Decorating

Well, there comes a time in every man's life where his wife wants to hang pictures. In our case it was a wife who let her husband buy a laser level so that he could hang the larger picture frames that he just bought. Now, for those of you who do not know me - I am not a handyman. If you want that - talk to Greg. Have you ever heard the phrase "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades"? Well, that's me. Having things almost lined up does not cut it. So, being unhandy and a perfectionist - that is where the laser level comes in.

There are two things wrong with hanging pictures:

1. You can't do it while the children are sleeping (you will wake them up)
2. You can't do it while the children are awake (they will want to "help")

Luckily, we had rented "The Fox and the Hound" - so the boys were preoccupied with that - for the first 10 minutes. Then I was standing on the couch trying to evenly hang three frames - of two different sizes. And then there is the difficulty of keeping the boys from hitting each other with the hammer, shining the laser in their eyes, drawing on the wall, eating nails, stabbing themselves or breaking a frame. In hindsight, I should have used my tool belt (I wonder why I didn't think of that earlier).

Anyway, there were no injuries. Then, I took to hanging a painting over the mantle - not too difficult (one picture and I had my laser level - you may be asking why I needed a laser level to hang one picture... I just did). Well, to hang the painting I was standing on a chair (off which Lucas repeatedly tried to pull me). When I was done I forgot to remove the chair from under the mantel.

I went on my business doing the dishes (you know - women love a man with dishpan hands - thanks Deb). Things were rather quiet... that is a bad sign. It had only been a few minutes since I started the dishes and I looked at the mantel. I just about hit the floor laughing. The painting was still there and the pictures we had on the mantel were untouched. Even the chair was still in the same place. But, no one was watching the dinosaurs! They had migrated again. In fact, I caught them mid-migration - across the mantel (and some were on the end table in route to the mantel).

One of Lucas' books says that the fastest dinosaurs could run thirty-five miles per hour... I beg to differ. Our dinosaurs are much faster - and can teleport across great distances.