10 Fingers

I missed working out to the Olympics this morning. Last week, I got to workout with the men’s marathon. Of course, I don’t go as fast or as long as they did, but I closed my eyes while I was pedaling away on my crosstrainer and I imagined I was in the lead pack racing towards the finish line.

Well, it was back to normal this week. I got to exercise with the morning news. Somehow that just isn’t as inspiring. Thank goodness, I have my little iPod Nano and can listen to music instead of the boring newscasters.

I’m seeing the first signs of fall in the leaves on the trees. There are very small groups of colored leaves here and there. And there are some leaves that are falling already. I have a few dead leaves on my driveway. Fall is sneaking in, putting an end to this incredibly hot summer.

There was an article in the paper this morning that more Minnesotans are biting the bullet and putting in central air conditioning. In the past, we would have a few scattered days of hot weather. If you didn’t have AC, you could “sweat it out” for a couple of days and then the hot air would leave. Now we have entire months of HOT and HUMID weather. AC is almost a necessity.

I’m so glad we have central air conditioning in the house. I couldn’t imagine functioning this summer without it.

The back garden trellis’ base was rotting and it needed a new base, otherwise it was going to fall over. I think the only thing holding it up was the clematis.

I put on my Ray hat and worked out how to handle this. Thanks to Ray, I have a small lumber yard in the garage, so I found a piece of wood that would fit the trellis. I had to saw it in half and that’s where the table saw comes in.

I bought the table saw for Ray as a Christmas gift many years ago. He made a stand for it. Below the saw is a bucket that collects the sawdust. The saw stand is attached to the workbench with hinges, so you can angle it out and put any size of wood you need on it. I put my piece of wood on the saw and cut it in half for my base.

Then I used my power drill to screw the new base to the trellis. I also reinforced the screws on the trellis. Job done!

Even this simple job is very difficult for me to do, because I’m not good at using my hands in rhythm with my brain. So I gave myself a lot of pats on the back.

And I didn’t cut off any of my fingers! Ray would be so proud.