We spent yesterday helping out Doc and Marc with the staining of the wood on the exterior of their very nearly done new house. Since they had the scaffolding available to them only until Wednesday, they wanted as much help as possible. Unfortuntely, they had to settle for us. (ha!)
Since they started Sunday, over half of the work was done with the first coat, so first thing Monday morning, Steph and Marc set to finishing up the front of the house. I tried to join them, but after climing halfway up the scaffolding, I was overcome with a nauseating wave of vertigo. Frustrated with myself and wanting to help, I made my way alone to the back of the house to see if I could manage to get on the scaffolding there.
Since there's a balcony at the back, the scaffolding wasn't nearly as high as that at the front, so I felt confident that I could overcome my nausea and do some work back there. I set up shop and carefully made my way up to the planks of wood straddling the scaffolding, and got as far as on my knees before I had to take a pause. I stayed in that position for a full ten minutes while I talked myself into standing on my feet, willing the nausea to go the hell away. Finally, I got the nerve to stand up and by the end of the morning I was practically leaping up the scaffolding and bouncing my way across the boards.
I learned that Steph also suffers from vertigo (good thing as now I know he'll never try to convice me to go rock climbing!) and did a bit better than me, helping Marc (who must be part monkey since he was climbing all over the freakin' place) with a corner on the side of the house - the house stands on a hill so the sides require something like 30 feet of scaffolding - but when he tried to work alone on the other side, he didn't feel safe enough. Even Marc, monkey that he is, noticed that it didn't have security bars and minimal planks and set about adding security bars for later. God only knows how Doc's brother-in-law managed alone on Sunday!
After a delicious barbeque lunch back at Doc's current abode, the men set back off to work and Doc and I took her kids for a leisurely uphill climb to see their progress and chill at the local park on the way back.
At 5:00 Steph was ready to call it a day and make our way back home. I nearly slept all the way home. Who knew that conquering your fears would be so exhausting?
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