off-road lights!

yesterday i went up to the association with the him to meet up with friend jamie, her son colby and the him's brother b. the first order of business for the day was ice fishing. i didn't really fish this time, but rather sat on the shoreline visiting with the him and friend jamie for a couple hours.


and then, when we packed up and went back to the house we all went into the shop to change the oil in my pickup and install the off-road lights that my brother n gave me for christmas.

easier said than done.

but the first thing to do was warm up the shop with the wood stove.



then the him drilled holes in the grill guard, and broke multiple drill bits in the process. it is pretty thick metal. and it was loud. friend jamie doesn't usually stand around with a finger in her ear.



job well done:



and brother b was the electrical engineer of the project. he started by reading the directions, which was a positive sign.



and then he read them again.



and again.


there were problems with the relay switch that came with the wiring package. we ended up leaving it out entirely, concluding that it was meant for the wiring setup on newer trucks, and we finally got the lights to work, about five hours later. i felt bad that it turned out to be such a pain.

this is the him and brother b in deep discussion about what was wrong and why the darn things wouldn't come on.


but, we were finally successful and went into the house to eat becky's delicious chili. we didn't stick around too long, though, because it was already close to 9 and i had to give friend jamie and colby a ride back into town.

and today i was supposed to go to jackson for a meeting tomorrow, but the roads in that part of the state look doubtful and i'm not going to risk it. so i'm deep cleaning the kitchen instead. you know the kind where you take the knobs off the stove and scrub them and where you take everything off the top of the refrigerator and clean it good with comet and a scouring pad.

something just feels better about knowing all the kitchen crannies are clean.