The best laid plans

So, I have been doing a little work this week getting some soccer fields ready for a festival this weekend. I had to go yesterday to one field and repair 12 sets (24 total) of goals and nets. I then had to pack 5 goals into my car to take to another field.

It was hard work and it took me the better part of 90 minutes to get done.

I wanted to just take the goals to the other field and drop them off last night (they were "somewhat disassembled") and then go back today and put them together and get them placed.

But I didn't. I knew that I would need help getting them out of the car because the nets gets all tangled up in the poles (thus the "somewhat disassembled" statement above) and it was getting dark.

So, we got a little bit of schoolwork done this morning and then I threw the kids in the van to take the goals out to the other field. I knew that Samantha could help me get them out of the van and reassembled. It really is a pain to put them back together because the nets are all twisted and wrapped around the poles and we have to figure out how to get them untangled and twisted, get the poles back together, and then reattach the net where it is falling off. Then we had to drag each goal a good distance across the field to where they needed to be.

We had 5 goals. We were able to get 4 back together and 1 is ready to retire.

It took longer than I thought.

While Samantha and I (and Michael at the end) were working on the goals, I had the radio playing in the van (with the key turned backwards) and the back door of the van open. For about 75 minutes.

So perhaps that would explain why the car wouldn't start when I went back to turn it back on. Or not - it doesn't seem that those two things would drain the battery in that short period of time, but you just never know.

So, my trip that I thought would take an hour ended up taking 2 hours, as I had to find someone to jump start the van before I could leave (because the guidance says that it isn't smart to jump start a car with a hybrid, so Mike couldn't really help)

All I can say is that its a good thing I didn't drive the van all the way out on the grass into the middle of the field, like I did when I picked up the goals in August. The only reason I didn't is because it rained last week and I didn't know how soft the ground was and there's a hill I didn't want to have trouble getting up.