Our Recipe For Disaster

Where in the world has time gone?

I have missed almost 2 weeks of blogging, people.

My sincere apologies to anyone who really gave a hoot.

2010 has just zoomed on into our lives, and we haven't had a chance to stop and breathe.

For some of the past 11 days, I have been dealing with this:



Do you see it? (No, not the tree... It's already put away.) That ginormous box?

Yep. It is EXACTLY what you think it is.

It seems that, like myself, Santa is getting old. And senile. And just plain stupid. Don't mis-read me here... I LOVE the guy. LOVE him.

But who in their right mind buys a trampoline?

Or as I affectionately call it...

A death-o-line.

Or a broken neck-o-line. Or at least a broken collarbone-o-line or broken arm-o-line or broken something-o-line.

What was Santa smoking?

Not only are they dangerous, they require assembly. Like with real tools and arm strength.

So in the absence of Dan/daddy/all-purpose builder of toys, I recruited my neighbor.

He and I and the boy put the crazy thing together on one of our balmy 24 degree Fahrenheit days. Good times.

And because it was 24 degrees, and because he had been working all afternoon, and because he needed to leave, and because it was getting dark... I told him to stop where he was.

That I would finish the last little bit.

Oh. My.
Not one of my wisest decisions.

For the next few days, I played the "It's too cold" card.

Then the blessed guilt crept in.

So I put on a sweater, a scarf, a coat, another coat, a hat, and gloves. Which are impossible to work in. So I took them off. And I went outside to finish putting the darn thing together.

WARNING: What you are about to read and see is REAL. The participant is not an actor. She is a klutz, and should not have even attempted it herself. (There are no actual pictures of the klutz... she was too busy working to take a photo of herself. She was also concentrating on not dying and not freezing.)

I put one foot on this:



I put the other foot on this:



And I climbed up and balanced and held a screwdriver in my teeth and I fixed all the little pole cap thingys that were twisted. And I shivered.

I had to climb up and down my homemade contraption a grand total of 6 times, turning the whole trampoline between each one. Good times.

Then I had to go all around the bottom of the net and tie 438,553,376,255 straps. And I shivered. And I am not exaggerating.

So 2 weeks after Santa had his brain toot and bought a trampoline... it was finally TOTALLY up.



Let the bouncing begin!



(And the trips to the ER...)