Cross That Off

"Nooo!"  I quite literally threw back the cover and sprang from bed in the dark this morning, mentally yelling at the cat clinging to the newly screened door in the living room.  One of the jobs Dave did yesterday was, in my nightmare, in danger of destruction!  Standing there, trying to orient myself to the real world, I remembered that both Frank and Pearl had come in last night and so it must have been a dream.  It was time to get up anyhow, but that wasn't the wake-up call of choice.

After Dave left, I just walked around enjoying and in awe of all he'd accomplished in just three or four hours.  That includes all the time spent in the shop downstairs hunting for things like drill bits and the screening tool.  Steve had his own incomprehensible system of organization.  (It took me five years to find where he'd put the nails.)

The cranky weedeater now fires up (almost) immediately.  The sensor light on the porch, nonfunctional for years, now works again.  The volunteer oak that was growing underneath and endangering the deck boards is cut down and hauled to the burn pile.  While I made a quick run to the feed and general store for a replacement halogen bulb and gas for the weedeater, Dave had gotten on the riding mower and cut down the high weeds on the drop-off slope of the front yard.  I nearly had a coronary when I came back and saw what he'd done.  The angle of that hill scares me silly and it really should have been done with the weedeater.  It just looks so nice that I didn't beat him around the head and shoulders as he deserved for taking such a chance.  The defunct doorbell needs a new part, but Dave showed me how to fix it myself when I get that part.  Electricity scares me, but he assured me that I won't get blown across the porch or into kingdom come.  I have a tiny, "lady's," battery-driven hand drill that just isn't up to the job I need to do down in the barn.  Dave showed me how to recharge the big, manly Ryobi drill downstairs.  I'm pretty good at rescreening window screens, but knew I couldn't take down the screen door and put it back up by myself.  At around six-foot five, it was, as he put it, a piece of cake for Dave.  My job was to hand him screws, a job at which I excel!

It was certainly a day of accomplishments and appreciation.  Now if those darned dream cats will just quit hanging on the screen.