Miters

I am so stinkin proud! The Other Mother and I successfully mitered new baseboards for the guest room today!!!! I feel like one of those ads for H*me Dep*t!!! Nevermind a new, Michelle Obama style, patent leather belt for my fall wardrobe, I'm thinking a tool belt is a must-have for this Fall's fashions!!!!!

Once I took a deep breath and mentally pretended I was just measuring and cutting quilting fabric, mitering was easy. The other motivation was knowing the local retired carpenter-type guy who fixed our storm door gets $32.00 (yes- thirty-two dollars an hour folks!!!!) for carpentry work. Do you know what bargains I can find on the clearance racks at KOHLS with thirty-two dollars????

So, as I was saying, mitering was easy. The real challenge was reconciling today's sermon at church with the realities of our busy day. Today's readings were great and the sermon was wonderful - all about honoring a day of rest, slowing down, finding time to be intimate and connected, making space for the quiet, and making an effort to step away from work for one day.

I just Love our Minister. Sometimes it seems as though the sermons are directed at us and our personal circumstances. Like today. Because we often only have the weekend in Vermont, just 2 days to get everything done, we recognize that we tend to SQUEEZE way too many activities into such a short amount of time.

For example, because painting wasn't enough, our fabulous friends lent us a cordless drill so The Other Mother could re-route about a hundred miles of our cable through the insulation-packed floorboards. I'm not sure why- but the previous owners of our home had 2 cable TV hook-ups in the family room and one in a crawl space in the cellar. Very strange. The Other Mother did a little rearranging and we'll soon have those two extra cables put to better use: one in Buckshot's bedroom and the other to the downstairs play area for the children.

So, as you can see, this morning's sermon on REST was particularly relevant - and conflicting at the same time. We do try to balance our work and play; but some weekends are more work heavy than they need to be. Like this weekend. So, after church, I briefly explained the dilema to our Minister and her brilliant response was(I am paraphrasing here...) as long as we are having fun and enjoying the tasks together - it isn't work. Did I say I love my Minister???

This weekend, I was very focused on Painting: the walls, trim, lengths of uncut baseboard, floor, and some odds and ends of furniture. Next weekend we will put the room back together. I'd like to say it's because we set healthy limits and made time for play - but the reality is the paint on the floor was still a little tacky and needed more drying time before we could nail the freshly mitered baseboards on!!!!

I'll be sure to post pics of the finished product when we put the room back together next weekend...That is, if we are not too busy resting.