Wednesday Workdays

You know I seek order. Well, if you didn't... now you do. I am still settling into a comfort level with my recently combined blogs, so decided that I need to impose some order here, too. So, effective today Wednesday is for describing the project du jour. Structure for me, and you can skip on over it if you're not interested. A win-win in any book!!

You may recall that last week's project was stripping and staining the deck. It seems like it took three weeks, but really only one.

The Starting Point: Normally we just slap another coat of sealer on our now 10-year old deck, but this year I found a neat idea in BHG and decided to strip the whole thing and stain it green (yellow house with hunter green trim, so it seemed like a great idea). Because we enlarged the deck about five years ago, I really felt that I needed to strip it all to try to minimize the existing difference in color of the "old part" and the "new part".

You can see over by the door that I have stripped the first section and it definitely looks more like the new part (foreground - duh!) Altho it was fairly easy to do, it was complicated. It had to be done in small sections so that the stripper wouldn't dry out, but stripper had to be applied to dry wood and then washed off with water. Then the second step had to be applied to wet wood. This resulted in all the surrounding wood being wet, so then I had to wait for it to dry before stripping the next section.

Initially I solved that problem by worked at each end and moving toward the middle, but eventually I got to the middle and that didn't work.

Once I started staining I did half of it on the first day - then it rained. Fortunately, the stain was dry enough and did fine - whew! Day two (once the wet deck dried after the rain) I stain another quarter - then it rained. And day four I finished it - then it rained. But it is actually finished, completely dry and ready for us to move the furniture today - before it rains.... tonight.

The finished product: Oh! did you notice it's not green? Underneath that cabinet - you see it - way in the back left corner - is the remains of a test patch of green stain. Yes, I had to strip it a second time! I didn't like it. Too yellow, too dark, too wrong - not at all like the one in BHG and not at all what I wanted. A quick trip to the Big Blue Box Store and a check of all their samples (don't think I am ignoring Big Orange Box Store - it was their stain that I had originally selected, so now I am looking for more alternatives!) and nothing. Nothing. There was nothing that I liked better. So home to strip the sample patch and then let the darn thing dry one more time.

But I am finally pleased. Furniture back in place, planters back in place and a chair for that afternoon glass of wine ready to go!

In the interest of blog-honesty... I do have to report that I still have to stain a zillion "stretchers", but since they are vertical and won't deteriorate with rain, I can take my time. And, most importantly, they do not affect the "sitability" of the deck.

A Wise Woman Cometh

Another dear, old friend came to visit yesterday. Fortunately, business brought her to town and we got to spend the evening catching up.

Stacy and I worked together for nearly 17 years. She was the manager in another part of the state and lived three hours away so it took a while to become close, but over the years we discovered that we had much in common. Both sticklers for detail and absolute honestly and neither suffering fools gladly. She brought professional experience to the table and I brought years of practical experience. We both brought common sense. Over the years we often found common ground in solutions altho we came to problems from very different directions. Our collaborations were strong and we found that we thoroughly enjoyed each other's company.

She is currently enrolled in a PhD program and will soon be teaching at the university level and helping young people master her field. In the meantime she is working full time doing research into obesity programs and is trying to find ways to help our youth reverse the current trend of overweight in America.

A wife and mother, she is involved with her teenage son and makes time to be with him at school functions and athletic events. A daughter, sister and aunt, she is involved in her extended family - often including several generations in whatever activity she has going. A homemaker, she has the greatest red and white kitchen ever. I never see a red do-dad for the kitchen that I don't consider getting it for her.

Over the years she has helped me to stop and think things thru and to look at issues from many directions. She has listened when I needed to vent. She has called me to discuss an issue before making a decision, and together we have a fired staff member who was not making the grade. Today she's my weight loss adviser and a cheerleader for my never-ending struggled to drop ten pounds.

It was a delight to talk the evening away, and again over breakfast to find that the distance between us is so small.

20% Chance

It's pouring rain - gully washin', run in the ditches, overwhelm the streams pouring rain - complete with Rip Van Winkle rolling thunder. Ordinarily I would love it, but not tonight.

After spending every afternoon this week stripping the old finish and stain off the deck, I finally started putting down the new finish this afternoon. It's one board short of half done, and now it's raining. I was going to wait until tomorrow to start, but we checked the weather and there was only 20% chance of rain tonight - scattered thunder storms actually - but only 20%. It was a hot dry afternoon with not a cloud in the sky, so I started.

I wonder what you do when new stain/sealer gets wet? Guess I will learn tomorrow.

You know, some projects go that way. Nothing I can do now except to hope that it was dry enough to not be damaged. We'll look in the morning. Meanwhile, I'll open some wine!

What is it About Winning?

There are lots of advantages to growing up in a neighborhood where the boys outnumbered the girls at least five to one. I sure learned to get along with boys, to be friends [not a girlfriend] with boys, to work together and to be "one of the boys" - all skills that were useful in later life.

But one of the disadvantages was that there were always enough boys around for two teams of anything, so they didn't need to let me play to have a full team. Being more interested in books anyway, that never bothered me and I could happily retreat to my world of far-off places and interesting times while they played softball or kick the can, or whatever.



The real downside was that whatever competitive spirit I had never really developed much. In some ways it turned inward - striving to make the best grades, to have perfect attendance, and generally to be a Miss Goody-Two-Shoes pain in the ass. Not bad goals, but all internal.

Then about ten years ago I started to play tennis - badly. Lessons at county parks and recreation led to joining a community tennis club, followed by a weekly clinic and my tennis skills had improved markedly. I was up to "advanced beginner" and loved the game.

You know, you have to love a system that has "advanced beginners". Encouragement and brutal honesty in two words.


I've played for at least five years now on various lower level USTA club teams - always enjoying the play, but mostly losing, losing, losing. But that really hasn't bothered me. How much can an Advanced Beginner [see how I capitalized it and made it a title, not a condition!] expect to win? A couple of years ago I got ranked up from 2.5 to 3.0 and was thrilled, especially since I wasn't playing all that much better. But now I had a tennis - no, an athletic - goal: to be a solid 3.0 and hold my own.

Sadly, when USTA revised player ranking last December I was down-graded back to the 2.5 level. But I was not deterred. At an excellent clinic in November I had picked up a couple of new skills - ones that I was actually able to employ on the court. [I know a ton, but executing is a totally different ball game.]

And now suddenly this spring I am winning. In my "social" league I have won two of four matches, and in my USTA league I've won two of three matches. (You do realize these are doubles, not singles, don't you?)

Which brings me to yesterday. It was a hot, sunny afternoon [and I forgot both my hat and my visor] and incredibly windy - literally gusting to 40 mph. We were playing on old clay courts that had been dressed, but were like dust pits. Between the heat and the wind it was like being a sponge in the Sahara. I kept drinking all the water I could and still felt like I had a mouth full of sand. But Marni and I prevailed.

They were younger and one was probably a tad better than either of us - but we prevailed. They lost the first set and so changed places for the second and won that one. But we kept our heads in the game, figured out how to play around their new set up and won the tie-breaker finishing strong with the last four points. We prevailed.


It felt so good. Lying in bed last night I realized that I have found my competitive gene!