Lessons we should have learned by now

Man, I could write a whole book with that title. Here's a couple of recent experiences I would include:

1. Keep a good book in your purse when your car regularly won't start after driving more than 5 miles. In the past 10 days I've been stuck in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, Jo-Ann's, the Pediatrician, and the Eye Doctor, and Matthew was detained at Sears. The car will start again after about an hour and we're working on fixing it, but in the mean time a book other than Big Bird's Alphabet would be a smart thing to throw in my bag.

2. Keep your toe nails trimmed. Hijo fell on the stairs the other day. Luckily Matthew was below him and caught him before any damage was done, but in his dive to the rescue one of Matthew's toe nails got caught and is now in the process of falling off. We went skiing just after we got married and Matthew's long nails in ski boots all day resulted in the loss of both the nails on his big toes, so this accident raises the count to three. We bought him an extra set of clippers so at least he can't blame his long nails on a lack of equipment.

3. Home improvement projects ALWAYS take longer and cost more than you anticipate. We are spending Spring break renovating Hyrum's room. The idea started with a sale on paint and has grown from there. It's nearly noon on day four and painting has yet to happen. There was a hole in the closet ceiling to fix, a window sill to replace, several nail holes and other sundry wall defects to patch, and caulking* to be done. Plus, turns out our fancy paint gun doesn't work with latex paint unless you have all this other equipment. I wonder if we should have just spent the week eating Popsicles and playing in the back yard.

* Caulk and silicon sealant are not the same thing. The first is what ought to be used to seal up cracks and make molding look nice. The second is for bathrooms and kitchens, can't be painted over, and is really hard to remove.