Preface. . . this is a very BORING post. . .it's mostly for my records.
2) There is stray paint inside and outside of my house. I was feeling bad until I read this. Suddenly the little splatters here and there seem fine!
3) This was such a love-hate project for me. I thrived on seeing the pieces come together. I was so motivated each day to get out and make progress on the ones we were working on. Yet it was hard not to feel like the whole project was hanging over my head. You can't do everything in life and when you are painting a fence, you are not cleaning your house or attending to your children as you should. That caused me a certain degree of guilt throughout the process.
4) I often got up at 5:00 or 5:30 (depending on what time it got light outside) and read my scriptures for a half hour then went out and painted until family scripture time. {In August during that cold spell I was painting in a coat and gloves in the morning!} Those early morning hours were a sanctuary for my soul. . .seeing the break of dawn, hearing the birds, doing something I LOVED and pondering on the scriptures I had just read. . . .many insights and tidbits of inspiration flowed through me this summer. Much needed and much appreciated.
5) One of the reasons I embarked on this project was because of this article about mothers using their education in raising their family. (I referred to that article here as well.) The thought of that kept me going when I almost decided that what I was trading this project for was not worth it (see #3). BUT, hopefully, my kids have very positive memories of the whole experience: of working side by side with me or consulting me for advice, of taking a big project that they have to envision in their heads and carry it out to completion, of sticking with a task and finishing it even if it is hot or they are tired of painting, of working through problems, of feeling satisfaction of creating something fun and working together so that everyone can finish their project (which meant taking large turns cleaning and caring for the littlest ones). A lot of good came out of this.
6) I love mixing paint. I loved the challenge of the kids bringing me a picture of the color they wanted and I had to get that with the primary and secondary colors + white and black. Fun!
7) I went through phases when I said to myself, "What in the world am I doing? Who does this? This is so weird and surely the neighbors think so too. etc." But then I would go out and get lost in it and love the process and decide that I didn't care.
8) We mixed all of our paint in those square plastic baby food containers. (for once my saving for an unknown reason paid off!) They were great because they had lids and were about the right size for most colors we needed.
9) I've had a couple of responses on my "nothing-quite-like-purposely-decreasing-the-value-of-your-property" comment. . . what I meant by that is that we could not sell our house for as much money as we could with a solid colored fence. But we're not planning on moving so for now, it's okay.
10) People have also asked if we can put anything on it to preserve our work. I asked the paint store people about it and they said that there is a clear coating but if it goes wrong (which it does often) it goes terribly wrong. It is also $90/gallon. It would take 10-15 gallons to cover our fence. . . so we are just letting it weather. And I'm perfectly fine with that.
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