SUCCESS!!!! :-D

Wait until you see what I've been up to!!! :-D

First, today was finally warm enough to polyurethane my floor boards, and I did them ALL......

That is only half of them!  I had to let them dry and stack them to have room to do the rest!!
I use the satin finish, because I don't want a glossy shine.  Look how it makes the color POP......

See how dull the part without the finish is? 
And once it's dry, the shine will dull, but the color will stay dark!  NICE!!

Oh, what good feeling it is to have this first coat on!!  Tomorrow, I will lightly sand them all (with a high-grit sandpaper), and re-coat them.  Then once they are dry, they will be ready to put down!!!
I DO still need two more plywood sheets (and another can of stain!), but Brian said we can get that tomorrow!  That way I'll be able to get them stained and finished by next weekend -- YAY!!! :-D

I'm not sure when he will be ready to nail them down.....that might take him a couple of weeks to work up to!  But I told him that was fine with me -- as long as I get all the prepping done, I don't mind waiting a little longer!  I've been crowing on and on about doing these boards almost since I started my blog last year, it's going to feel great to simply have them finished and ready!! LOL

Which reminds me......can anyone guess what yesterday was???  It was the first anniversary of my blog!  WOW, right?!!!  I think that's so very neat, and the fact that I've kept it up and that I still love blogging makes it all the better!  Happy Bloggiversary, little blog!! :-D

Let's see, what else.....???
OH YES!  I figured out how to dry oranges successfully (thus, the title of my post!)!!  I am SO happy about this, because the mold that grew in my first one really upset me! :-P
What I did was bake them in a very low oven all day -- that's IT!  So simple!!
I was drying another pineapple the other day, and I added the oranges to see if that would work, and it did!!  I scraped out the pineapple, and sliced the oranges (and studded two with cloves).....

This is after several hours at 195 degrees. (Please don't notice my dirty oven!  My camera flash illuminated the dirtiness, it doesn't even look this dirty when I have the oven light on! :-P)
And here they are after about 10 hours.....

Aren't they PERFECT!?!  I love the color and feel of them!  There is still some moisture inside, I can tell, because they feel slightly squishy when I squeeze them, so I am going to watch them to make sure they don't start rotting.  Putting them in the oven hardened all the exposed areas inside the cuts, so they might be fine.  Definitely, this is the way to dry oranges!  I'm going to get some lemons to dry next!!

And here is something else I did today -- I have two old Early American Life magazines that I bought just for their covers!......

I just LOVE those portraits!  I bought these off of ebay last year, and today I brought them to Office Max to have them copied, and they came out GREAT.....

I'm thrilled with them!!  And they were only 99cents each!  The paper is 11x17 (I think), and the girl there said that the next size up (16x20) would be $18!  So these are big enough!! LOL
When I get the chance, I'm going to glue them to canvas frames so they look real!
Soooo exciting!!! :-D

And one last thing I want to show you is something Brian bought me that I've wanted since Christmas (but we never have extra money at Christmas, so we always wait until our tax return comes in) -- I guess you could say it's my Christmas present! Haha!!
Prepare to be very jealous......

It is my very own reciprocating saw, sized perfectly for me!!! :-D
I LOVE IT!!!!  It has a rechargeable battery in the handle, and is very light - I can even hold it with one hand! - and it came with two blades (which you can see are too short -- I'll have to get more!  YAY!! LOL) and a carrying case!  This will make sawing so much easier for me, I'll be able to do some things that I would normally need Brian to cut.  I can't wait to use it!  It's one of my favorite all-time presents!!
Thank you, Honey!!! :-D

Those are my very fun, very exciting activities for the past two days!  I intend to make tomorrow very productive as well, because the weather is going to turn yucky again on Easter Sunday, with a cold rain and continued below-normal temperatures for next week.....I am starting to think Spring will never get here!

I know that I've promised to post about how I planned my wood floor, and to make a project list, but I think I've crammed enough into this post tonight! LOL  Next time I want to post about making my onion skin dye, another very cool project with great results!

Have a wonderful Saturday!! ^-^