Happy July; today I'm excited because working with intention to finish up our home redesign is paying off. Painters wrapped things up last week, so I picked up this treasure to complement the Alpaca grey walls in our kitchen.
Found out at VBS that 3 Muskateers has affirmations on their minis
and that God is good through the scary, the sour, and the sweet.
Discovered that our plumbers really like Brownie Sundaes; in fact,
they said they usually dread Mondays, but not this one.
And we enjoyed a tour of Jacob's plot at his apartment's Community Gardens
even as the squirrels at home were enjoying our garden's produce.
Then there's the book I'm reading, Dare To Lead by Brené Brown;
with every page turn, a new reflection, a new truth,
a new way to look at hard things, like shame and vulnerability,
Speaking of fixing things, many of you know that we've been
fixing up our home after a pin hole in the attic pipes
set off a series of events that led to a total house overhaul.
It took three months to get the repiping and then bedroom-half
of our home done; mid-June, we moved to the living room
They were right; dust was everywhere.
But four days of a dusty mess is nothing compared to a lifetime of worrying about hearing and feeling the old tile underneath our beautiful new floor. But what does all of this have to do with vulnerability?
The floor had some vulnerable tiles, which, when exposed,
set off a series of more and more vulnerable spots.
The way I saw it, we had two choices:
Cover them up or get them all out,
exposing the concrete to smooth it out
and prepare a firm foundation for the upgrade.
Sure, it was going to be messy, but what about the alternative?
How many times have we opted to cover up with
what's easiest,
most convenient,
comfortable even,
instead of
embracing the inconvenient,
the mess,
the dust,
the noise,
the ugly,
the scary,
the broken,
the hollow,
all the while knowing that, in the end,
the discomfort was the more courageous choice,
the healthiest, most rewarding way to go?
Vulnerability isn't the easy, no-mess, cover-up choice;
it's often dark and can be fraught with fright.
But it's the path well worth taking.
Who's ready to rumble?
with every page turn, a new reflection, a new truth,
a new way to look at hard things, like shame and vulnerability,
and really important things, like compassion and empathy.
fixing up our home after a pin hole in the attic pipes
set off a series of events that led to a total house overhaul.
It took three months to get the repiping and then bedroom-half
of our home done; mid-June, we moved to the living room
and removed wall paper in the kitchen.
After the paint, we'd tackle the tile floors,
which desperately needed a facelift.
Our Flooring Specialist said we could float those areas where our tile had cracked or was hollow and just go right over the old floor with the new one, an LVP (Luxury Vinyl Plank). Sounded good at the time; to expedite the process, I decided to get all of the loose, detached tiles up, to prepare the floor for that float.
I could never have prepared for what happened next.
The handful of tiles that I thought needed to come up turned into a really sizable area. And when I thought I'd finished, a frightening noise that resembled a mine field going off, {the snap here, the crackle there, and the pop pop everywhere,} told me that we had only just begun. By late Sunday night, we knew that there was no way we were going to put our new flooring over that.
By Tuesday, I had a crew ready to remove that old tile.
People warned us there'd be a lot of dust.
{I ain't afraid of no dust.}
It's going to be everywhere, they said.
{Dust in our hair. All of us have dust in our hair.}
In places you'd least expect it, they told us.
{I can see clearly now the dust is gone!}
They were right; dust was everywhere.
But four days of a dusty mess is nothing compared to a lifetime of worrying about hearing and feeling the old tile underneath our beautiful new floor. But what does all of this have to do with vulnerability?
The floor had some vulnerable tiles, which, when exposed,
set off a series of more and more vulnerable spots.
The way I saw it, we had two choices:
Cover them up or get them all out,
exposing the concrete to smooth it out
and prepare a firm foundation for the upgrade.
Sure, it was going to be messy, but what about the alternative?
How many times have we opted to cover up with
what's easiest,
most convenient,
comfortable even,
instead of
embracing the inconvenient,
the mess,
the dust,
the noise,
the ugly,
the scary,
the broken,
the hollow,
all the while knowing that, in the end,
the discomfort was the more courageous choice,
the healthiest, most rewarding way to go?
 |
| Page 2 from Dare To Lead by Brené Brown |
it's often dark and can be fraught with fright.
But it's the path well worth taking.
Who's ready to rumble?
Oh, and after two weeks of walking on concrete,
our new LVP floor will be installed tomorrow.
our new LVP floor will be installed tomorrow.
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