Ready to Go

The cats are in the kennel.

The floor has been sanded and finished, and the first coat of polyurethane is drying as I type.

The newspaper and mail has been put on hold.

I've arrived at the La Quinta Inn near the airport.

And I fly out tomorrow morning.

BTW, the La Quinta is quite convenient, as it's very close to the highway:

Someone's Turning 70 Today

Happy Birthday babe! I swear to God you don't look a day over 55.

Well, damn.

My washing machine just broke. The first appointment the Sears people had to repair it is on the day that I leave.

Great.

Fortunately, my parents's condo is 10 minutes away, and they're out of town.

One Week to Go!

One week from today, I'll be in Orlando for Gay Days 2007.

(Oh dear God almighty, do I need a vacation)

I've been there before, but not in a while. After going in '01 and '02, I decided I didn't need to go again right away, but "right away" stretched into five years.

(That seems to be happening more and more as I get older)

I'm going to be staying at the Grosvenor Hotel. I haven't been there before; it was a choice of some friends of mine who had already started planning the trip by the time I decided to go. Recently I was looking up some information on the hotel, and came across the reviews. Such as this one:

The room itself was dirty and there was black mold growing on the shower curtain.

Oh. Well, I'm sure that's just one person's bad experience, right?

Everything was going fine till we were awoken at 7:45 AM by the sound of drills and hammers.

Okay, I guess I'll have to bring earplugs. Still, how bad could it really be?

We got our keys, anxiously awaiting to get a look at our rooms, headed for 2 rooms in the 300's, opened the door and....we were met with a horrible stinch and an unclean room. The beds were made and the trash had been taken out, but the bathroom toilet had a ring around it, the stainless steel water spout was filthy, the floors seemed like they had not been mopped. The carpet was teriibly dirty with stains, along with some nasty finger prints on the walls. My husband pulled back the covers on the bed and the velour blanket had a big burn hole in it.

Hmmmm...

Wish me luck.

Remodeling -ling -ling -ling

I have a rule on this blog: I don't talk about work.

I really want to break that rule right now.

But I won't.

So instead I'll talk about remodeling. Because I'm a 30-something homeowner, and that's what we talk about.

When my home was built back in the '80s, the original buyers opted for wood floors downstairs. Mostly. They had all of the downstairs done in wood, except for one area of the combination living room/dining room. I guess the theory was that they wanted to have the "living room" portion done in carpet, while the rest was in wood. When I bought this place, the realtor suggested that I could get the carpet replaced with wood.

Eight years later, it was time to do it.

The (hot!) contractors arrived this morning, and spent most of the day installing the wood. Now it needs to sit for two weeks so that the moisture level of the wood reaches equilibrium with the house.

The next step is that they will refinish the entire downstairs. Fortunately, I'm going on vacation in two weeks, so they will be able to refinish the downstairs while I'm gone. If I were not going on vacation, I would probably have to vacate the house for a week.

Before and after pictures will be provided when the "after" stage has been reached.

BTW, once they finished today I immediately noticed one thing:my downstairs now has an enormous echo. If I drop a fork in the kitchen, the noise reverberates throughout the downstairs. That's going to take a little getting used to.

Still Here

Work.

Ugh.

Yes, I'm still here. My current project at work is a royal pain, however. Not so much because the project is difficult. But rather than I'm having a hard time leaving it at the office. It's distracting me from everything else in my life. The good news is that I should have it done before I go to Orlando in a few weeks. Which will be good, as I really need a vacation where I don't think about work.