New floors...

Here are the promised photos of our hardwood floor. :)

You can see all of the paint that was splattered and the plywood they previous owners inserted when they widened the entryway between living room and dining room.

Here is Anne, with the plywood. :) Can you believe that my precious baby girl will be *2* this weekend? Where does the time go?!

*sniffles*

Another area of heavy damage, over by the fireplace.

And now for the after:

Plywood all gone. :) You can see a bit that the newer wood looks slightly different than the older, but all in all it looks worlds better.

So, so much better.

This is that area by the fireplace. You'd never know it was the same floor.

We're very, very happy. We're homebodies, and we spend a lot of time in our house, so it's nice to have it looking its best. Our new couch is coming today and we should be fully back to normal by tomorrow. We still haven't moved all of the furniture back because Mike is so worried about scratching the new floor. Isn't he adorable? I came in to find to 2 recliners, our coffee table, several lamps and the entertainment center/television all arranged carefully on the area rug on Sunday. I told him that he was precious, but that we simply *had* to find another solution so that we could live like normal people again. :) We're bound for Home Depot tonight to find some felt pads to put underneath the potentially scratchy stuff.

I'm also taking Hank to Toys 'R Us to pick up a birthday gift for Anne that he's chosen. Toys 'R Us sent her a birthday card with a birthday club voucher that we can use. It's for $3. Didn't it used to be $5? Man, everybody is cutting back. :)

But before all of these errands tonight, I'm going to confession this afternoon and taking Henry with me. This will be only the second time he's received this sacrament. He's nervous, and it's very cute. But it's so nice that I can share this experience with him now.

Happy Feast of the Ascension!

Yes, I live in an area that did not transfer this feast to the following Sunday, which I didn't realize was so unusual. I'm headed to Mass in about 5 minutes. I do love holy days of obligation. Going to Mass during the week feels so decadent.

And speaking of upcoming Pentecost, the novena to the Holy Spirit begins tomorrow, and I'm going to be taking part. I'll post a link to where you can find the prayers online.

In totally unrelated news, the first coat of polyurethane went on our floors yesterday afternoon. Yes, our house smells like a chemical factory, but it looks beautiful. New shoe moulding is going on today and a second coat of polyurethane. We're almost there!

Fun with swords and toxic varnish

Ok, so our floors are now fully sanded and repaired. There is some dust, but honestly, it's not bad at all. This afternoon, the first coat of polyurethane will go on and thus will commence the fun. We can't walk on it (much) until Saturday, and can't move the furniture back until Sunday. But we're already to Wednesday, and that just seems promising, no?

We're going to keep the kids out of the house tonight until bedtime via Cub Scouts and a trip to the shoe store, and tomorrow we're going to pass some time at various furniture stores looking at potential new couches. One day at a time, we're slowly getting there.

Our floor guy has already told us we should keep the windows open all night to ventilate. I can't imagine the odor is going to be pleasant.

Anyway, last night I had a private lesson with Claire to brush up on some sword work, and it was AWESOME. We started with lots of sword talk, and she showed me some new arm suggestions and other such sword strategies. I love that she told me to see my sword as my "dance partner", lol! So I shouldn't chince out on introducing the sword to the audience prior to balancing it on my head. The only other time I've seen a prop addressed as a "dance partner," it was a snake, and this is the only instance in which I think that snakes are actually cute. Well, at least the snake in my head that has a face. A cute face that is inexplicably smiling.

Anyway, I digress, back to swords. We practiced some arms and other sword goodies, and then she asked me to put on my music and dance, which is the part I was dreading, ha! It is SO intimidating to dance solo in front of someone whose opinion you value so highly. But I need to be brave, so I did. It went fine, as the sword always does when I'm *practicing*. Performance is another story. But anyway, she gave me some excellent advice about interpreting the music in a way that is conducive to balancing. She helped me to see something that I hadn't realized, which is that when I improvise, I really tend to listen to and dance to the beat only, rather than the melody. I'm a percussion girl, unashamedly so, it's why I love drum solos so much. But this isn't a drum piece, it's very sweeping, slower in tempo than what I usually choose, with a classical Egyptian feel. My movements should mirror that "gushy" melody, rather than picking out staccato accents that my ear is hearing. It was very helpful, and I'm looking forward to practicing again with these new ideas in mind.

We spent a lot of time talking about where to place the sword for me to pick it up at the hafla and how I would pick it up.

"Make it a big deal! It should be somewhat dramatic!"

I'm not real good at inducing drama, but I'll do my best.

By the end of the hour, I was brushing off sweat. Very delicate and ladylike, no? It's hard work dancing by yourself, I tell you. I'll have some practice time tonight after I put Anne to bed but before Mike and Henry get back from scouts, and I'm excited. My sword and I have been bonding and I'm hoping that this loving feeling will carry over all the way to the hafla.

Floor update...

...for those that are fascinated with such home improvement projects. I got home yesterday all excited to see the progress and I wasn't disappointed. 95% of the large living room/dining room space had been sanded, and the plywood and other oddities had been patched with new wood.

No longer seeing all of the paint and other damage was SO refreshing. It looked really nice. And the dust really wasn't bad. They had hung sheets to block off the work space. Today they are scheduled to finish sanding the edging in the main space and sand the hall. I'm hoping that the moulding that needs to be replaced will go in today or tomorrow as well. Polyurethane coating is on schedule to begin tomorrow.

And now for the bad news. Although work is on schedule to be completed on Friday, we won't be able to move furniture back into the rooms until Sunday when the polyurethane is fully cured. I wasn't really surprised to hear this, but I'm just *dreading* figuring out what to do with the kids for the majority of the weekend until we can get the house back to normal. Considering the gravity of what I learned, I think I took it rather well. :) *gold star*

I'm just trying to take things one day at a time. Yesterday was very pleasant, with us taking the kids out to eat and a round of mini golf (Anne and I oogled the pond fish and chased after golf balls) and Mike and I watching The Bletchley Circle on PBS after the kids went to bed. Tonight, we're eating dinner over at my in-laws and I have an evening session with Claire to have her look over my sword work. So it'll be another happily busy night.

Tomorrow, Henry has Cub Scouts so Anne and I will have to find ways to amuse ourselves. Henry has been wanting to get involved in Scouts, but the troop (pack? den? Cub Scout language still eludes me) at his school meets on a day that just doesn't work with our schedule. I prayed about it for a long time and ultimately suggested to Mike that he and Hank try out the pack at our parish. Henry was worried because he won't know any of the boys there like he does at his school, but they gave it a try last Wednesday and both loved it. They're happily going back tomorrow and I'm very excited for Henry. We'll see how this continues to develop.

And so it begins...and a lovely May installment of Children's Liturgy of the Word

Well, the contents of our dining room and living room are now in a combination of our guest room, Henry's bedroom (he has so much more space in his room than we do because he has a smaller bed and less furniture), the garage, the basement, and a few area rugs rolled up into the kitchen. I managed to see all this to fruition without having a heart attack. I'm very proud of myself.

I have it easier than Mike does, who is done teaching for the semester and thus is home with Anne trying to find things for them to do outside of the house all day while the men are working. Luckily, his parents live very close to us, so they'll hang with them a lot. Mike reported in to me this morning that the crew arrived on time and got right to work, saying they would be there until about 3 or 3:30 this afternoon. Today's task was some board replacement (the plywood spots) and sanding. Things should be a mess by time we get home tonight. :) But to get the final product things have to get worse before they get better.

Poor, precious little Anne was distressed all weekend by the dwindling furniture in the main living space as we gradually moved things out. She came up to me with wide, saucer eyes this morning asking after the basket of toys that usually resides in the living room. Her biggest concern is for her peg saint dolls, which we keep on the mantle.

"Joan?"

She's on a first name basis with her saints.

"Joan will be back next weekend, Sweetheart. She's on vacation."

"Anne? Therese?"

"Them too, Honey."

"CHILDREN!"

My God, the children. The little Fatima children were definitely on her mind. Poor babe.

I think that tomorrow is the final sanding run, and there may even be some stain applied. After that, it will just be several mornings of polyurethane going down and waiting for it to dry before beginning all over again. We'll get there. I'll have before and after pictures.

In other news, I had Children's Liturgy of the Word yesterday. We talked about the continuation of Easter season, the readings, May sacraments, and the rosary. Several of the little girls present had just made their First Communion the day before. They volunteered a correct definition of the Eucharist being the actual body and blood of Jesus.

*beams with pride*

It was good, and likely one of my last sessions with them for the year. I'll probably have another one in late May and/or early June, and that'll be the end of my run with the program, for now anyway. I'm looking for a new volunteer opportunity, so we'll see.