Yesterday's Disasters

'Disaster' is a relative term. Compared to a lot of really disastrous disasters, yesterdays events don't even count, actually. They were just things that didn't go right. This post should really be called Yesterday's Things That Didn't Go As Planned. But that's too long. I'd better stop mulling over the post's title though, and just get on with it.
Here's what didn't go as planned:
We went up to west Texas for the weekend to see family for a nephew's Law School graduation (some pictures from the trip are included). We had planned to get back home on Monday and just keep our son out of school for the day. I was going to spend Monday afternoon getting him all signed up for summer camp (which I can't believe I haven't done yet!), meeting an old friend for lunch, and then cleaning out the fish tank. Instead we got back on Sunday so the boy went to school, and I forgot all about both summer camp sign-up and the lunch meeting! I'll have to do the summer camp today (hopefully they'll still let him in) and rescheduled the lunch for sometime later this week (which means it's probably not going to happen at all). And I just plain didn't get around to cleaning out the fish tank. Those sad, oxygen starved fish are short about 4 inches of water so I really need to do that tonight. Come on motivator!
Since I was home from work on a scheduled day off with nothing really important to do (and had decided to blow off the fish) I went out and got the oar locks for my rowboat, and some hardware for mounting them. I got the holes drilled in the boat and put the locks on and was all set to be enormously happy with myself and my productivity... but then I tested the oars in the new locks and realized that they're set too low for the oars to clear the sides of the boat! So disappointing.
The problem is that the edges of the boat are curved outward and the whole thing's made of fiberglass. I can't mount anything directly on the curve because it's not strong enough to support the weight, so I mounted the oarlocks just beneath the curve. I thought the lock itself would sit up high enough in the little holster to allow the oars to work, but no such luck. I don't want to add anything to the boat that sticks up over the sides because I need smooth sides in order to push the thing onto the top of my car without lifting. And I really don't want to put any more holes in the poor little guy. So many obstacles!
It took me a really long time to come up with a plan to make the damn things work in exactly the place that they are, but I think I finally figured it out. I will write a separate post about that once I get it sorted out, so there's something to look forward to.



I did manage to accomplish a couple of things though. I washed the dog, cleaned the house, unpacked all the trip stuff, went to the grocery store, and finally mopped the floors with this great homemade Peppermint Floor Wash that's supposed to help keep bugs away. I'm not sure about the bugs yet, but it worked pretty well on the wood floor, it smells good, and it's dirt cheap so I like it already.
Office Time Wasted: Only the hour or so that it took to write this today.