The Joys of Home Ownership

The last time I was hitting the gym hard was about 5 years ago. I was doing great, feeling pretty good and exceeding my own expectations. That summer, Brett and our brother in law were preparing to go on a trip to Montana. It was the night before they were to depart and I was doing laundry. I turned the washer on and went upstairs to the kitchen to do a few things. As I was busy with the kitchen stuff, after about 10 minutes, I could REALLY hear the washing machine. I thought and said out loud, "wow! The washing machine sounds really loud right now, like running water... oh crap!" I ran downstairs to find that a hose had broken loose and was spraying water EVERYWHERE in the laundry room.

I yelled for Brett to come down. He and I cleaned up the mess as best as we could and he reattached the hose. I kept on with the laundry. The hose came off again. Again, we cleaned up the mess. He again reattached the hose. Since there was carpet down in our laundry room at the time, we both agreed that I would have to take that out the next day because it would smell by the time he returned. At this point, it was about midnight and they were leaving in a few hours. Went to bed, slept it off. I woke up bright and early and started chopping up the carpet and the half of the carpet pad that was down there.

Do you have any idea how heavy wet carpet is? Let me tell you that it was so incredibly heavy, awkward and being a do-it-myselfer that I am, did it by myself. The back of the carpet was so rough and it scratched and scraped my arms and legs so bad. It looked like I got into a fight with a cat using sandpaper as a weapon.

Carpet and padding hauled to the curb, laundry started AGAIN. I mopped and was going to put away the knives and blades I used in the garage. Came back down to finish up to find the washer had broken free AGAIN. Water everywhere. AGAIN. This time, I called my jean hiking dad to help get it reattached. He came, he saw the carpet and asked why in the hell I didn't call for help. My response: I don't know. Ha!! That one day was a superb workout minus the part where I broke down, fell to my knees, started crying and cussing up a storm that was not suitable for many adults. Wait! I didn't tell you that part?!?! Hmm, must have forgotten!!!

I have also been known to shovel rocks into a wheelbarrow and haul rocks to the backyard. I have also been known to load big pieces of concrete into the same wheelbarrow to haul it uphill to the driveway. Both excellent workouts. Multitasking once again at its finest!!

We do need to put more rock in our backyard. I intend to replace a workout or two with this activity. I'm kind of looking forward to it. I'm a sick puppy. I'm okay with that though!!!

Signing off for now, to all of you near and far and to those of you trying to figure out which home projects can be good workouts, until next time...