Saving Money With Elbow Grease…

My husband is still in the process of building our fence. It’s been slow going since he started school. He’s trying to juggle school, work, helping friends and co-workers with emergency plumbing problems, building a fence, and squeeze in somewhat of a life.

He finally carved out Saturday to build a large portion on the fence. Since it’s not a task he can complete by himself, he called my brothers and his brothers to help.

No one was available.

He looked at me, his last hope (his very last and desperate hope since I’m afraid of sunshine, bees, saw blades, splinters, and manual labor)… and said, ‘Hon, do you think you could help me out this weekend? I need strong helpers but everyone is busy.’

I thought about pulling the ‘I’m recovering from pneumonia’ card but quickly decided I should make an attempt at being a decent human being.

We worked together for a few hours. I drew lines on the beams and things seemed to be going well until he started calling out construction terms when measuring.

‘142 – 3 strong!’ He yelled.

‘Hut hut hike?’ I asked confused. Were we playing football?

Things only went downhill from there. I tripped repeatedly, accidentally broke boards, misfired the nail gun, and inaccurately measured several times.

Fortunately, his brother freed up his afternoon and stopped by to help for a few hours. His brother knows construction terminology and they moved like a set of skilled craftsmen. I was demoted to weed puller and water girl for the afternoon.

Despite the botched morning, the fence is nearly done and it’s beautiful thanks to the hard work of my husband and his brother. It’s times like these that I am thankful for the talented men in my life. Without them, I’d be a mess. Well… more of a mess than I already am.

And in case you were doubting the stability or reliability of our old fence… photos are more valuable than words…

and the last photo – the saw blade start to our new fence.

Posted by Beks on February 2, 2010 at 5:00 AM in :), Saving Money | 2 Comments »
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Mrs. Money responded:
Posted: February 3rd, 2010 at 12:23 pm
In my house, I’m the one that does the projects. It’s “fun”.
Lizzie responded:
Posted: February 5th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Oh, the fun of construction…..