Blog de Puree

I finally got around to helping my dad put the new door on to the shed in his back yard. What should have been a two-and-a-half hour job ended up taking us roughly four-and-a-half hours due to complications, rain and of course, lunch.

Some of our complications included:
The donkeys where my father purchased the door put the inside door-braces on so that they extended the full width of the door and it wouldn’t fit into the door frame, so we had to remove, trim the ends and refasten them. Then we put the door on the hinges upside down, so that some of the hinge screws stuck through the other side of the door rather than going through the braces as they were supposed to, but that’s nothing a hack saw couldn’t handle. We also had to sand down a small part of the door and frame so that the latch components fit and the door would close. And finally, I’ve become a big proponent of wood putty for when you drill holes in the wrong spot after following directions with the wrong dimensions. All in all, the door project turned out to be a success. It fits, opens and closes without any problems, latches and locks. Not bad for two amateurs who’ve never installed a door before.

And for my troubles, a free Chinese dinner. I figure that a fair deal. Randye meanwhile, enjoyed an afternoon at the Ikea in Stoughton with my mom shopping for necessary things we don’t need, but more importantly, hardware for our kitchen cabinetry.

As we wrapped up our project my sister, brother-in-law, niece and new nephew arrived in their new red Toyota Camry. It was a late afternoon filled with playing kitchen with my niece, juggling my nephew from person to person between his fits of crying, feeding and sleeping (He’s 5 weeks old) and changing diapers. Mmmm, dirty diapers. And as my grandmother used to say, “Apple sauce!”

Our niece has also discovered running and jumping with random objects from around the house, which at one point in the evening, turned into an ad hoc conga/dance line around the house with my niece, brother-in-law, father and me, in our coordinated Hawaiian shirts. My dad held a big white teddy bear and my niece wore my dad’s Russian style winter hat. We sang, laughed and were completely oblivious to Randye and my sister laughing hysterically. Talk about reasons to own a digital cam-corder, which no Kersteins own. Hey, if we had one that also took digital photos, that would be even better.