Getting it together....

I remember a Christmas eve around 1960 and the difficulty I had putting together a little gas station/auto garage model (Japanese) for my nephew Kevin. The directions were written by a French/Cameroon bush pilot crossed with a Mexican midget. It was as hard to understand them as it was to comprehend how Steve McQueen could fashion a lens out of a glass bottle that enabled Dustin Hoffman to read in Papillon. A stretch at best! Anyway it took until after midnight to get it done and under the tree just a few scant hours before Kevin got up to destroy it.

IKEA has pretty good directions and, although written in English, they were probably written in Swedish and translated. Thank God they have pictures to tell the story PLUS, they have foolproofed the pieces so they only fit together in the right way......so the new computer desk was a two day deal but relatively simple.


Earlier this month, Emily and Jenn bought me a lovely outdoor grill for Father's Day.






It is just what I have been looking for since we moved to our new cramped quarters and it only took me an hour to put it together. There were 2 little pieces left over so after it rained ( I left the lid off )and filled the bottom of the grill with water I threw them in over my shoulder and made a wish. I learned to close the cover completely.....





Next, we finally got our kitchen window replaced on Saturday morning and Saturday after noon I got to put together an awning and position it above the new window. Took me an hour and a half to put the pieces together and another hour and a half to mount it. The instructions were not that great (written in Chinese) and after I had drilled holes in the wall and mounted the base piece I caulked it only to find out it was on upside down. Now, I coulda mounted the awning onto the base and told Bev it was a new style -pointing up instead of down -but her credulousness seems to be diminishing as the years pass and I'm not sure I could have convinced her unless I plied her with Cosmos first ....
Here's the awning.






And finally, yesterday Steph's pool sweeper quit running around the bottom of the pool. I took it apart to see what was wrong and now it wont go back together. She needs a new one! OR, I could ask the French/Cameroon undersea division of the Japanese 1960 Toy Garage people to send me instructions. Your call Steph.