One Side Done

After a terrible string of unfortunate circumstances, by 3pm, Phil had hung one more panel on the building. Among the frustrations: the long role of insulation was not quite long enough (perhaps in cutting off an extra six inches each time, per the instructions, the six inches grew to twelve): lacking five inches after something like 70 feet of insulation was a blow. Trying to connect a five inch strip on the bottom was impossible.

After days and days of promised thunderstorms, we finally had one hit yesterday. Prediction was a tenth of an inch; we had over half. While we're thankful for the rain, the insulation was a bit wet, which made it heavy and disinclined to stick to the double sided tape. Insulation kept collapsing (two, three, four times).

Once, trying to catch the falling insulation, Phil gashed his wrist on the top of a metal panel. Blood, pain (and yarrow tincture! I remembered my Sunday lesson. Of course, I didn't give Phil much warning that it was yarrow flowers in alcohol, and he gasped in surprise at the pain).

Screws that should have gone in easily hit odd angles, bashed his knuckles.

Finally, he asked, "What do you do when everything seems to be conspiring against you?"

Ah! I remembered the prayer of Isobel Kuhn: "Lord, if this is from you, I accept it. If it's not from you, I reject it."

After all, if all these frustrations were simply to teach perseverance or patience, that's fine. Though character development can be painful, it feels productive, too, transformative.

But this felt more like Chinese water torture. After that prayer, things went smoothly to the end of the first side.

Well, more or less. The final panel stuck out seven inches too far. Phil figured the metal had flattened out as he installed it, seventeen panels gradually inching too far out.

We paid it forward. (Phil had considered cutting it before installing, but I asked how he would know exactly where to cut, if the panels were deflecting during installation. I hope that was good advice. Time will tell, I suppose. I also asked several times if he was sure he started the first panel in the right spot, and he seemed quite confident about that.)