Today’s entry is going to be shorter than usual for multiple reasons.  I started work today as a temporary employee at the company I retired from over 2 years ago.  It was good to be back in the work environment.  The project I’m working on is interesting and will challenge me to learn new things.  I love that.  The only thing I don’t like is that Shirley and I are in different places.  She and Judi stayed at the Ark to begin working on the grout in the bathroom.  Shirley provided the pictures and the day’s story.

Getting all the right material to the Ark has been a challenge all the way through the project and today was no different.  We’re using epoxy grout in the bathrooms to minimize maintenance.  It really has worked well in the upstairs bathroom and has been worth the extra cost and effort to install.  Unfortunately, we got the grout itself, but not the coloring agent to go with it.  There was enough of the coloring agent to do one batch of grout today and you can see the results on the bench. 

The first in grouting is to clean all the tile and that took most of the morning.  Even Liam got into the act.  Since there is no more grout everyone will take a well deserved day of rest tomorrow.  The garage door installers are coming out to do annual maintenance on Wednesday and then it will be another week and a half before another update.

We started this morning a little after 8a.  Shirley mixed up some mortar and began installing tile.  As it approached 8:30 and we thought that we could wake the neighborhood we began cutting tile.  It was hard to turn on the saw because it was an especially quiet morning.  Fog hung over all of Irish Beach and nothing was stirring.  The tile saw soon broke the stillness and the circular saw soon followed as I had to cut a small piece of Hardi-backer.  Soon after that everyone was up and the regular roles were in place.

We already knew that preparation is key, but it really hit us this afternoon when we discovered a 3/8″ variation in the thickness of the end walls that are designed to be trimmed out with bullnose tile.  There were many decisions that had to be made and made quickly.  Every decision involved some level of compromise between the design and the reality of our preparation.  With 4 people involved this was sometimes challenging, but we have come to the end of the day together and I occasionally hear chuckles from the bathroom.

I’m writing this at 8:30 in the evening and everyone has been going full out all day.  We are trying to get all of the tile we have installed so that Shirley and Judi can grout the tile next week.  We’re really hoping to get the toilet installed the next time we come out.  The other reason for working so hard to finish is that we can’t install the river rock in the bottom of the shower until all of the grouting is done.  Even with all that has been done today we still aren’t finished installing tile. The white finish tile is backordered and we can’t really finish until it is installed.

Liam and I had a fun day.  I think we watched “The Love Bug” twice, but we got through the day in good shape.  We tried to catch another gopher, but I didn’t get the traps installed correctly and the gopher managed to fill them both with dirt without setting them off.  I think I tried to set them in an area where the dirt was too wet.

Liam is down for the evening and I’m going to curl up with a good book.  Tomorrow we’ll be going to church in Elk and then having the congregation join us for a potluck lunch.  It has been an amazing week and we’re all ready for a break.

After getting the last hole out of a carbide tipped hole saw yesterday, today began with a drive to Fort Bragg.  The Ace Hardware in Fort Bragg is a little larger than the one in Manchester and the selection is definitely better.  However, at first I thought I was going to be frustrated even though I had called the evening before to check to be sure they stocked what I needed.  When you’re looking for hole saws to drill holes in ceramic tile remember to look in the section with the other ceramic tile supplies.  That’s where we found the first one at Home Depot.  I finally found what I was looking for and got back to Irish Beach a little after 10a.

The rest of the day I hung out with Liam while the rest of the family perfected their roles in installing the tile.  Judi measures very precisely, Kelly cuts just as precisely, and Shirley places the tiles.  It is hard to tell from the pictures, but everything is as close to perfect as it can be.  There are some difficult sections left, but the team is working well together.  I anticipate that I’ll have Liam duty again tomorrow as well.

Liam really enjoys water and rocks like any real boy.  He entertained himself for an hour with a 5 gallon bucket of water and rocks.  He made an old piece of duct tape into a fishing line and went fishing.  He really enjoyed washing his hands.  He would wash his hands, then walk a few feet away, place his hands down in the dirt, and then walk back and wash them off again.  He was soaked to the skin when we finally came in for lunch, but that was okay.

The master gardener workshop we attended a few weeks ago was certainly worth the time.  I caught a third gopher today.  Once I see activity, it only takes about 2 hours to catch the gopher.

One final note.  This may not get posted until tomorrow morning because we have experienced our first power outage while out here.  I’m glad I’m working on a laptop because it actually provided the emergency light we needed until we could get the candles lit.  Everytime this happens I’m also very grateful for the utility light that came with my Makita drill set.  It really lights up the room.  The power is back on and we all hope it will stay on.  Otherwise, we won’t be completing the tiling tomorrow.

We got started a little earlier today and ended much later.  The sun was barely up when we began and going down when we had all had enough for one day.  We didn’t make as much progress as we wanted to as the different size tile continues to take more time to align than we expected.

The most pleasant surprise today was the installation of the bench.  I was disappointed when I discovered that we needed to cut it a little shorter, so we began the day with a very noisy cutting operation.  However, mounting the bench was easy.  Once it was level we screwed it into the studs and blocking and it was ready for mortar.  Our neighbor had given us a used drill and we made good use of it to mix the mortar.  This was much easier on the body than mixing mortar by hand.  It was a little hard to get the mortar across the front of the bench to stay in place, but some fiberglass mesh tape did the trick.  The bench is called the Better Bench and information can be found at http://www.innoviscorp.com/.  It worked as well as advertised.

We had to make our first complex round cut today and it went much quicker than our first bathroom.  I figured out that I could cut out a triangle of material before beginning to make the multiple short cuts to create the circular shape.  This saved both time and saw blade.  Our new diamond core drills also worked really well.   Last time it took 20-30 minutes to drill a single hole,  This time it took 5 minutes and the process was easy.  If you need to drill glazed ceramic tile these bits are the only way.  Go here to buy them – http://www.diamond-drill-bit-and-tool.com/Diamond-Drill/MAIN.htm.

We didn’t get as far as we expected today, but everyone feels good about what we got accomplished.  I did get to make a few cuts in tile, but spent most of the day playing with Liam.  This will probably be the case tomorrow as well.  We’re still hoping to have all the tile installed by the end of the day on Saturday, so that grouting can be done next week.

Making It Easier

Reference Tile

Today was a preparation day.  It wasn’t that no new tile was installed, but the majority of the day our daughter spent drawing lines on backer board.  We began the day by cutting all of the tile to go up the right side of the window wall.  This included cutting the piece of tile that goes at the base next to the shower floor.  This piece had to be 1″ wide on one end and 2″ wide on the other end.  I was really glad for the new blade and that we were cutting the softer wave tile.  The cut came out really smooth and lined up perfect with the shower floor.  This is also an indication that Shirley did a great job on the shower floor and that it will drain well.  I wasn’t feeling well today, so I spent a little time showing my son-in-law how to use the tile saw.  He didn’t need much instruction and made most of the cuts the rest of the day.

Just before lunch we got to the point that we were ready to install the form for the bench that will go in the shower.  I don’t generally sit down in the shower, but I guess this is a luxury I will learn to enjoy.  We had to cut the bench form down and I was glad for the extra money I had spent on a carbide tipped sabre saw blade.  It cut through the aluminum easily, although it sure vibrated a lot.  After we got it cut we decided to stop for lunch and actually ended up installing only one more tile today.  When we did the upstairs bathroom we had broken one of the glass tile trim pieces.  We had the replacement piece and got it cut without breaking it this time.  The upstairs bathroom is now finished except for a small bit of grout.

The rest of the day our daughter spent alone in the bathroom drawing line after line to make it easy to get all the tile lined up.  The key thing is going to be the ability to start from the bottom and work up.  This makes it much easier than having to work from a ledger up and then down, especially with the very heavy tile we are using.  Shirley will have to be very careful to match the lines, but the job will go much faster with all the lines already drawn.

We’re looking forward to a relaxed evening and an early start tomorrow.  I haven’t seen anymore gopher activity today, so it appears that the two we have caught and the sonic spikes have cleared the area for the time being.  I know this won’t last, but I’m hoping that the sonic spikes will reduce the level of activity in the leach field.  We have been seeing some deer.  We’ll probably see more since Shirley planted many new plants today.  It is fun to watch them grow.  The does are hard to recognize, but there is one young buck that we have watch since early after it was born until now when it has just developed into a two-point buck.  It is still young, but getting larger every year.

The tiling has begun.  I’m beginning this blog at about 2p in the afternoon and good progress has been made on the window wall of the shower.  The wave tiles are really going to look great, but there are many challenges to getting everything to look right.  Judi solved several issues by picking an alignment pattern that breaks up the vertical lines.  This is making it easier to line the wave tiles up.

The installation so far has been going really well.  The new saw blade is working better.  (MK Diamond 158434 MK-225 Hot Dog 7-Inch Wet Cutting Continuous Rim Diamond Saw Blade with 5/8-Inch Arbor for Porcelain and Vitreous Tile)   With the blade that came with the saw we were getting many chips in each cut.  The new blade cuts quicker and I’m getting very few chips. Most cuts have no chips at all.  The most difficult thing is ripping the long pieces of tile.  I had to cut a couple of 3/4″ strips today, but since it was in the softer tile the cuts came out very clean.

As always I learned a lesson today.  I wanted to clear off the table on the tile saw and swept across it with my hand.  Never do that.  I caught a small sliver of tile and it jabbed into the end of my finger.  It wasn’t a big deal, but it took several Kleenex and a Band-Aid to get the bleeding stopped so I didn’t get blood all over the tiles.

There is one major challenge that is taking much measuring.  The wave tile and the black tile we used in the upstairs bathroom are slightly different widths.  This means that the grout lines will be slightly different if the horizontal grout lines are to line up around the room.  We’ve stopped installing tile for a while so that Judi can measure everything and draw many lines before we begin the next stage.  After getting a few of the black tiles set it was determined that we needed to get a different size spacer.  Once again, the S&B Market in Manchester comes through as they have the 3/16″ spacer that we need.  We did end up stopping at this point.  Tomorrow’s challenge will be to see if we can measure accurately enough from the shower pan up to begin at the bottom and come up, rather than having to work down and continually install ledgers.

Kelly brought out a pickup load of plants, so Shirley ended the day by replanting the border area.  After resetting the gopher traps in the last hole there was no action for 24 hours, so I moved the traps to a new location.  We’ll see if they work as fast this time.

Judi and Liam just got back from the beach.  He really loves it and the pictures make it obvious.

One of the things we did while we were home was attend a master gardener presentation on dealing with deer, gophers, and moles.  We were disappointed to find out that the Sonic Spikes we had purchased really hadn’t been proven to be effective.  There was a clear recommendation, so we purchased two Victor Black Box traps.  Since we couldn’t begin our major tiling project today and there was fresh gopher activity I decided to give the traps a try.

Installing the traps is a simple process.  The first step is to find a tunnel by using a probe to find places where the probe finds no resistance.  The next step is to dig a big enough hole exposing tunnel to insert two traps.  The wide opening of the traps faces the tunnel.  The “air hole” end of the traps face each other.  The traps are set before being inserted into the hole.  The key to making the traps work is to cover all of the air holes in the trap except for the one on the end.  This was the most important thing we learned at the workshop.  You don’t need bait for gophers.  All that is needed is for the gopher to sense air flowing into the tunnel.  The gopher must close the tunnel to prevent a snake getting in.  When the gopher goes to push dirt up to close off the hole the trap is sprung and the gopher is trapped.  Unfortunately, the trap doesn’t immediately kill the gopher.  So, today I had to release the trap and then humanely dispatch the gopher with a shovel.

I was amazed at how quickly the trap worked.  The trap couldn’t have been set for more than 2 hours before we caught the first gopher.  I really didn’t expect that it would have worked, but when I went out to take the picture I discovered that the trap was sprung.  We’ll watch for more activity and see how many we can catch this week.  This is the first thing that has really worked and it give me hope that we can protect the septic system.

Have you ever tried to pray for an extended period of time without making any requests of God? Every time I try I fail miserably. The book of Habakkuk might have something to teach us about why we struggle with this so much. Many have been taught to pray using the ACTS acrostic: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. The idea is to begin by focusing on God and end by making requests. The difficulty is that this is so rarely where our hearts are really at as we go to prayer. Habakkuk doesn’t begin with a grand statement of praise. He and his people are suffering and he cries out. “How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?”

Rather than attempting to maintain some proper form we would be better off if we were more honest with God and ourselves and began our conversation with God with the cry of our heart. God certainly won’t be surprised. He is the one who invited us to come and spend time with Him. He wants us to express what’s on our hearts, but we want to impress Him so we try to hide behind forms and phrases that we don’t really mean. Eventually the cry of our heart will be heard, but why wait?

The third chapter of Habakkuk is labeled a prayer. In fact, it is a psalm intended to be sung by God’s people. It isn’t a pretty song, at least the words aren’t. I have no idea what the melody sounds like, but in my imagination I hear something very loud and strident in a minor key. There are some other important elements that help us to understand the dynamics of prayer. Look at these words and notice what follows:

Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah

Habakkuk begins with a request. He is immersed in the impact of God’s wrath and he cries out for mercy. And then he stops. Selah. Pause. Take a breath. Stop and listen. Prayer at its best is communication with God and communication is a two way process. Habakkuk will go on for several verses of the song to remember the wrath and power of God. The words are strong and I can hear drums beating and cymbals crashing, then silence. Selah

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it isn’t so important that we begin correctly, or even that the process of prayer follows some specific form. What is really important is where we end up. Are we closer to God after having had a conversation with Him? Are we confident that He’s heard our cry and have we heard His? I’m not a musician, so I can’t really imagine how the music changes for the last verse, but I’m confident that it does.

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.

Out of the storm comes peace. Out of every valley God continues to give the strength to climb to the mountaintop. Go to God. Share with Him the cry of your heart and then remember to pause so that He can share His heart with you.

The church is still capable of being the church.  I recently began reading Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna.  They present some very valid criticism of the church as most of us experience it.  One of the criticisms is that church has become mechanical leaning more toward the building metaphor rather than the body metaphor in the New Testament.

Over the past several days I’ve been privileged to experience the church as family. Early in the week an email arrived from the church pastor informing the congregation that a 14 year-old member of the church had suddenly died.  I didn’t know her or her parents, but my wife and I decided that as a part of the church we would attend the memorial service.

That service was an incredible encouragement.  It was a celebration of the young girl’s life and a wonderful testimony to her faith and that of her extended family.  I was especially impressed with the testimonies of her peers.  They didn’t hide their grief or their questioning.  What they did was express complete confidence in God’s faithfulness and goodness.  The family had expressed a desire that God be glorified through the service and He was.

The memorial service was on Saturday and included many from outside the immediate church family.  This morning the church family gathered for its weekly celebration of Jesus.  The church described in Pagan Christianity might have ignored what had happened or attempted to compartmentalize it so that it didn’t upset the routine.  That didn’t happen.  The order of service didn’t change much, but there was recognition that most of the church family was in great pain and questioning God as to why.  Instead of a sermon several people, including the pastor, shared their thoughts and how they were dealing with their grief.  The father shared a specific way that people could help him and his wife deal with their grief.  Again, God was glorified.

I don’t believe that God caused the young girl’s death.  I choose to believe that Satan went on the attack and that this young girl was a casualty of the spiritual war that rages around us every day.  God is good and His Spirit is already at work healing the wounds.  His messy, chaotic, and sometimes disorganized body has pulled together in amazing ways and needs are being met as God is being made visible again and again.

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  1 Corinthians 15:55-57 (NIV)

Why does God include two such different prayers in the book of Jonah?  The people who pray couldn’t be more different and the form of their prayers matches who they are.  The request is the same in both cases – help!

Jonah is running from God and chooses to take a sea voyage.  The storm is raging and the best the sailors have to offer is not enough to get them safely back to land.  They may have been idol worshippers when on land, but in the midst of the crisis they believe Jonah and cry out to his God.

“O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O Lord, have done as you pleased.”

Why this prayer?  Why not a prayer to still the storm?  These sailors seem to have a better understanding of who God is then most of us.  They seem to have a stronger sense of who God is than Jonah does.  They recognize that they are accountable to God and that killing a man is wrong.  They recognize that God is in charge and has placed them in this situation.  Out of this recognition it only makes sense to call out to God.  There is no doubt that they want to storm to cease and in their minds they seem to be thinking that if they throw Jonah overboard that the storm will worsen and they will join him.  Their prayer is simple and direct.  It acknowledges God and His control of the situation and their prayer is answered.

Jonah’s situation is even more desperate.  We don’t know if he was praying as he sank into the water and the seaweed wrapped around him.  We do know that when he was engulfed in the darkness inside the fish that he does pray.  Jonah’s senses must have been on overload.  He can’t see, but every other sense must have been shouting, “Get me out of here!”  Still, Jonah’s prayer is filled with religious phrases and a form that doesn’t seem to fit the urgency of the situation.

Maybe this is the key lesson.  God still answers Jonah’s prayer, because God has something that he wants Jonah to do and Jonah is finally willing.  God answers Jonah’s prayer in spite of the fact that the form of the prayer flows out of his mind and lifelong habits rather than from his heart of desperation.  We know from the end of the book that Jonah doesn’t really understand God or agree with His decisions.  Still God answers Job’s prayer and gives him a second chance.

Two desperate situations and two prayers.  When we are in desperate circumstances we should probably look to the sailors’ prayer for guidance.  What we’re learning through the Old Testament is that God often responds in spectacular ways to the simple call for help that recognizes Him as the only source of help.

Why does God include two such different prayers in the book of Jonah?  The people who pray couldn’t be more different and the form of their prayers matches who they are.  The request is the same in both cases – help!

Jonah is running from God and chooses to take a sea voyage.  The storm is raging and the best the sailors have to offer is not enough to get them safely back to land.  They may have been idol worshippers when on land, but in the midst of the crisis they believe Jonah and cry out to his God.

“O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O Lord, have done as you pleased.”

Why this prayer?  Why not a prayer to still the storm?  These sailors seem to have a better understanding of who God is then most of us.  They seem to have a stronger sense of who God is than Jonah does.  They recognize that they are accountable to God and that killing a man is wrong.  They recognize that God is in charge and has placed them in this situation.  Out of this recognition it only makes sense to call out to God.  There is no doubt that they want to storm to cease and in their minds they seem to be thinking that if they throw Jonah overboard that the storm will worsen and they will join him.  Their prayer is simple and direct.  It acknowledges God and His control of the situation and their prayer is answered.

Jonah’s situation is even more desperate.  We don’t know if he was praying as he sank into the water and the seaweed wrapped around him.  We do know that when he was engulfed in the darkness inside the fish that he does pray.  Jonah’s senses must have been on overload.  He can’t see, but every other sense must have been shouting, “Get me out of here!”  Still, Jonah’s prayer is filled with religious phrases and a form that doesn’t seem to fit the urgency of the situation.

Maybe this is the key lesson.  God still answers Jonah’s prayer, because God has something that he wants Jonah to do and Jonah is finally willing.  God answers Jonah’s prayer in spite of the fact that the form of the prayer flows out of his mind and lifelong habits rather than from his heart of desperation.  We know from the end of the book that Jonah doesn’t really understand God or agree with His decisions.  Still God answers Job’s prayer and gives him a second chance.

Two desperate situations and two prayers.  When we are in desperate circumstances we should probably look to the sailors’ prayer for guidance.  What we’re learning through the Old Testament is that God often responds in spectacular ways to the simple call for help that recognizes Him as the only source of help.