Beautiful Floors and other “progress”

I should have taken pictures of the floors in our new house before we had them refinished. When we closed on the house last week, it had a rather non-descript old brown carpet on the floor in the living room and dining room. The two downstairs bedroom had newer berber carpet. We decided to have the carpet pulled up and the floors sanded and refinished. They look great! I am so pleased with the finished product. Thanks to our contractor friend who recommended the floor guys we used.

The bathroom downstairs is very small. It seems I am destined to always live in a house with a small bathroom. The benefit is that painting (and cleaning) a small bathroom is easier than painting (and cleaning) a large one. I chose a blue color for the walls. It turned out to be much darker than the paint sample, so Evangeline and I did a sponge effect over the blue with white paint. It is not perfect, but it does cover up the few rough spots in the plaster. I have hopes of eventually using white tile paint to cover up the ugly gold 70s wall tile that goes half way up the walls. I saw a porcelain paint kit at Home Depot that looks like it would work to paint the tile and the ugly gold marble-effect basin on the sink. Until such a day as we could afford to really redo the bathroom, these quick fixes will be good enough.

I wasn’t able to finish the painting of the rooms downstairs because the floor guys were there, and we can’t walk on them until tomorrow. However, I did a lot of the master bedroom before the floor guys were done. I have to finish a bit on each wall, and I have one wall that is completely unpainted. It is the wall where I made the mistake of taking the wallpaper off. I originally planned to paint over the wallpaper. But I came across one little tear, so I decided to see how it would come off. The first strip was great. So I kept going. I ended up pulling off a layer of plaster paper that left a wall that looked like a giant map from chips of the plaster paper all over the wall. And, it wouldn’t come off. So I used wall plaster putty to try to smooth out the rough edges. Now, before I can paint I have to sand it flat. It seems like simple jobs never remain that way!

Entropy

The last two days, I have been painting at our new house. Long hours of bending and stretching and balancing myself with one leg on a rung of the ladder and one leg on the edge of the bathtub has rendered my body sore and fatigued. It is obviously time to stop the entropy before the time comes where I won’t be able to attempt such painting.

What’s New

Life is busy. The diet has not died, but the exercise and dieting that I had hoped would be a way of life by now does not exist. I am still down by 7 from the beginning of the year, and I am attempting at least maintain until I weigh myself after we’ve moved. . .

Yes. We are moving. We closed on the purchase of our first home today. We are excited about the potential for the 67-year-old brick house. Our boys are old enough to appreciate the fact that we own the house, so it was fun to tell them the deal was done and to take them to see it for the first time. The actual packing and moving won’t be so much fun, but in about 2 weeks, I’ll feel a lot better about life.

I was game mom for my 4th grader’s Valentine Party this week. I was pretty happy with how the games turned out. It was nice to be there for this party. It is his last classroom party planned by the moms. Next year, as a 5th grader, the teachers give the kids a chance to plan their own parties that often consist of junk food and a movie. So I was happy to be a part of it.

That’s about all for the happenings of my life. Not very interesting, really, but overall, good.

Groundhog Day

It is my tradition to do a Groundhog Day entry. I hale from DuBois a town about 15 miles up the road from Punsutawney, PA, where the famous Punsutawney Phil lives. My parents were both born in Punxsutawney, and I spent the first 2 years of my life in the rural area outside the small town.

Fun Punxsutawney Facts
Natives call Punxsutawney “Punxsy.” And yes, the high school mascot there is a wood chuck (another word for groundhog, in case you didn’t know). My high school mascot was the beaver, and the big rival game–the last one of each season played Veterans Day weekend, was between the wood chucks and the beavers. Not as ferocious as lions and bears, but at least it was a fair match-up. Another little tidbit is that the Groundhog Day Festival that was made famous in the movie Groundhog Day didn’t always exist. When I was a kid, they didn’t have quite as much fanfare on the actual Grounhog Day. They waited until summer to have a carnival called the Groundhog Festival. This seems more sane since even this year when they are having a mild winter, the high will only be in the 30s.

Happy Ground Hog Day to one and all!

(By the way, Phil saw his shadow)