The realization of defeat

Why cant anything ever be easy? This a rhetorical of course. I asked my wife this question and as she pointed out "This is life. Life is not simple."

This particular event all starts with my stubbornness and cheapness. "Why should we get a new swing set when I can fix our current one for a quarter of the cost." Mind you our current swing set is at least 10 years old. It all started a few weeks back with me opening my big mouth saying i can fix it. I can fix anything.

So last friday I went to Lowes to purchase the wood I needed. I  planned on having Lowes cut the wood for me because, once again, I am too cheap to purchase a circular saw. I load up my cart with pressure treated wood being that the swing set is outside and pushed the cart back to the saw.  The nice Sales Associate in a 10 minute conversation informed me that Lowes no longer cuts pressure treated wood. "How can this be I asked? When i worked at Lowes we cut pressure treated wood." New Policy that started this year. Then he informs me Home Depot doesnt do it either.  OF COURSE. So now i have 2 choice: give up or buy a circular saw. I did the latter. After purchasing the wood I returned home to begin the demolition of the swing set. My first objective - replace the steps. 

Saturday afternoon in the dead heat of midday i decide to tackle my task at hand. A simple 30 minute project turned into a 2 hour ordeal. I cut the boards to length and tried to slide them in the existing nocks in the wood. Due to the swelling of the wood and dry rot from years of weathering the intense heat of the Florida sun the nocks ended up being too small. So i ended up filing down each nock and had to hammer the boards in.

During my mayhem my dear wife came out and i showed her one of the boards i removed which was now covered in termites. upon further investigation i realized the termite damage around the entire swing set was too extensive and i raised my white flag. I can say that i planned a full out assault but lost the battle at Termite Hill. The battle was too great and i succumb to the fact that thousands of little bugs kicked my ass.... the war was over and I agreed to purchase a new swing set. One that isnt full of termites.

Out of the saw dust and termite poop came a shining light of realization.  I kind of like wood working and may have a little of that Gadbois trait. Gadbois/Van den Dyke our fench name meaning dead) No i am not as good as my grandfather at woodcarving (yet) and no i am not as talented of a carpenter as my father (yet); but i plan on continuing to try these things and learn as i go.