Life

29. Being Thankful for Failure Takes a Better Man than I

/ Apple Hill Cottage / 7 Comments

I don’t fail very often any more; and it certainly isn’t because I’m great at everything I do. No, it is much more because at age 59 and 11/12 I’m fairly aware of my limitations, and I stick to what I do well, or at least, what I’m pretty sure I won’t botch badly. I don’t try high diving or skateboarding or basketball; I don’t try to fix my own computer or my leaky roof; I don’t do my own taxes (although I’m tempted) or read Nature magazine. (What a misnomer that title is!)

But as the laborer at the cottage, I’ve been trying some new things, with a modicum of success. My confidence was up (inflated, even) until this past weekend.

I’ve been sanding the old windows that will go above the kitchen sink. I took out the glass — pane by pain (no blood though) — scraped, sanded, and primed. Eventually it was time to replace the glass; the correct term is reglazing and there used to be people who did this as a profession. They were called glaziers. They have my utmost respect.

I was about to do a real DIY blog post entitled, “How to Reglaze your Old Wood Double Hung Windows.” Notice that is not the title of this post. I took lots of photos and even cleaned my fingernails. I had visions of About.com contacting me and asking me to do regular DIY posts.

You might be asking “Why would you be so sure you could do this?” A very good question! Here are some random answers:

  • I am fairly good at artistic endeavors: I can sew, knit, and scrapbook. I have made a couple of quilts. I can do passable graphics, and I’m really good at using scissors and coloring.
  • I am particular and neat about my final work, tending toward perfectionism. (This could have been a warning sign…)
  • I am very good at reading directions.
  • I nailed the first part of the glazing process.

I have about twelve good photos from that first part, which is called the back bead. In effect, it sets the glass in place and seals the inside. It is easy. You just make snakes of the glazing putty, push the glass in, put in the points to hold the glass, and scrape off the excess putty. Would you like to see my pictures???

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I worked on the second part of the process, which is the outside of the window (I kept reminding myself it was the outside and hardly anyone would see it)  for two hours. This is one pane; there are 6 panes per window and 4 windows = 24 panes. I pulled up the snakes and started again at least three times. I angled the glazing tool 100 different ways. When Michael came in from his own window project and asked how it was going, I’m not sure I answered him. Yes. Juvenile. He took the glazing tool from my hand and said, “Well, let’s see…”

When the going gets tough, the tough go take a nap. Two hours of napping and the longest, hottest shower I could take, and Voila! Michael has the entire window finished.

Technically, I am delighted that he could do it, and it looks great. I am glad to have a talented husband. The thing is, I’m supposed to do the unskilled labor and leave the jobs that only he can do (and there are a lot of those!) for him. I was supposed to be able to do this… This is a lesson in humility.

Oh, I know that Dr. Seuss sent his first book in and it was rejected multiple times. Madeline L’Engle‘s book A Wrinkle in Time (which later won the Newbery Award) was rejected 29 times. It took Thomas Edison 10,000 times to get the filament right on his first light bulb…I KNOW ALL THAT! And these failure quotes that you are about to read — I’ve read them all a dozen times. They are platitudes: boring, insipid, and … true.

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” — Colin Powell

“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.” — Henry Ford

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas Edison

“All my successes have been built on my failures.” — Benjamin Disraeli

 “If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.” — Mary Pickford

“Failure doesn’t mean you are a failure…it just means you haven’t succeeded yet. ” — Robert Schuller

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” — Michael Jordan

and my personal favorite:

“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” — Winston Churchill

Yes, that’s what happened; I certainly lost my enthusiasm and never regained it.

The ironic thing is that we had just had a discussion about fear of failure in church the day before! God asked Moses to lead his people out of slavery, and Moses politely declined at first. “Send someone else, God. I’m not really good at what you want me to do…” We all fear failure, but as those quotes above point out, failure is always a lesson. It could be a lesson in hard work, or lack of preparation; it could be an opportunity for a second chance, or to encourage creativity and enthusiasm;  it could be a lesson in losing gracefully or developing patience; or it simply could be to learn humility.

Moses went to Pharaoh to ask for the people’s freedom. Seven times (at least) he went. Can you imagine what he was feeling that last time? “Oh no, Lord! Do I have to go again???” God chose Moses, so His strength would shine through Moses’ weaknesses and failures. Failure is not only all those lessons above; it is a God-given gift! So we won’t live proud. So we can be thankful for those failures.

I’ve got three more windows to work on. I will certainly do the inside seal, but I’m not sure if I’ll try the outside bead of putty again. Perhaps I just need to practice…or perhaps it is a skill I won’t ever master. I need to know for sure, though, don’t I?

In the meantime, I’m sewing some shelf liners from this great apple fabric I ordered. No fear of failure with this project!
Apple fabric

22. Two Sides to Every Window

/ Apple Hill Cottage / 6 Comments

I got a new job this past weekend.

We are getting close to starting the ceiling. (I know, I’ve been saying that for a month now…) So this weekend we had the lovely task of taking down everything that touched the ceiling. That would be:

  • the obtrusive wall cabinet where all our food and dishes were stored;
  • the ugly fake wood moulding around the windows;
  • the horrible fluorescent light fixture above the windows; and
  • the two-by-four that was nailed into the ceiling where the old wall used to be.

All those objects are now kaput. When the dark cabinet came off the wall, the whole kitchen lightened up! It was even better than we had hoped — who would have thought an ugly green wall with holes and stains would look so beautiful?

Ugly cabinet begone! Let in the light!

Oh yes, my new job…Windows. The windows in the kitchen are old wood double-hung windows with panes (in today’s terminology — true divided lights). They don’t match exactly, but you have to be my husband to notice. The really old window has wibbly wobbly glass, but they both are original to the house. That means they have been painted many times. The inside has four coats: white, sage green, mint green, and orange. The orange coat was then antiqued. Does that make five coats? I’m not sure. The paint is dried and cracked, and the window sill was always dirty with the little paint leavings that were chipping off the muntins.

This window has a storm window on the outside, so it was the first to come down.

So one window of the two has been taken down, in two pieces, and is now back in the sanding department. I had just cleaned up the sanding porch in anticipation of priming and painting ceiling boards, and now it has become the sanding porch once again…

Restoration in process…

It is fitting that I am in charge of renewing these windows because I am the one who wanted to keep them. Back last winter when I was reading Jane Powell’s Bungalow Kitchens, I read to Michael her opinions on old windows. She loves them (big surprise!) and believes that the American home-owning public has been sold a bill of goods (by window manufacturers, installers, and big box stores) about the R-value of new windows. She believes that a properly fitted and sealed window, with a storm window on the outside, is just as good as any window we can buy new. (If anyone can seal these old windows, Michael can figure it out.)

He didn’t agree; he still doesn’t. But we looked at new windows. They are either ugly or prohibitively expensive. They look new. They look modern. The cottage is neither.

The original green paint

On the outside of the windows there are just two coats of paint: white and dark green. The exterior paint is actually easier to sand off than the inside. The old paint is weathered and easily chips off. I scraped first, then sanded. There’s plenty of time to think while sanding — and that green paint I’m sanding off is probably what my grandfather painted on the windows many years ago! It is forties dark green, and my goodness, is it ever stuck on those windows! The sander gets hot and that dark green paint bubbles up in lumps before it comes off.

Michael came out to the porch in mid-afternoon to see how it was going. “Well,” I answered, “there are two sides to every window…”

AWYSG (Always Wear Your Safety Glasses — and a breathing mask also if you might be sanding lead paint…)

Yes. Inside and outside, there’s been a lot of looking through those windows. Seasons passing — life being lived inside and outside. I know both the women who have lived in this house. It used to be that people lived outside more than we do now. There was a pump under that big tree where Aunt Mary drew water — every day, probably more than once. She had a big farm sink in front of those windows where apples were cleaned and peeled and sliced, hands were washed, a little boy’s knees were mended, meals were prepared, dishes were washed, and probably tears were shed. I think women cry while doing dishes — when they are alone and can just let the tears fall into the dishwater. Clara changed the kitchen sink to stainless steel, but the cold of a silver sink catches tears just as well as porcelain. Her husband Joe died while she was living there, and left her a widow in the country, rambling around in a house that I’m not sure she loved.

Clara told the story of Joe coming home and announcing that he was thinking of buying the orchard, and how would she like to move? When they went to see the cottage, Aunt Mary was there and not particularly welcoming to the people who would be buying her house. She had lived there for thirty plus years and was now going to have to move to an apartment in town. Clara was moving from the house where she had lived for almost twenty years, the house they had built, the house where she had raised her family, to a cottage in the country that needed repairing. Two women, two kitchen sink windows — what stories those windows tell.

We originally thought we would add a third window to let in more light. My window. But then we looked from the outside and realized that the two windows are perfectly balanced under the clipped gable of the roof, and a third window would destroy the symmetry of the cottage. So I am scraping, stripping, and sanding these two kitchen windows. And I will be painting them too. Those muntins between the panes are hard work, but I am being careful. Careful to respect the life, the love, the joys, the sorrows that they have seen. I won’t have my own window, but I will have put my sweat into the two original old wooden double-hung windows that are there. Still.