Seemed Like a Great Idea at the Time

What, you may ask, have we been doing with all of our free time since we moved to Greenville. Laying hardwood floors.

While the carpet in our house was only 3 years old, it looked like it had 30-years worth of stains and wear. It was our mission to replace the carpet with hardwoods . . . ourselves.

We're about 80% finished (it's slow going since we are both working during the day) - but here's some update pictures of our progress so far.

Ben pulled up all of the carpet downstairs, leaving us with the bare concrete slab that our house was built on. Of course, that meant that all of our living room furniture had to be relocated into the kitchen. Which ironically worked out well since we eat most of our meals at the coffee table anyhow. Anyone who has ever pulled up carpet has met the enemy that is carpet tacking. Along the entire perimeter of the walls is a 1 inch strip of wood, nailed into the concrete, with incredibly sharp tacks facing upward to secure the carpet. To get it up, you have to drive a crowbar under the nails and then hammer the strip out of the concrete. The following day, your hands and fingers are basically worthless. At first I claimed defeat and said I "couldn't" do this job, but once I got the hang of it, I actually did pretty well. Meanwhile, Ben was using a diamond tipped blade to cut channels in the concrete for our alarm wires to go flush with the floor.

We had a small square of hardwoods already laid by the original builder right at the front door, but these had to come up too since there were a totally different color than what we were installing. For a builder who made houses that might blow over in a strong wind, they sure did glue the heck out of those hardwood planks. We had to use a circular saw to break up the floor, HOURS with a crowbar to pry it up, and then some super solvent to soften the gallon of glue that was still stuck to the concrete.

We're big fans of eye safety.
And protecting ourselves against SARS.

FINALLY it was time to lay some floors. Spacers go against the walls so the boards have room to expand. We starting laying out boards so we could coordinate the seams and make sure the patterns on the wood looked good together. (The red sheet is a vapor/moisture/sound barrier that goes under the hardwoods.) Then each board has to be glued before going into place . . .

. . . carefully placed into the groove of the previous board . . . and then hammered into place.

I won't spoil the surprise by showing the "after" shots quite yet, but we should be finished with all but the dining room within the next week so we'll give the update then.

Back to work.

The Day My FatPants Died

Everyone owns a pair of fatpants. The pants they wear during times in their lives when they need a little extra "room" in their clothing. Most people pull out their fatpants for a particular time of the month or a the few days after a big vacation. I've been wearing mine since 2006.

I currently own three pairs of fatpants. Black, brown, and grey. When rotated with my one pair of jeans, two pairs of crop-pants, and a handful of skirts - I somehow manage to get get by with this limited selection.

But today, tragedy hit. The lever in my car that allows the drivers seat to recline had come off, and all that was left was the skeletal piece of metal sticking out between the drivers seat and the door. My grey pants snagged on the metal as I got out of the car, and I was forced to place my carry-out order at the neighborhood Italian restaurant with a pretty noticeable tear in the derriere of my pants. As I'm mentioned before, my car is dying a horrendously slow death - so truthfully, I should have seen this coming.

With only 2 pairs of pants left in my wardrobe, I fear that I will have to make my way to the store pretty soon.

To my grey pants: I'm devastated. I doubt I will be able to find another pair of pants that fit as lovely as you did. We have been through a lot together, and you (and your fabulously loose waistband) will be missed.

My new cats

I'm in a bit of a feline fiasco. A few weeks ago, it came to our attention that a family of kittens were living in the woods behind our house. There's grey kitten, black and white kitten, solid black kitten, and their mom.

Chances are that, if left to their own devices, the kittens would have roamed around the neighborhood, never giving our particular yard a second glance. That is, if someone (me) hadn't started feeding them.

Let me first say that I am not a cat fan. Indoor cats can be sweet and loving (I say this only for the benefit of my friends who own cats), but in general I find feral cats to be fairly disgusting.

But these are SO DARN CUTE. (see evidence below) I remember learning that the cuteness of baby animals is somehow tied to their dependence on their parents - I suppose based on the premise that it would be hard to abandon especially cute babies.

So true.

Although anyone that knows me is aware that I am not what you would call an "animal person", I just can't help but feed these little suckers.


At first it was leftover tuna that we had lying around the house. When those ran out, I actually bought tuna for cats (I guess it's just a lower-grade tuna than what they sell to humans. Hard to believe someone could manufacture a food product of a lower grade than canned tuna). We had some sliced deli turkey that we accidentally kept in the fridge for a few too many days and they ate that right up.

I've spoken to my vet friend who has assured me that I'm not doing them any harm, and the ultimate ideal plan would be trap and neuter them and them release them back to the wild. (Although I have nightmares about trapping these babies and separating them, even momentarily, from their family - but that is a different story for another time.)

The kittens have learned that we eat dinner around 7:30 and that's when they come out of the brush and into the backyard. The only problem is their wench of mom, who hisses at me and bares her teeth whenever she sees me. Bitch. Doesn't she know who puts the darn food out there? Haven't we established a relationship of mutual trust? I spend $2 a week buying tuna for your adorable babies and you don't slash my eyes out with your feral cat claws . . . it's pretty simple - stick to the script.

It's Official!

Our cars are now officially South Carolina residents.

"When Life Gives You Lemon-Colored Walls . . . "

. . . paint them!"

Our first "new house" project was painting the living room. Yellow is a beautiful color. Wonderful for accents and spicing up a room. Not so wonderful for covering the entire downstairs level of a house.
We're talking living room, dining room, hallway, kitchen . . . . yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow.

(pardon our mess!)

We thought picking a color would be easy, since our basic qualification was "anything other than what is currently on the walls." We taped dozens of tiny squares to the wall . . .

. . . but decided we needed to see our top choices in a slightly larger field. Even when we had the full colors up, we still agonized over the color . . . (I laugh every time I see this picture, Ben took it himself with the self-timer on the camera.)

We finally settled on "Barcelona Beige" for the living room and hallway and "Greek Villa" for the kitchen.

Wife took care of most of the tiny details (i.e. taping around the windows and edges) . . .

. . . while husband pretty much painted the entire downstairs.

Here's the "before" and "after" of one of our living room walls.

Premature graying due to painting stress? Nope! Just brushed up against a wet wall with his head.

There are still some touch-ups to do, but for the most part, the painting in done (and successful). We are confident that the lower back pain and kinks in our necks will be healed in time to install the hardwood floors.

An Open Letter to High School Cheerleaders

In the 7th grade I resented you.

Although even at the time, I knew you were right not to select me as a member of the middle school squad. For reasons that included my natural unathleticness, my inability to do the required jumps and splits, and my general lack of necessary cheerleading skills.

But I resented you nonetheless. Cheerleaders were popular. I was not so much. The laws of inference clearly stated that if I could be a cheerleader, popularity (and all the things that came with it) would be mine. (If you're curious, you can read more on this theory in any psychology textbook, simply look in the index for "delusional disorders").

I never gave much thought to what you did at practice or before games. I suppose that my bookwormish brain just imagined that you slipped those tiny skirts and iron-pressed shells on and did your thing. The effort that it took to BE a cheerleader was overshadowed by the somewhat mysterious effects of BEING a cheerleader - perfect skin, fine hair that pulled effortlessly back into a ponytail, and, of course, the ever-coveted boyfriend. Frankly, the resentment at the time seems pretty well justified.

Flash forward many years . . . the cheerleading squad is having their practice in the main foyer of the school where I work, right outside of my office. In fact, I type this very letter to the rhythmic count of "5, 6, 7, 8 . . ."

It's the middle of summer, and they are out there EVERY DAY working their little bloomers off.

I watch as they toss the smallest girl into the air - a stunt that will look flawless come game-time this fall, now looks like medieval torture. Time after time, she is flung by her teammates, only to come crashing down awkwardly to the mat below. Sometimes one girl has a hold of her left foot, but another one drops her right foot, causing her legs to splay in a what I can only assume is an increbily painful direction.

The cheerleader assigned as the "spot" has been kicked in the face at least 3 times, and I think her left eye is starting to swell.

And it's not that these girls aren't talented . . . after watching them practice the same manuever (unsuccessfully) over and over again - they get it! They get it good. And by the time the rest of the kids get back to school they will have it nailed.

So cheerleaders, I have the utmost respect for you. You work hard at what you do, and you deserve the pretty ponytail and the date to the dance and all the other varied glory that comes with that uniform.

As for me, I take back all (most) of my resentment.

Very Sincerely.

Occupational Hazard

I'm enjoying my new job. I work as a college counselor at a great independent K-12 school in town. The people are fabulous, the commute is a breeze, and I'm doing something I enjoy. The school is affiliated with a particular Church (from what I understand, it's a good one - strong in their faith and spirituality, while fairly liberal and progressive in terms of crazy things like equal rights).

At the time of The Incident, I had been employed for approximately two weeks. I was getting out of my car when the driver's side door swung open wide (did I mention my car is dying a slow death? one side effect of which is that the door hinges don't really provide the support or resistance that I'm used to . . .) So the door swings wide and hits the car parked to my left. There is an obvious chip in the paint. A stream of curse words flows through my head.

Even though I'm new, I'm able to quickly identify the owner of the car, as our spaces are conveniently labeled with our position at the school. Me, the lovely unassuming Jewish girl have dinged the car parked in this space:

There was a chance to get away. I was only temporary parking in that particular area. I could have just as easily gotten back into my car, moved a space or two over, and no one would have been the wiser. But thoughts flashed before my eyes: hidden security cameras; peeking eyes through a window; Jesus on a cross. There was no escape. I had to fess up that I had, in fact, broken the 645th commandment: "Thou shalt not deny denting the Chaplain's car."

UPDATE: I confessed. And it went fine. Fortunately for me, the Chaplain is a forgiving man (I suppose that one of his occupational hazards).

Tighter than a Fat Baby's Sock

That's the phrase that the traffic reporter on the radio used to describe traffic on I-85 between Pelham Rd. and Woodruff last week. I immediately sent a text message with this new pearl of wisdom to my sister and college roommates. (They appreciate things like that.)

Welcome to Greenville.

Under Pressure

There is too much pressure for the first post of a new blog to be witty, charming, intelligent, insightful, and prize-worthy.

So instead of trying to please my discerning public and risking disappointment, I'm just going to post this apology instead.

Wit, charm, and insightful humor might come later.
Key word: MIGHT.