Worthy of Being Written
I’m utterly exhausted right now. My day has been… long, interesting, discouraging, somewhat frustrating, and just plain tiring. I got up around 8:00 a.m. to grab a shower and breakfast before being picked up at 8:55 a.m. by Dr. Kapic. I dropped Jonathan and Margot off at school with him, and then he dropped me off at his house to start yet another painting project.
I’ve been doing odd painting jobs for him throughout my time at Covenant. I painted their outside car port, an inside entry way and door, all the baseboards on the first and second floor (that was so boring), and a number of other touch-ups here and there. Today, I started my next project — an old window outside. I say “window,” and no doubt you’re thinking, “It’s a window. How hard can that be?” Well this is an old window… and it is a window with 30 (yes, thirty.. I counted) small panes of glass in it. It had been primered about a year ago but never painted. It was chipping and peeling all over the place, and the old caulking (essentially cement) was still there from the original installation.
I surveyed the project — not a big deal. It would take me a day to prepare the wood — remove the old caulking, chip off the old paint, sand it, and put new caulking around the 30 window panes. Then it might take me an additional two days to prime the wood and put two coats of gloss paint on it. Not a big deal.
I got out there this morning around 9:15 a.m. I grabbed a knife and a scraper to start removing the old caulking. I started with the first window pane…
Four hours later, I was exhausted, sun-burned, had broken two knives trying to remove the old cement-like caulking, broken three of the window panes, only managed to prepare 18 of the panes, and discovered how HARD it is to caulk around a window (has anyone ever caulked before? You get the gun and a tube of silicon… and you have to squirt the silicon out at the same time as evenly spreading the silicon around the window pane… if you spread too slow, the silicon blobs into clumps… if you go too fast, the silicon isn’t spread thick enough and you have to redo it… not to mention the fact that the stuff is like thick glue. It’s sticky and it gets all over the place).
I finally called it a day as far as the project was concerned. I wasn’t even half-way done with the prep work, and I had made extra work for myself by breaking three of the windows. I drove back to my dorm room to grab a shower.
An hour later, I drove to pick Jonathan and Margot up from school. I had offered to babysit for Mrs. Kapic from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. Again… not a big deal. In my mind, it paled in comparison to having to use another tube of silicon on a window. We got back to the house and ran back into the playroom to hang out. Jonathan and Margot immediately thought it would be a cool idea to pretend to be “pillows.” I was picking up the rest of the pillows that were scattered around the room as it was… why not try and blend in? I played a long… I grabbed Jonathan by the legs, swung him upside down and onto the sofa. He giggled, smiled at me with a cheeky grin, and rolled back off the sofa. Next I grabbed Margot by the arms and heels and tossed her into a pile of pillows on the sofa. Naturally, she followed her brother’s example… giggled and rolled back onto the floor.
I decided to humor them and do it a few more times, thinking they’d get tired and find something better to do. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Half an hour later, they’re still giggling… and still following the same routine of being thrown on the sofa and rolling right back off again.
Enough said. My arms are sore, and I’m about to hit the books… two weeks from today and I’ll be flying out to Wyoming.
Published on 24 Apr 2008 at 5:26 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under A Day in the Life, Humor.
Wow, I see what you mean about it being a long day. Too bad I didn’t read this before seeing you in Carter Lobby!
I’m glad you filed it under “humor,” though. That’s a good sign!
Jeremy on 24 Apr 2008 at 5:38 pm.
Haha, Margot and Jonathan do that to me all the time–you’d think it would get old!
Katie Jo on 24 Apr 2008 at 6:48 pm.
o the joys of babysitting :)
Olivia Perry on 25 Apr 2008 at 7:32 am.