Sunday, June 27, 2010

My Vacation Starts Now!

My vacation has finally arrived and not a moment too soon. The last few weeks at work were very trying and frustrating, made worse when my request for a couple of extra days of unpaid leave was turned down. I’m hoping that the next 10 days restores my mindset to a better place.

Anyway, things got off to great start on Friday. Hubby met me in the driveway with a nice bottle of wine and I took it out to the back deck. It was a beautiful evening and we had some tasty BBQ chicken and corn-on-the-cob for dinner and just relaxed. It was a very peaceful way to start my holiday.

Who needs to pay for a resort vacation when you have this view in your own backyard?
Saturday morning started off just brilliant. It was hot even at 8 o’clock although not as hot as our thermometer was showing. Take some advice; never put an outdoor thermometer where the sun can shine directly on it. You just can’t believe it until it gets back into the shade. I took my coffee down to the garden and planted some companion plants down the tomato rows. They really seem to appreciate having some marigolds mixed in amongst them. I’m not sure why, but it seems to be beneficial and it makes the garden look nicer, too.

Don’t believe what you see. It is never 105 degrees on the Witch’s Island!
I’m planting some marigolds amongst the tomatoes because they really seem to love each other.

Hubby has spent the first week of his vacation working on the gazebo. He was finishing up the base Friday afternoon by adding diagonal bracing to the posts and blocking between the joists. The whole thing is now very rigid and heavy. He may have over-engineered it a little (okay, maybe a lot!) but better to be safe than sorry. The roof is going to be heavy, too and we don’t want a strong wind to be able to flip the whole thing over.

Hubby is finished with the base unit. It’s all braced now and is as solid as a rock.

The posts are all cross-braced.
He’s now ready to start adding the floor on top of the base unit and that meant that we had to decide what we were going to use. Last week we were at Home Depot down in the Big City buying more lumber when we spotted a pallet of cedar deck boards. The prices seemed pretty good but we were thinking that we were going to use pressure-treated spruce and that it would be the cheapest option. This week we went back to the Big City and checked around at all the local lumber yards for prices only to return to the Home Depot and those cedar boards. It turned out that the cedar was only a couple of cents more per board at the listed price but it was also on sale, reduced by 10%! The cedar was actually cheaper than the spruce! I was really happy because I would much rather walk on wood that hasn’t been treated with all those chemicals and the cedar smells so nice. Scratch the picture below and inhale; you’ll love the aroma, too.

We hope we bought enough of this beautiful cedar decking because it was going so fast we probably won’t be able to get any more.

It took us quite a while to select the nicest boards but nobody bothered us as we went through three big stacks of wood. It was stored outside their store in the bright sunshine and afterwards I realized that I had gotten a good sunburn. Not smart. In the end we bought 60 eight foot long boards and 8 twelve footers for a total of $275. After we got home we laid the boards out on top of the platform to see if we bought enough and we had plenty. In fact, we may have as many as 15 of the eight foot boards too many. We’re going to return any we don’t use… or maybe we’ll build a sauna!

6 comments:

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

I hope you have a wonderful and relaxing vacation--It sounds like it's off to a good and very busy start!! Record heat here in Virginia and no break or rain in sight!

Canadian Saver said...

2 weeks off? I hope you enjoy your vacation :-) Weird how they rejected your 2 days leave without pay... probably cuz things were busy? My employer doesn't mind as long as we have someone to cover for us...

Any trips planned?

The Witch said...

We are planning a little day trip over to the main land to do some shopping and check out Costco again.
Maybe I'll come home with some goodies. A new mixer would be perfect!!!!

Stella Jones said...

Have a really good vacation and go back refreshed. Hope it isn't too hot for you to get things done.
Blessings, Star

Nakamuras on Saipan said...

Hi Witch! I'm at the airport in Tokyo enjoying your blog post! Heading home to Saipan...I really hope you enjoy your holiday-poop on the person who did not give you the few extra days you asked for! I know how that can be...your garden and yard look great as always!

The Witch said...

Thanks to all for the good wishes. Everything is going great so far. I've slept in almost every morning and have woken up thinking that I would already be at work if this was a normal week.

Hi, to the Nakamuras. We were wondering who was reading the Witch's Island at Narita and now we know. Hope your visit to Japan was fun! And yes, "POOP" on all those who denied extra days off work. It was time without pay fercryin'outloud!!

Thanks, again.