Friday, June 16, 2006

Gasp, more painting!

Another busy day behind me – today I put on the hat of painter again and set to work on the ancient “punk” chair which one might have previously avoided sitting on. Nick put a screw or two into it yesterday to stabilize it a bit, and declared it ready for painting. It’s now a bright postbox red, although the very dry wood has absorbed approximately half the paint, so despite almost pouring it on in some places, the wood merely looks stained in parts and not painted. I might have to have another go at it tomorrow. Perhaps if I had applied some sort of wood sealant before painting I would have had better luck…another incident for the “DIY don’t” archives…

Other than that, we did school, then went to town for a few bits and pieces, and I realized that its Father’s Day on Sunday. With that in mind, we wandered around the tool section in the Emporium, and finally settled on a hammer and saw (but don’t tell him, it’s a surprise). Those will be extremely useful to Nick, since we currently use the machete and hacksaw for any woodworking project – rather limiting. Nick finished his sermon prep last night, and then did radio talk prep today, which he finished before lunch, so he was at a bit of a loose end during the afternoon. He wanted to do some visitation, but got waylaid watching me paint the chair (this sounds vaguely reminiscent of the time he sat blowing into a bottle while I, seven months pregnant, scrubbed a newly-acquired headboard clean, or some other heavy physical labour – I forget what. Perhaps the reminiscence is vague rather than the story being vaguely reminiscent). To his credit though, he fixed up another chair which he found in the garage, which I polished and he put into our bedroom, to replace the blue plastic chair which had been inelegantly awaiting replacement or covering. That being accomplished, Nick was free to set up a complicated arrangement of ladders and ropes to create a pulley system for the boys to play with. This amused Caleb greatly and he found inventive ways of anchoring the very long rope – around poles, over pieces of wood, meshed with pipes…the garden looked like the workings of a demented spider.

Supper was a good macaroni and cheese, with proper macaroni this time – no more “fusilli cheese” or whatever other pasta I had on hand! I even managed to get myself organized enough to buy bacon, and I had half a tomato in the fridge. After the boys bathed, we made Father’s Day cards. Caleb did all his own writing, though I spelled out each word for him so it’s actually decipherable, and Aaron traced over the writing I did for him. Then Caleb drew a picture on the front of what he wants to see on his dad’s face – a big smile! There are two little eyes, two ears, and a nose with two giant nostrils to accompany the smile.

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