Naked Sunday

Another Sunday, and another day of rest away from work. Except there's home chores to do. I might not live on a farm but I'm still accused of living in a barn. Whatever...

At least Sunday morning was relaxing. Lucy walked all over my wife at 6am instead of me, and the Labs bugged her 30 minutes later to be let out back. I didn't rise to greet the day until 9am. I then spent a leisurely hour drinking coffee and eating day-old toasted bagels (the best kind, actually).

Then life got a little more active. Cleaning around the house, a late lunch with my wife and oldest, then off to Home Depot where I wound up between a pair of antediluvian Hummers; a red H2 on the left and a yellow H3 on the right.

You'd think that high gas prices would have driven every single one of those monsters into a pit somewhere. You'd be wrong.

I'd gone to Home Depot originally to pick up a replacement wheelbarrow for the one that's currently falling apart. I need one to help move leaves and other things around the yard. That was the original plan...

Unfortunately, when I got there, my eyes drifted into a forbidden part of the garden section, and there I saw her, a Tricam garden cart in dark green with bright yellow wheels. I was instantly smitten (smote? smited? whatever). So I got one of those (just $20 more than the wheelbarrow I was going to get), along with a new 75" hose, a pair of new nozzles to replace the ones so clogged and corroded they look alien made, a watering wand to replace the one that somehow disappeared last season, a specially made extensible gutter cleaner so I don't have to drag a ladder all around the house every other weekend, etc, etc, etc. I had a $50 gift card I'd won at the Christmas INCOSE meeting (systems engineers are such party animals) that made little more than a dent in the final tally.

Home Depot is a fiendish store that successfully separates me from too much hard earned cash. And to add insult to injury, my wife aids and abets with suggestions bordering on absolute dictates. "But honey, we just need ..." Never take your wife with you to Home Depot. Never.

So I got home with all my new goodies, put everything away, tore open the box with the garden cart inside, and proceeded to perform "some assembly" to get my cart ready for yard work.

Didn't take long and there my little beauty stood, all shiny and new. Love the yellow wheels. I haven't had this much fun since I put the girls Radio Flyer together, what, twenty years ago. The girl's wagon was a stake-side all-red beauty that I used to take the girls for rides on the neighborhood sidewalks. I loved that little red wagon. I guess that's why I took such an immediate like to this garden cart; it looks a lot like that old Flyer.

So tomorrow I'll pump up the wheels to a proper air pressure with the bicycle air pump, and then start using it to get the front and back yards into shape. Hopefully before this years tropical storms come to visit.