the first thing i did was go to my cousin's wedding - and that meant getting dressed up, which just so you know is one of my not-so-favourite things... i'm not a fancy-pants sort of guy, but i bought a suit and people seemed to think it was acceptable so that was that... and the wedding was, i dunno, wedding-like? i haven't been to that many but they don't really impress me as being all that interesting... i think they must have some sort of social significance that i don't get...
whatever, that was the first day of my vacation, after that there was another 2 weeks... 2 weeks of building an interior wall - from scratch... cutting 2x4's to length (by hand, because apparently i am able to cut myself even with a hand saw so power saws wouldn't have been a very good idea), hammering them into position, toe-nailing them together with a hammer and nails for the most part (note to do-it-yourselfers: if you're going to frame a wall, use framing brackets/anchors and screws, i did on some trouble spots at the end and when i was done i wished i could take the other part of the wall back down and re-do it with the brackets - it's that much better), putting in insulation and a vapour barrier, cutting drywall and screwing it into place, etc... it's not a big wall but it's my first time building one and apart from some assistance holding the plastic for the vapour barrier in place and lugging around drywall before it got cut i pretty much put the whole thing in place myself so all that took me the whole 2 weeks...
and yes, if it sounds like i left out some steps (like the taping and the mudding and the priming and the painting) it's because they haven't been done yet - ugg... so much work and now i'm not on vacation anymore so i gotta put in my 8-9 hours at my day job first before even thinking about doing anything about the wall...but there's a method to my madness - it's all part of my newly decided exit strategy that a) let's me get the heck out of my mom's house (years of being the parent to your parent when they should be able to take care of themselves is hard, and apparently very expensive since i just recently did the math) and b) has the very important property of not making me the bad guy for abandoning my mom because if she does wind up having to sell the place at least it will have some/all the repairs it needs done so the place isn't a total hole... i actually feel better than i have in a long while now because it seems like freedom might just be within my grasp... hooray for me!
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