Tuesday, May 15, 2012


Earlier today, my youngest daughter caught me in a rather…awkward position.  I was refinishing a chair when she began to enter my office.  She froze in the doorway, a corny grin upon her face as she spotted me, my head on the ground, rear high in the air as I attempted to paint the underside of a chair rung.

Looking up, I joked, “Hey, don’t judge.  Who knows, maybe one day my granddaughter will get down on the ground and wonder if her grandmother did a thorough job of painting the entire chair.”

My daughter chuckled.  It was then a memory flashed through my mind.  Almost thirty years earlier when my mother-in-law helped me hang wallpaper in our guest bath, I wondered aloud why we needed to put paper behind the toilet tank that hugged the wall so tight that we could scarcely get the paper back there.

My mother-in-law sported a playful smile and with a twinkle in her eye explained, “Who knows...one day one of my grandchildren might look behind the toilet tank and we wouldn’t want them to think Mommy and Grandma did a shoddy wallpaper job.”

We both got a good laugh out of that and made sure to paper the entire area behind the toilet tank.

Ever since, whenever I’ve done a home improvement or craft project, that lighthearted moment plays through my mind.  Always makes me smile as I ensure that no future grandchildren will be disappointed by a job half done.

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