Old Sol

Aah! Breakfast on the screened front porch!  Such a daily treat for us when the weather is nice.  There is only one problem: the sun.  We love the sunshine, but due to the rising sun's position right now, it shines right in the face of whoever is at the end of the table.

I'd been wanting to get an additional blind to place beside the one that covers part of the porch. I brought it up today after our morning walk in the nearby botanical garden.  "Let's go to Lowe's and look at their porch blinds," I suggested impulsively.

Howard agreed, and soon we were strolling the aisle of the home store.  "Can you tell me where we could find a shade for our porch?" my husband asked a couple of young cashiers standing together in the aisle in front of their registers.

"Oh, you have to go to Lawn and Garden for that," one said, as the other nodded her head.  I thanked her for telling us that and said it was a good thing we asked, as we turned around and retraced our steps toward the garden shop outside.

A red-vested clerk approached us eagerly asking if she could help us.  We told her what we were looking for, and she said, "Oh, you have to go inside the store for that!"  and instructed us which aisle to go to. We said we had just got back from there, and were told to come here.  "Oh, they do that every time!" she said impatiently, "Come on, I'll take you there.  Who told you that?"

"Well, I don't want to incriminate anybody," I hesitated, but she assured me she just wanted them to know where they were.  After we were pointed to the right place, we were faced with a selection of bamboo blinds to choose from.  "I think that's the one we want," I said, after seeing an attractive, woven one that looked the right size.  We hadn't brought measurements.

"No, that's not big enough!" Howard stated, but I insisted it was.  After some back-and-forth he suggested we go home and measure.  We had gotten outside when we decided to go back in and buy it, then return it if it didn't fit, which I was sure it would.

Turned out he was right, but we decided to keep it nevertheless.  It was big enough for our purposes and fit just fine next to the other shade, leaving an unshaded space at the opposite end, which was partially shaded by a shrub, anyway.

All that was child's play compared to the actual hanging of the blind.  Hardware was included, but the project still  required my going to the garage for the drill, collecting hammer from the kitchen drawer, going back for longer screws (which turned out to be nails) when the ones provided were unsatisfactory, and getting the step-ladder from the kitchen.

After laboriously getting it into place, we discovered that the cord was hidden behind the blind, for we had put it up backwards. Once that was righted, we stood back to admire our handiwork, then put things back in place and collapsed for a rest.

Coming in from a drive later, I could see an ugly, orange safety tag on the back of the blind showing through the screen  from the driveway, and another orange strip at the bottom.  I lost no time in removing them, and now I can't wait for the sun to come up in the morning when we'll be able to eat in comfort, and the only orange will be the veiled sun and the juice in the bottle!