A tough week for Leslie

As anyone who knows me knows, I HATE speaking in front of a group. I am too timid to even speak up in a Bible class, so being in front of an audience is over-the-top trauma. I reluctantly did programs back in the 1980s and early 90s, but it always made me so sick that I decided I just couldn't do it anymore. After I put together the "Extreme Makeover" program and showed it back in May, I keep getting asked to show it to other groups. This week I had two back-to-back programs. On Tuesday, I did a powerpoint slide program about the Post Library to the Kiwanis Club. A tough audience made up of 60 men. I asked if there were any women in the group and was told there were lots of women. (I asked if they were in the kitchen cooking and cleaning.) On Wednesday, I did the Extreme Makeover powerpoint program for the Webb City/Carl Junction Rotary Club. Now THAT was really a tough audience. They didn't laugh where they were supposed to--just stony silence and no comments or questions afterwards. I saw one guy who was apparently asleep. However, I've been told by people in both groups that it was very interesting and they enjoyed it. I have now given 5 public presentations in 4 months, and I actually lived through it without getting sick until after it was all over with. I did cheat, though. I went to my doctor last month and asked if he'd prescribe some anti-anxiety meds to help me get through it. So between pills and lots of prayer, I was surprisingly calm. I have another program scheduled in September that will probably be a big one--at Spiva, where they usually have large crowds.

Showing Off....

Saturday, August 23, we had 25 people over from the English & Philosophy Department for a cookout and to show off our summer work. It was like a church meal, in that we provided the meat and buns and plates and cups and plasticware, and asked the rest of the department to bring side dishes, desserts, and specialty items. It was good to bask in the glow of warm appreciation for our work, and it was good just to have a time of fellowship away from the department. Both of our new full-time faculty were there, and one of our two one-year full-time replacements was also. It was to run from 5:00 to 7:30, but folks stayed till after 8:00, and that was OK.

We received some sprinkles of rain in our area an hour or so before the event, but it cleared by start time. We heard that Carl Junction & Webb City got a deluge for a good half hour. We had only a brief shower.

A good time was had by all. It was the first of many such events in the future, we hope.

TA-DA!!!!!!

...and our paint clothes are going into the trash.

The Home Stretch

Today, Saturday, August 9, 2008, we semi-finally completed the staining in advance of the rain. Everything but the brackets has two coats on it. The second coat will go up on the brackets when we get the time. We would not have gotten nearly as close to finishing if it weren't for the kindness of our friend Bob Paschall, who volunteered to help. He came over and stained lattice for several hours Friday morning.

We browsed through the photo archives looking for good before/after shots, and found a couple of good angles to show the contrasts. Below are early shots of the original yard taken before and during construction, followed by one taken today.

Before

After

Here are some more taken from a different angle:

After

How gratifying it is to see these photos and realize the amount of work that has been done. When it is all done, all touch-ups made, we will take a final group of photos and call the great Backyard Renovation Project complete.

Right in My Own Backyard

Below you will see what Leslie & I have been doing this week. Here it is Thursday, and we have been staining (not painting) the lattices & pergola. It's Olympic stain, but it sure goes on like and looks like paint. Leslie has been getting up at 5:30, and sometimes earlier, to eat breakfast and get out to work on the garage by 6:00. I usually have gotten out by 6:15, but today didn't get out till 7:00.

What was required to get where we are now? Well, the wood was washed with Deck Brightener and rinsed, then after it dried completely, we rolled on the Borrada wood preservative. After it dried, the lattices were stained directly, but the cross timbers and the posts were primed first. At this point, all of the wood except for the brackets, which I cleaned this morning, have one coat of stain on them.

I couldn't wait to post up these pictures before completing the brackets. After I post this up, I will go out with the garden hose and rinse them.
Once the second coat is on, we will go back and touch up to remove the gray drips from the espresso wall color. Then we'll pose ourselves in front of our "What We Did on Our Summer Vacation" project.
There's a popular cha-cha that our dance club dances to, to a big band-era song called "Right in My Own Backyard." Here is part of the first verse: "I'm spending my summer vacation right in my own backyard...." How appropriate this summer. We'll probably download it and dance to it on the patio!

For the Archives

This one is sort of a footnote to the last post by Leslie, and also for the archives. I took a picture of the two products used in prepping the lattices and pergola. It's a very labor-intensive project, requiring first cleaning the cedar with the Olympic Deck Brightener on the left. You have to use a hand-pump sprayer specially designed for detergents, mix the product with water, spray it on, brush it in with a hand brush, then after 30 minutes rinse it off with the jet spray on your garden hose. Do this on all four sides. Let it dry completely for a day or two (in 100-degree weather it should be much shorter), then move on to the product on the right.

Borrada LP is a wood-boring insect repellant. It's clear and about the consistency of wallpaper paste. It has to be mixed with warm or hot water to a 2:1 or 1:1 solution, then rolled on or painted on. I used the small paint roller on the table, on all four sides also. It has to dry 1-3 days (hopefully only one day) before you can put on stain or paint. Now, I used it only on the 7 thick posts and not on the lattice. Then, after these two products are used, you can prime with one coat and stain with two. We are not priming the lattice but putting two coats of gray stain on it. The posts get the primer plus two coats.

We will probably spend most of the week of August 4-8 doing the patio side (west) of the garage, which has a whole lot more lattice on it. It will be up at 5:30 on Monday for a quick breakfast, then out to work about 6:10 or earlier, before the sun comes over on that side of the garage.

I almost forgot--we haven't done the lattice on the garage door. You know how wide that is. That has to be prepped starting Monday the 4th.

Stay tuned for more reports, hopefully the last ones regarding the back yard, which we plan to finish by the end of this week.

A preview of coming attractions

We worked too hard yesterday in 100 degree heat (well over that in heat index) for me to not document our day's work. I started at 7 a.m. while Dale went to a men's breakfast. He came home and started around 9:00, I guess. Our primary focus was the pergola and lattice on the north side of the garage. I stained both sides of the lattice with 2 coats of solid color stain. Dale primed the pergola framework and gave it one coat of stain. I also stained the underside of the back porch. That was fun, crawling around on rocks and disturbing the spiders that live there. I quit at 4:30 and cleaned up. Dale worked until 5. I just took a detail shot of one side since you can't get the full effect until we do the brackets and garage door. We'll have some touch-up to do later, as it's impossible not to get primer and stain on the already-painted garage walls.