I'm Doing My Happy Dance!! Or....FLOOR!!!!! :-D

Here we go!!!! :-D

This is as far as we got today (almost half the room)......can you believe this took us several hours?!!!  Getting started, measuring, picking out the right boards, cutting and fitting the end pieces, checking placement with my trusty worksheet -- oh, it takes time!

But it's SO worth the work!  I can't believe the transformation and how it impacts the whole room!!!
Here is the Before.....

Here is After.....

(Boy, I sure wish I had gotten around to painting that second coat on the doors, since I'm showing everyone so many pictures of them! :-P)(What can I say, you all know by now that I have ADD!!!)

Ahhh!  What a difference!!  The best part is that as I was waiting for Brian to cut the boards and bring them back, I was excitedly making a mental note of all the "finishing" work I needed to do now! (like those doors!)  My motivation has been rekindled -- YIPEEE!!! :-D

There are always little complications, like SO.....

This end piece was unfortunately placed right where a slight bump in the sub-floor was, so the edge is about 1/16th above the other boards!  It will be an easy fix (sand it even, re-stain and re-seal), but these are the little things that you cannot plan for!!  The lucky thing for us is that we don't want the look of a pristine, perfect floor and room -- I want little imperfections and unevenness in the finished design, so it mimics the old, lived-in homes I love!  So it makes it easier to accept when the boards gap, or the nail gun takes a chunk out of the wood, or the floor bumps up slightly.  Besides, once the furniture and rug are arranged, no one will ever notice any of that stuff, not even me!

Here is the flooring diagram that I made about 5-6 years ago for this project -- yes, I did say years!.....

I didn't re-size the image, so you should be able to get a good look at it by clicking on it. 
This is how I find out what boards I will need for the room.  I don't draw it perfectly scaled, but I DO mark down the exact dimensions of the room, so I can get the true board amounts right. 

I decide on my board widths - for this room we are doing alternating rows of 10inch and 8inch boards (I LOVE the random look of it!) - and then I add up how many of those widths will go across the room (those are my vertical lines).

Then I decide where I want the boards to break -- again, I like it to be as random looking as it can practically be.  I am not willing to waste too much wood!  Plywood sheets are 4x8, so my longest boards are 8ft long, and I place those as randomly as possible and then figure out the sizes of the extra pieces needed to complete each row. 

THEN, with those measurements, I draw up my plywood sheet diagram.....

That's how I know how many sheets I need! 

We don't cut the lengths in my diagram until it's actually time to nail the floor down -- they are just approximate measurements, meant to give the idea of where each board will go -- but my diagram is essential for knowing HOW the finished stack of boards is laid out, and works perfectly for that.

Can you see what's written on the blue sticky note on my plywood diagram???  It's where I wrote what the plywood sheets cost when I drew this up -- it says "$13.95" for a 5/8ths sheet.....that tells perfectly how long ago I planned this because as you remember, the sheets I bought cost $21 now!  That's a 50% increase!! :-P  That drives me crazy, but I just have to put it out of my mind -- I mean, even at the price I paid now, this floor only cost me about 63 cents a square foot!  I think I can be happy with that, right?!! :-D

So there we go!!!  We are both so excited to get this finished -- Brian even said, after he had the first two rows nailed down and he could start to see how it was going to look, that he was so happy we were really getting this done and that I had pushed him by doing the boards and ripping up the rug!  He doesn't always feel excited about working on the house after a full work week, but it's SO worth it!!  He always gives me a hard time about my "projects", but he's always loved having them done!  Really, who wouldn't???

Now, if I could just keep things CLEAN around here......! LOL

That's the big news of the weekend!!  I HAD a post for last night almost finished, with pictures of the little projects I worked on this past week, but it's sitting in my drafts now because I had a marathon call from my sister Karen as she drove from Boston to New York at 11:30pm!! Haha!  When we finally hung up I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to finish it! (it was close to 2am!) LOL  So I'll revise it for tomorrow or Monday, and add pictures of what we get done tomorrow on the floor.  I can't wait to show you those little projects, too!  It's funny, because only my blogging friends/followers would get excited about them like I do, but that's why I love blogging -- no one else GETS me but you guys!!! :-D

So, as my title says, I was doing my Happy Dance when we started the floor, but it was a little weird looking, I'm sure, because I kind of skip in place in a circle with my hands over my head, and I have a huge, squinty smile on my face.  I try not to add to the weirdo factor by making noise, but a couple of squeals definitely slipped out because I was SO excited!  I've been forbidden to DO my Happy Dance by my daughter (who's 14), so it's a good thing she was in her room at the time!!  She would have grabbed me and shaken me for sure! LOL

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and before I go, I want to wish all of the mothers who read this a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!  And that goes for the mothers of fur babies too - they are just as special in my mind, especially since my sister Karen is one!! :-) 
I think being a mother is the GREATEST honor there is -- giving up yourself to another person/creature for their benefit, putting their needs above your own as often as necessary, with no tangible payoff, at least, no payoff that is considered valuable in today's society.  But in spite of what society tells us, I feel like WE have the greatest reward!!  Being a mother has been the greatest joy and blessing of my life!

I wish you all a joy-filled day tomorrow!!! ^-^

Does the Next Day Count???

Well, I planned on posting LAST NIGHT, but.....well, as happens quite a lot lately, I got lost on Pinterest, so......you know the rest! :-D

Oh!  Did anyone notice that I figured out how to add a Pinterest button to my sidebar???  Hee hee, aren't I clever!  Actually it took me a few hours to figure it out -- it's slightly complicated on the Pinterest end, I'm still not exactly sure how I got it on here, but there it is!!

So to answer everyone's first question.....NO FLOOR!!!  We ended up having rain earlier than expected -- it started on Saturday instead of Sunday -- so that was that!  I think it's almost time for this face -- >:-/ ....that's an angry one!  I have NEVER had to use that face on my blog, but it may pop out here if there is no floor in another week or two....!!
Actually, the floor is going to be a larger job than it seems....nailing the floor boards down is the quick and easy part!  The whole area needs to be "prepped", which means all the small nails and staples have to be removed or hammered flat, furniture (and dog toys) (and all my crap) needs to be moved out of the way, and then an extensive vacuuming campaign needs to begin!  It's not enough to vac that little area that I could see from my floor angle when I was sick -- it must ALL be cleaned!!!  SO....that is MY DUTY for the week! :-D  And I'm off to a great start.....you know, sitting here, writing a blog post about what I'm supposed to do.  Somehow, that makes me feel like the job is already half-done!!!Haha!

When is was raining on Saturday, we decided that was a perfect day to check out our little antique mall.  It's not GREAT -- there are very few "primitive" type pieces there, but I've found some gems tucked in here and there!  It's always fun to look, isn't it?  Plus, I do love seeing all the old things, even if I don't want to own them.  They are so interesting!
I did find a few little things I wanted.....

I LOVE the little honey pot, except I won't use it for honey!  I'll keep the wooden honey-thing (I KNOW it has a name, but....???), and I'll use the pot in the kitchen for herbs! :-D  And you can't go wrong with wooden bowls or baskets!!!
They had a wonderful pewter pot that I wanted ALOT, but it was $15 and I didn't want to put these things back for it, so I want to get it this weekend or next maybe.  It was really neat, very unique shape!  But I won't be able to display it until my wood floor is done, so I left it there!!

AND.....I bought an amazing magazine off of ebay that came in the mail.....

I have been wanting this magazine for almost a year!  But it was always too expensive! :-P  So I found one on ebay that I could make an offer on, and she accepted it!!  YAY!  I LOVE the cover picture, but inside it also has some of my favorite pictures from Pinterest.....can you believe that?!! :-D
WHO KNEW????.....

I've stared at these very pictures on Pinterest for a LOOOONG time!  Even saving them to my computer before I actually had my own boards!
AND look at this one.....

Remember me posting this awhile ago??  This is the table that I want to make for my kitchen!!!  HERE it is in this magazine! YAY!! :-D  I love Pinterest, but I love my magazines much more -- I love having a hard-copy of my favorite pictures, and all my tags sticking out of them with my notes!  So it was such an exciting surprise to find such treasures in it!!
And check out this great pic.....

I just love this garden shed!!!  And all the plants everywhere around it!  I love the controlled-wildishness of what they've done here!!  I'm definitely NOT a manicured-gardens kind of person.  I'd LOVE to have a whole area that looks like THIS.....add another little sticky-tag....! :-D

Soooo.....on to my main purpose of this entry -- to post a list of things to do this week!  Then maybe I can shame myself into actually doing something from that list, right?
Ok, here goes.....

1. PREP floor -- remove nails and glue, vac dirt and dust
2. PREP part II -- move furniture to the other side of the room
3. Paint SOMETHING -- island, bottom cabinets, hallway trim, back doorway
4. Replant baby tomatoes into peat pots, re-seed plants that didn't germinate
5. Make simple wreath for front door

Well, there it is!!  I have lots more that needs to be done around here, but I'm going to save that for AFTER the floor is in.  No need to clutter up my mind with too many projects!
So let's see how well I do with this list by the end of the week, shall we?? LOL  If I get the prep-work done, Brian will have NO problem starting the floor Friday morning!  That's ALL the incentive I need!!! :-D

I'll be sure to post any results as I go along.....so it's entirely possible that there won't be another post until Friday...!!!! :-P  JUST KIDDING!!! (I hope!)  ^-^

It's the Middle of the Night......

......and I'm writing a post!!! :-D

I'm still not 100% ME yet, but I'm almost there!  It's a good sign that I'm awake right now (it's 2:30am), because that's normal me for sure!! (instead of zonking out at midnight every night!)
I just thought I'd write a post because our weekend starts tomorrow with Brian home (YAY!!!), and I'm hoping we might try to tackle some of the wood floor - maybe ALL of it!  So I won't have time to post, and I wanted to show you girls some stuff.....FUN stuff, finally! :-D

First, the Grape Salad......

Can you say "YUMMY!"?!?
It was a huge success, and quick and easy to make!  I halved the recipe, because I only had 2lbs of grapes, and it made plenty!
I washed the grapes, and then I cut some in half - just for flavor and fun.....

Then I mixed together 4oz. of cream cheese (softened), 1/2 cup of sour cream, and 1/4 cup of sugar.....

It was a little lumpy, but that doesn't matter.
The recipe said to add vanilla, but I decided to add my very favorite flavoring.....

ALMOND!!!!  I stirred in a full teaspoon, and it smelled and tasted wonderful!!
Then I poured it all on top of the grapes.....

.....and stirred it all in!.....

It's not ready yet!  It needs the special topping!!
I took 1/2 cup of chopped pecans.....

......and since I never buy brown sugar, I poured a little molasses in there and stirred it all around, THEN I added about 1/4 cup or less of sugar.
It came out exactly like brown sugar......

Then I spread it on top of the grapes.....

Oooooh!!!

It comes HIGHLY recommended -- everyone LOVED it! :-D

 

And yesterday, I decided to try drying oranges again!  Only this time I added a few lemons, too.....

I baked them at 185 for about 5 hours, and then stopped to make dinner.
Here is how they looked after that.....

You can't tell in this picture, but they are still VERY soft and juicy - mushy even, especially the lemons.  I have one of them propped up against the oranges because when I checked on them at one point, that lemon was getting flat on one side, and it looked bad!  So that was my solution!
I love the colors they are here, and I wish they would STAY like that! 
But.....they DON'T......

Here they are today, after I baked them for another 6 hours or so.  They are much firmer now, and I won't bake them again -- they should be able to finish drying just fine on the counter, like my other ones have!
Here is a picture of them next to my other oranges I posted about in my "Success" post.....

The super-dry ones are on the left -- can you see a difference?  The first ones are smaller and the color is different!  They are also very hard now.  And there is NO mold!  They got like this by just being out on the counter after I baked them.  I'm figuring the same will happen with the just-baked oranges after a couple of weeks -- they will get harder and smaller.  I LOVE them!!!

The lemons.....are a different story......

They turned into tiny, brown, weird things!  None of the pretty yellow from yesterday.....*sigh!*  I will keep these on the counter, too, but I'm not really excited about them.  They had ALOT of juice in them for one thing -- I didn't think to take any pictures of this, but see the dried brown drops on the paper towel?  Yesterday, I went through about 3 paper towels while they were baking, because there would be huge juice spots after about an hour or so, and they would turn brown and stick to the baking sheet!
Plus, they were just so mushy -- you can see the one without the cloves in it is misshapen from laying on it's side while it baked.  Even though I kept turning it and then leaning it on the oranges, it still has a weird shape.  So I'm not sure the lemons are worth it!

I'm so happy I figured out the best way to make these, though!  I see LOTS of them in my future!! LOL

The last thing I want to show you is the penny rug that I want to make next! :-D
Cee found it online and posted it to her Pinterest page, and I couldn't stop thinking about it......

It came from here.... http://www.textilemuseum.ca/apps/index.cfm?page=collection.detail&catId=6880&row=4 .....and there's a way to zoom in to see the small details, too, which I LOVE!  So I dug through my now-enormous wool pile to find the perfect colors to make it myself, and here's what I came up with.....

I'm still deciding on a green, but I love what I already have here!  Let me tell you, the small circles are scaring me! LOL  I mean, after I've cut that many, I'm not even close to what I need, and then I have to STITCH them ALL on......YIKES! Haha!!  Well, I'm determined to do it, and cutting the circles is a good thing to do while I'm just sitting around every night.

Don't you just love the way it's all squares with circles IN them?!  It's such a unique design, I just love it!! :-D

Well, that's my fun for now!  I guess I should go try to fall asleep now, it's after 3am, for goodness sake!!  OH.....cross your fingers that I will be posting about doing the wood floor in a couple of days....!!!  Wouldn't that be SO AWESOME?!!!  It would be JUST the inspiration I need to whip myself back into work-mode around here, and get some more projects done!  I still have alot of painting to do!  But I look at the cans and just can't seem to muster the energy to tackle any of it right now.....but a nice wood floor would definitely do the trick! ^-^

FINALLY Feeling Better!

WOW -- this has been AWFUL!  I've never experienced something like this before.....and I hope I don't again!!

I DID go to my doctor's, and he said that I had some kind of mild food poisoning (this was MILD???), and that the bacteria gets into the small intestine and wreaks havoc there!  It takes a loooong time for the body to fight it and get rid of it, weeks sometimes, and that's in a healthy body!!  He said that's why I still feel weak, especially after I eat -- because digestion takes the most energy of anything our bodies have to do, and it's already using most of it's energy fighting this bacteria.  As long as I'm not getting worse, or getting dehydrated, there's nothing to do except wait.  He actually said that he was surprised I wasn't more sick.....what?  I could have been worse??  YIKES!

So there's your biology lesson for today! :-D

I am almost completely better.....although I notice yesterday and today that I feel a little worse than I did over the weekend -- I bet it's because Brian is at work!! LOL  I really DO feel better when he is home! :-D

On to more fun stuff!!!.....

Hello, my name is Lisa, and I am a wool-coat-aholic!
It's TRUE!!  I have become addicted to buying wool suit coats from the thrift store and then picking them apart and felting the wool!  I've done it here and there, but this weekend we went to the thrift store to find Brian some shorts, and right next to where he was looking were the coats.....how is a girl supposed to resist??  And the worst part was, every coat color I liked was ON SALE!  I couldn't put any back because the most expensive was $3.50, and that was only one -- all the others were either $1.25 or 87 CENTS!!!!  That's about what a candy bar costs now!

So here is my booty :-D......

These have turned into this.....

And then we went back (Brian had to exchange a pair of shorts that didn't fit - hee hee hee!), and I grabbed these.....

You can't really see in the photo, but these are a nice tan/brown, and again, those color tags were 50% off!!!  Brian couldn't say no! :-D

But WAIT....there's MORE!!
I also got the brilliant idea (while looking for a dress for myself) that I should try to find linen and cotton clothes to recycle and use as backings for penny rugs or whatever, and I found these.....

The dress is a nice heavy cotton, with a loooong skirt that would touch the floor if I tried it on (which means it's probably NOT that long! LOL).....it's pretty, but not at all my style!  But it was 87 cents, too!  The men's shirts were all on sale too -- the blue tags were 50% off and the orange tags were 75% off!!!  All four of the shirts are a linen/cotton blend, perfect for crafting! :-D

So a quick calculation of ALL the clothes I got, and it was less than $18!!!  That's for everything I've shown here!!  VERY exciting! :-D

Now while I've been couch-bound, I've had something to do -- that's where that huge pile of felted wool came from in that picture!  A normal person might want to simply CUT around the seams, to save time and annoyance.....but NOT ME!!!!  There is something in me that just cannot waste any of the wool! LOL  So silly, but I can't help it.  Plus, I really enjoy using my seam ripper to pull apart all the pieces -- there is something very satisfying to me about doing that! (yeah, I'm a weirdo!)

BUT, during my seam ripping fun, my trusty old tool BROKE, and I had to get a new one.....so I picked this one.....

It's ergonomic!!! :-D
That means it doesn't cramp my hand when I use it for a long time!! (which I do!)

So, I've got a nice large pile of felted wool.....I think it's time to make something, right??? LOL

The other thing I've been totally obsessed with is Pinterest.....isn't EVERYONE addicted to Pinterest?  Yeah, I thought so!  Sometimes I want to cry because there is just too much to see and be inspired by on there!! LOL  I am trying to be very discerning about what I pin -- I love so many things, it's easy to get carried away on there!  So I make it a point to only pin things that REALLY move me.  My boards are titled different things that "inspire" me, and to me that means things that I want to make or do!  I'm going to try to find a way to put a link to my Pinterest page on here, but if you want to check it out, here's the link...... http://pinterest.com/lisadiane2005/

Being careful about what I eat, and not feeling good eating has done something to me that I'm NOT used to at all -- I'm hungry all the time!!  Especially at night, I feel hungry like I used to when I was pregnant! LOL  So I can't stop thinking about food.....have you seen the food on Pinterest???  I've been tormenting myself looking at all the food! Haha!!  So today, I'm going to make this......

It's GRAPE SALAD!!!!  (It's from Paula Dean..... http://www.pauladeen.com/index.php/recipes/view2/grape_salad/?k=1) 
I have the cream cheese softening on the counter right now! :-D  I'm not putting the shredded cheddar in it, though.  I don't like the sound of that.  But I love cream cheese and sour cream, oh yes!!!  If I had enough yogurt, I would use it in place of the sour cream, just to make the flavor yummier!  NEXT TIME!
I'll take pictures tonight when I make it, and let everyone know how it was!

It's funny, because the two things I am craving right now are yogurt and bananas -- I eat them every day!  It makes sense, too, because yogurt is good for your stomach and bananas are loaded with potassium - that's exactly what my body needs right now!  There was a banana pudding cake recipe on Pinterest that I was just drooling over the other night!!  I think that might have to be next!!
And something else that is weird.....I am not really interested in chocolate.  I'm telling you, that IS weird weird for me!  I normally LIVE for chocolate, but I just don't like the taste right now.  That alone makes me think I might be near death!! LOL
But really, it's just so interesting that my body really is leading me toward what I need right now.

Well, it's taken me half the day to get this post done.....I have GOT to get my life back in order around here.  I feel like I'm going to go crazy!!  But right now I think I'll have the rest of that yogurt....! ^-^

Not Doing Too Well Over Here....! :-P

I am not going to type a long post right now......but if I don't get on here and post something, I'm going to forget how to blog!!

I am sorry about being away like I have been: first, I was so busy helping my neighbor (who is having chemo right now) and not doing much around the house, but since before last weekend, I have felt AWFUL!  And I'm not getting better yet! :-P

It's almost like a stomach-flu, but it's NOT -- can someone explain that to me???  I'm getting very frustrated about it, because I'm really done with feeling like crap!!  At the end of last week, I had some kind of stomach problem/attack, and I was in bed for TWO DAYS.....with no fever, even!  And no one else has been sick!!  I ate the same things every one else ate that day, I even prepared it all, so I know nothing was bad or rotten.  I felt SOOOO weak, I actually had to lay on the floor at one point during the night when I was on my way to get some water -- Puppy barked, that's how Brian came to get me!  Can you picture that??  I felt so ridiculous, but couldn't do a thing about it!! 

My one consolation, as I thought, laying in bed unable to lift my arms all the next day, was that stomach "things" go away quickly, and I'd be back to myself by Monday.....right?  WRONG!!  Do you know that my arms feel like lead right now while I'm typing this???  What is going on?!?!

OH!!!  It is soooo frustrating! :-P
Needless to say, I've got nothing done around here, I'm not even cooking anything fun -- it's been all sandwiches and eggs and canned soup (which I am barely eating!).....I am almost back to normal eating amounts, though, but that seems to be the time I feel the worst, right after eating.  I feel weak enough to want to sit down, and I even get a headache and a little sweaty if I don't sit right away!  I have NO other symptoms, though, not even nausea anymore.  Just this annoying weak-feeling!!  It's worse because as I laid on the floor that time, I could see all this dust and some dirt under one of my cabinets, and I've been itching to get over there and VAC IT UP!!!  But when I tried to pull out the vacuum this morning (foolishly thinking "this is my fifth day since getting sick, I must be better by now!"), I almost had to sit on the floor again (well, last time I LAID there!) -- imagine the view of dirt and dust that would have tormented me in the daylight!!!!

So here I sit.....and sit.....and sit.....and lay......and SIT!! :-P
I feel exhausted from typing this long (although I've taken a few breaks), so I guess I'll SIT here with my arms down at my sides and press the stupid TV remote all night.....BORING!!!!

I better BE better by Friday, that's all I have to say.  Maybe I'll start counting my buttons, that will give me something different to do.....as long as I keep them in my lap.....*SIGH!!* (that's a LOUD one!)

I better GO!  Wish me luck.....you'll be able to tell what happens this weekend! Pfffttt!!

PS -- and I've been hacked/spammed/whatever it's called.....I've had about 200 "views" on one of my old posts, and had to delete about 20 "anonymous" comments with links in them!  Does that mean my blog is out there now??  Haha!  ^-^

Devastation.......

I have a post almost finished that I was typing yesterday afternoon to post last night, but so sadly, I find myself AGAIN having to pause with a broken heart at an incomprehensible act of unprovoked violence against our fellow humans -- completely innocent and unsuspecting people.  People who would probably never even dream of doing harm to the perpetrator(s) if they saw them in regular circumstances.  

Again, I am asking.....

WHY??????

What happens to people that they get such a power-trip or thrill out of destroying lives???  They are successfully destroying lives.....!  How do people change from playful, innocent children into hate-filled monsters?

My heart is so heavy.  Massachusetts is my home-state.  Although I have lived in NC for 10 years and love living here more than Mass, I still feel a strong connection with the towns and people there.  I have been to Boston tons of times, and one of my sisters LIVES in Boston.  I thank God that she wasn't in the marathon crowds yesterday, like she has been many other times.....still, it was scary when I couldn't get a hold of her on her phone yesterday after I found out what happened.  I was a few hours late in hearing about it, and I thought I probably would have heard from someone by then if anything was wrong, but still.....that sliver of uncertainty chilled me to the bone.

And knowing that others felt like I did, but had awful outcomes, not relief like me, just HURTS.
I am SO SORRY for them, for what they have lost - physically and emotionally - and the only thing I can do is pray....and pray.....and pray.....

.....again. :-(

NO Floor Yet -- BOO HOO!!!

I know that I said I didn't mind waiting for Brian to do the wood floor, but.....I changed my mind!!!

Hahaha!  We KNEW that would happen, though, didn't we!! :-D
It's worse, because I ripped up the yucky old rug two days ago (and hurt my back!)(I'm getting OLD!! :-P), so I can really picture it now!

I am going to completely swallow my pride, and show you a BEFORE picture -- at least you can see what I've been living with (and why I seem to have unlimited energy to re-do it! LOL).....

Of course, before I started moving everything around, the room looked better than THIS, but look at that hideous green rug!!!  It gives me shivers! :-P  I had started cutting it and pulling on it before taking this picture, and that stirred up a bunch of dust -- that's why it looks a little blurry in some spots - my camera flash picks up dust particles!! LOL  I guess that's the downside to upgrading my camera last year! :-D

Anyway, I knew I had a dust problem in here, but there seemed to be so much dust.....then as I rolled up the rug and the pad under it, I could see why.....

Can you see that???  I took another picture without my flash to give you a better look......

DISGUSTING!!!!  That is a thick layer of super-fine powdered dirt/dust!!!  That must be what settles under rugs after years of use (this rug is 13 yrs old)!  YUCK!!  How can you ever get that vacuumed up, without tearing up the rug???  And that's how I hurt my back -- this powdery stuff did not just suck up into the vacuum when I went over it.....Oh no!  It took me going back and forth several times over each spot to get it all (using the hose attachment!)!  When I was finished, I felt like I had spent hours bent over weeding my garden!
But look at the transformation.....

You could eat off this floor now!  Well, maybe not that, but at least Puppy can wag her tail without sending up a swirling cloud of dust!!
Puppy was SO funny while I was working -- she wouldn't get out of my way the whole time I was cutting the rug, then trying to roll it up (she laid down with a toy right where I was rolling and wouldn't move! LOL), and you can see by her wagging tail that she is trying to get in my way again, daring me to move her!! Haha!  I LOVE my Puppy!!!

I could also see watermarks on the subfloor (once the dirt/dust was gone), but thankfully none of it is damaged.  That big spot in front of my old vacuum is from me spilling the Christmas tree water 2 years ago -- I forgot I did that until I saw that spot.  The rug was soaked even more than that, so it's lucky that there is only a spot there!

Yoo-Hoo!  Brian, the floor is waiting....!!  :-D

Ok, well since I had to wait for him, and my back felt like it was broken, I decided to start some of my seeds!!!  FUN!
I mix the starter soil with water in a huge mixing bowl.....

Dirt cake, anyone??? LOL......

I pick out my seeds.....

(some of these I saved from last year's tomatoes!)
And then I plant them in rows right in the dish.....

You can't see it very well, but I put a plastic garden tag on it's side in the back of the dish so I could keep track of what I planted, where, on my list!
This is how I start my tomato seeds all the time now, because they seem to sprout best for me like this, I have NO idea why!  When I first started tomato seeds a few years ago, I used the little peat pots, but the seeds never germinated in them....they just got moldy!  So I plant them like this, and when they start to grow and get a few little leaves on them, I transfer them to larger peat pots and then to the garden when they are big enough!!

I also started some ornamental herb seeds (I used the peat pots for them!).....

Sweet Annie (look how tiny they are!!), and......

Fennel!!!

I did four of each.....

.......but I don't really know HOW many Sweet Annie seeds are actually in the dirt, because I couldn't see them! LOL  I guess I'll know when they start sprouting!!

The perfect thing about this is that the rest of the weekend and most of next week is going to be nice and sunny, with temps around 70F, so I'll be able to keep my seeds in the sun, which is what helps them sprout the quickest! :-D

So that's my excitement for now!  My back is almost all better, but only for now, because it will be killing me again once I get back into my garden!!  And I can't wait to get out into the sun -- I can tell I'm vitamin D deficient! :-D  I love feeling the sun on me in the spring, and it's been such a chilly, rainy spring that it's taken longer for me to be out there than it normally would.....I'm ready!!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Brian won't be able to resist the psychic messages I'm sending him to do the floor!!  But if it waits another week, I'll survive it! Haha!  I guess I'll just keep watering my seeds and playing on Pinterest until he's ready!!! ^-^

FINISHED!!! Now.....waiting!!

But that's ok!!  I can wait a bit! :-D
I got ALL my boards finished yesterday, and all I can say is PHEW!!!  It sure feels great to have my huge job all done, and stacked up.....

You can see I've already cut and peeled back part of the hideous (filthy!) rug.....boy, I can't wait to tear it all out!!!  Brian said we might do that this weekend! :-D  YAY!!

Oh, it is SO exciting to be tackling jobs that have been on my list (the BIG List) for years!!!  What will I do when everything is completed around here and I have no more huge projects to plan and complete....???  How about KEEPING IT CLEAN?  Hmmm.....never one of my strong points!  As a matter of fact, let me share with you one of my all-time favorite cartoons (if I can find it to post here), hang on......Found it!!  This is great! LOL......

Hahaha!  That's SO me!!! :-D
It's really not something to be proud of, though, and after I'm done with all the rooms here, and the cutting and scraping and painting, I really need to clean everything up, get the tools locked away in the barn/workshop (Not my favorite tools, though!), and become a GOOD HOUSEKEEPER!!!  My little house will deserve it by then! :-)

So today (instead of catching up on my painting projects :-P), I've been on Pinterest!  I joined Pinterest awhile ago, but I've never pinned anything.....it was too scary at first!!  There was SO MUCH that I wanted to pin all over the place, I knew I could lose control of it quick!  So I've had to think about it for awhile first, and today, I started my first boards and adding pins to them!  I started with my Country Sampler magazines -- I have so many pages tabbed, that I thought it would be fun to take pictures of my favorite, most inspiring pages and add them on a board!  So I did!! :-D

This is just a small stack!!! LOL  If you click on it, I think you can see more closely all my tabs on top, and some on the sides! :-D 

So today I took some pictures and added them to Pinterest!  I'm not sure if there will be a problem because they are of magazines, but I put the month and year and page number on each picture, along with a wordy description of what I loved about each picture (I'm always "wordy"! LOL).....hopefully that's good enough!

I also want to create boards of things I want to make or build myself -- there's SO MUCH on Pinterest that I want to make!!!!! -- and a board with techniques for creating, like aging wood or distressing paint.  I'll have to see if it's fun to do all this, or if it's too much work!  It was definitely tedious doing the magazine pictures, but I was too excited about it to mind.....so far, it's fun!! :-)

Well, tomorrow I will be starting some seeds for my tomato plants and cucumbers, and also some herbs that I want to grow (so I can dry them in the Fall!) -- I have Sweet Annie seeds and fennel, and I think one more.  I'm a little late this year, but that won't matter by mid summer!

So that should be fun for me -- I'll be sure to take pictures!! ^-^