Rain Gutters

After running up a tab at Home Depot over $168.43, I rolled my heavy duty cart onto the parking lot. I was weighted down with parts and equipment for my latest project: installing rain gutters.

I had never installed gutters before. I would be doing this alone, on a roof, without a net. Oh, sure I had already combed the do-it-yer-self books at home, combed the internet for tips and visualized the whole process from start to finish. I felt so good walking into the Home Depot.

But now all of that had vanished. I pulled the cart away from the cashier's post. The sweat of nervous commitment accumulated on my brow. The sounds of the cart and it's steel uneven wheels on the parking lot surface was loud and thoroughly disconcerting as it drew all eyes towards me. I felt like I should be wearing a sign: "Please stop me. I don't know what I am doing."

I worked hard and for hours doing preparation in the kitchen with a ratcheted ladder for a saw horse/work table. Sawdust, drill bits and steel moved around and through the air as the cats looked on alternating bewilderment or apathy...but that was normal for them I guess.

I went through quite a bit of trial and error, too much time just trying to figure out the process and gathering the proper tools in the proper place and the proper time. Long story a little shorter, the gutters are up. They look good except for where the downspouts flare out at the very ends due to their design, not my error. I like it. It was another reminder that a sense of self-satisfaction that I will call "pride" and skill must be earned by sheer application of mind and body through some amount of faith in ourselves.

Of course, it hasn't rained yet.