Way back, in my working days, I identified many tasks that I planned to complete “someday” when I had more time. Someday was included with my retirement package. The days of my week are no longer Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… They are now Someday, Someday, Someday… Today is Someday; tomorrow is Someday, and so was yesterday: so much to do, so many Somedays.
This is part of the reason I developed a Retirement Position Description. I don’t want any of my Somedays to go to waste (or waist, which is what happened when I spent my Somedays eating sugar cookies). The past ten Somedays were spent in another grout encounter of the worst kind: restoring the Saltillo tile on the back patio. I did not take a before picture, because I was ashamed. Shame should have kept me from taking after pictures, but Shame was out to lunch when I arrived with my picture-taking-device (my cell phone – I feel like I’m being less than truthful when I refer to it as a camera; and misleading when I refer to it as a phone).
After many hours of scrubbing, stripping, and patching chips (they were more like chunks) and cracks (they were more like chasms) in the tile, I scrubbed again and then sealed. The tile has great sentimental value. Phil and I had traveled to Nogales, AZ for our 25th Wedding Anniversary, and excavated it from the hillside behind my sister’s home, where it had been thrown after a remodel. It is another reminder of the many joys and great times we’ve had while married. We then brought it home, and installed it ourselves (more good times) on our back patio. We did have to supplement the hillside supply with store bought to cover the entire area. The hillside tile, in testimony to survival of the fittest, has weathered and aged much more gracefully than the store-bought tile. They just don’t make things like they used to.
My current quality standard for task completion is that the work completed last for 15 years. I’m guessing I have about 15 years left in this house, and most of the work that I’m doing, I do not want to repeat. I did a lot of research to find a Saltillo Tile sealer that would provide a 15-year seal. So, while the finished project is not beautiful, I hope that it will function for the next 15 years, allowing me the luxury of moving on to my next Someday task. Life, unlike my patio, is good.
It's Me: Jennie Block Taylor 