Category Archives: work

Painting All Day and a Full Moon

Posted on by

The plan was to get started as soon as I could.  I needed to sand some more, so I figured I needed to wait until everyone was awake, at least.  But I didn’t wake up until late myself.  It was 8:00 before I was really moving about the house.  And I was the first one up.  Coffee, breakfast, water, making plans, all that happened before I got out there.  I sanded with the disc sander, then with the corner sander.  Then I taped.  Then I had to decide what to do with the windows.  Tape them or scrape them?  I decided to try a third method and scrape/wipe as I go.  And I realized I didn’t have a small paintbrush, as I had thought.

After a trip to the hardware store I began the actual painting–meaning dipping the brush into the primer and spreading the white stuff on the trim–at 11:30.  We have a small extension of the house in front of the deck.  It has an additional small piece of roof.  I decided to just do the trim on this section, not including the upper windows above this small roof or the windows off to the side on the same side of the house or the soffit along the roof proper, and I am glad I limited my ambitions.  After two hours of slapping on primer I was maybe a third finished.  I took a break for lunch and kept going.

I painted and painted.  I was not looking forward to the cross pieces on the windows.  They would require the most time and the most care.  The thing is, I don’t even like those things.  They are not necessary to the structure of the windows–one pane would do fine–and the house isn’t so old that that all those panes were the only option.  Plus, they block the view.  I have to bob and weave to see the sunset or to follow the harrier hovering over the field.  I wish they weren’t there and now I have to paint them with care.  I saved those for last.

These are tall windows I am painting at this point, the size of doors.  I decided to leave the two actual doors for later since I need to take them off to really paint them.  I’ll get to those when I paint the upper windows.  Still, that means four full length windows with ten panes each.  Painting those would be a bear I imagined.  I painted one, ten panes total, and it was late.  My family had already eaten dinner.  I wanted to keep plugging away.  I didn’t want to leave it for tomorrow since the oil-based paint needs a day to dry.  But since the remaining window panes had been covered by storm windows (which I removed before starting) they didn’t need primer.  I painted the bottoms where some water had leaked through over the past few years and I was done for now.

I was at it for eight hours.  That is a good day’s work.  The problem is that I still need to put the final coat on, the actual paint.  That will take me another day.  The other problem is that I still have most of the house to paint.  The other problem is that I am just working on the trim.  The siding will need to be painted as well, it just didn’t need it so badly this summer, or so I thought until I spent a bunch of time right next to it while painting the trim.  I have many many hours of work left to get this all done.  I understand why other people hire someone to paint their houses.  A team of people with the right tools who know what they are doing and have the time to just hammer it out?  That would get it done way faster and way better than me.  It just happens to cost thousands of dollars.  I’ll do it myself, at least this time.

I can’t quite figure out why one would use paint instead of stain these days.  Stain seems better for the wood and requires far less work to maintain.  Our last house was stained and (granted is was a little smaller) took me only a few days to refinish.  That was easy.  This is not.  Scrape it all off and stain it next time?  Sounds just as hairy.  Maybe next time I have to get this done, however, I will be better equipped.  I will know what I am doing and will have the tools and equipment.  I might be faster.  Or I could just pay someone to do it.  I hate to succumb to that but whew, this project is a beast.

Anyway, night has fallen and the air is cool and I have some peach ice cream under my belt, and I mean that last one literally.  I am not sure how much I will get done tomorrow.  We plan to head to the Addison County Field Days.  All this playing certainly gets in the way of painting.  One can’t do everything, however, and I, humble homeowner that I am, am simply doing what I can.  At the moment I plan to just enjoy watching the full moon peek out from behind the clouds.  That is enough for the time being.

Up Too Early?

Posted on by

I couldn’t sleep.  The clock said 5:30.  Then my son stirred and I went in to see him.  He went back to sleep.  I didn’t.  I considered sitting outside for a while.  It’s too wet.  It rained and rained last night.  More rain.

I finished reading Steinbeck’s Winter of Our Discontent recently.  It takes place in 1960.  A different time.  I can’t stop thinking about it.  The story line is not particularly complex but the characters are so deeply drawn that the story is a deep one.  Our hero leads a happy life, one of simplicity and ease but his family and others, and himself, point out how his family was once a great one in the town and how he once had a fortune.  This leads him to make some choices to “get rich.”  I figured, half way through, that the story would have one of two endings.  Either he succeeds at getting rich and shows everyone that being a good guy can pay off, or he crashes and burns and we learn how only the ruthless can succeed.

Like life, the ending isn’t so simple.  He does manage to overcome some challenges and find a way to increase his financial resources.  He “gets rich.”  The story, however, tangles with two big questions for me.  What is really important in life?  And what is the nature of morality?  Before he began to make any changes to make his new fortune, our hero is a grocery clerk, the only one in the local store (remember this is 1960 and the interstate highway system that feeds today’s supermarkets is in its infancy), and he is happy, mostly.  His relationships with his friends and neighbors are genuine and positive.  Those become complicated and darker.  He keeps secrets from his wife.  His son, who already has the idea that one can make it in the world by cheating, sees that maybe hard work isn’t necessary after all.

The hero, Ethan Allen Hawley, has two teenaged children and a devoted and loving wife.  I couldn’t help imagining my own life when my two children grow just slightly older.  What will my relationship with those three most important people in my life be like?  How will the choices I make affect them?  What will I teach my children with the choices I make about work, money, love, friendship?  Ethan makes some decisions that today would seem acceptable to most people, almost 50 years later, but he struggles with them so much he considers suicide.  Can one get rich and maintain a true moral compass?  Can one do business with someone and still remain friends?  Why do we need to get rich anyway?

I guess part of the reason Ethan stands out for me is that he is a thinker.  He really thinks about all the pieces of his life.  He carefully considers how every decision, every act, will affect otehrs.  When his world is the simple one of a grocery clerk, the answers are simple ones.  Once he starts making big changes, his thinking becomes tangled.  He still thinks a lot but it means lots of mental wrestling, rather than mental play.  Things aren’t so simple.  I guess I can relate to that.  I tend to think a lot as well.  If I were the one opening the grocery store, I can imagine myself, like Ethan, sermonizing to the canned goods.  Talking aloud helps me think better, as it does for our hero.

I keep thinking now, about the book, about my own choices, about where I might be headed.  I think about morality.  What is good?  How does one live the decent life?  And what is that anyway?  I am going away for a week with my family.  I will have some time to ponder these questions.  My children are awake now.  Water still drips from the eaves.  Time to make coffee.  This day, at least, will be one filled with thought, but hopefully, no great choices to make.  Drip drip, the rain falls.  Then everything dries.  And then, at a time no one can say, it will rain again.

A Little Sweat and a Little Work Done

Posted on by

Yesterday was a hot one and we didn’t linger at home.  We visited a bunch of friends on the lake, swimming and eating outside and generally making a time of it.  So I didn’t get much done on my first day off for the summer.  Today I did manage to get a bunch accomplished.  The sun shone and the day was warm.  It was a good one for getting things done.

The first thing I managed to do, after making a couple of perfect over easy eggs for my daughter, was to go for a run.  I haven’t run in far too long and I am finally sans pain.  I only put in four miles, but I felt just great.  If I can keep that up I will be golden.  I managed to sweat only lightly while on the road, but when I got back home I headed straight to the garden.  I discovered that something has been yanking up our corn again.  I thought that problem was solved but it looks like it will require some more trickery.  I also ate a few ripe strawberries.  And pulled some weeds.

I took a shower a little later but was still sweating when I was done with that small task.  So I headed to the garage to stack firewood.  We need to move what we have closer to the door to make room for the new stuff we will get later.  We need to wood that is most dry to be most available.  Plus, once it all gets consolidated there is more room for the lawnmower.  We need to be crafty to fit it all in.  I did what I could but left a bunch for later.  Then it was lunch time.

Since I had only two chocolate chip cookies and two cups of coffee (hey, it had cream in it) for breakfast, I was hungry.  We have tons for lettuce from our share at the farm so I stacked six big fat leaves of it under a veggie burger.  I also added some mayo.  That did the trick.  Oh, and pickle.  And a handful of dilly potato chips.  And another cookie.

My son and I took a trip to town for some errands.  I needed to get a few tools and supplies to get started on scraping paint from the house, and I had this lid to a compost bin that I had purchased way back in November.  It was the wrong size and I figured out I didn’t need it anyway.  So I finally brought it back.  I even managed to save the receipt the whole time so it was a quick transaction.  Then the kid wanted to play on the play structure.  I can’t blame him.  The thing is pretty impressive.  After sailing on a couple of ships, swimming in the shallow water and avoiding a bunch of sharks, I picked out a ceramic pot and we hit it.

I used the pot to repot a plant.  Duh.  We got this plant almost seven years ago.  It was in a plastic pot inside a wicker basket.  It looked good for a while, but we overfilled the pot so many times that the basket was wet all the time.  Eventually the bottom rotted out.  Since the plastic pot just fit inside the basket, I had a bumbling time extracting it.  The extraction involved flying dirt, rotted basket smear on the white T-shirt, and a pinched finger.  After the struggle, however, the new pot served its purpose.  The plant is still a little hurting, but I am hoping it will recover with the fresh dirt and some room to grow.

I managed to get a few other random tasks accomplished as well (cleaned those seedling pots finally) and made up a good dinner.  The dinner used up a good pile of produce from the farm–bok choy, kale, mini turnips–and some other veggies.  All that spiced and flavored with vinegar over brown rice–it was a winner.  My daughter even ate it, although my son pointed to the steaming bowl of vegetables and declared “I don’t like that” as soon as he sat down.  At least he ate the rice.

More projects tomorrow.  And maybe some reading.  I need to yank some weeds from the garden, and maybe plant another round of greens.  If it’s hot, however, swimming (somewhere) will be in order.  We’ll see about the weather.

Last Day of Work

Posted on by

I have the good fortune of a ten-month contract, which means I get a couple months off during the summer.  My spouse has the same good fortune.  So we are double fortunate.  Last summer was my first no tworking since I was a pretty young.  I even had a paper route before I was a teenager.  Since my wife did some tutoring last summer, this will be our first where we both don’t have to work.  Today was my last day of work.

Really, it was an easy day.  I was on call to take phone calls.  I never got any.  I did need to wrap up a few things but overall it was cake.  I had to run some errands–post office, motor vehicle department, garden supply store–and I got a few things done to boot.  It was  a busy day in toto.  I even busted out the weedwhacker and finished just before the thunderstorm hit.  Not bad.

So now I have lots to tend to.  I hope to do some exterior painting and take care of lots of odds and ends.  If I can get cracking, I will feel good about getting some things done before I can relax and play.  We have a couple of trips planned–not too far but far enough–but mostly just hope to take advantage of what comes our way.

Summer.  You can’t beat it.  I look forward to a bunch of days with my family, with time to take care of projects, time to read, time to eat creemies.  Time to do whatever.  Mostly I look forward to having no schedule, to taking the days as they come.  I look forward to enjoying where I live.  People come here for vacations, after all.  I plan to get some work done but, let’s face it, I need to take some vacation time as well.

Luck? Or Hard Work?

Posted on by

I was chatting with a coworker today and she noted that I must be looking forward to having some time off this summer.  My job allows me a couple of mostly-free-of-work months over those warm days.  She said at first that I was lucky, then said, “No you’re not lucky. You made it happen.”  That got me thinking.

I think we tend to attribute far too little of our success or fortune to luck.  I think back on the key moments in my life and there were some lucky moments.  If I didn’t have a particular teacher or supervisor or friend I might have taken the path I took.  I had not seen the newspaper on the right day or if a housemate hadn’t taken a class on the right date, I might not have found this way in life.  Luck had a lot to do with it.

Sure, hard work matters.  In fact, it is what one does with the lucky moments that makes the difference.  Get lucky and land a good job?  That matters a lot less if you are a slacker, or if the people with whom you work hate you.  You need to make it happen, as my coworker said.  To clarify, hard work matters a lot, but luck matters too.

Think of the big ones.  How about where you were born?  That kind of makes a difference in the opportunities one has.  How about other members of your family?  Whether one has abusive parents or the most loving on the block makes a difference, and that has nothing to do with hard work.  Yes, with some struggle one can overcome these tricks of fortune, but that is my point.  It takes more work for one born into more challenging circumstances.  

One can be successful if one is mostly lucky and one can be successful if one works terribly hard.  I believe it is when one takes full advantage of the circumstances that simply happen to him or her that one can be most successful.  Sure, chalk it up to hard work.  I just don’t buy it.  Everybody gets lucky, whether he or she acknowledges it or not.  

Here’s Thomas Jefferson:  I’m a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it.

I’m with that.

Peas and Cookies

Posted on by
Trellis for Peas Woven from Saplings

Trellis for Peas Woven from Saplings

I have been jonesing for cookies or pudding or ice cream or some sweet thing. I was going to make some pudding, whip up some cream to plop on top. But my wife made cookies. A local teenager is going to watch my daughter after school so I can go to a meeting tomorrow afternoon. So my co-parent whipped up some chocolate chippers. I went with those.

Also, I spent this weekend in the garden. I dug and prepped and then planted. I can’t say I planted because my children were right there with me. I set aside a chunk of the garden just for them this year. They planted peas, carrots and (early) pumpkins. I hope the pumpkins do OK given that it is so early, but we can always replant them. In the larger garden I planted peas and carrots.

That is the game we often play in the winter when we are waiting at the end of the driveway for the school bus–Peas and Carrots. We jump up and down and someone shouts out a number and you have to get in a group with exactly that many people. It has limited usefulness as a game when there are only four or three or even two of us, but it keeps us warm. Anyway, we kept singing the little ditty as wel planted–“Peas and Carrots, Peas and Carrots, Peas and Carrots.” We had a good time.

I ate one cookie but I could use another. Tomorrow I have a busy day. I get my daughter on the bus, drive my son to school, go to Burlington to work with three groups of students in a row, head to the office to get as many tasks done as I can, drive to Milton for a faculty meeting at the high school, head home to meet my daughter at the house of the aformentioned teenager, drive with her to get my son, get home for dinner, then head up the road for T-Ball practice. Then home in time for bed.

Knowing that the garden is doing its silent job of growing will help me mentally once the day begins. And that extra cookie will come in hand, too.

More Than a Woman

Posted on by

Yesterday, April 28, was Equal Pay Day, the day in the year when American women’s pay catches up to American men’s from the previous year.  It takes almost five months into the year before the wages paid to women equal those for men for the 12 months of the year before.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vermont women earn just over 81% of full time working men.

In 2007, the last full year for which information is available, American men earned an average of $14.75 per hour.  American women?  $12.05 per hour.  That’s a big difference.  The median national weekly earnings for men was $766.  For women it was $614.  In Vermont those weekly earnings were $767 and $625.  Not quite as big a disparity but a disparity nonetheless.  (You can get this and lots more information from the Highlight of Women’s Earnings in 2007 report.

Not only did the notice of Equal Pay Day come my way today from a colleague, but I also happened to notice a poster, which I had seen before but never really looked at closely, that broke down average earnings, separately for men and women, by degree attained.  Vermont’s Commission on Women reports, in its January 2009 Status of Women and Girls in Vermont report, that women with a Bachelor’s Degree earned an average of $31,770 while men earned an average of $46,933.  That is a difference of over $15,000.

That isn’t fair.  Maybe there is, as some claim, more an explanation than one can see on the surface, but that still isn’t fair, and I don’t buy that it can account for the gap.  Vermont’s Commision on Women has also put together a brochure on equity in the workplace.  This isn’t something that I see every day.  It isn’t something that affects me regularly, at least openly.  But it bothers me.

I have seen many women who do a better job than men.  And I know that not all women get paid less than men.  But it is hard to keep from noticing and wondering and questioning what the heck is up with this gender earnings gap.  April 28 is awfully late in the year to be catching up.  Equal pay by New Year’s Eve.  That would be a little more my speed.

Crocuses, a Camera and Late Driving

Posted on by

I managed to fit in a run today in the middle of the day.  I was working from home but I had worked a 12-hour day yesterday and I figured it was cool to take a couple hours to play.  I ran eleven miles, which I haven’t done in several weeks.  I was tuckered by the time I got back.  I did manage, however, to have a productive work day.

I was overdressed, of course.  It is easy to be so this time of year.  The temperature was 48 degrees and it was windy.  Tights?  A windbreaker?  Could I get away with shorts?  I ended up with tights and a windbreaker, just to be safe.  I had to shed around mile three.  Putting in writing that I wore tights sounds a little foofy.  Tights?  I think of silky dresses when I hear see the word tights.  It is one thing to say it alound but it looks, well, too dainty or something.  But whatever, I wore tights.  Black ones.

I saw flowers.  I had seen coltsfoot recently.  That is the always the first flower of spring.  I saw that in a number of places today.  In some spots it was clustered.  But then I saw crocuses.  Our crocuses are green, but hardly out of the ground.  These were on a hill, in the sun, by the road, and showing off.  At one point I smelled some kind of sweet flowery smell.  It smelled like lilacs but it couldn’t have been lilacs.  It is way too early.  But then, I thought it was early for crocuses.

Once again I wished I had a camera with me.  I have been pondering a new digital point and shoot for a while now.  If I had had a camera with me today I would have captured some of the early spring blooms.  I have been thinking about one of those Olympus jobbers that are waterproof and shockproof.  That is the kind of camera that would do well on a long run.  And wouldn’t it make this blog better, if it were easy to post pics?

In a little while I need to take off.  A friend is coming to visit for a few days.  His flight, like pretty much all flights to Burlington International Airport, comes in about 10:00 PM.  Not many flights arrive at that airport at, say, 4:00 or 5:00.  They arrive at 10:00 or 11:00.  If they are on time.  He called when he stopped for a connection.  It looks like he will be on time.

I will make a stop at the supermarket on the way.  You know, pick up some bread and beer and butter.  B things.  Maybe I will get some beans while I’m at it.  And maybe some ice cream, a flavor that starts with…

Criminy, I’m going to be up too late, and I’m getting loopy already.  Who’s idea was it to run far and work hard and stay up late all in the same day?  It will be chilly by the time I get out of here.  But I won’t be wearing any tights.  Unless I can find that dress with the crocuses on it.  If I do, I’ll make sure to take a picture and post it here next time.  But I’ll probably just go with jeans.

Clap Clap Clap

Posted on by

I am still thinking about this conference I attended earlier in the week.  As I often do when I attend a conference, I come home with some new knowledge and some inspiration.  I also, however, typically come home with lots of other thoughts and ideas.  This time one of the things I have been pondering is applause.  There were many speakers and many awards.  I did hear some inspiring stories.  But it seemed to me there was too much clapping.

I have, for a while now, felt a little odd about applauding every little thing where a crowd happens to gather.  Someone is introduced who will in turn introduce a speaker–that person gets applause.  They are not the speaker, so why should they get applause, especially before they even speak?  I guess I an appreciate that applause may be just a way to say thank you, but it seems we offer it too readily.  Applause to me means thank you for doing a good job at entertaining or informing or inspiring.  Otherwise, why clap?

This crowd not only liked to applaud every person who had any kind of public role, but it was standing ovation dizzy.  There were more standing ovations at that conference than I have seen anywhere else.  Maybe they are just sensitive enough to truly be moved that often.  I guess I couldn’t speak to that, but I think a standing ovation should be reserved for a speech or a performance that one will remember for a long time.  If someone has a moving story but they do a poor job telling it, they shouldn’t get a standing ovation.  If someone has a story of personal tragedy, they shouldn’t get a standing ovation just because of their circumstances.  I want to recognize those who offer something to me, but I only want to stand up and clap when the experience is to powerful to keep me in my seat.

Am I cynical?  Or emotionally numb?  I don’t think so.  I just feel that we offer out praise too readily.  It is not easy to be the one to stay seated when everyone else stands and applauds, but there were simply not that many speakers who moved me to stand.  At one point a colleague even said to me, “This is where we get our exercise, all this standing and sitting.”  That told me that she was in the game, like many others I am sure, because it was the thing everyone else was doing.  I stayed put.

I don’t mean to be a spoiler but what if every play got a standing ovation?  It would not take long before it meant nothing and only the really really bad plays did not get a standing ovation.  A standing ovation should be for something is special, not just for any old perfomance, but that is what I saw–too much standing and clapping.  I have felt happy to be one to stand and clap, but if a speaker doesn’t merit it, I will stay seated.  It is easy to follow the crowd.  It is difficult to be the one who disagrees.  Sorry, speakers, but you need to give me something good to get me on my feet.

Waiting for Spring

Posted on by

Today I ran and it was cold.  Yesterday I had a wintry run as well–it was blowing like stink and snowing like stink and I could hardly see where I was going.  Today was colder and windier but without the snow.  The ground was frozen.  It was basically winter.  Mark Breen, the meteorologist on Vermont Public Radio, offered today that Vermont had, with the exception of extreme northeast Alaska, the coldest weather in the United States.  Something to be proud of?

The problem with running in weather like today’s is one of temperature regulation.  Out in the open, the north wind was bearing down hard, and my wind layers separated me from frostbitten extremities.  Once I got into the shelter of a hill, with the sun shining, I started sweating down the back of my neck–too hot.  I ran an out-and-back and when I turned around at the halfway point, I headed directly into the north wind that had so helpfully been pushing me onward.  It bit.

So I sweated and froze, alternately.  On average I was just about right.  Yesterday the snow stung my cheeks and slicked up the frozen just-the-day-before-muddy road.  It was treacherous, or at least it felt so.  It was less dangerous than it may have appeared, considering I was never really more than a few miles from home.  It sure didn’t feel like spring.

I won’t run tomorrow but will lace on the shoes again Wednesday or Thursday, my schedule permitting.  Wednesday promises temperatures in the fifties–T-shirt weather for this time of year.  Of course, in September, 50 degrees will feel like the ice age has returned, but in spring, bust out the flip flops.  So I wait for spring.  Running is just so much easier when the weather is warm.  I have to wear fewer layers, I can leave the gloves at home, and I just feel looser.

If I want to make any kind of mileage goals I need to run when it is cold.  I live in Vermont.  I briefly considered applying for a job in California recently, but only briefly.  Apparently one can run in shorts year-round in the climes I was considering.  That might be nice, but I have to admit, running when the snow blows so hard I can’t see is kind of invigorating.  It is easier to run when it is warm, but it feels awfully nice to run in warm weather after running in cold weather.  I would miss getting pelted in the face by tiny beads of ice.  I am not sure, but I might even be proud of that.