I have a job
that demands that you attempt to do five things at once. That you hurry up and get everything
done yesterday. A job that
requires a great deal of focus and a great lack of patience. Unrealistic deadlines are promised to
appease the client and then we burn the midnight oil to meet that deadline. Unfortunately this impatience has
spilled into the rest of my life. I get pissed off if I have to wait more than a minute for a red light, or if the ATM machine is not giving me my money fast enough. I get snappy if my daughter is walking to slow. I scream at my computer if it's not downloading something fast enough. I rush into work super early, stay late, sit in traffic and listen to the redundant news reports making observations of our impatient society. This garage project however is slowly eroding that impatience and making me aware that a more normal time line requires the virtue of patience. When I started I knew the digging was
going to take some time. The
demo had to be carefully done, so that would also take some time. Once I was past that I figured things
were going to fly. But when your
goal is to spend as little money as possible and acquire most of the materials
for free, things have a way of taking much more time than you expect. Trying to compact and level the ground
where your footing is going to go when you still have a "floating"
garage wall in the way takes time.
Building forms when your scrounging wood takes time. Finding free rebar requires incredible
patience! (No one gives that stuff away!) Tying rebar is insanely slow. Of course there's always that
"job" situation that gets in the way. The weather also took its toll on my timeline. How easy it is to spend a raining day
on the couch with a good book than to be sloshing around in the mud. This late winter and spring in Seattle
have been pretty wet. But the sun
is breaking out of the clouds for longer periods, the days are extending and my
motivation to get this damn thing onto a foundation is in high gear. It survived the winter storms (although
the tent is almost toast) but I can't push my luck. Not to mention I don't want to raise the curiosity of to
many neighbors as my garage continues to mysteriously hover eight inches off
the ground. But... as I implied, "Patience is not only a virtue in this
situation, by completely necessary.
I've had a few small victories over the past months. I did hunt down some re-bar for
virtually free. Sitting in
someone's back yard that he sold me for a third of the going price. (I will have to calculate how much will go
into the garage foundation as I am also building the footing for my kitchen at
the same time.) I have hunted down
a couple of salvaged skylights and a window. I acted to slow on a great daylight door that would have
been perfect so that didn't end up in my collection. (a little to much patience) I also pain stakenly moved over 100 pieces of salvaged
limestone pavers to my yard that will eventually be a patio where the tent is
currently sitting.
With every victory though, I have had setbacks. I spent three days tying re-bar into
place. I had to lay it out into
the correct location so that it will fit eventually fit within the cinder
blocks I plan to make the wall with.
I took my time to measure out and mark the location of where every piece
needed to go, only to discover that I was off by 2" each! I had to cut them all out and start
over… Patience! In order to bend
the re-bar, I had to get a hold of a re-bar bender. I had to keep borrowing one from work and could only use it when they were
not using it... Patience! When I
had the money to buy the concrete, the weather was bad. When the weather was good I didn't have
the money... Patience!
Currently I only have enough forming material to do one side of the garage foundation at a time as. Once that concrete is poured, I will have to pull apart the forms and reuse them on the other side... Patience! Of course the big rock I have to form around is not helping either... Patience!
Finally the
stars where align! I had the
money, I had the good weather, and I had a truck with a trailer hitch, the
rebar in place, I WAS GOOD TO GO.
I got up early with great anticipation to go get my concrete! What a way to start my three-day
holiday. Pouring at least
one footing was going to be a milestone.
I got to the concrete yard ready for action. I was then told that the power was down and they couldn't
mix concrete that day.
"You'll have to reschedule,” the concrete man said to my
disappointed face... Patience.
Oh well. I
guess I'll weed the garden.
