Workin' For The Weekend

Nothing like a good Loverboy reference to start out the blog entry today, eh?

I had a super productive weekend.  Saturday morning was swim lesson registration at the YMCA, so I dragged my tired butt out of bed at 6:00 AM, ate some breakfast, then drove over to the Y to stand in line.  Yup.  I arrived around 6:30, and there were a LOT of people in line.  You see, at 7:30 they pass out numbers and time slots... then you come back for your allotted timeslot, with the first timeslot being 8am.  I ended up with #93, so I went home, filled out all the paperwork, and returned to the YMCA at 9am to wait for my number to be called (which was around 9:20).  Luckily we were able to get Emily registered for the first session, which was the one we wanted.  Hooray!  They do swim lessons 4 days per week for 2 weeks here.  I could actually have registered her for multiple sessions but we decided to go with just one.  That's 8 days of swimming lessons over a span of 11 days.

After that, I drove up to Merchant's Tire to get some new tires for the Mazda.  Damned low profile tires are EXPENSIVE!  I had driven around the week before getting prices on cheap tires, and Merchant's tire pretty much won out, which was nice because I like going there anyway.  All told, I ended up spending $550 on 4 tires, mounting, balancing, "road hazard insurance", and a wheel alignment which was apparently necessary.  Frak!  Nothing like forking out that kind of cash for a car you'll only be driving for another 12 months / 15,000 miles!

While I was waiting, I wondered over to the nearby strip mall and looked at TV stands at Wal-Mart.  Adrienne and Emily joined me after her soccer practice was over, and we bought some new sandals for Emily.  We're getting some distinctly summer weather this week, so the timing was right.  Afterwards, I picked up my car and we all went home for "quiet time".

Having a child is a good excuse to take a saturday afternoon nap!

I started working on the boat after nap time, which involved washing it (ammonia, white vinegar, and corn starch!), and then I spent some time waxing it.  Got half the boat waxed before I had to head out for the hockey game (CAnes won, 6-4).

Sunday was more of the same.  I mowed the front lawn, sprayed weed killer (Ortho Weed-B-Gone) and sprayed some Round Up too along the fenceline and such, and then went back to working on the boat.

It has some black side trime that was really REALLY badly weathered, so I had picked up a can of automotive spray paint the other day, and used it to pretty it up a bit.  I got a nice glossy black with metallic flecks in it to spray on, and it turned out pretty decent.  After the paint had all dried, I finished waxing the rest of the boat.

Honestly, the wax helped a little, but there's not much you can do to 20 year old fiberglass, short of completely repainting the entire thing.  No thanks!

I also ripped off the seat pads from the bow, and along the sides, which I'm hoping to have re-upholstered.  It's just cosmetic work, but these things count.  I also vacuumed the entire boat, and washed down the inside of the bow as well.

With dad's help, I was finally able to get the damn gearshift out of the side board so I can get that reupholstered too.

I replaced the hinges on the engine cover so that's nice and solid again.

Next weekend, I'm going to replace the alternator belt, and take her back to the marina until the upholstery is done, and probably ask them to de-winterize it and give it a spring tuneup.  Hopefully, she'll be "seaworthy" in a few weeks!  That's all assuming I can get the gearshift back on! =)

Overall, a damn fine weekend.

Burnt the crap out of the back of my neck too.