Hammer and Naiil

While early morning voters were roaming the streets headed to their polling places, I packed more hardware, wood and tools into my car. I'm preparing for another day of home repairs. For the past few days we have been installing the trim work, quarter round and chair rail, and the results have been instant. The finish work in carpentry makes the whole job pop. A little more shoe molding should finish off the room we are working on.

 

The daughter and the son were to tear down some drywall in a bedroom last night so we should be able to hang the new sheets today and it will be ready to be painted. A few more days of repair work and the whole home will be ready to enter the decorating stage; the part I enjoy.

 

I can't begin to tell you how grateful  I am that power tools were invented. I remember the hammer/nails days and using a screwdriver that left blisters in my palms and took hours to finish a job. I used a brad nailer to put up some small trim work and a finish head nailer to put up the heavier stuff. This would have taken all day had I had to use muscle on a manual saw and time hammering each nail into place.

 

While I am working and marveling at these wonderful tools, my mind wanders back to the frontier days. The pioneer with his ax clearing a space in the woods and then dragging the trees to the place that will one day be the place where his cabin stands. After chopping down that tree, he would have to spend more time taking the limbs off of it. Soon it would be just a log. The first building block to his protection from the elements. As romantic as it is made to look in the movies, I would never have survived without Pella windows, a forced heat furnace in the winter and a 10 ton A/C unit in the summer. I'm not one of those people that consider this time in our history  as "the good ole days."

 

Not only were there no modern ammenities for heat and a/c but cooking is a whole other story. I'm not the chef type and if I had to go in the kitchen corner of that one room cabin to stoke up that black metal stove, a home cooked meal would never have happened. I would have to live off what the microwave could produce. ...WHAT? No microwave?

Well, hey..I want out of this movie. I've been miscasted. I can't work in these conditions." (I would have been a whiny pioneer anyway).

 

The day after the election and President Obama is not looking for a new residence! I couldn't be happier.

 

I'm anxious to cruise around this town today and watch the reaction to this election. I'm ashamed to say, the first term he won was met with outbreaks of destruction. Sometimes it's just embarrassing to live in a "red" state. I've always said I should live in California among by blue breathern! Oregon might be an option too.

 

It's time to do a tool check to make sure I have everything for today's work. I enjoy seeing the changes being made after a day's work. The ugly duckling is moving to swan status which is a very gratifiying feeling and keeps me motivated to continue this project!

 

I hope everyone has a productive day in whatever you are doing. It matters not how mundane, if it makes a small difference, it should be worth the time spent!