When the music stops, I realized that I had to start Pandora back up, who asked me if I was still listening. It was a nice reminder of reality, the here and now.
Another day with the kids was a nice refresher before returning to a short work week and the grind. In particular, I got to spend individual 'man to man' time with my youngest. We chatted, finished a few chores, had a few moments of quiet, and I stopped to listen to what he had to say. It was always amazing to me what an eleven year old has to say with his inquiries and musings about life, rights and wrongs, questions about bystanders walking as we drove about town, and his observations of the world.
I asked him if he enjoyed our Austin Black History tour the day before. I was pleased to hear that he enjoyed it very much.
I attempted to start the day as before with two servings of water, but I did not get to it until nearly the noon hour when I was half starved and desperately thirsty. I got caught up with my errands around town though.
Later in the day, I met up with my daughter, who returned from a half day with her violin at the University Interscholastic League (UIL) competition. She was in a particularly good mood. After she filled me in about her day, I decided to tell her how much I enjoyed my day with her during the tour the day before. I figured my strategy would be different and I instead told her how I felt about it.
Similar to her brother, she committed that she had a good time as well, smiled my way, and went on talking about another UIL story. As the kids spoke back and forth with one another on the trip to Home Depot, I could not help but feel pleasantly surprised as well as appreciative of them. It was nice to have my experience match up with what I thought was their experience.
Kids and parents do not always have a synergy of experience because as expected we have different agendas, goals, wants, and needs. On our way to Home Depot, I certainly had my own agenda. I wanted to build a raised garden bed.
I wanted to start small with two 4' x 4' wooden beds to go in my yard. I went to a class to learn how to build these myself. However, the class had been at least a year ago. I went to Home Depot and online to price out the materials while attempting to decipher the notes I made when I attended the class.
Thankfully, I made sense of what I could, bought the materials with the kids in tow. With God's grace, all things are possible. Yes, I just got finished gushing about my kids. But, in about ten or fifteen minutes, I was about to bust some heads open.
Anyway, I purchased what I needed and waited until after dinner, putting the kids to bed before working on the first raised garden bed frame. It wasn't pretty; sweat poured down and sideways across my face, glasses had to be cleaned at least a dozen times, and I wished I hadn't waited so long before applying what I learned.
Earlier at Home Depot, I had two 2" x 12' x 10' untreated wooden boards cut to 4' 3" 1/4 or 51" for each side of the raised garden bed, picked up 70 3" screws, a 2" x 2" x 8' length of wood, and a hand saw to cut the wood into 12" lengths of wood.
No worries. I got one done.
Back hurting a bit, knees slightly throbbed, and blood rushed to my head when I finally stood from my pet project. It was done. I'll do the second one tomorrow. I'll need to return to Home Depot for more wood. I miscalculated thinking I had enough for two beds. Oh, well. Shit happens!
Before I finished editing this blog, I finished the last two servings of water for the day. All this and much more before the hand strikes midnight. Is this how Cinderfella felt after the ball?
I did achieve my goal of eating more fruits and vegetables today. The sweets fixation returned. Temptation was strong as I did take a swig from my son's fruit punch. I put it down, drank a glass of water, and consumed an orange. The craving passed for the moment and returned once later in the day before eating dinner.
The cravings have become a bit unpredictable. However, I'm responding relatively well.
I will be returning to a regular schedule at work tomorrow, which is something else to look forward to. Until then, I'll be relaxing like my follow brother in arms in the photo above. It reflected my idea of a raised gardening bed.
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