STUFF HAPPENS

No matter how much you may try to simplify your life there will still be things designed to complicate it.

I took a working vacation to be able to go out to the land and get some serious work in before the cold settles into my bones.

I’ve been building the foundation piers for the cabin we want to bring in from the local Amish builders. I had made fairly good progress up until last week when things began to happen.

I had purchased a new generator to handle my saw and compressor requirements, and was doing fairly well. Some days I would tire out a little sooner than I had anticipated. But, all in all, I was happy with the progress.

Then—stuff happened.

I needed lumber longer than I had anticipated. When I laid out the spacing for the piers, I measured, but not critically. Consequently, a few of them required slightly more than the eight feet I had allotted.

This necessitated another trip to the lumber yard, which is an hour away. The lumber was upstairs in their warehouse, so it required help to get it down. It isn’t easy getting help at most stores today. 

The trip was time-consuming, therefore a day was lost. The property is two hours away from the store.

Got that taken care of and then—stuff happened.

The new generator I had purchased decided it did not want to work after lunch. I would shut it down to go eat, but the thing absolutely REFUSED to start again after lunch. So, I would lose those 3-4 hours of afternoon work on the foundation.

I decided that the best work-around would be to just let the generator run during the lunch break. After all, it doesn’t waste “that much” fuel.

I go out to the site with that in mind and then—stuff happened.

The generator wouldn’t start at all!!

FRUSTRATED, I was on my way back into town to head off to the town which is an hour away (in the other direction) to buy another generator. (I tend to make stupid decisions when I’m frustrated.) A friend who is battling cancer called and wanted to buy me a coffee.

I figured that he needed the company and I needed to breathe, so I agreed to a 30-minute respite. As we prepared to leave, he wanted to go out to try to fix the generator since he was a good mechanic. I agreed.

We made the almost hour-long trip back out to the property, and then—stuff happened.

He discovered I didn’t have the necessary tools with which to attempt much repair. We did manage to discover that there was no fire getting to the spark plug. That is at least something that I can relate to the service department along with the other things that are messed up with the generator.

Just so you know—the generator arrived in very poor condition, but I tried everything I knew to keep from sending it back.

Then stuff happened—I missed the return window by one day.

To top it off, we were informed the cabin will only take three weeks to build instead of the six weeks I had allotted in my planning.

I’m telling you—stuff happens.