Gosh, it’s been so long since I blogged I can’t remember everything that’s new since then. So you get what I can remember…
We have trees… planted… in our yard!! Two of them. Since the whole lilac trees thing fell through last summer, we decided to buy a couple of maple trees from a local nursery. It may take years for them to produce enough leaves to rake up and jump in but the point is… WE HAVE TREES!
We have four planters full of flowers, petunias and geraniums. My petunias are looking kind of sickly though because I think they got partially fried in last week’s heat. Some of them died but most are finally perking up.
We cemented a post into the ground in the backyard to hang our bird feeders on. I like having the bird feeders and all the birds that have been coming around but I do not like the big mess they leave on the back deck. And I don’t like that Zeus thinks the bird seed on the deck is for him to eat. Thus, the feeders must be moved.
All the trips that were lined up between the end of June and the beginning of August for work (because we are in a “unique situation” and need to spend travel dollars) seem to be whittling down from four to two. That’s okay because I didn’t really want to go to Mount Pleasant or Milwaukee anyways.
Seems I can’t keep injury free for longer than a month. Today when I went to the Health Center to get my knee checked out Toni said, “Just because Loretta is gone doesn’t mean you have to take her place getting injuries!” and the doctor said, “Now what did you do to yourself!?” The injuries are totally unexpected and nothing I really did… the hip injury, which by the way is better, was from the car door slamming on me and the knee injury just happened. All I was doing was walking into my kitchen when I felt a pull. Dang, I can’t even walk around my house without getting hurt!
So that’s about it. Nothing terribly exciting but enough to keep us busy.
This deer comes to the edge of our yard morning, noon and night to eat. It makes the dogs go crazy! If you listen carefully you can hear tank whining because he wants to get near it.
I don’t think the dogs are liking the laminate flooring in the bedroom. It is too slippery for them and they freak out. A few nights ago I went to bed and took the dogs upstairs. I turned out the light, climbed into bed and Tank jumped up right behind me. Zeus wasn’t getting up… even after calling for him so I got up and turned on the light. Poor Zeus was frozen right where he was standing! Apparently, he tried to jump onto the bench on the end of the bed and slipped. Just his front legs were on the bench and he was hanging on for dear life. I had to pick him up and place him on the bed. I figured if I got a throw rug to place next to the bench, it would be easier for Zeus to jump up and down. I went downstairs and grabbed one and the dogs followed me. I thought that was the end of the slippery floor episode because it seemed to okay for a few nights… until last night.
I went up to bed and the dogs followed. As we got to the bedroom door, they both stopped and refused to even walk into the bedroom. They were freaking out and pacing!! I had to go out the bedroom door and order them in the room and both dogs gingerly walked through the doorway. Trying to get them up on the bed was another challenge. I patted the bed and Tank slowly walked to the rug by the bench and jumped up. Zeus, he slid and scrambled and jumped up the side of the bed and then… he fell to the floor, rolled around and scrambled to the door. I don’t know what made Zeus think he could jump up on the side because he couldn’t even get up that way before we put the laminate down! The only thing I could think of next (besides picking him up and placing him on the bed) was to move the rug from beside the bench to in front of the doorway. It worked! Zeus ran in the bedroom and jumped up on the side of the bed again. Amazingly he made it! I think it kind of traumatized him though because once he got on the bed, he flopped down and was breathing heavily. Tank must have been worried for his brother because while Zeus was lying on the bed, Tank started licking his face as if he was comforting him.
This afternoon I got a long throw rug and place it by the doorway and put the other rug back by the bench. I made sure both dogs came with me so they could see them. They are happy boys now because they can run into the room across both throw rugs, jump up on the bench and onto the bed. I am still not understanding though why Tank all of sudden decided to freak out about the floor. He was not afraid of it before. Ken thinks it’s a copy-cat reaction to Zeus’ freaking out.
Ken has had his new bike for about two months now. He was soo excited when he finally brought it home! The new bike is bigger than his other one and he said it took a little getting use to. He ended up buying extensions for the handlebars and making a soft cushion for the seat. Ken said the seat on this bike is not as comfortable as the other and after riding for a long time, he gets a sore tooshie. (Maybe he should buy some of that anti monkey butt powder!) Ken has not been happy with the fact though that since he brought the bike home, the weather has been extremely uncooperative and he hasn’t been able to ride it much. Every time he even thinks about riding, it either rains, gets cold or gets cloudy and windy. And doesn’t it just figure that when he is out of town on travel the weather is nice! I told him maybe Mother Nature likes his old bike better.
And while I’m on the subject of bikes, I should probably bring up that Ken has asked me several times if I wanted to go for a ride with him. Ummm, no. His driving in a vehicle scares me so why would I want to jump on the back of a bike with him? Also, I think he is teasing because he knows I won’t get on a bike but he has been asking if I want to take his smaller bike for a ride. Ken has even said, “If you ever want to take a ride, the key is hanging right up here! It’s a small bike and I think you could handle it.” I don’t think so!
So there is this woman at work who is the “girlfriend” of a guy who works in my office and she just got her motorcycle license about a month ago and she repeatedly asks when I am going to go for a ride with them… her, the guy and Ken. (I wonder if Ken knows about this? And what makes her think I want to hang out with the guy from my office?) I keep telling her I will not go for a ride and don’t even have the desire to. Just a few days ago she asked again, “Are you going for a ride?” I questioned, “A ride?” She replied, “Yeah, on the bike.” Finally I told her in no uncertain terms, “I am NOT going for a ride on the bike!” Then she carries on about how much she loves riding on the back of the ride and how good it feels. I said, “Good for you! But I’m still not going for a ride.” Gawd, can’t she get the message? I told Ken the next time she asks me I swear I’m going to smack her!!
I found out there was a blood drive in Esky today and since giving blood is one of my 43Things, I decided to head on down there. I had planned on going by myself but since Ken was off this afternoon (see below) he decided to drive me. Since this was my first time giving blood, I read up on it on the internet and pretty much knew what to expect. Yep, it all went as expected… until I was done and ready to leave. I got dizzy as soon as I sat up. You’d think I’d gone into cardiac arrest or something because in no time flat, two ladies were there and had me laying down on the table with cold towels on my forehead and neck. Ken said, “Geez! I turn my head for a minute and you’re flat out on the table!!” I didn’t fall down or pass out or anything like that I was just dizzy. At least I know they take care of you (at least at this blood drive). They told me the next time I give blood I should try to drink lots of water beforehand. Guess I overlooked that part when I read the info online.
Ken has been having a throbbing/pulsating pain in a tooth for several days so he went to the dentist yesterday. Instead of actually pulling the tooth and relieving Ken’s pain, the dentist took a bunch of x-rays and told Ken to return today to have the tooth pulled. I would have told the dentist to relieve the pain and do x-rays another time!! He did find out what was causing the throbbing/pulsating pain though… a cracked tooth. OUCH! Well, the tooth is gone and so is the pain.
Well, we accomplished getting the laminate flooring put down this weekend. It was fun and frustrating and satisfying and took a bit longer than we anticipated.
The frustrating part was removing what seemed like thousands of nails and staples used to keep the carpet that had previously been in there down. Once that was done and we got past the first two rows of flooring it was a breeze! We had a couple of setbacks but they were minor… running out of underlayment, running out of flooring (both times we had very little floor left to cover) and the rain. The two trips to town for supplies were probably a good thing because it provided us with a needed break. And the rain… we ended up putting the saw in the upstairs bathroom instead of having to go from the upstairs to the basement every time we needed to cut. The bathroom was covered with sawdust but it worked out well.
A couple of helpful hints for installing laminate flooring…
Have patience when working with the first two rows (because walls are crooked).
Taping the flooring as you go helps keep it in place.
Cut twice, measure once. No, that is… measure twice, cut once. And don’t let me be the one to do the measuring.
I haven’t taken a picture of the room yet with everything back in it but here is a preview of how it turned out as Rachel is helping pull up the tape.
The are so many projects around the house I want (that need) to be done. Earlier this week I decided for us it was time to make a plan and just do it. Not only that, I want to keep myself busy during the summer evenings because I got into a bad habit of taking a nap every night. I really need to quit doing that because once I wake up, I am totally unmotivated to do anything.
So this week instead of letting my major housework wait until the weekend, I did some of it during the week. Done so far… dishes (every night), three loads of laundry and mopped the kitchen, living room and dining room.
Our project plan for this weekend… install laminate flooring in the bedroom and put in a tree/shrub/plant landscaping in the yard. Thursday night we picked up the underlayment padding for the floor (we’ve already had the flooring for months) and last night we picked out the trees we want for the yard and the nursery is saving them for us until today. Also, we moved all the furniture out of the bedroom. We have no choice now, the bedroom needs to be finished ASAP. In between all that we plan on attending the mud drags that are happening down the road for a short time. Wish us luck on our projects this weekend!
Oh yeah… we can’t have projects without injuries so I’m keeping track of them. So far I got two… slammed a t.v. stand into my left foot while moving it (big toe nail hurts) and pulled something in my right foot walking around nursery (there was a weird “snap” in the arch). What a way to start the projects!!
Edited to add… I forgot mention yesterday I bought one tomato plant, one cucumber plant and one zucchini plant for a container garden I’m putting on the back deck.
