Why can't a Girl??????

Have a little time alone with her pressure washer???
Couple of years ago I went out all alone and bought myself a pressure washer. Nice one just the right size, not a big monster but not a wimp either. So every one around here gets to use it but me. Minute I mention pressure washing there are ten reasons why I can't use it.
Up in the barn loft got to wait for someone to get it down.
Gas cans empty, you'll have to wait.
Can't use it now Josh has it, Jen has it, my Dad has it, the neighbors have it.
"No Holly, I made arrangements with Jamie, he is coming over and doing that job."
Ric runs right down there and gets it out and does the job himself.
Sigh............
Ok, Ric's hands are pretty bad today. Had the carpel tunnel (sp) fixed but the arthritis is pretty bad and he has been using them a lot.
So finally I get to use the pressure washer. WOW (on knees doing deep bows)
Ric wants boat and trailer washed. First wants top lip done but doesn't want water in boat (deck recently painted). Ok can't do top edge without getting some water in boat so leave that for tomorrow. Start working down the boat. Ric takes PW away from me and does area around the boat numbers and registration sticker. "What! No I am not that stupid, I know that I have to be careful the PW can loosen or remove stickers. I was being careful. Figure I will work my way down the side of boat, do back of boat and then work back to the front doing the trailer. Then work other side same way. Nope, get half way down boat and Ric (who has been standing quietly observing me) comes and takes the PW again and starts working on the trailer. I explain that I do have a plan and instead of hoping all over the job doing this little part and that little part. When I get done the whole boat and trailer (other than the top edge will be done). Ric now decides that he wants the top edge done and doesn't care if the deck gets wet, it's probably dry enough anyway. But instead of giving me back the PW, he does that part himself and then gives it back.
OK, Boat done now I want to move on to the job I have been trying to do. The back deck. Whoopee. After first trying to talk me out of doing the job, “Holly aren’t you tired”? Ric brings PW up from barn and gets it all set up.
I get started and he leaves for the barn, Sigh.......Ric comes back....... No I don't need a break; no I'm not tired, hungry, thirsty or need to pee!!!!! Ric won't leave until I take a mandatory break. OK break over PW back in hand happily working away. Ric comes back, No I don't need another beak, and don’t you have something else you need to do, like getting out all your salt water fishing gear for the trip next week?
Ric won't leave another mandatory break. Sigh....PW back in hand and happily working away again. Only one more mandatory break then Ric asks would I like dinner. He's going to run out and pick up something. Oh yes please I would love dinner, and getting you out of my hair too!!!!! Alright second part only thought not spoke. Ric leaves, Josh shows up comes out and sees me washing the lattice and takes the wand away and shows me how I "should" be washing the lattice, following the indivual pieces not spraying in the side to side pattern I'm using. I in my nicest Mother voice explain that yes I do know that and yes I have been doing that. But this section has some wood behind it and I'm working from side to side to get the board under the lattice. Josh leaves, alone again and getting close to finishing. It's getting late, dark and cold but I'm sure I can get it done. That is when Jamie shows up and waves me to come in. I shake my head NO. I'm almost there close to the finish line, I will not stop. Then grandson little JR opens the door and yells Grams. That's it I’ve been defeated.

Well there is always tomorrow morning.
Hey Josh and Jamie are going to the river to put in the docks. Ric is going to take his boat down and give it a test drive. WOW I maybe alone.
OH yeah, that’s right tomorrow is the girls turn to keep me from my wonderful pressure washer. Both Julie and Jen are coming and dear granddaughter little Lily bug. LOL

LOL - awwwww poor you - can't enjoy a little PW in peace can ya??? With all the interuptions it probably took longer than it should have :-)

I am very luck in that respect - DH is incapable of doing anything "practical", so I either get to do it or we hire someone :-)

This message was edited May 3, 2008 11:55 PM

LOL, I knew you girls would understand. My guys are all real handy as you have all seen. And as the boys grew up I did less because they did more and Ric is one of those hyperactive types. You almost have to sit on him to stop him, but sometimes I think they forget what all I can do. I saw Ric dragging this really big tarp across the yard the other day. Trying to get it folded up in a pretty brisk wind. So I went out and said why didn't you call me and as usual I get that old I can do it myself. God forbid he'd ask for help. He has a lot of pain with his hands and he spent all day yesterday working on the boat so today he was really in a lot of pain this morning. Working the PW with keeping a tight grip and the vibration would make it worse for him. So here I am trying to do something I like doing and something he shouldn't be doing and I have to practically beat him away.

Honey, its a power tool! You know how "macho" they guys get about power tools and they don't want to share either.
Hugs, Holly. But they can't watch you all the time, LOL You will get your turn with the PW eventually.

LOL... chuckling *with* you and not at you, I promise. DH has a way of re-planning my projects from scratch, generally while we're standing in the middle of the aisle at Home Depot, with 3/4 of the things on my list already in the cart, 5 minutes from going through the checkout line if we weren't suddenly having to rethink the entire thing LOL. I think I have to start going to HD by myself, before the start of our "project day." Jim isn't incapable, but he overbuilds everything, not always to the positive... with a shelf where most people would secure it with a couple of nails, and I'd use a couple of screws for extra hold, he wants to put in 6 screws on each end, to the point where the wood threatens to split. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating. By one screw. LOL

LOL Doccat, Yep (sitting here smacking myself up along the side of my head) You're right it is a "power tool". Should have thought of that myself.
Critter, I can just see you now standing in that HD isle. LOL
Bec, I forgot to tell you last night. You are not my only friend that is the fixer upper in the house. Her husband can't do anything. Last year she even took her tools and went down to her Dads house and installed a ceiling light (not really that hard to do) because neither her Dad (pretty elderly) nor her brother could do it.
It's pretty bad when the first thought out of your head when you wake up at 6:30 is go get the PW now before Ric wakes up. LOL

Get it and go, Holly my gurl!!

You know what they say..."possession is..." ^_^

LOLOL You're cracking me up, Holly. Set the powerwasher up to max and turn it on them. With a smile because of course they mean well. LOL Stay away from the lady with the powerwasher.

It's just so nice to have friends to Vent to from time to time.
Oh No just heard the PW starting up, gotta run.......

HollyAnn, Send Ric and the PW to my house LOL, DH has been talking about borrowing the PW from the firehall to do the house, thats been over 2 years now. And I'm hot going out to buy one, I have enough POWER equipment in the garage as it is. 8^ (

Holly, they are kind of *fun*, eh? My fence is getting nice & green, do you want to come down for a wknd? I'll cook! :)

Whenever I wash the fence, I end up soaking wet from head to toe and covered in ... well, Glop.

I would also get on the lets let HOLLY use the PW list. My house could use a scrub........LOL

You guys are a fit, Have PW will travel. LOL
Chris, HA 2 years ain't nothing around here for putting off jobs. I can't remember when was the last time we did the house and I would look at it and think I have got to get that cleaned and stained but it just never got done. Last month Ric PW the front and stained it. It only took 2 days and $45.00 to do the job, you'd think we could have fit that small job in sometime. Right now we are rolling thru jobs that have been sitting in the planing stage or on the back burner for a long time. I will say that we did work different shifts and a whole lot of extra hours for a long time. When we had weekends and days off house work and projects were the last thing on our minds. LOL
Here's what the deck looked like before I started. Note very ugly opaque stain that somehow got put on. Ric swears that I approved this but I know that I would never use opaque stain. Plywood gate nice and sturdy works great, never painted. Broken lower lattice, thanks to Buddy. Lower deck never stained just that weathered. Ah new deck boxes, looking pretty good.

When you are a home owner the jobs never end. We have been in this house for 38 years. When we were younger we would start painting the house, by the time we got to the 4th side we would run out of interest and take a break, 4th side didn't get done. Then the next time DH said he was going to paint the house, I said no we are not! We are having it sided and hiring it done. He looked at me and didn't say a word. Best thing we ever did!
As we get older I am hiring out more jobs that take climbing on ladders and big heavy jobs. I'm thinking at new gutters and down spouts next. But then we have to get a new furnace before next winter. And the list goes on and on and on........

PS. My DH has Scot in his blood so he is tight with the $, so wants to do everything himself.

Chris

You are right the list is never ending but I really do love being outside working on things. It is getting harder to do the work even at our age 55 , not really that old. I have aches and pains that I would never have had 10 years ago, so I know as we age even more it will get harder. Ric is so handy that it is hard to get him to pay someone to do the work even if he doesn't want to do it. I remember several years ago one winter he needed some mechanical work done to the car. He's a half decent mechanic but really doesn't enjoy it, especially with the arthritis in is hands working with cold tools in cold damp weather is very hard on him. I talked him to sending the car to the garage to have it fixed, told him one days overtime would pay for it and wouldn't he rather spend an extra day at his regular job than working with those cold tools. He still does some work on the cars but is more willing to send them out. He justifies it by saying that the newer cars need to be hooked up to computers for some of the repairs, I don't care just glad he's not hurting himself.
Here's what the deck looked like this morning. Can't believe that almost all of the brown opaque stain came off. Ric took out the broken lower lattice and will replace it. I've started staining it with a semi transparent cedar stain.
I'll post pictures when it's all done.

I'm so sorry Ric is going through this with his hands. It's awful to have arthritis and I think it must be particularly frustrating to have it in your hands.

It's something he has had since he was maybe in his late teens or early twenties. I remember going to visit his Grandmother hers were all twisted and she would sit and knit almost continuously. She said it was the only way she could keep them working. She thought if she stopped using them they would stiffen up and not work at all. His aren't as bad as hers were,but she was much older than we are now when I first met her. He pretty much has some level of pain in them all the time. How hard he uses them and what he does with them and the weather all contribute to his pain level. He has been doing mobility exercises a couple of times everyday for years. He did also develop carpel tunnel (sp?) but has recently had that fixed and it has helped some. He also has it in his neck and hip, you should see him in the morning takes him a little while till he can loosen up and start moving. But he has that same drive that his Grandmother had, you just have to work your way though it. That man just doesn't stop. He's out picking up 1000 used bricks right now. They will load them with a loader but we (him & me) will be unloading them by hand when he gets home. I'm just taking a break from staining, it's coming along pretty good. Oh and then when that's done we are going up to my parents to dig up their old flower bed and amend it with compost. Trying to fit everything in before we leave.

Whew ya'll make me tired just reading about it!!! Also sorry to hear about his hands....I can't even imagine. My boss has dealt with a form of RA since he was 18 - dealing with pain on a daily basis - just not a good thing.

My father had arthritis in his spine for the last 20 years of his life along with a couple of completely worn out discs. It's a horrible disease and it was awful to see how much it limited his life the last few years. He was good about exercising at first but then I think just got tired of fighting the pain. I know his inability to exercise was a factor not only in the arthritis becoming more limiting but in the other health problems he had in later life.

It's wonderful that Ric has the drive and fight to not let it get him down. It's so much worse if you don't. Go, Ric!!

Hi All, Ric and I just got back we've been gone a little over 3 weeks. Right before we left the Dr that did his carpel tunnel surgery checked him out and told him that he had some tendinitis and gave him a few exercises to do. The exercise he gave him is exactly the same movement that you use when you cast a fishing rod. He did a lot of exercising while we were gone. LOL
I'll post a few pictures of the finished deck as soon as I get a chance.
Hart, I feel so bad about your father. It's really hard on anyone to deal with these kind of medical problems.

Welcome home, Holly!

LOL at Ric "exercising" with his fishing rod. That would sure be a way to get me to do PT!

I'm really glad to be back, not that we didn't have a great time, but it's good to be home. The place looks like a jungle, we had a ton of rain while we were away. I'm alternating between unpacking, doing laundry and weeding. It's going to take awhile till I catch up with everything. Josh did a pretty good job taking care of the plants. He said there was so much rain that he didn't have to water anything outside and that was good because it took him 50 minutes just to water the house plants. LOL

I just wanted to post a couple of pictures of the finished deck. "Well this side is finished anyway" LOL
I used an opaque dark brown stain on the posts and boards under the deck and along the bottom edge of the lower deck and then used a semi-transparent stain on everything else. I was so pleased with the look.
The deck boxes are planted with OSP both Blackie and Margarita, Martha Washington and Salmon Geraniums, dusty miller and several different Morning Glories.

While I was at it I also PW and Stained the picnic table and my Box Pond. For those that haven't seen my box pond ,Yep that's just what it is. A wood box with a rubber liner that holds some of my pond plants. I has been sitting on my patio for years but since we need to do some patio repairs it needed to be moved. I thought it would look pretty nice sitting right here next to the deck. It's looking pretty empty right now as I haven't gotten the plants moved over from the other pond yet. BTW you can see my barn in the background of this picture.

Holly, that really looks sharp! And I love your pond box!

I've been thinking about doing a "raised" pond, because the area where I want to put a pond is a low spot in our yard and gets a lot of water, even standing water for a day or three after a good rain. At first I thought, oh how ideal, the pond can get topped up that way... but then I started thinking about all the fertilizer etc. that could come along with runoff from suburban lawns. Now I'm thinking a small pond with a raised edge might be better, would give me a place for a lily or two and maybe a couple of goldfish. It would still be pretty soggy outside the official edges of the pond, and maybe I could plant some "marginals" there...

Sorry, I know this is way O/T for this thread, but your pond box got me thinking out loud! I've seen similar holding areas at garden centers, but they sure didn't look as pretty as yours, especially with its new coat of stain. :-)

Critter you know how it goes over here, these threads all run into different conversations. You see something in one of the posts and it gets the mind going in all kinds of directions. LOL
We ended up with the box pond years ago. We wanted to put in a real pond but couldn't do it at the time so one year I bought Ric the materials to build the pond for his Birthday. The first one had one of those pre-formed plastic liners in it. After quite a few years it developed a small leak where one of the ledges was so this time we just lined it with rubber roofing. I just spent the morning moving plants into it. A couple of water lotus, 2 water lilies, the water hyancith, Green Taro and a Colocasia Illustris. I'll post a few pics of it later. We're heading out to a street fair with little JR.

Just a quick comment or two ... Critter, I've attended seminars by pond specialists and one of the things that I've taken away from them is to RESIST THE URGE to place a pond in the low spot of your landscape. If anything, it should be at/near the high spot.

Holly, I'm loving your finished product! Well done.

Aw, nuts. But I'm listening. I really, really want a water feature there, though, and I think there's going to be a small bog garden almost by default, especially now that the willow is gone. Maybe I'll do a completely isolated/raised system, like a big container, and a rain garden around it... I'll make a point of learning more before I start building. Thanks.

I love that box pond....hm... I'd rather place a pond toward an edge which of course is full of roots. I like my grassy middle of yard. The better for sitting on the edge to gaze in, too!

Speaking of pressure washers. I loaned mine out twice. The first user blew shingles off his house and returned it bitching. The house was twice his age. The second time six years ago I loaned it out it never came home. There might be a lesson here.

The lesson.........to avoid the tempting use of a pressure washer just loan it out once or twice. If it comes home it will likely not work anyway. ]:o)

ROFL!

Doc, LOL Mine is on the injured list right now too. Son Josh got a new boat and was cleaning it when some fitting blew.
Critter, Did you see I started a Mid-Atlantic Pond thread. I thought you might get some inspiration from some of the other ponds in the area but there haven't been too many posts yet.

Yes, I've got it on my "watched" list -- thank you! I wish I had something to add, but my unplanted pot with (currently unplugged) fountain isn't very inspiring... LOL.