Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Three Day Weekends

Almost everyone loves a three-day weekend, but there are those who prefer the day off to be a Friday and those who are supporters of Monday holidays. Count me as one of those in the latter category.
Every weekend has its collection of regular chores to be done and the usual times that they get done. If I have Friday off, I'll tend to push a couple of chores up, but still have the others to do on Saturday and Sunday. As a result, I feel like I don't have a day off. On the other hand, if the holiday is on Monday, all the regular weekend chores are finished as usual and we have an entire day to do what we want. Of course, that is sometimes some bigger chores that we put off "until we have time."

Case in point was the just-passed Labor Day weekend. Laundry, vacuuming, pool maintenance, bill-paying, et al were done on Saturday and Sunday, leaving us with Monday free. So what did we do? Laurie went to Lowe's and picked up some plants for the front of the house...and a container of driveway sealant.
Someone told her that Dawn dishwashing detergent is the product of choice to get oil stains off the macadam -- the sealant won't adhere to the oil -- so she poured it on and used a scrub brush to clean them. (After seeing how Dawn works on the driveway, I'm ready to do a testimonial for them, by the way.) Laurie moved on to do her planting and I finished hosing down the driveway.
Since we had to then wait for the driveway to dry, we retired to the back yard and the pool.

Over the past couple of months, we have talked about the fact that the deck needed a fresh coat of water sealant. This requires renting a power sander and, more importantly, a week of dry weather beforehand. As those of us who live in the Northeast can attest, this was far from the driest summer ever. (Three months of April!) As a result, we never got to doing it.
Though the sanding job would now be postponed till next spring, we decided that putting a coat of sealant on now couldn't hurt. Laurie's plan was to do the driveway yesterday and then the deck today, but once we had her set up on the former, I figured I might as well tackle the latter. So, while Laurie "painted" the driveway (as it was described by the little girl next door), I "painted" the deck. And now we have two big chores out of the way.

Who says we don't know how to have fun on a three-day weekend? (Okay, in addition to the chores, I played beach volleyball Friday night, we went to a dinner party on Saturday, and had our friend Janice over on Sunday. And there was plenty of time in and beside the pool!)

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