Lazy Days and Sundays

I don't think I am klutzy, but I do go through spells that make me wonder if I am wrong in that assessment. I can hurry through a doorway many times a day for months without incident, then go through a day or two where I turn out of a doorway too quickly and catch a robe pocket (side seam, not a patch pocket) on the strike plate resulting in a robe popping open and spilled beverage, or occasionally being completely stopped in my tracks if the robe snaps are really secure. When I am under the spell of whatever gremlin curses me in such a manner, if it isn't a robe catching the door frame, it will be a knuckle or an elbow.

This week, that gremlin is at it again, but he is off of door frames on onto tape measures as my torture device.

Both of our sons are now out of the house. I am not suffering from an empty nest, I simply thought I would rearrange the nest. Would a narrow chest of drawers from room A fit next to a piece of furniture in room B? Priding myself for thinking to measure before I moved the chest from A to B and finding it won't fit by three-quarters of an inch (been there, done that, haven't you?), I took hubby's steel tape measure upstairs to measure the chest and the space. It isn't as if I have never used the tape measure, so why did recoil so quickly this time, catching my wayward finger that was loitering in its path? That resulted in an expletive but no wound.

The good news was that the furniture would fit where I wanted it to go. I've called it a chest, but actually it is a nightstand with a bookcase hutch that sits on top. When the boys were little, my husband added brackets to the back of the hutch to attach it to the nightstand. Loaded with books, games, trucks, trophies and rocks (don't ask...they were boys), the piece could become top heavy. Two days ago, the hutch and the drawers were empty. I used furniture sliders (Moving Men) to slide it out of one room and into another.

Hmmm, wonder what those nails in the carpet near the baseboard came from? When I am done moving this into place, I will have to see if there are holes in the wall from a long ago poster or something. Boy, I used to work harder than this and not sweat as much. Must be the humidity and not my age, don't you think? Slide, slide, slide this into place and now move it back into the niche and OH CRAP!!! the hutch is falling forward!

I am ok. The hutch is sitting in front of the nightstand, waiting for me to admit what I did and ask for help. Guess everyone knows where those nails came from now, right? I have a black and blue mark on my left forearm that is clearly my own fault, not because of the house gremlins. You think they'd take pity on me, wouldn't you? Not a chance. They even followed me to my son's house.

Husband and son went up on son's roof for a lesson in caulking around the chimney. Once they returned to the ground and I didn't have to worry about anyone falling off (acrophobia could be my middle name), I went inside to measure windows for blinds and curtains. Son's steel tape measure isn't as long so that should be safe right? Wrong! This dang thing didn't lock at all and recoiled faster than ours! I have a blood blister along my thumb nail now.

So what have I learned this week?

I hate to admit it, but maybe I see why I am not allowed to play with hubby's power tools.

A cloth tape measure is my friend.