A lifetime of learning

As much as I value the knowledge I gained through formal education, sometimes life's most important lessons are learned through day-to-day experiences. So, to help you and me both avoid work and productivity for a little while, here is a quick list of lessons I've recently learned:

1. August is not the time of year to do home-improvement projects inside your attic. This sounds like common sense, I know, but yet I have been (and continue to be) determined to complete a radiant barrier project in my attic before Georgia's sweltering summer ends. The idea here is to see whether and how well the radiant barrier works, as its mission is to deflect away some of the sun's heat energy, cooling down the attic on hot summer days and then cooling down the upstairs rooms.

Despite knowing that the attic temperatures easily top 100 degrees on sunny days, I attempted to work in the space two days straight a couple of weekends ago. It was very slow-moving work (applying the radiant barrier mixed with paint by roller), and my clothes were entirely drenched with sweat, as if I had jumped into a pool. I knew I had to call it a day at about 1:00 on Saturday afternoon, when I found myself sitting on a plank between two ceiling joists feeling so sluggish that I considered taking a nap inside the attic.

I'll be back attic, and I'll defeat you. But on rainy days when the sun has not baked through the roof all morning.

2. My best solution in the what-baby-stuff-to-register-for crisis (See prior post) is this: Register for almost everything and then return to the store the things you don't use. Seriously, it was really hurting my head for a while, trying to figure out a way to be a minimalist at the whole raising a baby thing. Trouble is: I've never raised a baby. I've only seen other people do it, and I've never seen anyone else do it in a way that I would consider even close to minimalist. Plus, I know many family and friends are going to buy us lots of stuff, whether we register for it or not. So I've decided (and I think Meaghan agrees) that we're going to err on the side of getting things, and then when we see what we are not using we'll take that stuff back to the store.

That's not so much a lesson learned from day-to-day experience as a decision to escape my usual indecisiveness.

3. In any garden or area of self-installed landscaping, the most expensive plants always die first. This is a repeat lesson, exactly the same as the one nature taught us last summer, but we had hoped this time it would be different. Of the various flowers, bushes and ferns we set out this year (not an overall expensive lot, mind you), the only ones making any effort to continue flourishing are the absolutely cheapest white flowers in the garden. There is one fern on the front porch that continues to do well, looking like its own miniature rainforest, while its counterpart (which received the exact same watering treatment) is the equivalent of Charlie Brown's twig of a Christmas tree.

I suppose maybe the real lesson here should be: Plants die without water. We are pitifully neglectful about watering our plants. If I do go to the trouble of ever planting a vegetable garden in my yard, I will most certainly have to install some of those drip-irrigation hoses to keep it watered.

4. Wherever there's a hole in a fence that you're pretty sure your dog can't get out, the dog will most certainly get out. Maybe two days in a row. Especially if that dog is Jewels.

No worries; we got her back. She had just gone next door to visit another dog. And the hole is officially repaired now. She's not getting out at that spot again unless she learns to use a pry bar and pop the nails loose. I'm pretty sure.

5. Gently jogging a couple times a week on an indoor track is poor preparation for running a very hilly 5K road race. Seriously. Some of you may be familiar with a certain hill topped by a tower topped by a clock. Well, try running up that hill in the middle of a 5-kilometer footrace. It hurts. I haven't been that sore in a long time.

That's pretty much all. I hope that, deep down, I have learned much more valuable lessons than these in the last several weeks, but they're escaping my mind at the moment.