In Which Entirely Too Much Happens

We had a long day today.

This morning we officially started work on the deck, which meant that first we had to haul off all of the old fence and deck pieces to have some room to maneuver.  It's probably always best to finish an old job before starting a new one, anyway, so this was a good thing.  Anyway, we rented a flatbed trailer, hooked it up to Jake's truck, and took just over three tons of old materials to the dump before lunch (I am actually not exaggerating here-- they weigh it at the landfill).  Needless to say we didn't go to the gym today.  We still probably have one more ton of old fence and deck parts, as well as a bunch of yard waste (I dug up a whole bunch of bushes that were in the way of our deck expansion) that will go out tomorrow. 

It ended up being a really good thing that we decided to take out the deck entirely instead of just repairing it, by the way, because as it turns out whoever originally built the deck just attached it directly to the siding of the house, with no waterproofing or flashing at all.  All of the water draining from the deck was simply running straight down our foundation.  They left a bunch of rotting wood underneath it and didn't stain it for a number of years to top it off.  There were a couple of supporting boards and posts that were heavily infested with moisture ants, and their nest was slowly creeping towards the house.  In another year or so they probably would have been actively eating the siding, which was already showing signs of rot.  So I'm very glad we decided to go ahead and do this work, because we have the chance to do it properly! 

At any rate, after lunch we had a birthday party to go to, which was a lot of fun.  It was carnival themed, and while Connor was not particularly interested in the obstacle course or the face painting he just about ate his weight in cotton candy.  He'd never tried it before, and I believe he is now convinced he has discovered the perfect food; it dissolves instantly, tastes mind-numbingly sweet, and does not require any work on his part at all.  So needless to say he was just slightly wired when I took him home, and I had to put him down for a second quiet time because he was bouncing off the walls.  It was nice to see him doing something all of the other kids were doing (there were many children skipping home with major sugar highs this afternoon) and enjoying himself; we don't get very many opportunities to have that happen.

We got home just in time to have Joanna, our respite care worker arrive, because tonight was a date night for us.  So Jeremy and I dragged ourselves out to the bookstore, slumped into a sushi bar and then oozed on into a coffee shop at the end of the night, where it took us five minutes to order because we kept staring blankly into space instead of reading the menu.  We came home an hour early because Jer's feet were really stiffening up and we were both too tired to want to stay out any longer. 

So it was a fun day, and we got a lot done, but it was really, really long. 

~Jess