Another No-Rain Weekend?

This week has provided some snowy weather, and left us with clear but COLD weather. Cold for Portland, anyway, where the highs during the day are only touching the 30's. This clear weather, though, means No Rain, which then provides No Excuses for staying inside huddled under blankets with my feet on a radiator so I don't catch a cold in the chilly, damp outdoors. So, off to Home Depot I went, to pick up hopefully the final batch of lumber and a vinyl gutter for the side of my garage. (Have I mentioned that the truck is a godsend for this kind of trip?) There is no gutter there now, though I suspect there was once, a long time ago. So, water sheets off the roof and into a garden and puts a lot of water right by the side of the garage. This arrangement seems to be starting to leak. Therefore (you guessed it) I need to install at least a rudimentary gutter to divert it away from the garage.

$165 later, I'm home again. Awfully expensive, these trips are. Did you know it's possible to spend $24 just on deck screws? Yeah, it's 5 lbs of screws and these should now last me forever (1 lb being too few, 5 lbs being a bit excessive, and naturally they don't come in in-between increments).

But, after procrastinating an hour or so talking on the phone, getting lunch to make sure I'm well fueled (PB&J, the weekend lunch of choice) I piled on the clothes, ignored the white dust that occasionally drifted down from the sky, pretending to be snow, and I finished the stairs. That's right, I finished them. I am so proud of myself I could just split. OK, so I can point out all the little flaws and errors and things that didn't line up just right. But from a distance, it looks wonderful.

And now I can go sit on my backside and watch Battlestar Galactica with no guilt whatsoever. I have EARNED that down time.