Alesha (my wife) and I have wanted to build a deck for approximately a million years. (“Approximately” is key to understanding that sentence.) This was the year it happened. Sometime over the summer, we got a new deck. It’s HUGE! Seriously. It’s way bigger than we had planned to get and we are thrilled.
There is, however, one small problem. (Isn’t there always?)
When you build a deck, you have to stain it. What does that mean? Left unprotected, wood will rot in the elements so you have to cover it in some form of sealant to keep that from happening. There are oil stains and water stains. There are clear-coats. There are stains that look like paint. There are paints that behave as stains. Confused yet? Me too!
I had to learn what stain was, what kind to buy, and how to apply it. I learned those things, but I also learned a few more.
Here in no particular order are 5 Things I learned while staining my deck:
- Hard work is hard. Seriously. Some people have real jobs where they use their muscles for a living? Me? I talk all day which means the muscles I have developed are in my mouth and in my… well… you getit. Sealing a deck is hard work and I wish I had the money to pay someone else to do it.
- I need rewarded for the tiniest things. Finishing any project is not enough incentive for me. I need a reward. I like to blame teachers and star-sticker charts for this problem. I promised myself an enormous soda if I could get to a certain point before sunset. I made it. I drank it. I’m happy.
- I don’t know what the downward dog is. After all those hours working on my deck, I couldn’t stand up straight. I did some stretching and did some “thing” that managed to crack my entire back. I told Alesha the downward dog saved me. Turns out the thing I did was not a downward dog. It had no name. I’m calling it the Obsequious Obadiah from now on.
- 5 hour energy doesn’t last five hours. It’s more like 3-hour-energy. I supplemented it with coffee. I have a caffeine problem.
- It’s my choice. When I was a kid there was a song called “Humbly Grateful or Grumbly Hateful”. We sang it at school. It was all about choosing to be grateful or hateful. This was a tough one when I was aching and complaining about my deck. Listen to all that privilege: “my deck”. It was time to stop hating and start grate-ing. I spent the rest of the time thanking God that I had a deck to stain. Last summer I was whining about not having one. (I am a gifted whiner. I should host seminars.)
Bonus learning: just because I worked so hard today doesn’t mean I don’t have to do the show tomorrow. I gotta go to bed. 🙂
-Obadiah
Good read!