The strength of a pinky...

Pay no attention to the fingernails... I have never had a manicure and there is so much polyurethane under my nails - it's not even funny.

The above picture is how close I can get my fingers currently by themselves. Strange huh?!

Now that I'm done with the floor, my left pinky and ring finger have been causing me fits. My left palm tingles when I touch it and I virtually have no strength in my pinky. It's really weird washing dishes these days. Too bad the dishwasher is broke!

I'm sure it's residual of working on the floor all day Saturday. I was leaning on that hand a LOT when scraping with the varnish stripper. Don't know if I bruised something or not. It kind of feels like I've got a pinched nerve. An appointment has been set for my chiropractor this afternoon. After all the work, my back is wacky too, but I'll bring this to his attention. Who knows?

The really strange thing is finding how much I depend on my pinky for typing! as well as a hundred other things that I'd never noticed before. It doesn't have the strength to hit the "a" key. I've had to resort to moving my hands all over the keyboard in order to type. I have to admit tho, that since my job is 100% on the computer anyway, I've gotten pretty good over the last few days to avoid using it, but hope it doesn't have to be this way permanently...

And forget Nanu Nanu!

UPDATE: My chiropractor fixed up my back, but said that my hand has an inflamed muscle from the overuse on Saturday and my constant pressure on it. I've got it on ice currently and that should help until this goes away. yuck! and brrrr!

The floor is done!! I really messed up on the edges, but oh well. After the graduation party, I'll go back and maybe paint a border on the entire floor... but for now I'm happy with it. Above is the before and after the stain.

Here is the final product... Well, after 2 coats of polyurethane and just before the last coat. The 2nd coat was the worst. My knees were killing me, so we applied it with sponge mops. Big mistake. Hands and knees (even tho it's a killer and I finally broke down and bought some knee pads) are the way to go for sure. Much better control.

Anyway, I'm in a clean up mode now and cleaning all the areas where the dust has settled. YUCK. Hopefully by next weekend I can get back to some sewing!

We'll get the furniture moved back in tomorrow night.

Come on Spring!!!

Yesterdays weather was fabulous! Everyone is in the Spring mode now. Here is a picture of my view from my home office. In the spring, it's so cool to watch the trees and Lilac bushes start to bloom. Day by day, it's just a smidge more green. I can't wait!
But anyway, here is the view for today.

Soon it will blossom and bloom and I won't be able to see in front of the house anymore until I prune back the lilacs.

Floor update: I gave the house a good stink last night with some varnish stripper and got most of the kitchen and dining room a good start. Unfortunately I didn't get enough stripper and need to go back over some of the edges again, as it dried too fast before I could get to it with the scraper. Tonight is out, as I have some socializing to do... So I'll pick up some more stripper and dig into it first thing in the morning.

The oder from the goop wafted upstairs to my bedroom and I thought maybe that would help us sleep really good last night, but Robb was just afraid we probably wouldn't wake up... I had the bedroom fan on and the bathroom fan and this morning I couldn't smell anything, but it might just be my cold helping me out... The kids weren't affected at all. Good!

This experience with the floor brings back vivid memories of my youth tho. My parents were remodeling our house while we were living in it and we lived with the subfloor in the kitchen and living room for a long time before the carpeting and linoleum were put down. Very ROUGH under our feet.

Gingerbread mystery solved!

I was going thru my photos looking for something to post today and found this from Christmas 2007... This is our dog Sorsha. And that gingerbread ornament was missing a leg this year... No one knew why. Mystery solved and obviously SOMEONE knew and thought it was cute enough to snap a picture of it! hmmm.
I started using the edger on my floor last night and accidentally wound the cord in under the sand paper rollers. It took 30 minutes to get it out and by that time my ambition to work on the floor was gone. There are bare wires showing in the cord in various places. I guess we'll have to get that fixed before we return it to our trusting friend that loaned it to us... I'll have my son pick up some electrical tape this morning so I can bandaide it enough to get the floor done over lunch.
I CAN'T WAIT TO GET BACK TO SEWING!!! I'm going through withdrawal.
School concert tonight! The band, I'm told, are going to play the theme to Pirates of the Carribbean. Should be fun!