Month: August 2009

Okay, so I’m on a roll.  And this isn’t necessarily “in chronological order”, but I thought I’d just make a short post here to let you know where our summer has gone.  The end of August is less than a week away and students and parents all around us are all preparing to return to school.  The big Get Together (Minnesota State Fair) is about to begin.  It’s hard to believe it isn’t June anymore!

As I think back, most of the summer seemed to revolve around our big summer vacation.  I spent the majority of May and June researching and planning for our R Family Vacations Alaska Cruise in July.  We had an amazing time on board, and would love to tell you all about it if you’re interested.  Just ask!  By the time we got home, though, it was near the end of July already!

Other summer highlights included seeing several shows at the Guthrie Theater.  We’ve been season ticket holders for several years now, and have seen some amazing shows.  In May/June alone we saw 4 shows, including 3 by Tony Kushner for the Kushner Celebration.  The facility and shows have been great, and in fact, this past weekend we saw Ella, the first show of the new season.  It was a pretty amazing concert/play chronicling the life and music of Ella Fitzgerald.  It’s still playing, and I’d highly recommend it.

Jeff did some running too, including the TC1-mile and the Minneapolis Half Marathon.  He’s now getting ready for the Twin Cities 10-mile race in early October.

Other than that, we’ve just been keeping busy around the house.  We hope you’ve had a great summer too and look forward to seeing or hearing from you soon!

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately working on getting web sites and blogs updated for my business and I realized that I haven’t really been posting on the personal site.  Why is that?  Well, most probably because I’m a bit ADD and I tend to like to start 1,000 projects and am not really too good about sticking with or finishing any of them…

Case in point:  Our hardwood floors!  In October of 2005 (yes, nearly 4 years ago) we embarked on the task of some home improvements that involved removal of some horrific old carpet in the living and dining room areas of the house in favor of some solid oak hardwood flooring.  The following spring, we had another go of it and put the same hardwood in our bedroom and the upstairs hallway.  Finally, I don’t even remember when, we finished off the den.  But I use the term finished loosely!

Yes, the flooring is in, and for the most part seems to be doing fine (knock on wood).  And most of the baseboard trim has been put back up.  But… only some of the newly-required quarter-round has been mitered and nailed in place, and the transition from the kitchen/entry tile still hasn’t been done!

Excuses?  Well, several.  But mostly I was having difficulty envisioning how to properly get those last bits done.  And I know it’s trim, and sloppy trim is just as bad (or worse) than having no trim at all.  And there’s always a distraction!

This past weekend, however, the weather outside was gorgeous and was perfect for having windows open and tackling the project again.  I decided I could remove a pesky stair riser, get a new toy (er, ah, tool) to flush-cut the pesky subfloor, and replace it with a better fitting one and that would resolve my trim dilemma there.  Then, that same flush-cutting tool could be used to even up the ends of the boards by the sliding glass door so I could at last actually place the transition piece that has been sitting on the floor for years.

I went to the friendly neighborhood Home Depot where the friendly staff pointed me in the direction of a new oscillating tool from Dremel…the Multi-Max!  I was able to use the tool for a few flush-cutting jobs enabling me to solve both problems.

Did I finish?  Well, no, I ran out of both time and steam.  But I did make some good progress and I think I may actually finish this coming weekend.  You’ll have to stay tuned to find out!  🙂