God Bless Lowes

This past week was quite eventful.
I became a Grandmother on Thursday. Little Liam did not come into this world easily.
My sisters and I were in Madison Wednesday Night until 2 in the morning.
We simply could not leave until we were sure that Linds was okay.

So I went to work Thursday on 2 hours sleep (2 hours of just dozing actually) and then Hubby had a doctor's appointment as well. He called me from home to say that with this new medication he is on, his muscles are really locking up and he wasn't sure if he could actually get down our front stairs.

He did make it down them, but it was scary and difficult for him.
You see, last fall, before Hubby got sick, we had put up new stairs at the front of our house, but never got to put up the railings. So Hubby has been having to lean on the window ledge as he comes down the steps.

Well, it's almost spring now, and after this terror, I decided that this would be the weekend that I would do something about railings.

I looked at the railings that Hubby bought and have no clue how to assemble such a thing. However, I COULD install a simple hand rail. But I would need hardware with a very long arm on it because there is a space between the side of the house and the steps.

I started out at Menard's. Their sales people were not very helpful. All they would do is point in a direction and go back to what they were doing (acting like they were busy). I didn't find the hardware I was hoping for, so we went to Lowes.

We went to the hardware section and I explained to the sales person what I had in mind. I told him I wanted to keep it simple doing this. He showed me what they had, and it was basically the same stuff Menard's had.

He said he could order me a longer arm, but I told him I really didn't want to put this project on hold. I asked him if they had any brackets that would work for a project like mine and he showed us a few that might work. And then he lead us to the iron hand rails and started explaining how easy these were to install.

I listened to him explain and understood most of what he was saying, but then he pulled out some base posts and I was completely lost, wondering how I was going to mount those to the house. So I became frustrated and was about ready to just walk out.

I said "Thank you, but that's just a bit much for me. I need something simple that I can do TODAY to solve this problem." The look on his face somehow made me continue "You see, my husband has cancer and he is having a very hard time getting in and out of our house. I need to install railings NOW and they need to be something simple that I can do."

Frank the Sales Guy looked at me and said "Well I can come and install them on Tuesday if you like."

My Mother-in-law and I both looked at each other and then at him "You'd do that?"

Well it IS Lent. I try to do a good deed as often as I can, and It really sounds like you could use a good deed."

Then he said he would also buy the parts and I could pay him back - so that I would get his employee discount on the parts! What a guy!

He called me when he got home from work and said (like a true Wisconsinite) "Hi! This is Frank from The Lowes. Can I come see your steps?" He looked at the steps and said he is sure he could do this job in about an hour. He'll be back Tuesday.

God bless Lowes! And God bless Frank from The Lowes! There really ARE angels among us!