Some Assembly Required

Here's a bit of advice for you: when your mom tells you she's worried about you because you haven't blogged enough lately, you know you need to recommit yourself to blogging. If for no other reason but to keep Mom from worrying.

So, Mom, this one's for you.

Unfortunately, I have very little of interest to say because it's November December (how did it get to be December?) and already we are having the dreaded inversions here in Utah. I do not know what an inversion is exactly, but I do know that it makes the skies ever so pathetically gray and hazy and inevitably I get sick for the rest of winter until the tiniest of tulip blossoms begin to sprout from the cold, barren soil. There is just something about all that concentrated pollution hanging around in the air, I am so sure.

You would think that such a place like Utah would not have so much pollution, wouldn't you? I thought so. And then I moved here. And now I would like to go back to Colorado to breathe REAL air. You know, the kind without all the polluted haze.

But the "grass is always greener" isn't it?

Speaking of grass (or not), we have a new treadmill! A treadmill which I have yet to use, but spent 3.25 hours assembling (with Kyle) on Tuesday night. I figured it couldn't be that hard to put together.... probably you just screw the handles to the base, right?

Wrong.

267 pieces and half an episode of Glee later, we both had blistered and grease-stained fingers and two small parts too many... I forgot them and decided they were basically cosmetic anyway.

When it comes to marital project assembly, I like to be the "team manager" you could say. I take it upon myself to read the directions and call out orders. Contrary to popular belief, this is not so much because I like to be the boss, but more because if I don't read everything myself, I will not know what I am doing and basically screw everything up. In other words: I can't take directions from someone else. It's one of those personality flaws that probably I'll have to live with forever.

At any rate, we were just tightening up the last of the bolts when I looked into the monster-sized packing box and noticed a curvy bar still in its plastic.

"Oh, what's this for?" I asked.

Kyle groaned with knowing dread.

Yes, I had forgotten a whole piece of the puzzle.

Step 12 of 40 apparently went unnoticed in my calculated study of "Instructions for Assembly."

So probably we would've been done in 2.25 hours had we not had to unscrew basically everything just to fit the curvy bar into its proper place. And then I still managed to forget two small parts.

The good news is, my blistery fingers have nearly healed, all except for my thumb which was instrumental in hanging approximately 23 picture frames last night.

To be continued...