Oh, good heaven, where to start? I'm mad, and tired and happy and excited and lonely and nervous and...and...and a complete basket case, I guess.
Ok, I'm mad at the author of the book I just finished reading, 'cause I hated the way she finished it. I'm mad at Dad for being so emotion-based and his seeming inability to get anything done these past few days. I'm tired from six days of re-roofing that seems to be getting nowhere. I'm happy because I finally got to talk to BonnieJean again today, although only for a short time. I'm excited about going to Kinmen. I'm lonely because Mom took Anna and the little boys down to Archer for the family reunion and we had to stay here and work on the roof. I haven't seen most of the relatives in...I don't know...a long time. And I'm nervous because I'm testing for my purple belt in less than two weeks and I have to break three boards with a knife hand strike, and I haven't had time to condition my hand, and I'm going to be doing the fighting for my purple belt in less than a week and I haven't been able to run since we started the re-roofing, so I'm probably going to loose my wind halfway through the fights...
Ah, yes, the re-roofing. We started on Friday. Getting the shingles off the back side of the house took about a day and a half...not great, but not bad. Then we started on repairing a couple places where the wood was rotten. It's a very strait forward thing to do. Yet between the rain and Dad's amazing slowness we still haven't laid a single peice of tar paper. We hope to start tomorrow, but we've still got some stuff to do first.
Do you realize that we had been remodeling our garrage for over three years? In that time we've had friend build entire houses for their families. Those of you who haven't worked with him do not really understand how mind-numbingly slow he is. He does good work, yes, but it takes him more than double (and often more than triple) the time it would take a normal handyman. I'm almost to the point of yelling at him when I see him staring at the work that needs to be done, spending over half his time figuring out exactly every little detail before he'll do anything. I want to scream "GET IT DONE! STOP WORRYING ABOUT MAKING IT LAST FOR THREE THOUSAND YEARS AND GET THE ROOF UP!" After supper today I tried to talked to him about it, but he kept changing the subject and when I finally nailed him down to it, he kept telling me "what I've found that works" and I'm telling him "It doens't work! I've never worked with somebody as slow as you!" but I don't think anything is going to change. Dad is expected back at work on Monday and we've only got the roll-away dumpster for a week and we are rapidly running out of time, but he just wants to keep doing everything like he's always done.
I need to go to bed now. Sorry this turned into a long rant against Dad...maybe I'll feel a little nicer tomorrow.