What's it worth?

Last night, I was preparing to make strawberry shortcake (Yes, my culinary skills go well beyond grilling) when I ran across this peculiar-looking strawberry. I thought it looked a LOT like a pair of plump, red lips.

Don't you agree?

I put it on top of the glaze container for a size reference. It's more than a mouthful for sure. Whatcha think? Should I try to sell it on eBay?

We rode down to the lake this afternoon to spend a little time with some friends and to pick out our lot for the summer at the "yacht club". I snapped this pic from the boat ramp.

It's a little hard to tell from the pic, but the wind was blowing so hard that the waves are white-capping. I prefer to just stay on shore when it gets this rough. It's no fun fighting the wind the entire time.

Who Got Laid?

As most of you know, I/We decided to install laminate flooring over the weekend. It wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be, but I still have 2 more rooms to do so there'll be plenty of time for me to change my mind about that.

This is the "Before":








The den was pretty simple actually. Just three AC/heating vents and two electrical outlets to cut around.
This is "During":

I was cutting around one of the floor outlets in that pic. Notice the scrap "template"?




And here is the "After":

It looks even nicer if you're standing in the room but maybe you can get the idea.




And this is "After the After":


Even though I was wearing kneepads, all that crawling around caused a blister on my knee. Not only did it cause a blister, it caused the blister to pop. Sexy, huh?

It only took about 13-14 hours total to get it all done. The kitchen will be a bit more trying due to all the cabinets that have to be cut around. I think we're starting the demolition on the tile tonight or Friday. I can hardly wait. Anyone in a samaritous mood? (I think I might have just made that word up, but you have to admit that it sounds good.)

Let Os know if you got nekkid this week.

And so it begins...

Yesterday, we took the first step on a long-awaited project that, while it is what we have been wanting to do for almost 2 years, it's also something that I have been dreading for nearly as long.

Here's that first step:


A closer look:

That's 32 boxes of laminate flooring. 800 square feet of knee-killing beauty.

Aside from the financial aspect of it, this was probably the easiest step of the whole thing. I think now is a good time to mention that I have to remove nearly 400 square feet of ceramic tile and cement backerboard before we can do the kitchen and dining room. The backerboard was put down to stay put. I know. I put it down. It has 2" screws every 6-8 inches across the whooooooole area. That equates to about 2400 screws that have been mortared over with thinset cement, leaving little or no chance off unscrewing them. I'll have to break up the board, then either grind off what's left of the screws or try to break them off flush with the subfloor. Either way, it's going to be aggravating. Add to it the fact that we will have to live here while it's going on. And the only available time to work on it will be at night and on the weekends. Now you see why I've been dreading it. But the end result will be worth the few hours I spend cussing and getting cussed at.

If I'm MIA for a little while, fear not for I am just busy with things other than blogging. I plan to start ripping the carpet out of the den tonight and starting with the (hopefully) "easy part" first. The den is 24'x22' with no fancy corners. All square cuts. I should be able to knock it out in a few hours.

Wish me luck. And wish her patience.