Not enough...

time? Just stay up later. That's the mantra of my children and I've been adopting it recently as well. Where does this tie in? Hang with me.

This last weekend, my son and I spent some time working on a rental property in Midway, UT. This property belongs to my parents and needed some sprucing up. The list included: Laying tile, patching sheetrock cracks, touching-up paint, cleaning soot from the ceiling above the fireplace, installing new blinds, replacing some furniture and reupholstering other furniture.

My father and brother got up there early Friday and began the repairs. After working a half day at my normal job, I picked up my youngest son from school and up we went. This would be a multi-day project and he and I planned to stay overnight up there. When we got there, my Dad and brother had made great progress. My son volunteered to put together a TV stand. It was a multi-tiered affair with tons of parts. He did a great job and when finished it looked better than the picture on the box it came in.

Dad and brother left for the day around 7p. Son and I kept working on various projects and then got Subways for dinner. Afterward, I watched him play some Wii and checked my e-mail. The next morning we got going again. Dad and brother showed up about 9a and the place was rockin' with projects. We had conference going on while we were up there and it was neat to join in the Solemn Assembly.

My sweetie brought up the rest of the family and lunch for us and it was fantastic. Chicken salad on home made rolls, cinnamon rolls, and veggies. Then she and daughter reupholstered the dining room chairs. (Son did the first chair and they finished the other six.) They turned out beautifully. We got things wrapped up by about 530p and headed back, we missed about 30 minutes of priesthood session so I'll be catching up on that online.

There were a couple of little things left undone. The DVD player that dad bought didn't work (a cheap-o-la hunk of plastic from Big Loss [Lots]). And there was some furniture that we forgot to take up with us. Mom and dad got a different DVD player and some lamp tables. They also had a large mirror that they were no longer using in their home.

If you've hung with me 'til now, here's your payoff. After FHE on Monday, we decided to head back up there with the stuff from my mom and dad. We didn't have enough time, so we just stayed up later.

By this time, it was about 8p. We stopped at Home Depot for some supplies in case we needed to touch up the mirror frame. Once up there, we could tell that the mirror frame didn't match, so we masked and painted it. By the time we were done, the mirror and furniture looked pretty good, but it was a little past midnight - way late for a couple of old duffers (we'll, for me but not my sweetie, she's 29 and this was nothin').

We finally got to bed at 1a. Now, my kids do this all the time and don't appear to have any ill effects, but for me, whoa. Eyes - heavy. Mind - cloudy. Fingers - lazy. Blobbing - hard.

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