The Gate

I was extremely stressed out, so I built a gate.  My family left for Thanksgiving without me (I'll catch up) and I stayed home and built a gate.  Sometimes in similar situations I'll clean up the house, or do some other project.  I don't even like cleaning up, or building gates--that's not the point.  I think sometimes I just need to do something that has a clear beginning and end, and that looks and feels like success at the end of the day.

My previous project was neither clear nor successful: a brake job on Jacob's racing atv.  We virtually replaced the entire brake system and the brakes were still soft.  We bled the brake lines I think 3 times.  It was horrible, and my OCD/perfectionism/anger issues were in full bloom.  The atv and I have issues right now.  Gates are simple.  Less mechanical parts, no fluids.  And since our labrador Bear had figured out how to get through the temporary fence I had up in the backyard, I knew it was time for the gate to be built.

As you can see from the photos, I have access to my backyard from the street, so I wanted a gate wide enough to drive through.  The metal frames from American Fence enabled me to build a 12' double gate that (hopefully) will not sag.  I recycled the old fence pickets to save money, which worked fine but gave me that interesting army bars pattern.  A good power wash should fix that.

I know it sounds neurotic, and maybe it is, but I slept better last night.  God worked for six days of creation, finished it, called it good, and rested.  That pattern never seems to play out in my life, probably not in yours either.  As soon as something is scratched off the top of the list, two more things are added to the bottom.  There is no duty cycle, no down time to offset the up time.  Recreation is not rest.  Sometimes it's harder than work.  I worked for six hours, finished, called it ok, and was done.  And there was evening, and morning of the first good day I've had in a while.