Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Laboring over Labor Day

The Register's editorial for Labor Day stressed that all kinds of labor, decidedly including intellectual labor, is worthy of honor on a day originally designed with the rather sectarian purpose of celebrating and encouraging the union movement. However Jen and I honored it by doing nothing but physical labor around the house, including putting up a shade on the outside to keep the afternoon sun off the living room window and putting up rope lights along the inside of the facia board. That and various puttering -- watering plants, pulling weeds, trimming oleanders, repairing some faucets and hoses, a little modest construction work -- was our weekend. Oh, and watching football and maybe some other games as well. Didn't go near a computer.

Jen came up with the idea and we implemented it together -- putting curtains (made of canvas dropcloth) -- on the outside of windows that get the morning sun. It's made a big difference as to the coolness of the house, and we figure it will help to insulate better come winter as well. And it actually looks rather nice. We'll probably put some up on the afternoon-sun side also.

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