Welcome to the weekend

I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately. It happens this time of year, when I'm getting back into the car project more regularly which makes me think about dad and life & death and that sort of thing. Plus summer activity all over the Cape, and especially at work, gets the gears going as far as 'what the fuck is my damn purpose, here!?' sorts of thoughts.
With the recent celebrity suicides -and subsequently all the facebook posts on everyone's opinions on suicide, depression and mental health- I have to sort of look inward, as I feel my views are definitely not the norm and the last thing I want to do is get into some deep discussion about views and feelings in a public forum like that. But it does increase my already reflective mood.
For me, that is all good, reflecting. It kicks my butt into goal setting mode -which I have trouble getting into- which is the reason I have no real purpose, in my mind. It's a vicious cycle and we all know circles have no end.

But that is not the purpose of this post!
It is currently 7:35 am EST and I am waiting for 9:00. I have gotten my Saturday morning run/walk in (week 4/ day 1 of C25K, today...running for 5 minutes straight proved to be a bit of a struggle at the end, but I did it). I've been to the grocery store to grab a couple things we don't sell at Trader Joes's (the peanut butter cup Halo Top is unfortunately better than I expected). I edited a few photos for some blog posts (my pics from my phone have been loading sideways so I have to rotate them all before uploading...it's a real pain in the ass).
But the rest of my list is pretty noisy and Hubs is still in bed, not to mention there is a noise ordinance in our town.

Plans are, as usual on my summer days off, to start with the car work. Today I'm planning on finishing up the rear end of the car. If I can get the fuel tank in and hook up the lines, then the tail end will be done (minus putting the tires back on) and I can move on to the front brakes. I'm converting the old front drums to disc and again just hoping it all fits together without too much headache and struggle. All the new suspension bits were put on before winter. Once all that is done, the brakes can be bled. That'll put me in a place to move onto the engine, as the new brake and fuel systems will both be done. The exhaust system will wait until I see if I can get the engine running.
I do have some sanding to do on the driver's side floor board where I decided to do a fiberglass patch instead of spending time learning and money on welding equipment. It's just not in the budget, though that means I now have a driver's side floor pan I should probably try to sell.

Yes, moving onto the fuel tank does mean that I managed to get the passenger's side rear drum together!
My theory of loosening the opposite end of the brake line did prove to work out. It was a pain getting to the nut I needed to loosen, and I wondered how I got the line in and connected in the first place, but I worked it all out. Minimal spiderwebs to the face.
Once the line was loosened, though, it was still just me and my 2 hands.
I needed a way to get the shoe/lever combo high enough off the ground and close enough to the cable end that I could slip it together while holding the cable end AND the spring at the same time.
Here's the set up:

Here's an explanation of what you're seeing:

The orange line circles the mass of packing paper (from the brake shoes) on top of a box of clamps. This raises the shoe off the ground.
The blue lines outline my pair of work gloves that I have folded and placed between the brake shoe and the brake lever, in order to raise the lever (where the slot for the cable is) closer to the end of the cable.
The purple line is just to highlight the actual lever I am trying to attach to the cable, and the black arrow is just to point out the brake shoe.
The pink arrow indicates the direction I must keep the cable end pulled (using my vice grips).
The brown arrow indicates the direction I am pulling the spring away from the cable end, using pliers, in order to make space for the lever notch.
It is a lot going on at once from just my two hands and green skills.

Once all of that was done, the shoe/lever combo is rotated around to get the spring to the back and the shoe up onto the backing plate!

After all the springs were on, taking much less time and anxiety than the last one but still full of frustration, I went back to the driver's side to fix it. I realized I had multiple sizes of one part and had put one wrong one on. I thought perhaps fixing that would help the drum sit better but it didn't. However, I feel like a real pro at drum brakes now, considering how many times I have put them together and taken them apart over the past few weeks!

So then, I thought, 'once I reattach the brake pedal I am done with the brakes!'

I contorted myself into an uncomfortable position, half in/half out of the car, kneeling on the ground and trying to get myself under the steering wheel and began spinning the bolt and nut. Up and over to the tool bag to get a wrench to hold the bolt as I tightened the bolt. Everything is such a process of figuring the right socket size, then getting the proper ratchet to fit the socket, then do I need to hold down the other end, can I even get a wrench into that space where my hand could barely fit!?
But as I worked at the pedal reattachment, I realized this was not the end of the brakes! I still needed to finish the front.
Well, let me just test the 'brake pump to set the brake shoes' theory...oh, yeah...there's no brake fluid so that is a pointless experiment!
Like I said: totally green here.

At the end of the day (well, at 11 am), I decided that I had not only done what I set out to do for the day, but I had solved the problem from the previous work day. It was a great day for me and I was ending on a high note.
I was pretty lazy for the rest of the day and even decided to practice some roller dance moves I was trying to learn and then moved on to practice some tap moves.

My hobbies are varied and I think this is why I may never ever find my one 'purpose' in life. Perhaps I am meant to simply work at a grocery store to keep my bills paid and my health insurance covered, so that I may just do whatever strikes me as 'interesting' at any given moment?