Week one, and I haven’t met my goal for blog posts. But the sun still rose, and the birds still sing. I know a lot of people get worked up when they don’t meet their goals, but I kind of like being a little unpredictable. Hehe.
While I didn’t post on Tuesday, it wasn’t for lack of good reason. Let’s start with Work on it Wednesday.
Right now, we are in the middle of a giant backyard renovation. We already needed a new pool liner, our wood deck needed repairs and staining, and we also realized a second pool filter would make the upkeep of the pool cheaper and easier. But that required demolishing the concrete around the pool, so Robert asked if I just wanted to switch to a concrete slab around the pool and deck. The idea of what we were going to do kept growing. We decided to add a stone fireplace, outdoor kitchen, and island. However, to get high quality and stay in budget, it was going to require a little bit of blood, sweat, and tears.
We found a website that sells outdoor kitchen kits that you can buy and build yourself. Check those out here. They are pretty neat because you don’t have to go pick out of your own stone, pick it up, and use your gas and time. They get shipped right to your house. If you know me, I love building things myself. I like working outside in the heat and creating something custom, so this was right up my alley. The problem is that the project itself didn’t really fit in my alley. I’m laughing because we had 19 pallets of stone shipped to us, and they ended up in our front yard. BUT…. We needed it in the backyard.
We started slowly and moved three pallets together one night. Then Robert got off work one day and moved five more. To be fair, two of those were our outdoor refrigerator and his new grill, so it wasn’t five full pallets of stone. But even so, he was carrying a lot of the project on his own. But his mind is already running a million miles an hour with pool coping, pool cleaning, and the logistics of stone going on a concrete slab, because cracked concrete isn’t the ideal outcome here.
That night we were lying in bed, and I could tell he wasn’t himself. I asked him what was wrong. He told me that he could not do the backyard before the Fourth of July. We host our neighborhood gathering annually, so that was an important goal for me. He said he felt overwhelmed and alone. I assured him that he would never be alone, that I am his ride-or-die, and that I would help get the pallets to the back. My heart can barely stand to watch him feel so overwhelmed. If I ever run low on motivation to do better, his distress is the antidote.
So yesterday, on Tiny Acts of Kindness Tuesday, I was keeping a promise to my husband. I could see the relief in his breath as we unloaded the last pallet. We moved 9 pallets. That means we took 1500 pounds per pallet, picked it up, loaded it on a buggy, and drove it to the back of our yard. From there, we lifted it out of the buggy onto another pallet in the backyard. Incase you’re wondering, Robert and I moved 13,500 pounds of stone from our garage to our backyard.
I love my Oura because I didn’t even have to ask it to log anything. It instantly picked up the work we were doing. If you have been thinking about getting an Oura ring, I have had mine for two years now; I wear it as a wedding band. It is so much easier than an Apple Watch, and I think you should go for it. You can buy the one I have here.
While we were working on this project, something happened earlier in the week that reminded me why this backyard means more than concrete and stone. You can read this week’s Tiny Acts of Kindness here.
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