When will it end?

Lord when will it end? My hubby has always been practically minded, and always been able to do things that other people have to get someone in to do. That said, he is still practically minded and he can still do things that other people have to get someone in to do, except now it takes days to do a half day job.

The bench was extended in the kitchen, the breakfast bar was added, the bar stools were purchased (on second trip to land of shops) and the kitchen looked lovely yesterday morning. Yesterday afternoon and he started the task of the shelves for the old boiler cupboard. We'd bought the shelves to make life easier, they have a metal frame and it would just be a case of build the frame in the cupboard and slot the shelves in. In theory that works, but in practicality it doesn't. They were slightly too wide for the cupboard, but he built the sides of the frame anyway with plans to cut the front and back to fit the size available. I tried to say this wouldn't work as you'd lose the rigidity but left it as only a suggestion. Last night everything was put away in the cupboard and the door was shut behind him because it was proving to be too much.

This morning his friend popped over, and it took an hour of saying things in different ways for hubby to come to the same conclusion. We are now going to build shelves for the cupboard with him stressing over measurements. He had an afternoon planned of going to get materials, then realised that he already had the bits and bobs that he needs up in the loft. Hubby never throws anything out so for all money is spent on a task, there's always a little stash left over and off up to the loft it goes. So he's been up to the loft to get the wood and edging that he needs for the task and he's determined that he's going to get them done this afternoon.

The only problem is, is that he's starting to dwindle. He's been mega busy all week with thinking, and he could really do with having a chill day. I've suggested that he leaves it for today before he starts so that he can have a whole day at it tomorrow. His friend asked him to go over to his house so they could go and take some photos with their cameras, and he agreed, he thought this was a fab idea, until his friend went home and hubby remembered the wood in the loft and now he's going to go for it and get them done today.

I understand where he's coming from. I get it. He hates me one minute but the next everything he's doing is for me. Constance hasn't got room in the kitchen, Constance needs shelves for space, Constance should have a nice this, that or the other, and this is his way of showing me he loves me - I think. Either that or it's just more work surfaces for me to clean ;o).

He wants the house to look nice, and for all it looked nice it now feels like a home - or it will when we're finished, but it's the constant thinking he's doing that is tiring him out and this is the bit that he's just not getting. He has lost his sense of being tired now and will be up at the crack of dawn and go to bed when the moon is high and work right through the day, but the sad thing is that for all he's working his socks off you aren't seeing it because of how long it takes him to do things now - and that is a shame. I thought about it earlier, and since about November last year, we've been doing something constantly since. It's the sawdust, the tripping over chairs, the knowledge that when one job is over the thought of what the next job will be has already been thought about, it's never ending.

I think, and I might be way off bat here (again...), but I think that this is his way of making sure that the house is done, the home is made, and there's nothing left for him to do when the day comes that he's not about and if it's done then he knows it's done, and he did it. This thought saddens me because it means he knows that there will be a day that he isn't able to do any of the things he can do now.