Patio Furniture...

If you want a lesson in humility try to put together patio furniture.  My mom bought this small set and I swear to god, I have about 4 hours in at this point with more time required today to hopefully finish the job. I don’t mind the time and helping her, she would have paid someone else to put it all together but I insisted that I could and would do it.  And so far, four hours in, I don’t even have two of the five pieces put together!

I will get it done.  I just have to take breaks because sitting on the ground is hard and painful.  God, did I just say that?  My 56 year old is showing...and I do not like it.  I can’t sit at a table and do it because the items are too large and also my neck would be super pissed off if I did it that way...so sitting on the ground is the only way.  Aging sucks...

I am not sure if this set is just particularly difficult.  I mean the Amazon reviews warned us of every pitfall we would have...I should have known so many people taking the time to write terrible reviews should have been a sign.  But I am stubborn and refuse to listen to randos from Amazon...I am rethinking that.

But there is a bright spot in all of this, besides my mom will have new patio furniture, and that is I figured it all out.  I was able to use my brain to figure out how to install the mechanisms that make them rock and turn.  That was not an easy feat.  It took patience, which I do not have, and time.  But I figured it out! YAY!

I am thinking this will be my last put together though...I think paying someone else to do it will be money well spent next time whether it be for me or my mom.  But I am proud of myself for handling this one.  I have gotten to a certain age where I have let my fix it up skills languish.  Never having the time to do it myself so always paying someone else to do it for me...and so it feels good to be in a place where I physically could do it and mentally I did not give up.

I will finish the set up today...if it is the last thing I do.  And I will be very happy that my mom can now sit outside on her patio and rock to her heart’s content.  The image of her sitting there enjoying her new set is worth every single ounce of frustration and despair I felt during the process.  Hard work, part of gift...nothing worthwhile in this life comes easy, except, perhaps the love of child for mother and mother for child...which is heartening and life affirming and I could use that right now.

Again, still...