11 Step Program

The forecast was calling for cloudy skies and a significant chance of rain for Sunday, and before bed, I checked the radar and saw that a line of strong storms were sweeping south and east from Chicago. In fact, Michigan's Saturday evening football was postponed for several hours due to strong storms. However, all that said, not only did the storms fall apart during the overnight, the revised forecast was calling for partly to mostly sunny skies and only a 10% chance of rain. What's more, looking 10 days out, not a drop of rain in the foreseeable future. In other words, very Septemberish!

I played on the internet and enjoyed coffee for more than an hour before heading out on a run. By then it was almost 70 degrees. I even contemplated running without a shirt. Good run. Once Mindy was up, she worked on a grocery list. She put a roast in the crock pot for dinner, too. I asked if we could swap cars so I could make a Home Depot run to get the lumber necessary to add risers to our basement stairs. I'd also be going by my dad's to rip and cross-cut the boards. I left for H.D. & Lowes near 12noon.

I needed to stop at both places since Lowes had the brackets I wanted/needed for the project. H.D. had everything else. Bought 22 brackets at Lowes (two per riser). Bought six 1X10" pine boards which I planned to cross cut to roughly 33" and then rip to 8" exactly. I also bought screws and liquid nails. In addition, decided to go ahead and buy the PEX tubing I'd need to complete the plumbing for the basement.

Called dad in route to his place. He was there awaiting my arrival. Mindy called sharing some sad news about Ruby, Jodie & Larry's Giant Schnauzer. She died the night before after falling suddenly ill. I knew the two them would be hurting.

Arrived at dad's sometime after 1pm. He already had his table saw set-up in the driveway for easy access. After a little conversation we got down to business. Learned quickly that the rip fence was loose despite being fully engaged. A little WD-40 and it was fixed. I needed 11 boards that varied in width from 32-13/16" to 33" exactly. I cut them all to 33" planning to trim them to fit with my circular saw at home. Once we had all the boards cross-cut we started the ripping. Mindy pulled up unexpectedly. Said she was stopping by her sister's to drop off a card and flowers.

Ripped all 12 boards to 8" exactly. Once we got going it went really fast. Before heading home, I offered to help dad with a project he had going on, which was reinstalling about an 8' span of gutter on the north end of his house. He'd already painted the trim behind it. I pointed out how his power line in the same area was not only rubbing the roof shingles but also cutting into the corner of the house creating a very serious safely hazard. I insisted he contact AEP rightaway.

Took care of reinstalling the gutter then nailed down a few loose shingles and applied some roofing cement to some exposed nail heads on the flashing. Dad's been battling vertigo of late, so he was at least wise enough not to attempt the work himself. I helped him put all the tools we used away. And just before I left I shared that I would call AEP the following morning about the powerline issue. That way I could make sure it got addressed. We also invited dad for dinner - roast beef.

I headed home at what must have been close to 3pm. I headed immediately to the basement to get busy on the stairs. Mindy stopped home with groceries before heading over to her sister's. I signed the card before she left. Down the basement I got right to work. I'd already made a list with each board's exact width requirement. Not only did I write the number sequence on each stair tread, but once it was cut for that specific riser I noted the number on the board too. Smart!!! :) I then tediously installed two brackets to each cut to fit riser board. Before screwing into the stairs, I applied a bead of Liquid Nails. Took an hour or so to do all 11 risers. Went pretty much exactly as I planned. Very happy to have the task completed. It was one of the first dilemmas I contemplated shortly after Kenny framed the basement May '13.

Mindy was home shortly after I got everything cleaned up and put away. By then it was closing in on 340pm. I headed up for a shower, and at the same time I turned on the bedroom TV to check in on the NFL scores. It was after my shower that I learned that they were behind and on their way to losing. Not only that, but their starting QB, Matt Cassel was hurt and out. Teddy Bridgewater, our much ballyhooed rookie QB, was in. Bottom line, T.B. played well but they lost 20-9. :(

Das was soon at the house and dinner was soon on the table. I showed him my work in the basement. He was surprised that I had already completed the stair project The roast was outstanding and so were the accompanying carrots. I love fresh cooked carrots!

After clean-up Mindy served up the last of the chocolate pie. Just enough for the three of us to have a piece. Dad stuck around until near 7pm. Thanked him again for the assist earlier with the saw. After dad left, I changed into comfy attire and tuned into SNF pregame. The rest of the evening was spent lazing watching football.