Sarcastic Mom

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Sarcastic Mom

We Have Flooring!!!!

Wow! Thanksgiving came and went fast. I would post pictures, but I can't figure out how to get my sisters pictures into my file to put onto here without them being thumbnail size. In other words, they are itty bitty. So.........I'll post pictures of my flooring progress. BTW, we had a very nice Turkey Day.

O.K. In my last post about my flooring saga, we were in the process of removing the old underlayment bit by bit because of the millions of staples. Well, we thought we'd be done with it by Thanksgiving. By done I mean completely done. Tile complete. But we're not even close because the underlayment is so hard to get up. It's really very time consuming. And a royal pain in the YooHoo, if you catch my drift. So I told Flyboy that we should put a hold on the tile and at least get the laminate done in the living room so that we can put up our Christmas tree. Then we can go back to working on the tile. So thats what we have been working on. Here is our progress over the last 5 days.

Here, we have removed the old carpet and now have a bare floor.

Another view of the living room with the new bare floor.

Here is our dining room piled high with our living room furniture. We had to put it somewhere. And yes, 5 days later, it is still there.

Using my mothers advice, I painted Kilz over the floor to hopefully cover the pet odor. Remember, the whole reason we are putting down laminate, is because we have German Shepherds. One of which likes to vomit on the carpet almost every other day. It will be much easier to clean off the laminate. When you have dogs, you have to make certain sacrifices. And we refuse to make our dogs stay outside all the time so out goes the carpet, in comes the laminate.

Here we go! Here is the first roll of foam underlayment.

And the first row of laminate. Flyboy is doing such a great job!

He's making pretty good progress here. Notice the red wall?

The red wall is now sage green. Isn't it pretty? I loved the red, but the green is a softer, more neutral color. And it really brings out the green in my Thomas Kinkade picture!

The room is almost complete. This is what's left to do. Isn't it pretty! I love progress!

4 Weeks Old

The puppies turned 4 weeks old the other day. They are soooo cute! They are running all over the house now. And very very playful.

This is "fat boy". He's my favorite. He's the biggest, fattest, and stockiest of them all. He looks like a baby polar bear. I'm going to have a hard time getting rid of him.

They are all so cute and snuggly and cuddly. They will be ready just in time for Christmas!

What A Way to Start A Hectic Day

This is what it looked like this morning while I was getting ready for work. I grabbed my camera, ran outsite in my skivvies and snapped the picture. I made it just in time. By the time I went back inside and upstairs, it was mostly gone. It was breathtaking. What a way to start the day. I work in a grocery store as a cashier and this time of year is very hectic. We are soooo busy. Our store gets completely packed with shoppers. We are the lowest priced store in our area. No, we are not WalMart. We are always busy, but during the holidays, it is chaos. And let me tell you, customers that shop when it is this busy get very cranky! I had a man ask me yesterday..."what, were you closed yesterday or something? Why are you so busy?" And he was angry about it. I tried to explain to him that we are only a couple days away from Thanksgiving and he grumbled away. I don't understand why people can't just slow down and relax. There's nothing you can do about it. If you want to go grocery shopping three days before a holiday, be prepared for a large crowd. If you don't like it, STAY HOME!! Otherwise, just go with the flow. And be thankful that you have the means to put food on your table. And that you live in a country that has nice grocery stores to shop in. Trust me, I've been to Honduras and seen their grocery stores. Be thankful. Be very, very thankful!

Happy Birthday Alicia & Go BSU!!!

I actually went to a BSU football game today!! I've never been to one before. Even when I attended college there and knew some of the players. But today was my friend, Alicia's, birthday and this is what she wanted to do. So in August, I sat by the computer and waited for tickets to go on sale. This game sold out in like, 5 minutes. I tried to get the max 6 tickets allowed. I got 3. Yes, we're talking about the Boise State University Bronco's who went undefeated last season (13-0) and went on to win against the Oklahoma Sooners in the 2007 Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. This year they are 10-1. They creamed Idaho State today, 58-14. It was cool to see all the loyal BSU fans all decked out in blue and orange. I took my two best friends: birthday girl, Alicia, and best friend since 5th grade, Shannon. We had a lot of fun. I had to wash my hair 3 times though to get all the blue hairspray out. And my fingernails are painted blue and orange. I didn't have any BSU attire though. Oh yeah! I guess I had a BSU hat to wear over my bright blue hair. That was good enough. I mean, who REALLY cares. Happy Birthday Alicia!! And GO BSU!!

Over Our Heads

So we started tearing up our floor. What a nightmare. We have to remove the old vinyl, plus the underlayment. It isn't suitable for tile to sit on. So we have to remove that and put down tile backerboard. Sorry, I don't know the exact terminology so please bear with me. Then we can put the tile on the new backerboard.

Here's the problem. The old underlayment is stapled down. Which it should be. BUT, the flooring people went crazy with the staple gun and there are like a million staples in it. And they are loooong staples that go deep into the plywood floorboard . The underlayment is like a pressboard (if you know what that is) and is coming up in little pieces because of all the staples. It is very time consuming. And then trying to pull the staples out afterward.........CLOSE TO IMPOSSIBLE. Even Flyboy, who is strong like the Hulk, is having a hard time with it. This is going to take forever. If it weren't so expensive to have someone do it for us, we would do that. The installation price we got for the tile (just installation, not materials) was $11 per square foot. Who on earth can afford to pay that????? Granted, we didn't call every number in the book. I'm sure there are cheaper prices, but my goodness. We are trying to save some money here.

We've got most of the dining room done and are starting down the hall. We still need to get the laundry room, bathroom and kitchen. Then, we have both bathrooms upstairs to do. This is hard work and VERY time consuming, but the end result will be worth it. Our laminate is supposed to be on it way this week. The estimated delivery date was the 12th and that was yesterday, so it should be any day now. Not that we're ready for it, but at least we'll have it ready to go.

I've Been Tagged!

Well, I have been tagged by Michelle. So now I have to think of 7 things about me AND find 7 random bloggers to tag. Whew! I am still learning how to blog so I guess this will be good practice for me. Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 Things about Me
1. I've been to Honduras 3 times
2. My toenails are ALWAYS painted
3. I LOVE sterling silver jewelry
4. I like to bake cookies and take them to work.
5. I've had 3 C-Sections
6. I love to read romance novels
7. I've seen a psychic 3 times and have another meeting scheduled with him

I'm going to use NaBloPoMo Randomiser and pick 7 blogs to tag

1. Canned Laughter
2. Dreams of a Country Girl
3. My Crazy Life
4. OhMyStinkinHeck
5. Mamma Loves
6. Capturing Today
7. Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

AAHHHH

How I wish I were this puppy who is so completely comfortable and relaxed. She had such a hectic day, you know. Sleeping, eating, sleeping, biting facing, eating some more, sleeping, sleeping, and even more sleeping. Did I mention sleeping?

And how about biting faces!

Puppies are soooo cute and fun. Don't you wish you had 8 baby German Shepherds?

My tile has arrived!!!!!

Yeah! My tile has arrive. All 1100 pounds of it. Now we get to go to Lowes and buy all the supplies that we need to install the tile. More $$$$ to spend. I am excited. Not to spend more money, but to have a new floor. Of course, we still haven't taken out the old floor so we have to do that first. That will be a chore.

Do you remember these little twerps? They were born on Oct 20th. They will be 3 weeks old this Saturday. Now look at the little buggers.

It's hard to get them to sit still for a good picture. LOL. I mean, come on! They should know how to sit and stay after 3 weeks, right? They are SOOOO cute! They are starting to run around and play. It's cute to hear them playfully growling while biting each others faces. Don't you wish you were a puppy so you could bite your siblings face? We're really missing out!

Home Improvements

Two years ago, our air conditioner went kaput. So we have suffered through the hot summer months. We became aclimated to the heat, but everyone that came to our house thought they were going to die of heat stroke. We just tin foiled all the windows and put a fan in every room. At night we would open the windows to let in whatever cool air there may be at the time. And then first thing in the morning we'd close the windows and hope to keep the house as cool as possible. We survived it. And the gas company hated us because our gas bill dropped drastically. But we want to sell our house and who would buy a house with no AC?? I wouldn't. Plus, our furnace has been on the fritz for the last couple of years. We've had parts replaced a few times and it just didn't seem to be doing what it was supposed to be doing. So I called a new company to come check things out and the first thing he discovers is that we have no air flow AT ALL! He even went down into the crawl space to check for leaks, etc. Turns out we needed to put about $800 into a 9 year old furnace or we could take advantage of their special and get a free furnace with the purchase of an air conditioner. So that's what we did.

Here is our new air conditioner.

And here is our new furnace. Boy, what a difference. We can actually feel the warm air coming through the vents now. We forgot how that felt. Our house has been much warmer. I'm still fiddling with the thermostat trying to find the right temperature. Trying to aclimate to the new heat. Oh, and we got a new "talking" thermostat. Pretty fancy, huh. We're moving up in the world. In the last month we've had to replace our kitchen faucet, the garbage disposal, the AC and the furmace. Tomorrow our tile is going to be delivered (YEAH) and hopefully next week we'll have the laminate. Then we just need to fix the fence, do some yardwork, do some more painting, etc. etc. etc. This is what HELOC's are for. Because we certainly don't have the money for any of this. But, our house is getting closer to being sellable. DOUBLE YEAH!!

Here is a nice fall picture that I took today. This is the view from my back yard. Isn't it pretty!

I'd like to thank my sister, Michelle, for teaching me how to properly add photos to my blog. I am still learing and she has been a big help. She also made my title banner. Isn't it cute! I love it. Thanks Mushy Oatmeal!!

Halloween

So Halloween has come and gone. My girls brought home a lot of candy (as usual) and I have thoroughly enjoyed eating all of it!!! Just kidding. Actually, I haven't even touched their candy this year. I still have that last 20 pounds to lose, but that's another story. Sarabeth didn't feel like getting all dressed up this year. So I put her in black clothes (yes, she's wearing my clothes!) and painted a burgler mask on her face. Jessica was a cheetah with a bloody "I just ate a wild animal" face. Emily dressed up as a....??????? Not quite sure what she was. She just wanted to be scary looking. With black hair to boot. Aren't they cute? I think this will be Sarabeth's last year for trick-or-treating. She went around with her friend and they only went to a few houses. She's more interested in clothes, hair, and BOYS!!!!

I didn't have to work on Halloween this year so I didn't dress up. Last year I won the $100 first place prize. It was fun. This year, my friend Ramon won. He dressed up as a girl. Believe me, he earned that prize. He wore his sisters dress, nylons and boots. Had the makeup, jewelry and wig. PLUS....he shaved his arms, legs and armpits. I couldn't believe he actually did that. The best part of his costume was that he TOTALLY looked like a real girl. He even got hit on by a couple of customers. Isn't that funny! I'm glad he won. He deserved it. He went Elk hunting afterward to regain his manhood. LOL! The picture doesn't do him justice. But it gives you an idea of what he looked like.