sign me up for a nervous breakdown

i didn’t realize this when i married him, but C doesn’t do things small. he looks at some pictures for ideas, does some measuring and a few sketches, calls around for some estimates, and then decides it makes more sense to drive to a quarry 40 miles away and pick out his own stone, rather than have it delivered and handled by someone who has more experience.

said quarry:

i don’t fault him for this. we’re both dyi people, which is probably why we ended up together in the first place.  i actually (semi)secretly admire this personality trait because it continues to surprise me. however, it often makes for a very messy time and a very tired husband.

like our last way-to-big-for-our-driveway truck experience, this most recent one was also scary. on a scale from 1 to 10, (1 = what are people thinking? anyone can do this! 10 = holy *^%#: not only are we going to die but our house and our neighbor’s house might also collapse), i would rate this one as a 9.

at 8:30 a.m. in the morning, this massive 16 wheeler shows up and takes 45 minutes to back down our narrow driveway, much to annoyance of the local traffic and our neighbors:

i left at this time for three very valid reasons: 1. i needed iced tea and couldn’t wait to make it myself 2. we had no internet and i needed to do some work for school and 3. i wasn’t willing to play the supportive partner role of standing outside, freaking out when the truck backed up the driveway and came within 2 inches of our house and the neighbor’s house, before dumping 38 tons of stone into our back yard.

i agreed to be a partner in the house renovation. i didn’t agree to have a nervous breakdown over some rocks.

here’s what the truck did:

this is what things looked like after:

so much for all the grass we just planted.

while i continued to bide my time at the coffee shop, another massive truck showed up and shot a whole lotta’ gravel onto the site of the future patio:

C and our contractor have been busy for the last 5 days moving very large rocks into position so that we can have a raised patio. for the most part, i’ve stuck to the front yard in order to avoid fears of falling in a heap of gravel or watching C crush his arm under a boulder the size of our new washing machine.

by the end of the week, the slate might actually have a new home and i will no longer be sweeping piles of dirt and gravel out the back door.