Playing Handyman

I spend a lot of my time these days doing things I don't actually know how to do. Like drain plumbing, though so far all I've done is wrap the kitchen drain pipe in Magic Wrap repair tape to contain the leak until I can replace the drain pipes, and hanging doors, which I have just finished doing for the first time in what will soon become the play room in the new house.

It amazes me I can do this stuff at all, because it's so unlike anything I've trained myself for. What amazes me more is how hard it can be to find good advice. Well, the plumbing wasn't too hard because the guy in the Lowes plumbing department knew exactly what I was talking about and had all the parts for me in a few minutes.

But when it comes to hanging a door, I found three different sets of instructions, of which only one made any sense. The other two came from Lowes. What was worse was the list of materials needed from the actual door, which listed 8d and 16d finish nails, when every set of instructions I could find recommended 8d and 4d. Can't anybody write directions anymore?

Incidentally, the directions I found that I could understand and that worked were from ThisOldHouse.com. Now that figures.

We are expecting another snow storm starting tomorrow morning, so I'll be out shoveling snow, something I wish I didn't know how to do. Unfortunately, I have a lot of recent experience.

Before I post this, I need to relate a funny story about Danny and food. Danny's my picky eater, the one who claims he doesn't like meat. It's not exactly true; he eats chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and meatballs. Karen recently made a meatloaf for the first time in a very long time, and got Danny to eat it by describing it as a really big meatball. Not only did Danny eat it, but yesterday he asked when we were going to have another big meatball for dinner.

Sometimes it isn't what you serve that counts. It's what you call it.