Thought for the Day

The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. (Fran Lebowitz)

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Whoohoo! Ceiling in the main area is finished and thanks to Snowy and Ash’s unceasing paintitude, there is primer and a first coat on walls and ceiling! That’s a bigger job than it seems because painting the tongue and groove pine involves a first trip across with a brush painting the grooves, then a trip across with the roller.

The place looks brighter. The ceiling looks higher. I can almost picture moving bookcases and furniture in…. We couldn’t be more thrilled. Six years of waiting and working coming to a head!

MrsPages and the LittlePages are going to be sanding, filling and painting today. (And much of next week, likely)

Here’s the bit of ceiling that I have left to put boards on, at the bottom of the stairs. Hopefully finished today, but the corners and angles make for slow going.

The ceiling is simply Behr Ultra Pure Flat Ceiling White. The walls are a beautiful barely-off-white Behr PPL-50 “Table Linen”. It’s just tinted enough to see a difference when it’s up against the white ceiling and trim. It really warms the place up nicely.

I made my goal for yesterday, which was to get the ceiling up in the main area. I have a narrow strip to fill at the edge, then the ceiling in the little area over the stairs. That’s the goal for today.

Snowy and Ash are on their way over to help start painting! Whoohoo! We’re painting the basement!!

Pics, before paint prep:

Note the rebounder exerciser that the kids have been expending energy on while we work… (”Hey Dad! I can almost touch the ceiling!”)

‘Child’ said the Voice, ‘I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.’ -C.S. Lewis (The Horse and his Boy)

A slow start yesterday, after discovering that the table saw was mis-aligned. The blade was perfectly square to the table when it was vertical, but when it was tilted to 45 degrees (to cut the ends of the ceiling boards) one end of the board was a 16th of an inch longer than the other, so no two cuts matched up. I spent at least 2 hours attempting to adjust my not-very adjustable saw and got it to within a reasonable tolerance, I think.

Mid afternoon the ceiling work started up and I got a good amount finished. Hopefully get the main area done today.

Pictures:

Looks worse than it is. In the first shot the white plastic drawer-things are going to the church tomorrow and the plywood is getting picked up by some happy FreeCycler as soon as they get here. Hooray for people taking our junk away for us!

“No, you can’t have any more spinach until you eat more of your spaghetti.”

Yeah. Ours are weird that way.

“He who wants to change the world should already begin by cleaning the dishes.”
Paul Carvel quotes (Belgian Writer and Editor, b.1964)

Or perhaps by cleaning the basement; which is good news because that is what we spent yesterday doing. Hopefully we can pull out the hammers today.

Day Two Photos:

And here’s the pile of stuff to go to the Goodwill so far:

We bought a fixer upper ten years ago. We hoped that by now it would be all fixed up. It’s not. Life happens and somehow spending time with friends and family and church and mission seemed and still seems far important than hammering and painting.

That said, we are a growing family and half of our house is not currently usable. The basement has been in progress for about six years. We ripped it out when we discovered electrical fires in the walls.

This week MrPages has taken time off work so we can see what we can do. The calendar appears clear. Friends and family know we’ve tried to guard this week for work. So we’ll give it a go and see what the Lord might help us do!

Day One Photos:

I’m a fan of user interface design, and all the psychology behind it. I love the art/science of making things easier to use and understanding the differences between how people use a site, and how the designers thought people would use a site.

Accessibility is a big part of that. Can someone who can only see high contrast images see your site? Or can they at least re-style your page easily to make it high contrast? Can someone using a screen reader to speak the text on a page get all of your content?

I bow to the king of accessibility, though. The West Midlands Fire Service has thought of everything.

Move your mouse over the woman in the picture.

Yes, she actually signs the text that’s beside her.

It’s a great day when even deaf people can read the internet.

I am reading aloud from the book of Matthew for our bible time this term. We have an outline pasted on the wall, and about once a week we add to it.

Recently we read the following:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and my load is not hard to carry.” (Jesus, Matthew 11: 28-30

My oldest very wisely mentioned that Jesus doesn’t promise to remove our yoke or load, just that the burden will be easy to bear. There is still a burden, however.

I stared at the words. She was right. So often in my life I look to the Lord to remove my burdens. I equate easy with removal; and that is not what He promises. There is still a load, still a burden, still work to be down. He just makes sure that I can indeed get it down.

Lord, thank-you for the wisdom You have placed in this child. Thank-you that You use her to teach me.