Salt of the earth

God knows that some of the greatest souls who have ever lived are those who will never appear in the chronicles of history. They are the blessed, humble souls who emulate the Savior's example and spend the days of their lives doing good. - Dieter F. Uchtdorf, You Matter to Him, General Conference, Oct 2011

People like my dad. My mom. My dear, feisty Beloved. Any number of my friends. People who didn't, or don't, think of themselves as anything but ordinary.

That's the kind of person I want to be when I grow up. I am wonderfully blessed.  I am intermittently humble (i.e., teachable). I can only hope, like J. Golden Kimball, that I "repent too damn fast" to go to hell.

This is not false modesty. Nor is it an attack of self-loathing. It is merely an acknowledgement of human frailty. Like every person but One who has lived on this beautiful earth, I sin and fall short on a regular basis. I have gotten a little better at learning from my mistakes. And I take ever greater joy in doing right (and in insisting less on *being* right).

We made some progress here yesterday. Fourthborn got Steadfast's faceup mostly done, ahead of the humidity. She also got the first coat of paint on the grilles. I got one side and both edges of the bathroom door painted. She cleaned the door to my studio. Those doorknobs are bagged and set aside.

Memo to self: time to invest in another box of Magic Erasers.

Wes came and used a different claw than the one I'd borrowed to get rid of the rest of the nails in the hall. He also analyzed the arrangement of the grilles and the baseboard. I won't have to buy new grilles. (Hence the painting.) Once the flooring is down, I can attach the new, taller baseboard, move the grilles up about an inch, and install fresh molding above them to cover where the sill sticks out. (He forgot to bring his oscillating saw to cut that off.)

And while we were doing inside stuff, his eldest was out in my backyard picking up horse apples (the bright green fruit of the bois d'arc tree) and chunking them into my trash bin.

I need to hit Costco after work tomorrow. But after that I should be able to do the last bit of painting where the grilles were (mostly in between them) and get another coat or two on the grilles themselves. And maybe even paint the studio door, if I don't run out of paint. That would give me Tuesday through Thursday to paint the trim around four or five doors. Then Friday and Saturday I could paint the ceiling and install the flooring.

I don't want to replace the door handles until the doors are painted, front and back. I know what I want to try on the inside of the door to the loo, and it will have to wait until I buy the paint for the living room. I have no idea what I want for the insides of the other doors. Or for the vanity in the loo.

In knitting news, I will probably finish the left back section of Temperance's sweater sometime today.

In sewing news, all the fabric is preshrunk to make Halloween dresses for all the dolls. I may very well get started on those today, if I have the right thread colors. I ordered a pattern for Steadfast on Friday. There will be enough fabric to make him a shirt, as well.

The October issue of the Ensign arrived yesterday. Time to curl up with a snack and improve the shining moment.