On the dock of the lake...

For a man who didn't have a "real" toolbox before this past Christmas, my husband has made countless trips to the Lowe's up near our lake cottage. His toolbox (my Christmas gift to him this past year to which I added just basic repair tools) has now over-flowed with major construction tools. He's been repairing some boards on the fishing pier that's attached to our boathouse up there.

We've found out (first-hand) that winds coming across the lake from the northwest are the most severe. The waves coming up over our bulkhead looked as if they belonged in Galveston, and I'm not exaggerating. We were watching those waves from the kitchen windows as they pounded up against and over the steel bulkhead surrounding our property.

And are you all aware that tools do not float when they fall into a lake? However, there is a solution for that: you buy heavy magnets, put them into knee-highs, tie a knot at the top of the knee-highs and attach them to a length of rope. Into the lake goes the rope, and (hopefully) out comes your hammer or wrench when the magnet comes into contact with the metal tools. This is a proven fact.... my husband proved it twice during the course of the work on the boatdock.

Getting back to the waves..... As the waves went back into the lake, they took with them the dirt that had been newly-shoveled around the perimeter of the bulkhead. I can personally attest that at least a zillion shovelfuls of dirt had just been put there...... by myself and our yard-man, who came to help me with the dirt while my husband worked on the boards and pilings of the fishing pier.

My husband had ordered eight yards of dirt. Our yard-man said the huge pile of dirt left in our driveway looked to be more like ten yards. "Guess they liked y'all... they gave y'all extra dirt." By the time that dirt was taken from our driveway to all the bare spots around the bulkhead (washed out from winter storms), there was still about two-yards-worth of dirt left in the driveway.

That two-yards-worth is still in the driveway, and for all I care, our yard-man can shovel it into the flowerbeds, or pack it down around the bulkhead (for the third time), or he can just shovel it all right smack into the lake, since that seems to be where it's going to eventually end up anyway.

I have told my husband that I am finished doing "man's work." I have shoveled all the dirt I intend to shovel in this lifetime. I was even out on the fishing pier helping my husband with the boards and pilings and planks and bolts.... and holding power tools. Have you any idea how much your arm shakes as you're holding a power-drill? The shaking goes from the tips of your fingers right up to your eyebrows. I swear, when I finished holding the drill and walked off the dock and back to the firm grass, I put both hands up to my ears to make sure my earrings were still attached to my ears (and they're pierced!).

To make matters worse, while I was holding that blessed power-drill, I was standing on the fishing pier, which is held in place by pilings that are sitting over water that is at least twenty feet deep. (Not a good place for me, since I'm afraid of water that's over my head.) To make matters worse, as I pressed the trigger of the power-drill, my husband was in the water, holding onto the extension rod for the power-drill, which was set into the piling (underwater), so he could get the drill-bit through the old piling and into the new one. I kept hoping that a lone spark didn't find its way to the either the drill, my husband, myself, or all of the metal tools that were surrounding us on that dock.

When all this work was done, which in reality took me less than half an hour, but seemed like three life-times, I told my husband to take a good look at me. I told him I was done. Done. Finished. Retired. I am no longer doing a man's work. No longer doing a MAN'S WORK. I am typing it and re-typing it here so it gets imprinted onto my brain.

The last few times we've been up to the lake, I've broken nails and chipped polished and developed blisters on my thumbs from the wheelbarrow handles. All of that, for someone who never did anything that would break a nail. I lost track of that rule up at the lake cottage somehow, for the simple reason that I knew if I didn't help out, then he'd be doing all of that work himself. (I can hear my husband's mom whispering in my ear-- So what's wrong with that?)

My husband is proud of the work he's done on that fishing dock, and rightly so. It looks amazing, with new boards perfectly set and bolted into place. I was proud of all the dirt that I moved from the driveway to the bulkhead, and again, rightly so. Never thought I could move that dirt-filled wheelbarrow, but I managed to do it, not once or twice or even twenty times, but at least eighty-seven times (which is when I lost count).

But I am done. DONE. D. O. N. E. To prove that, I have put a coat of clear nail-hardening polish on my fingernails. As soon as my nails get a little bit longer, I will add the color polish. And then I will go back to one of my favorite rules that a woman has in her vocabulary--- "I can't possibly do that.... it might break a nail."