I spent most of Sunday afternoon and evening prepping and painting the beams in the dining room. While Tom was overseas in 2002 I finally updated the flooring in the house and did some upgrades (replaced the 1970s track lights). To minimize the visual heaviness of the support beams in (now) dining room, the contractor and I decided to take off the cypress and try painted white beams. The white beams, now matching and blending with the walls and ceiling made all the difference. The room is a much visually bigger space now than it was with the dark cypress beams dividing the room with a very small space below the beams. However in 2002, Tom got discharged earlier than planned from Redstone and portions of the upgrade project were never finished. One of the uncompleted tasks was actual coats of paint, not just the caulk and primer, on the new white beams. I finally got a coat of paint on them today.. and I have to say they look much better. I'll be anxious to see how the room looks in the morning with sunlight and dry paint.Woodland Ringers played today for the last time in church for this playing year. We will take a break over the summer and resume rehearsals in late August as school starts. RSR will continue rehearsals until we play at the AGEHR Area VI festival in Vicksburg, MS.
It was good to get the painting finished but I need to stay focused on obedience this week also since we are entered in the trial next weekend. While I feel very proud with each rally or obedience title earned, I find that training obedience is not as much fun as other performance events. It is hard to make games out of several of the obedience exercises. One has to work obedience and then stop and play with the dog being trained. Play must come between exercises frequently but usually not during the actual exercise. Since Bern isn't play motivated he gets frustrated with the obedience game more quickly than Grace. However, Bern is getting better at offer obedience behaviors since obedience dispenses lots and lots of frequent treats to keep him interested.
