For the better part of the last decade we have had an annual tradition in our house. I can’t say it’s an event that I look forward to with great anticipation, although it does have a remarkable payoff. My trepidation is mostly because our annual tradition consists of a project that gets more and more difficult to complete each time.
What is this project and why does it get harder each year? Let me give you some hints. Those of you with only one child will think you understand. After reading about my tradition, those of you with two kids will mumble something along the lines of, “I feel your pain.” Those of you with three or more kids will shout, “Amen! Preach it, brother!” To which I will reply, “Did someone say something about another brother?”
Those of you in tune with your parental instincts have quickly deduced that this is more of a sippy cup story than a steak story. If you are among this crowd, I commend you for your valuable intuition pertaining to the obvious, for the tradition of which I speak is that of the annual wardrobe swap. It all started very gradually about seven years ago when my wife was pregnant with our first child. Since she had never yet experienced the joys of the maternity fashion ensemble, her wardrobe gradually changed over from the size zero shirts and pants that she once wore to the longer shirts and more spacious pants with the soft belly pocket. By the end of that pregnancy, in addition to a healthy baby boy, she also had quite a collection of maternity wear.
A month or so after our son was born, the tradition reversed. It was now time to put all the maternity clothes into a box and stash them away in the attic and return the size zero clothes to their rightful place in the closet. Oh, wait. I forgot. Nobody is ever a size zero again after giving birth to a child. No big deal. We’ll just go shopping first and get some clothes that fit, then restock the closet. And good thing we did because with her new wardrobe, she looked better than ever, even if she was now a size two.
By the time the second pregnancy came around a year or so later, the drill was established. Dad climbs up in the attic and retrieves a single box of maternity clothes while Mom pilfers a few extras shirts and pants from friends who have since had their first child. Even though Mom is a bit tired from the pregnancy, she manages to complete the wardrobe swap while dad watches the kid and keeps him out of her neatly arranged box. Simple enough. Hence my earlier comment about parents with only one child.
Nine months later, baby number two is born. Six weeks after that we do the swap once more. Mom packs up two boxes of maternity clothes, Dad stores them in the attic while mom restocks her closet with the size two wardrobe (and maybe a couple of size fours, just in case). Then along comes baby number three, only this time when Dad puts the maternity clothes away, there are thee big plastic tubs, two cardboard boxes and a partridge in a pear tree.
And that, my friends, brings us to today and baby number four. This morning I woke up to find another plastic tub of maternity clothes in our bedroom courtesy of my equally fertile sister. I looked at the tub and knew that we would have one goal for the day: complete the swap and put all the regular clothes up in the attic while making sure that the other three kids were well cared for, fed, and rested when necessary.
The day began with my wife making a quick trip to Wal-Mart to buy some new plastic tubs in which to store her slimmer fitting clothes. Thinking I could share some bonding time with my son, I called out to him. “Hey, Buddy! Do you want to go up in the attic with me?” Of course he thought that was a great idea, so I continued. “Go get your shoes on.”
“Dad, I can’t put my shoes on with my pajamas,” he replied.
No big deal, I thought. “Okay, then go get dressed, then put your shoes on,” I suggested.
“Dad, I can’t get dressed until I take a shower.”
Oh, yeah. A shower. Don’t want to forget that. So off he goes to the shower. Might as well bathe the girls too while Mom is at Wal-Mart. A half hour later, Mom was home and all three kids were clean, although their stages of dress ranged from naked to complete, with one somewhere in the middle.
After a quick repair to the light and a short lesson on electricity, Zach and I climbed up to the attic. As I stood on the ladder, my son ran around locating every box with the word “Maternity” written on the side. He handed me the boxes, tubs, moving vans, and everything else that contained pregnancy garb. Once they were all located, I started carrying them down. After dropping a box off on the ground, I again climbed the ladder only to be met by a six year old jumping into my arms as soon as my head poked up into his view. “I have to go pee!” he shouted as I caught him mid-air. After a short lecture on the dangers of BASE jumping from the attic, I lowered him to the floor and finished the job alone.
Let’s fast forward to 8:00 that same night so as not to bore you with the mundane details of trying to accomplish a single task in one day with three young children and a pregnant wife in the house. The slimmer line of clothes is now packed away in the new tubs, the closet is bare, and the bedroom is covered with various piles of maternity ensembles that need to be put away. Upon seeing this, my wife and I work like mad to get everything folded or hung and the room clean enough to sleep in. To a neat freak like myself, clean enough to sleep in means perfect. Once the room met my standard of cleanliness I carried all the boxes to the garage so I could return them to the attic in the morning. As I was coming back into the house, one small box caught my eye. “Honey, did you see this box?” I asked.
As luck would have it, she hadn’t noticed the little box so I opened it and found another wardrobe contained within its four walls. I laid the clothes on the bed and went to brush my teeth while my wife began to put them away. With fresh breath and sparkly teeth, I returned to the bedroom expecting to see the perfection which I had previously attained, only to find my lovely wife tucked into bed and a pile of clothes spread out on the chest at the end of the bed. “Weren’t you going to put these away?” I asked.
“I’ll get them tomorrow. I’m too tired,” she replied.
“That’s okay, I’ll take care of them,” I offered.
“No just leave them and turn off the light. I’m tired,” she said again.
I looked at the pile of clothes, kissed my wife, and turned off the light. Then I looked again. I could still see them, even in the dark. I can’t sleep like this. Might as well get up and write about it, I thought to myself. So I did.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Four!
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average American couple has 1.9 children. Whenever a first-time mom announces the news of her pending arrival to her family and friends, she gets overwhelmed with words of encouragement and advice. Once the baby is born, she and dad are again overwhelmed, only this time it is not by words, but by work. The amount of work involved in caring for a new addition to the family is almost more than they can bear. After a year or two, the young couple starts to realize that they can indeed handle the job of parenthood, so they decide to move a tenth of a child past the national average. With baby number two tucked neatly in the back seat of the new mini van, the family is close enough to average to feel complete.
Some parents, such as my wife and me, are especially fortunate in the eyes of the average American because our firstborn is boy and our second is a girl. “Now you have a boy and a girl. What a perfect family!” I must have heard this a thousand times in the weeks following the birth of my daughter. When I wasn’t laughing at words like ‘miconium’ and ‘areola’ during childbirth class, I was paying attention to the rules of the game. Is there some unwritten rule that I missed? Are we in China? Who says we have to stop just because we have one of each? “We’ll show them,” I said to my wife.
A year and a half later we announced that number three was on its way. By now the advice and encouragement was gone. Instead we heard things like, “Now you’re outnumbered!” Thanks for the input. If only we had learned to count to three before we conceived, we might have thought twice (because, apparently, twice is as high as our friends thought we could count). Occasionally we would run across a family with more than three kids and hear words like, “Number three is always the hardest,” or “If you can handle three, you can handle ten!” No, you can handle ten.
Now here we are a year and a half later and baby number four is on its way. Most people we talk to now have no idea what to say because they are still trying to decide what to do with baby number 1.9. Since my wife is still early in the pregnancy, and is hardly showing, most people assume we are done. They may see us out in public and say something like, “Wow, you really have your hands full.” I love to add to their awe and amazement by saying, “Yeah, and number four is in there,” as I point to my wife’s belly. The inevitable response is never far behind the look of severe perplexity that crosses their faces, “On purpose?”
Sarcasm again bursts forth. “Nope, I accidentally…” then I catch myself and decide to keep the conversation appropriate. “What’s wrong with four kids?” I ask. The response varies at this point as most people try to recover from the sheer shock of someone conceiving a fourth child on purpose. Most commonly, though, someone eventually asks if we came from large families ourselves. In their minds,I suppose, large families are a genetic defect that is passed on from generation to generation. “Yes, it runs in my family on the X-chromosome,” I reply. “She’s just a carrier,” I add glancing at my wife.
The truth behind the sarcasm, however, is this: Each and every kid we have brings a new kind of joy into our lives. Why wouldn’t we want one more?
Some parents, such as my wife and me, are especially fortunate in the eyes of the average American because our firstborn is boy and our second is a girl. “Now you have a boy and a girl. What a perfect family!” I must have heard this a thousand times in the weeks following the birth of my daughter. When I wasn’t laughing at words like ‘miconium’ and ‘areola’ during childbirth class, I was paying attention to the rules of the game. Is there some unwritten rule that I missed? Are we in China? Who says we have to stop just because we have one of each? “We’ll show them,” I said to my wife.
A year and a half later we announced that number three was on its way. By now the advice and encouragement was gone. Instead we heard things like, “Now you’re outnumbered!” Thanks for the input. If only we had learned to count to three before we conceived, we might have thought twice (because, apparently, twice is as high as our friends thought we could count). Occasionally we would run across a family with more than three kids and hear words like, “Number three is always the hardest,” or “If you can handle three, you can handle ten!” No, you can handle ten.
Now here we are a year and a half later and baby number four is on its way. Most people we talk to now have no idea what to say because they are still trying to decide what to do with baby number 1.9. Since my wife is still early in the pregnancy, and is hardly showing, most people assume we are done. They may see us out in public and say something like, “Wow, you really have your hands full.” I love to add to their awe and amazement by saying, “Yeah, and number four is in there,” as I point to my wife’s belly. The inevitable response is never far behind the look of severe perplexity that crosses their faces, “On purpose?”
Sarcasm again bursts forth. “Nope, I accidentally…” then I catch myself and decide to keep the conversation appropriate. “What’s wrong with four kids?” I ask. The response varies at this point as most people try to recover from the sheer shock of someone conceiving a fourth child on purpose. Most commonly, though, someone eventually asks if we came from large families ourselves. In their minds,I suppose, large families are a genetic defect that is passed on from generation to generation. “Yes, it runs in my family on the X-chromosome,” I reply. “She’s just a carrier,” I add glancing at my wife.
The truth behind the sarcasm, however, is this: Each and every kid we have brings a new kind of joy into our lives. Why wouldn’t we want one more?
Monday, April 7, 2008
The Classic Playground
Do you ever miss the classic things in life? Like cars that can be repaired without an advanced degree in computer technology or moms that raise their own kids and have dinner on the table when dad gets home? Or maybe you miss things like playground equipment that incites joy, danger, and terror all at once. Think of the classics that are gone: the teeter totter, the merry-go-round, tall swings, and metal slides. Cities and schools have to pass bond measures just to afford all the ultra-safe gadgetry that the litigators now require.
Fortunately, all is not a loss. Several years back I acquired one of these playground classics. Made of steel tubing and sheet metal, our backyard slide is seven feet tall and capable of generating autobahn speeds. As I look at our slide, I often find myself caught in a quandary between protecting my children and allowing them to have some innocent child-like fun. One day it hit me, perhaps by removing the brick and lava rock that surround the bottom of the slide, I could provide a safer place for my kids to play while also allowing them to experience the thrill of sliding toward the ground like a bobsled in winter.
Last weekend, I started the process. The first step toward making our playground safer was to remove the bricks that separate the lava rock from the Palm Springs Gold gravel (another classic combination). The brick removal was actually quite simple since they were not mortared into place, but it was a tedious job. While I picked up bricks, my five-year-old son, Zach, quietly played in the rocks.
“Hey buddy,” I called out to him. “You wanna help?”
“Not really,” he replied.
Thinking fast, I added, “I’ll pay you a penny for every brick you pick up.”
“So if I pick up a hundred bricks, you’ll give me a dollar?” he asked.
“Yup,” I replied. Dropping his rocks he got to work carefully placing his bricks in a separate pile than mine. He started with the bricks that were closest to the fence and counted aloud as he stacked them, “One cent, two cents, three cents…” After a few minutes, the walk from the row of bricks to the pile by the fence started getting longer, so I offered a solution. “I’ll just toss them to you and you stack them,” I suggested. He liked this idea and kept on eagerly working.
“Eighteen cents, 19 cents, 20 cents…” he continued as I tossed brick after brick. I must have gotten carried away with my tossing at some point because the counting was replaced by a loud howl. Being the naturally curious father that I am, I glanced his way as the howls grew louder.
“What’s up, bud?” I asked, knowing exactly what the answer was as I looked at his finger caught between two bricks. So much for making the playground safer.
“You threw that brick at me and it smashed my finger!” he informed me in the least rational voice he could muster.
“Let me teach you about a thing called worker’s compensation,” I said. “You see, when you get hurt at work, your boss pays you extra money. So I’m going to give you a five cent bonus if you can stop crying right now and get back to work.”
“You mean I only have to pick up 95 bricks to get a dollar?”
“Yup, only 95 bricks,” I answered.
“What number was I at?”
“Thirty-one,” I replied.
“Thirty-two cents, 33 cents, 34 cents...” Crisis averted. We were back in business. By the time we had to stop for the night, he was up to 46 bricks and 51 cents (due to the worker’s comp bonus).
“Dad, can I come back out and work some more in the morning before school?”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “My bookworm, academic, brainiac son wants to do manual labor before going to school?”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. And that’s exactly what he did. By the time he left for school this morning, he was up to 85 cents.
What have I created? I can see it now. Once the brick and gravel are gone and the teeter-totter and slide are safely resting on cushiony rubber chips, Zach is going to ask, “Dad, can I have a penny every time I go up and down on the teeter-totter with Maddie?”
“Sure, Buddy, but no more worker’s comp claims, okay?”
Fortunately, all is not a loss. Several years back I acquired one of these playground classics. Made of steel tubing and sheet metal, our backyard slide is seven feet tall and capable of generating autobahn speeds. As I look at our slide, I often find myself caught in a quandary between protecting my children and allowing them to have some innocent child-like fun. One day it hit me, perhaps by removing the brick and lava rock that surround the bottom of the slide, I could provide a safer place for my kids to play while also allowing them to experience the thrill of sliding toward the ground like a bobsled in winter.
Last weekend, I started the process. The first step toward making our playground safer was to remove the bricks that separate the lava rock from the Palm Springs Gold gravel (another classic combination). The brick removal was actually quite simple since they were not mortared into place, but it was a tedious job. While I picked up bricks, my five-year-old son, Zach, quietly played in the rocks.
“Hey buddy,” I called out to him. “You wanna help?”
“Not really,” he replied.
Thinking fast, I added, “I’ll pay you a penny for every brick you pick up.”
“So if I pick up a hundred bricks, you’ll give me a dollar?” he asked.
“Yup,” I replied. Dropping his rocks he got to work carefully placing his bricks in a separate pile than mine. He started with the bricks that were closest to the fence and counted aloud as he stacked them, “One cent, two cents, three cents…” After a few minutes, the walk from the row of bricks to the pile by the fence started getting longer, so I offered a solution. “I’ll just toss them to you and you stack them,” I suggested. He liked this idea and kept on eagerly working.
“Eighteen cents, 19 cents, 20 cents…” he continued as I tossed brick after brick. I must have gotten carried away with my tossing at some point because the counting was replaced by a loud howl. Being the naturally curious father that I am, I glanced his way as the howls grew louder.
“What’s up, bud?” I asked, knowing exactly what the answer was as I looked at his finger caught between two bricks. So much for making the playground safer.
“You threw that brick at me and it smashed my finger!” he informed me in the least rational voice he could muster.
“Let me teach you about a thing called worker’s compensation,” I said. “You see, when you get hurt at work, your boss pays you extra money. So I’m going to give you a five cent bonus if you can stop crying right now and get back to work.”
“You mean I only have to pick up 95 bricks to get a dollar?”
“Yup, only 95 bricks,” I answered.
“What number was I at?”
“Thirty-one,” I replied.
“Thirty-two cents, 33 cents, 34 cents...” Crisis averted. We were back in business. By the time we had to stop for the night, he was up to 46 bricks and 51 cents (due to the worker’s comp bonus).
“Dad, can I come back out and work some more in the morning before school?”
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “My bookworm, academic, brainiac son wants to do manual labor before going to school?”
“Yeah,” he chuckled. And that’s exactly what he did. By the time he left for school this morning, he was up to 85 cents.
What have I created? I can see it now. Once the brick and gravel are gone and the teeter-totter and slide are safely resting on cushiony rubber chips, Zach is going to ask, “Dad, can I have a penny every time I go up and down on the teeter-totter with Maddie?”
“Sure, Buddy, but no more worker’s comp claims, okay?”
Friday, April 4, 2008
Hole in Three!
During the winter it’s too cold. During the summer it’s too hot. You know what I’m talking about. Every house has one: that one room that just can’t seem to get the temperature right. Maybe it’s upstairs or in the back corner of the house. Whatever the reason, it is just always uncomfortable. In my house, it’s my daughters’ room.
With summer fast approaching, I thought I would take the matter into my own hands and install a ceiling fan so the girls can sleep beneath a cool breeze as the mercury stretches vertically.
It sounded like an easy step-by-step project. Sometimes, however, the steps on paper don’t always line up with the steps of reality. Here’s how it happened.
Step 1: Climb up in the attic and cut a small hole in the ceiling. Sounds easy enough, right? I began the project by fetching the ladder from the garage and setting it up in hallway where the attic access panel is located. Stepping onto the ladder, I ascended as gracefully as a saint being called to heaven. Once in the attic, I shined my light toward the destination at the opposite end of the house and began traversing the beams and trusses, alternating between a belly crawl and a monkey climb. About halfway along on my journey, I started to get nervous, for it appeared that a wall was looming in the distance - a wall that shouldn’t have been there. “Wait a minute,” I said to myself. So I did just that. I sat for one minute and then proceeded closer to the wall. I touched it. Sure enough. It was a wall. How could I access the attic above the bedroom if there was a wall in the way? I began to wonder. Then I recalled the neighbor who had the same issue a few years back. He had to cut a new hole in the ceiling on the other end of the house in order to get above the bedrooms. So I slithered, crawled, and swung myself back to the the ladder and dropped back to ground level.
Step 1A: Cut an even bigger hole in the ceiling so you can climb up in the attic and cut a small hole in the ceiling as per Step 1. Easy enough. With the ladder repositioned in the hall at the other end of the house, I stared upwards. “How big should I make the hole?” I asked myself. A moment later, the answer came to me very clearly: No bigger than what you can patch with the only scrap of drywall you have in the garage. Back out to the garage to measure the drywall. Once that was done, I managed to draw a very nice rectangular box on the ceiling. Moments later, with my power saw inverted on my head, I commenced a cutting maneuver that was probably ill-advised. Nevertheless, I managed to keep my head intact and remove the drywall. Unfortunately, there was a rafter right in the middle of my access hole. It would have to go. Given the tight quarters, the power saw was out. This one would have to be done the old fashioned way: by hand. Given the tight quarters, there was no way to do it with my right hand, only a lefty could get the best angle on the saw. Twenty minutes later, the last chip of the two-by-four finally gave way to my unrelenting hand-saw. “Ahh, access,” I said rubbing my numb left arm.
Back to Step 1: Climb up in the attic and cut a small hole in the ceiling. To begin this step, I poked my head up into the attic like Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day. This time I could actually see my destination which meant summer was coming. (OK, so I left out one small detail. Earlier I had poked a wire coat hanger up through the ceiling so I would know where to go once I got into the attic.) With my compact rotary tool in hand, I successfully put a small three inch square hole where none had ever existed before. Step 1 was done!
Step 1B: Climb out of the attic, look up at the large hole in the ceiling and find a way to cover it up so that it can be reused for future attic access, while protecting the look and comfort of your home. Sounds easy enough. Drive down to The Home Depot and buy some wooden molding to frame the hole, then drop the drywall cover into place. A quick measurement of the hole told me that ten feet of molding would do the trick. An hour later, I was back on the job and the wood was ready to cut. My dad always told me to measure twice and cut once. He never said anything about which direction to hold the asymmetrical molding when cutting a 45 degree angle so that it would make a perfect 90 degree corner. Now that you know that he never told me that, you might understand why I should have gotten 11 feet instead of ten. My trim work actually turned out quite nice, and unless you look really close, you’d never even notice that I was a foot short on one side. Now all I had left to do was to drop the piece of drywall into the mostly-finished frame and move on to Step 2. Unfortunately, Step 2 would have to wait. You see, when I returned to the garage to fetch my only piece of remaining drywall, I neglected to realize that I had leaned it up against a cupboard door. Ironically, this was the same cupboard door that I was about to open. Too late. Seconds later, my drywall was laying on the floor, snapped in two.
Step 1C: Repair the broken drywall. I refused to make another trip to The Depot. An hour later the drywall was reinforced and good as new.
Step 2 (Finally!): Climb back in the attic and run some wire to the small hole that was created back in Step 1. (Not to be confused with the large hole that was created in Step 1A.)
Step 3: Find a wire that hurts when you lick it. Chances are that’s a hot one. Attach the hot wire to the wire leading down to the hole that was created in Step 1.
Step 4: Remain in attic and install ceiling fan bracket.
Step 4B: Spend up to thirty minutes trying to remove a nut from a stripped out bolt on the bracket so that you can replace the bolt and tighten it up again so that the ceiling fan won’t wobble once it is suspended from the bracket. (Step 4B Option: Avoiding stripping out bolts and skip to Step 5)
Step 5: Install the ceiling fan.
Step 5A: Go back to Home Depot for a third time and pick out the fan you want, make the purchase, return home and continue with Step 5.
With summer fast approaching, I thought I would take the matter into my own hands and install a ceiling fan so the girls can sleep beneath a cool breeze as the mercury stretches vertically.
It sounded like an easy step-by-step project. Sometimes, however, the steps on paper don’t always line up with the steps of reality. Here’s how it happened.
Step 1: Climb up in the attic and cut a small hole in the ceiling. Sounds easy enough, right? I began the project by fetching the ladder from the garage and setting it up in hallway where the attic access panel is located. Stepping onto the ladder, I ascended as gracefully as a saint being called to heaven. Once in the attic, I shined my light toward the destination at the opposite end of the house and began traversing the beams and trusses, alternating between a belly crawl and a monkey climb. About halfway along on my journey, I started to get nervous, for it appeared that a wall was looming in the distance - a wall that shouldn’t have been there. “Wait a minute,” I said to myself. So I did just that. I sat for one minute and then proceeded closer to the wall. I touched it. Sure enough. It was a wall. How could I access the attic above the bedroom if there was a wall in the way? I began to wonder. Then I recalled the neighbor who had the same issue a few years back. He had to cut a new hole in the ceiling on the other end of the house in order to get above the bedrooms. So I slithered, crawled, and swung myself back to the the ladder and dropped back to ground level.
Step 1A: Cut an even bigger hole in the ceiling so you can climb up in the attic and cut a small hole in the ceiling as per Step 1. Easy enough. With the ladder repositioned in the hall at the other end of the house, I stared upwards. “How big should I make the hole?” I asked myself. A moment later, the answer came to me very clearly: No bigger than what you can patch with the only scrap of drywall you have in the garage. Back out to the garage to measure the drywall. Once that was done, I managed to draw a very nice rectangular box on the ceiling. Moments later, with my power saw inverted on my head, I commenced a cutting maneuver that was probably ill-advised. Nevertheless, I managed to keep my head intact and remove the drywall. Unfortunately, there was a rafter right in the middle of my access hole. It would have to go. Given the tight quarters, the power saw was out. This one would have to be done the old fashioned way: by hand. Given the tight quarters, there was no way to do it with my right hand, only a lefty could get the best angle on the saw. Twenty minutes later, the last chip of the two-by-four finally gave way to my unrelenting hand-saw. “Ahh, access,” I said rubbing my numb left arm.
Back to Step 1: Climb up in the attic and cut a small hole in the ceiling. To begin this step, I poked my head up into the attic like Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day. This time I could actually see my destination which meant summer was coming. (OK, so I left out one small detail. Earlier I had poked a wire coat hanger up through the ceiling so I would know where to go once I got into the attic.) With my compact rotary tool in hand, I successfully put a small three inch square hole where none had ever existed before. Step 1 was done!
Step 1B: Climb out of the attic, look up at the large hole in the ceiling and find a way to cover it up so that it can be reused for future attic access, while protecting the look and comfort of your home. Sounds easy enough. Drive down to The Home Depot and buy some wooden molding to frame the hole, then drop the drywall cover into place. A quick measurement of the hole told me that ten feet of molding would do the trick. An hour later, I was back on the job and the wood was ready to cut. My dad always told me to measure twice and cut once. He never said anything about which direction to hold the asymmetrical molding when cutting a 45 degree angle so that it would make a perfect 90 degree corner. Now that you know that he never told me that, you might understand why I should have gotten 11 feet instead of ten. My trim work actually turned out quite nice, and unless you look really close, you’d never even notice that I was a foot short on one side. Now all I had left to do was to drop the piece of drywall into the mostly-finished frame and move on to Step 2. Unfortunately, Step 2 would have to wait. You see, when I returned to the garage to fetch my only piece of remaining drywall, I neglected to realize that I had leaned it up against a cupboard door. Ironically, this was the same cupboard door that I was about to open. Too late. Seconds later, my drywall was laying on the floor, snapped in two.
Step 1C: Repair the broken drywall. I refused to make another trip to The Depot. An hour later the drywall was reinforced and good as new.
Step 2 (Finally!): Climb back in the attic and run some wire to the small hole that was created back in Step 1. (Not to be confused with the large hole that was created in Step 1A.)
Step 3: Find a wire that hurts when you lick it. Chances are that’s a hot one. Attach the hot wire to the wire leading down to the hole that was created in Step 1.
Step 4: Remain in attic and install ceiling fan bracket.
Step 4B: Spend up to thirty minutes trying to remove a nut from a stripped out bolt on the bracket so that you can replace the bolt and tighten it up again so that the ceiling fan won’t wobble once it is suspended from the bracket. (Step 4B Option: Avoiding stripping out bolts and skip to Step 5)
Step 5: Install the ceiling fan.
Step 5A: Go back to Home Depot for a third time and pick out the fan you want, make the purchase, return home and continue with Step 5.
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