Hello Summer

Friday was my last day of school. A bittersweet day for me. I successfully moved ALLLLLL my "stuff" to my new classroom. It is neatly stacked (as neatly as you can stack stuff after coming in and out and in and out and in and out of the 104 (!!) degree heat) in a corner of my new classroom. What have I been doing during my first three days of summer you ask? Well installing a hardwood floor in our house. Isn't that what all handymen teachers do in their "off" time? We have been remodeling our home for about a year. Yes. A YEAR. I'm talking knocking down walls, putting up sheetrock, laying a tile countertop in the kitchen, sanding down and staining all the kitchen cabinets, laying new carpet on one side of the house and painting. In an effort to save money, we have done most of the work ourselves. When I say "we," I mean "he." Britton has done most (ok, 97%) of the work while I have cheerfully rooted him on from the sidelines.

Then came the wood floor. We (he) pulled up the tile on the kitchen and dining room floor as well as the carpet from the living room floor. This was done several weeks ago. Concrete. That is what we have had on our floor since the removal of the tile and carpet. Concrete. We decided we needed someone who was an experienced professional to put in our beautiful new hardwood floor. We called "the man." We have been waiting on "the man" to come and lay the new floor and free us from the concrete. We waited for "the man." And waited. It seems "the man" was too busy to lay our floor. This is where it gets tricky. Britton and I decided the two of us could put the floor in. How hard could it be? We are educated people. So on Saturday morning we began. "This isn't so bad," we said. "This is kinda fun," we proclaimed. We worked for 12 hours on the floor only calling it quits then so we would be fresh and ready to continue Sunday morning. Except....when Sunday morning came, we could barely move. Oh. My. Our knees. Our Backs. It is now Monday night and we have worked THREE days on the floor. We are almost finished (it is a HUGE area...the entryway, living room, dinning room, kitchen and laundry room) and it looks AWESOME if we do say so ourselves.

BEFORE

AFTER

 

Who needs "the man?" We got this. Has anyone seen the Ibuprofen?

Nicole