Patience

There were only two of us who showed up to work this weekend, and the grunt laborer should have called in sick. The pay isn’t good enough to work through sneezing, coughing, nose running, head aching, sore throat type of days. But this is no union job, as Mr. Homeworks Contracting reminded her several times.

There were four days to get the job finished. It was already a week behind schedule (lumber shortages), so when the truck pulled in with thirty 14 foot pine boards strapped to the roof, everyone was ecstatic.
Fourteen foot boards are long. Very long. Picture the old Three Stooges episode with Curly carrying a board, turning around, and hitting Moe in the head… Each of these thirty 14-foot boards got moved at least nine times during this project. When the laborer complained that we were moving the boards a lot, Mr. Homeworks Contracting got huffy. Mr. HC got huffy at least nine times during this project; the laborer complained — whined even — at least ninety-times-nine times during this project…

So, the laborer thinks, The wood is delivered, let’s get this stuff up and call it a day and have a beautiful new ceiling.

Hah, that’s why the laborer doesn’t get paid the big bucks!

First, Mr. HC goes over the boards with a fine tooth micro-lens to detect knots, holes, and the tiniest indentations. Each spot is circled and wood putty is put on the small problems, bondo for the bigger holes. The repairs have to dry and then be sanded. The entire boards are then sanded with fine grit sandpaper.

Then the boards are moved to a new spot and primed. Then the boards are moved to a new spot and sanded again. Then the boards are moved to a new spot and…wait, am I repeating myself? There are thirty boards. It’s a small house. We covered the front yard,the back porch,

and the living room.

It took three days of prep time before we could even think of putting them up onto the ceiling. Here are boards painted with the first finish coat of Sherwin Williams Steamed Milk semi-gloss latex. Of course, they had to be moved again — outside to the saw — and cut to the correct length.

So far you have only heard the board story; the ceiling story is bad too. Of course, it isn’t level. It’s an old house and the kitchen is not exactly on a foundation — more like attached to the foundation. Shims take a long time to put up. Luckily the laborer was busy painting and whining while the supervisor was quietly putting up shims and trying to not fire the laborer.

Anguish for Mr. HC who has to have everything straight within 1/16 of an inch.

Monday morning dawned early. It was a beautiful sunrise and the work crew was ready.

By this point, all expectations of finishing the job were gone; but here’s the point of this entire post: Prep work takes patience (I think I’ve mentioned before that I might be somewhat lacking in the patience department…) but if it’s done correctly, then the finish work goes quickly! Mr. HC has enough contractor experience to know this; the laborer is still learning.

We worked well as a team on Monday (finally). Of course, the team effort had Mr. HC cutting the boards, as well as air nailing them in place. It was also his bright idea to wax the boards so the tongue would slide easily into the groove. All the laborer did was hold up her 7-foot part of the board and pound it in place. Mr. HC also invented a nifty little gadget to help hold the boards up in the middle. This gizmo went all the way to the floor and had foam attached to the top so it will hold the board in place without scratching the finish.

At 4:30 we were having celebratory glasses of wine while looking at our new ceiling, all complaining, whining, nitpicking, and disagreements behind us.

Just in case you forgot what the old ceiling looked like:

Before

And the fabulous new ceiling:

Ceiling boards, $350 from Wayne Lumber

Critics often accuse blogs of painting pictures of life that are too rosy, too upbeat, and too unrealistic. Not this post; this one is warts and all. It wasn’t an easy weekend, and there wasn’t much laughter. So what did we learn?

Expectations ruin everything — and this includes all of life: work, play, marriage, relationships, friendships, sickness, health, future plans, you name it. Get rid of ’em.
Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue. Patience is a virtue…
Silence is a virtue too. Don’t whine. Don’t get huffy. Put in earphones.
Call in sick when necessary.
Love each other and forgive. A glass of wine helps; if you don’t drink wine, practice hugs.
Celebrate together. Hurray, we have a new, gorgeous ceiling!

(My husband’s name is Mr. Homeworks Contracting and he approved this message.)

We’ve been watching Charlotte on our porch for the last three weeks.

She’s been there. Spinning and waiting, waiting and spinning; I could learn patience from her.

She hasn’t moved more than an inch or two in all these days, unless she goes off dancing midweek and then comes back on weekends to pretend that she hasn’t gone anywhere.

She does her spinning and waiting on the porch, very close to the steps. Her spot is protected, although she faces north and when it’s windy, she certainly rides the north winds fairly well. You can see that she isn’t a very good writer yet — or perhaps “It is quite possible that …(she) has spoken civilly to me and that I didn’t catch the remark because I wasn’t paying attention…”

The first time we met her, we I was not expecting a friend. In fact, I considered, uh, getting rid of her somehow. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of knowing where she was — right there on the porch by the steps in plain sight. She is an ordinary black and yellow garden spider (argiope aurantia), but neither of us think she is ordinary at all.

Michael started throwing her bugs last weekend. She doesn’t act grateful, but how do I know what grateful is for a spider? I do wonder if she wonders why she gets all these good treats on the weekend. She won’t bother with stink bugs though; apparently no one likes stink bugs.

This weekend, overnight, a little something appeared in the top corner of her domain. At first look, we thought it was just a big, rolled up treat, saved for winter.

But then I remembered the real Charlotte, her namesake, and realized: Of course, it is her egg sac, filled with ~~hundreds~~ thousands of tiny spiders. More potential friends! If only they ate stink bugs…

I’ve looked it up, and I know that once Charlotte has laid her egg sac, she will die. But her children will hatch and stay in the egg sac until spring. At first I thought that maybe we could move them to a nicer spot for the winter? (Away from the house!) But baby spiders fly away on little balloon strings — the real Charlotte called her relatives aeronauts — so perhaps that isn’t necessary and they will fly away on their own?
Charlotte and her children eat lots of nasty insects — aphids, flies, mosquitoes and the like — and they hardly bite friendly humans at all. Especially ones who throw them food…

I don’t remember reading Charlotte’s Web as a child. But I do remember reading it out loud with my children. When we finished the book, I closed my eyes and thought, ‘that’s the perfect book.’ A young, runty, good-for-nothin’ pig is saved twice by friends: the first time by Fern, a young girl who is trying to “rid the world of injustice”; and the second time by a spider whose life was a mess, but who told Wilbur that “…by helping you, perhaps I was just trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

This crisp, clear picture of a black and yellow garden spider was not taken by me, although this is the first time I’ve put in someone else’s photo. I just wanted you to see how lovely they really are! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been re-reading G.K. Chesterton‘s essay on fairy tales, “The Ethics of Elfland” in Orthodoxy. This essay is deep and complex, and I have to go back and re-read every single paragraph to get it — and even then I can’t say I get it. There could be a month’s worth of posts just on this essay, and I won’t go into detail except to say that everyone should read it. Janey Cheney from Redeemed Reader summarized it like this: “…Here’s what he learned from generic, plot-driven, ages-old fairy tales: 1) The world is magical; 2) the world is meaningful; 3) the world is beautiful; 4) the world is worth our gratitude; 5) the world is to be cherished.”

I would add that these truths are not just descriptive of fairy tales, but any story, written or told, lived or loved, true or not. E.B. White knew it. The words Charlotte wove in her web to describe her friend Wilbur were: Some Pig; Terrific; Radiant; and Humble — all words of love between friends. All words that describe magic, meaning, beauty, and gratefulness. And when Charlotte wrote those words about Wilbur, he became what she wrote about him.

I’ve rambled a long way from Charlotte appearing on the corner of our porch — a seemingly insignificant trifle (and one that truthfully didn’t thrill me at first) — but this much has been made clear once again: As busy adults we forget the magic, the miracles, the beauty that are all around us. In the middle of the book, the wise Dr. Dorian tells Fern’s worried mother, “Children pay better attention than grownups.” That is also his quote at the beginning of this post — Fern’s mother asks him if he really believes that animals talk — and he replies that they very well could have spoken to him, he just wasn’t listening.

So listen. Be childlike. Turn off whatever needs turning off and hear the quiet. Be thankful for the ordinary. Cherish the mundane. Be grateful for the spectacular. Don’t miss a miracle because you weren’t paying attention.

(Thanks to Janie Cheaney from Redeemed Reader on the post The Invasion of Fairyland — it sent me back to re-read Chesterton’s essay.) All other quotes are from one of the best children’s books of all time, “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White. And I have to include the last lines — “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”