"