Digging Them Holes

Our first weekend! It was early. It was physically demanding. It was lonnnng.

When Mom and Dad agreed to do (or dare I say, offered to do) the renovation for us, they had one request: their own space close to the house we were working on. This was win for Todd and me as well obviously - a working bathroom within a couple miles of the house AND not having to share our tiny rental kitchen? Well, luckily for them, just a few weeks before they were set to move, an adorable space opened up on Eastland right above the thriving Eastland Village shopping and dining. So I made a few trips to Homegoods, spent a disgusting number of hours looking for a sofa that we could use in our new house when they moved out, and started to get their little spot ready for their move in last Friday. Move in went smoothly enough. Granted, I missed the 15-hour drive from Houston and hauling my mother's umpteen work boxes and my father's couple thousand of pounds of tools thanks to a long day at work, but by the time I arrived, my parents were hungry and ready for dinner out. So, we grabbed a bite to eat at Rose Peppers - the local, hipster-fied version of cheap mexican - and while we were waiting outside, I noticed the glowing marquee said, "Happiness is a cold margarita." Yep. Hold on to that little bit.

{A quick aside: that evening I was embarrassingly self-conscious about the fact that I had to wear my somewhat unattractive work uniform out to eat. Today I went to lunch with Einstein hair and mud covering most my limbs. Things change fast.}

So fast-forward one week.
Things I have learned so far about renovating a home:
A. My parents work harder than anyone I've ever seen (although I really already knew that).
B. How to properly use a trailer tie-down.
C. Setting 10-ft fence posts in concrete sucks.
D. Pressure washing is fun...but only for the first 7 hours or so.

My parents arrived at our house bright and early at 6:30 Saturday morning before we made our first of what will be many trips to the Mecca of home improvement, the land of smelly men and shiny tools, the only way to use the restroom when you have no plumbing: HOME DEPOT.

 Sometime earlier this week, I was researching gas-powered augers and I called Home Depot's tool rental department to price out a few options. The man on the other end somewhat begrudgingly listed out the varieties - the one-man machine, the two-man machine, the one-man with as much power as a two-man. Sounded simple enough, I figured. I noted all the price options and made sure to look at a few product photos on their website. A two-man was a safe bet, I figured after browsing the photos, and we could certainly fit the thing in Todd's trunk. Whoa-ho-ho now. Apparently I should have looked a few photos of the auger compared to the size of a human being. The thing was like a Transformer - after transformation! In my head, I had imagined digging the holes with Todd, maybe singing Dippity-Do-Da and sipping sweet tea while we barely lifted a finger. In reality, it was riding a mad bull at the Houston rodeo. (Or so I was told. Me actually using the auger would involve me attempting to control it from above my head.)

Don't worry, although I missed the shot of the auger taking Dad out in the mud, I do have some other photos:

The first side when fairly smoothly, but this is an old house and as old houses tend to do, it threw us a few surprises during the second round. A never-ending buried brick wall of surprises to be exact. And maybe a woman's dress 1.5ft deep in the back of the yard (and no, we didn't look for bones, but we may have made up a story or two about how she got there while ripping pieces of her checked skirt from beneath layers of dirt and brick).

And after the digging came the lifting. And the mixing. And the shoveling of 37 bags of concrete.

So in conclusion, the most important thing I learned this weekend is that that peeling marquee dimly glowing outside the crumbling Mexican restaurant is right. Happiness is a cold margarita. Or beer. Or maybe even just a little A/C.