Taking it Personally

Don't find fault.  Find a remedy.  

~Henry Ford~

Between the great things we cannot do and the small things we will not do, 

the danger is that we shall do nothing.  

~Adolph Monod

 A nod,

a bow,

and a tip of the lid

to the person

who coulda

and shoulda

and did.

~Robert Brault

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.

 ~Ayn Rand

Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.  ~Les Brown
(We attended a seminar where this man spoke.  I loved that he laughed more than anyone at his own jokes!)

      Dad's Words of Wisdom

Everyone makes mistakes. Do you think you are so special that you would make no mistakes?  (I played the piano for a crowd at his urging, and was embarrassed that I made so many mistakes.)


If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.  (After grumbling about something. Don't remember what, but I think it was something at school I wasn't happy about.)


Don't tell me what you intended to do.  It is meaningless to say you meant to do something, if you don't do it.




You cannot borrow a dollar tomorrow of time you have wasted today.




Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.




My girls work better for me than the men I have hired in the woods.

         

           Mom's Words of Wisdom


Never be critical of your husband.  Why should you question your own judgement?

Try not.  Do or do not.  There is no try.  

~Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back

Since waking up gently is my preference, my husband was letting me sleep in for a while, last Thursday, as he often does.  Partly this is because a quick hop out of bed actually gives me vertigo and after several years, I have managed to convince him that I enjoy my day a lot more if it doesn't start too fast. Meanwhile, he started doing the month-end customer invoices.  However, he was not finding the right number for the next invoice and wanted to know how to search for it.  His patience extends from about 5:30 a.m. when the alarm goes off until 6:30.  If I delay until close to 7 a.m., he teases me, saying, "Good afternoon!" On statement days, the patience factor is reduced considerably.  By the time he was ready to go out the door I had folded some laundry, taken a shower, and gotten dressed all the while coaching him through the search process from a safe distance, say 25 to 35 feet away from my desk.  Don't want to get too involved that early in the morning.

We go through this every month about this time, so I thought jogging his memory would do the trick. Go to Edit, Find, Invoices. Press Enter. No such luck.  Instead, it seems to be rather like me trying to decipher which plumbing part is called what this time, and I have learned to just ask because the description of a swamp cooler pump and a sump pump aren't all that different, even though the price is about $375.00 for the sump pump compared to $25.00 for the swamp cooler pump.  Besides a myriad of plumbing parts to remember, the warehouses and the data entry people all contrive to make sure they have an unrecognizable description.  The plumber calls it one thing, the warehouse another, and the data entry person manages to come up with something else altogether.  Never mind the customer, although they are usually willing to learn that we call it a stool, not a toilet and a lav, not a sink, but a faucet is usually a faucet, although it may be a valve or a sillcock.

Jerry keeps threatening to take me out on the job-sites so I can learn the parts.  Because he has not followed through on the threat, I still have to think for a minute.  What is a dresser coupling, and is this 2" SxF PVC adapter something we already have in the catalog, because I can't find this size, but it seems like it should be here?  By the time he left for work, he was feeling the pressure of all he had to do for the day, while I was determined to keep my distance.  The last straw was when the invoice he had been working on disappeared. He realized the effort for the whole morning had been wasted.  He was not happy. Obviously. Slamming down his daily planning book, he used some moderately frustrated language which I choose not to repeat, but makes me laugh.

This brings to mind a story that still makes me smile. Jerry doesn't find it funny, however, and he doesn't think I should either.  We had started a remodel project, adding on a 19 x 20-something addition to our house when we lived in town.  Before we started putting up walls, Jerry decided that adding on a small entry way would make a lot of sense.  Oh, probably about 5 feet by 8 feet more.  We had already planned two lovely large closets in the main part of the addition, so we only needed some space for removing our boots and some coat hooks.  Maybe a shelf above the hooks, with an octagon window, besides the small powder room: sink and stool, and a window for cross ventilation.  The concrete was already poured for the larger addition, so Jerry decided to do the concrete pour himself for the addition to the addition.

When you see this man dig, you know what a trooper he really is.  He dug the dirt out for the footings himself, and formed the footings, then poured them.  When it was time to pour the crawl space walls, he rented the four foot forms from a contractor in town.  The concrete was scheduled for the next morning  as we set the forms and placed long pins through the forms horizontally to connect the two sides.  Jerry was trying to figure out how to connect the pins so they wouldn't slide out of the forms.  It seemed like it wasn't working just right.  They slipped out of place quite easily.  I didn't know how to connect them, so I suggested he call someone and ask. A local builder, a friend. He thought maybe we were supposed to take a hammer and beat them over, but I was sure that wasn't right. Again, I urged him to call someone and find out what to do. This seemed to be a necessary solution to me, but there seems to be some unwritten rule against men asking for directions.  So, what choice did I have? I watched skeptically as he decided that must be how they worked,  but I could not fathom any way they would actually hold when the concrete was poured.  Maybe he should just use the hammer idea.  Jerry reasoned that the weight of the concrete would somehow cause them to "catch" and stay in place.  Not happening, I thought.  Okay, MAYBE, but that just seemed beyond any reasonable hope to me.  But what should be done, I had no idea unless we were missing some parts.

The concrete truck was bright and early, right on schedule.  We had started checking and rechecking the forms early.  Examining, measuring, moving things out of the way on that sunshiny morning, probably hoping some inspiration would occur to us regarding the mystery of constructing concrete forms, while filled with nervous anticipation. I chewed on the problem like a puppy on a fuzzy, squeaky toy, worrying about those slippery pins, expecting trouble but not knowing what to do about it.

Somehow the arrival of a concrete truck is so exciting, the epitome of a long process of preparation, the main event, and that moment had arrived.  The driver released the concrete down the chute, and we watched as the cement filled the chute and at last, poured into the forms.  It seemed to hold, then suddenly, I saw my suspicions realized.  The forms were not even one quarter full on one side when the pins popped away from the forms....pop, popp, poppp, creak, groan, sploosh.  Forms split open at the bottom, and unable to contain the pressure, they spread apart like an accordion. The walls started falling in slow motion, plopping down on one another, going down like dominoes. Concrete oozed out the bottom, lifting the forms, and from my vantage point atop the plywood floor, I thought of my husband's refusal to ask for directions.  And I laughed.

My poor husband didn't have time to acknowlege my reaction right then, but I was in for it later.  His frenzied efforts to shovel the concrete off the footings, reset the forms, then frantically shovel the concrete from the ground where it had spilled, over the top of the forms, and finish the pour, while the driver was waiting, didn't allow for much self reflection.  Hammering the pins over on the ends was a last gasp, desperate measure to hold them in place, although not one that would turn out very evenly.  Saving the concrete order was in no way funny, I was informed afterwards.  This is true.  It was a ton of work, and really hard work; all done while the driver was waiting, the concrete was ready. And I didn't grab a shovel, thinking I would just get in the way.  Big mistake on my part, it turned out, but I really didn't think I would be much help.  I probably wouldn't have been, but the effort would have been appreciated.

When we removed the forms, the concrete walls were not exactly square and straight, but they had been through a lot in a short period of time, and although there were some thicker spots, Jerry was more than a little surprised that they turned out so well. The minor variations would be covered by the walls sitting on top of them.  All in all, the results were satisfactory thanks to good preparation, despite poor execution.

The tricky thing about communicating is how to get someone to listen when you know you don't really know anything about it, but you're sure there is a problem.  Letting someone find out the hard way isn't so good, obviously.   Later, when he returned the rented forms, he found out there were fasteners that should have been given to him for securing the pins.   Nowadays, if you want to know how to do anything you can find an instructional video on the internet.  What a difference that makes to me, when I have all these how-to-do something questions tossed my way, when I have NO idea.  Research is a wonderful thing!

Months later, we were relaxing in the bubbly water of the whirlpool tub in the basement of the large addition.  As soap suds rose in heaps around us, we discussed an article in a magazine that asked what is the key to a happy marriage.  Jerry's answer? Forgiveness.  Surprised at the definite tone of his comment, I was taken aback.  Wow.  Did I need forgiven so very much?  If so, I realized I did not really want to know what was on my tab, so I decided not to ask.  Good to know, though humbling, that it was part of our marriage.

If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.  

~J.M. Power

Salsa

The best angle from which to approach any problem is the try-angle.

  ~Author Unknown

Surfing the Net with New Phone

One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.  ~Jack Penn

 I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. 

~John Locke

Don't say you don't have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. 

 ~Life's Little Instruction Book, compiled by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

When I was a Boy Scout, we played a game when new Scouts joined the troop.  We lined up chairs in a pattern, creating an obstacle course through which the new Scouts, blindfolded, were supposed to maneuver.  The Scoutmaster gave them a few moments to study the pattern before our adventure began.  But as soon as the victims were blindfolded, the rest of us quietly removed the chairs.  I think life is like this game.  Perhaps we spend our lives avoiding obstacles we have created for ourselves and in reality exist only in our minds.  We're afraid to apply for that job, take violin lessons, learn a foreign language, call an old friend, write our Congressman - whatever it is that we would really like to do but don't because of personal obstacles.  Don't avoid any chairs until you run smack into one.  And if you do, at least you'll have a place to sit down.  

~Pierce Vincent Eckhart