I have a good friend Sandy who I “re-met” in 1990. It is a crazy story of how we met in 1990 on the way to a camp out with a bunch of friends. She and I were both planning to meet with this guy we knew and this guy had told us about each other. We’ve gone over the day of our meeting many times and figured that both of us left from Austin to the camp out at Enchanted Rock at the same time and recall passing each other at least once or twice. When we finally reached our destination, he introduced us and I believe it took Sandy and I about ten minutes to realize that we just might be pretty good friends and to leave the guy behind.

Later on in the evening, we discovered that way back when we were in elementary school her Dad had been our family’s Minister at the Episcopal Church we went to in San Antonio and furthermore one of my first friends in Austin, Marianne, had been Sandy’s big sister’s best friend in high school.

Suffice it to say, we’ve been friends for a good long while now and have been through thick and thin with each other. So when Sandy raised the flag for help for various and sundry things that she needed to do in the new home she had just bought, well I was happy to oblige. We spent a good couple of hours in the Texas heat this afternoon putting together a hardy plastic shed from Home Depot. It would have been a tedious process for just one person and way too many directions to follow for sure but for two of us, we manged to turn it into a fun time with songs and skits about everything. I’m sure if someone had been listening to us they would have thought we were children with very deep voices. We laughed a lot at catching ourselves making things much harder than needed like the time Sandy realized that she was squishing herself between a part of the roof that we were putting a little window in and the guest house. About five minutes into the struggle she started cracking up laughing because she realized that all we had to do was move the piece a little ways out and then there’d be plenty of room for her to fit behind so she could screw in the piece.

I also learned how to get very old nails in long leaf pine boards to stand up straight using a hammer and then root them out using various crow bars. I don’t know why but one of us started getting country songs into our head and before we knew it we were singing, “skippity do da, skippity day it’s a hap happy day…”. It’s a good thing I had to leave to go home and clean up for date night with my husband when I did because I know I’d be really sore in the morning.

What I learned from today is that no matter what work you have to do in front of you, if you have someone to do it with that you can have fun with than whatever you are doing becomes fun. I even found myself better able to pay attention to the directions for the shed to make sure we had the right bar hooking up with the right thinga-ma-jig. Crazy as it may sound, I can’t wait to go over and help Sandy again. It has occurred to me that there is a bit of Huckleberry Finn going on here but I’m okay with being Huckleberried!

The lesson I learned today is that it is good to ask for help and really fun to ask a friend to help you. I’m glad Sandy asked for help and I had such a fun time helping her. Who knew that lo those many years ago when my brother, Howdy, and I would play cards for hours and hours and hours and sing songs the entire time that it would be training for being able to have fun and bond while you work.

Everything is more fun with friends!