Well it's been crazy here for the past two weeks. I've had strep, and am mostly over it now. All the flooring and trim upstairs is done. All the stair trim and risers have been painted. We haven't gotten the railings done yet but we do have the paint as of today. Today we also bought the slate and all the materials needed to do the landing. I'll be laying the flooring out there on Friday morning, after the dogs are off to the kennel, and before leaving for Supercon. Tonight I'm puling out what's left of the trim on the landing to faciliate flooring new flooring friday. Currently up for debate.. Do I nail in the ceramic backer board or not. If I do, I'll be doing things the right way. If I don't, well I'll be putting slate on plywood, which has strong odds of being fine, but there is some chance that it might crack if the wood shifts or changes size or something.

I think the slate will look quite nice. It'll be pretty dark, but everything else down there is pretty light so I think that'll be fine.

Oh and yesterday the HouseTamers layed laminate floor at Carolyn's. It looks really nice.

Here are a few flooring pictures. Click on them to get to the full size image. The first is my Dad just after we'd layed the last boards. Did I mention he's a Hero of the Revolution! It's the middle of the night, We were all exhausted, but happy to be done flooring. The second is the next evening just after priming all the trim bits that needed primer. Dad had spent the day at working on the trim while I was at the office. You can see the other side of the kitchen.

For those who've been wondering what I've been up to of late.. um.. that's nobody who reads this I figure since you all know, but in case there's somebody reading I don't know about... I've been working on the floors in my house. My Dad came up from Illinois and he and I and no small number of my friends ripped out old flooring, installed new flooring and then Dad did all the baseboards and door trim. Yay DAD! Anyhow, DeNae primed everything last night (well everything upstairs) we didn't have enough primer to do all the stairs. Oh yeah, and I have new stairs and everything. It looks awesome. Pictures will follow as soon as I have a cable to hook my camera to my computer (after lunch probably).

All of my friends were Heroes. They came and worked hours and hours to make my floors all beautiful and wonderful. This morning as I was getting ready for work I kept walking in little circles around the kitchen and living room because the floor felt so amazing underfoot.

After Supercon, when I'm laying the tile in the entryway, I'll be having a "Come Party in Your Socks on the NEW FLOORS Party" and inviting everyone who helped.

tToday is a big blogging day with everybody talking about the New Year and remembrences goals and what not. Leave it to me not to follow along.

Erik and I went trap shooting today, because it's the big membership drive day at the club, they have a potluck thing, and membership sales, and today the Beretta factory rep. So I got to shoot the brand new Beretta 3901 Ladies/Youth adustable model. The way it was set up was a bit short and the comb was rolled over to the wrong side (set for a RH shooter not a LH shooter like me) Regardless I rather liked the gun. But I'm not sure it's the gun for me.

I have to wonder if the shotgun world is on the edge of another major shift. In the last 2-3 years a whole raft of over/under shotguns have come out at a varitey of price points, aimed at the casual/recreational/club shooter. For a long time there was this void between say $400 and $3000. Which is a big void. Well now, it seems that everyone is coming out with a model for smaller shooters. Browning has both Micro and Ladies models on a lot of their popular guns (not the over/unders though oddly enough). Berretta now has a few RL (reduced length) or youth/ladies guns. Mossberg has them too. It makes me wonder if I shouldn't get a gun this year like I was thinking, but instead should wait another year and see what the choices look like. Will Ruger come out with one? What about a Browning Cynergy or Citori? The Mossberg International O/Us while Turkish made and not in a class with the Brownings and Berettas are nice, and about 1/3 the cost, will they come out with a short stock/small grip option?

I also made cashew brittle today. It worked unlike yesterdays horribly awry attempt, and DeNae and I went to the movies.


27: 8
29: 9