Hang out with us while we hang on.: Patience, My Dear

Last year about this time, I had a vision in my head for the wall above the couch in the "Reading Room" of our house. I saw three rows of four 11x14 black frames with white mats surrounding 8x10 prints of my favorite family photos. The frames were put up today.

Step 1: Print Photos and Purchase Frames. This step proved much more difficult than I'd thought. Several of my favorite photographs were files too small to become 8x10 photographs. I considered going with 8x10 frames and 5x7 photos, but changed my mind. The second obstacle was the price of the frames. At one point, I had 12 cheap 8x10 frames without mats, but changed my mind and returned them. There was also the issue that 10 of them were really 8x11.5 document frames. Oops. I ended up getting frames that were orignially $24.99 from Michaels. I found them 40% off and used a 25% off coupon and my 15% teacher discount.

Step 2: Prepare to Hang. I went with Command strips. I chose the ones that held up to 16 lbs. Unfortunately, I forgot that I would need one for each side of each frame, so I bought exactly half of what I needed.

Step 3: Call in the Menfolk. This is where I had to exercise the most patience. I waited a full week before Josh would actually hang them. I nearly crawled out of my skin in anticipation. I tried really hard not to nag. He needed tools like a tape measure and a level, which I had to borrow. B joined in and took over the sticking of Command strips. During the endeavor, I realized

why Josh had been putting the task off. First, the process of getting rows and columns is a pain in the tail. Second, I am the worst helper ever. Level looks crooked to me. Also, I had him hang the first row too high because we started with the bottom and worked our way up on the left-most row. Our ceilings are sloped. After the first row was hung, we worried that the right-most row wouldn't fit. So we abandoned the left side and restarted from the right.