And we have lift-off!!!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Today was Michael's first day off since Hurricane Ike! It was a much needed day off for both of us! :) He slept in, and I went to my Dr.'s appointment. Then he went to the hunting lease to take care of some of the damage done to his box stand during the hurricane. We met for lunch, and then spent the rest of the day together! (More about the doctor visit later.)

Around 5:00 or so, he decided to start working on the Honey-Do-List that's been on the refrigerator since the hurricanes. He started checking things off the list as he finished. He raised the bed back up from when Holly & Anna were visiting. He switched the baby's closet around for me. (I got a closet organizer that hangs on one side of the closet. I had it on the left side of the closet, but I wanted it on the right side, because on the left side of the organizer are a bunch of pockets that I wouldn't be able to use if we hung it on the left side of the closet. Does that make sense? I'll post a pic...) I told him not to worry about putting up the shelves, because Stacey and I rearranged the decorations, and I really didn't need the shelves after all. SO...the only thing left on the list to completely finish the nursery was to hang the airplane!

I had no idea how hard it would be to hang an airplane! I mean really..does it seem that difficult...I'm married to an engineer, so I thought this would be a piece of cake for him! Boy, was I ever wrong! I have to tell you that we started the "airplane project" around 8:00pm. He started out on a step ladder trying to screw in the hook to the vaulted ceiling, which I knew wouldn't work, but I let him figure this out on his own. Finally after about 30-45 minutes he realized that he needed to bring in the big 12 foot ladder to complete this project. Once this HUGE ladder was in the room leaning against the wall, it made it more difficult to position the plane exactly where I wanted it. (He knew this, and it was the reason he didn't want to use the big ladder in the first place, but I didn't know.) So standing on the ladder he got the tail of the plane hanging at exactly the right height, and began using fishing line to hang it. Well, for those of you who don't know, fishing line is very slippery, and slips when you don't want it to...especially if a small airplane if hanging from it! So, as he was trying to knot the fishing line at exactly the right height, my job was to shine a flashlight at the line making it easier for him to see the line. This process of tying knots, realizing that it slipped to low, getting frustrated and cutting it down only to start over again, went on for several hours! Then he decided to guesstimate the height that I wanted, take the plane down, and then tie the knot in the line as the plane sat on the ground. This worked for the tail end of the plane, so then we guesstimated how I wanted it to "fly", and he tied the line to the two wings and up to the hook. Then once all three lines were hanging from the hook, we went to screw the hook into the ceiling, and hang the plane! Once this took place, the plane was still lower than I wanted it to be, but I wasn't going to say ANYTHING! I told him it looked great, and that I was happy with it! However, after spending SO MUCH time on it, he didn't like the way it looked, and so I fessed up about it being to low. He said he could fix that, so down came the plane. He cut a few inches off the line, and hung it back up! PERFECT! It was exactly at the height that I wanted, only now, it was spinning around and around! :) He said he could fix this too, and he went to work securing another piece of the fishing line to the tail of the plane and to another nail in the wall behind the top picture on the wall. The weight of the plane kept forcing the nail out of the wall, and wouldn't allow a secure tight knot once again ending in frustration!!! At one point, just when we thought we were done, the line was so tight that it bounced the picture off the wall, and Michael grabbed it with his broken wrist which caused a severe shooting pain! Again, more frustration. I felt bad for him, but at this point it was getting comical, and I wanted to capture it on video, BUT I restrained myself, because I think he would've thrown the plane at the window, and then the picture at me! Finally three and a half hours later, the plane was hanging from the ceiling, and I'm a very grateful wife and mother-to-be! Michael said that Garrett better like this airplane after spending his last three and a half hours of his day off working on it!

So the airplane is flying, and it looks GREAT! I LOVE it, and every time I pass the nursery I see it, and have to smile! So if you ever make to our house to visit, and you check out the nursery, please be sure to comment on how GREAT, and AWESOME , and SUPER-COOL the airplane looks flying at you when you enter the room! It will make Michael's day, and give us all something to laugh about!