A recipe for good sleep

For people like me who often suffer from insomnia, I offer this recipe for a good night's sleep:

• Work until 1:00 am on Monday night installing boxes for electric outlets.
  
• On Tuesday pick up hundreds of pounds of supplies for two different projects. Load 11 bags of quickcrete in back of truck. Work until 1:00 am on various little parts of the new bathroom.
  
• Wake up at 4:45 am on Wednesday. Drive over an hour to the family farm. Finish building dock. Return home for a day's worth of paying work. Welcome friends at 6:00 pm who will drink beer and help with drain pipes. Finish running electrical wires and cutting holes in the floor inside the wall so pipes can be hidden by the wall. Fall asleep to the soothing sounds of your wife framing a wall.

Santa Claus is in my bed!

That's what my 2 year old woke up screaming at 4:30am two nights ago. I'm still trying to figure out why it would be so bad that Santa might be in one's room. I mean, after all, he's a great guy who children are supposed to love, but he didn't seem to be so fond of the idea.

It's hard to stay productive when you're working 9:00 pm to midnight and then your kids wake you up twice a night. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


And in case you're even thinking of asking, no, there was nothing resembling a man in a red suit anywhere to be seen.

The Project - Days 2 through 4

Is there any better sport to watch live than hockey? Maybe watching paint dry? I got to do both Thursday night with a trip to Taco Mac and helping with a friend's towed car in between (hint: when in Va Highlands, read the signs carefully!) Painting at 2:00 am is not that much fun, but we stayed ahead of schedule.

Friday was very busy. We got furniture moved and began demolition in the bathroom. The toilet's now next to the house (it makes a great planter, I prefer something with bright flowers) and the sink's on the curb. It was loads of fun to watch our two year old trying to figure out what happened to his room. Small changes like that are a big deal for someone of that age.

Things got even more fun on Saturday when the wall was finaly knocked out. Few things are more satisfying than watching a wall fall down. Strange fact - there are no studs in the wall we knocked out. Instead, it was made up of three sheets of sheetrock glued together and held in place by the crown and floor molding. We also moved the wall light and ran the wiring for the shower light. We're now a full two days ahead of schedule.

Easter Sunday is a day for spiritual reflection and dinner with family. It's also time for the traditional turning off of the water in the house. I cut and capped the old supply lines. Fortunately the caps held the first time and everything's dry.

I'd forgotten just how much fun doing this kind of work can be. And we've never been ahead of schedule on a project before. I'm confident that will change once the hard work begins...