Turtle Pace

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

Another week is almost over. I found this critter on the side walk this morning.

I think he is commuting to work, putting in a long day at the office before heading home to Mrs. Turtle.

Things over at the new house are moving at about his speed. We are down to some tedious bits that are not that fascinating while in progress but will really be nice once they are done. These bits include: caulking, priming door frames, painting trim. Things have slowed down even more because I lost two of my best helpers to the beaches of South Carolina. They left behind two understudies, but…

Well, they just want to stay in bed. 

There is always next week to be productive. I expect real panic to set in then because we will only be seven weeks out from Frances Harper's arrival. I work best under pressure. At least I hope that is true. 

Have a great weekend!

It's Movie Time

Sorry that today's post is so late, but we finally figured out how to upload our video. Turns out, the key is to post it to YouTube first. So without further ado, here is the post I wrote for Tuesday and then revised for Wednesday... only to post Thursday night. 

Continuing on the the Memorial weekend re-cap theme... I wanted to share another bit of our weekend with y'all. Fortunately, I have no other stories that involve the loss of massive amounts of hair. Although, my mom also got her summer hair-do on Tuesday. 

Anyway... Michael and I spent last Saturday visiting some of his family at his Grandfather's house in Eatonton, GA. His house is about two and half hours from home, and I created a video house tour to take with us because his Grandfather has not seen the new house. AND NOW (imagine this being said in a big stage voice) FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE, I bring you The House Tour.

This should put to rest any notions that I have been leading a secret life in the movie business. Although, I do expect to hear from Hollywood any day now.

"Argghhhh!" (Dogs look at me in confusion)

Technology is wonderful. I know this. I am not experiencing this, but I know it. Maybe if I believe in it hard enough...

I have spent the last two days attempting to post a video tour of the house that I made last weekend. If you visit the blog daily, you know that this has not come to fruition. When I kept getting error messages yesterday, I called tech support and got him (Michael) working on it right away. You probably know where this is going because you are reading this story instead of watching my super cool (and I mean SUPER COOL) video right now. I am still getting error messages. They make me emit a growling noise that unnerves the dogs.

This in fact is not the only technology glitch I have run into this week. I spend most days over at my parent's house, and I enjoy a nice toasted sandwich for lunch on occasion. Yesterday was one of these occasions. Their stove top has a light that indicates if one of the burners is on. Super handy, right? Yes, except now the light is stuck on. No burner is on. Light is on. Solution: turn breaker off.

To add insult to injury -- I typed this post twice because the computer encountered a glitch when I tried uploading a picture and would not let me save or publish or type. I had to close out and start over. So in honor of today, I will leave you with this thought: SAVE OFTEN!!

Now, I am going to console myself with watermelon. Happy Wednesday.

His Summer Do

Happy Tuesday! I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend. Ours was busy but good. Michael and I both cursed him yesterday when his alarm went off at 6:00 am.

One of the most exciting things that happened this weekend, is Cooper's new haircut. As I am sure you have noticed from other photos that I have posted, Cooper is a German Shepherd. This means that he has VERY thick fur. This also means that he sheds A TON during the summer and always seems to be hot. So after much campaigning on my part, Cooper got a summertime hairdo.

He took it like a trooper. Yes, we are calling him Super Trooper Cooper.  Of course, we also have the requisite lion style tail. He loves it. 

Hope everyone else's summer kick off was fabulous. 

Teaser Alert!!

Hello, All!!

Here is a teaser of a progress report for what I am working on done this week, lest y'all think I am being lazy. Full confession, I do spend about half of my day being lazy, but the other half I am productive (I would insert a smiley emoticon here, but I am feeling a bit more professional than that today. After all, I used the word 'lest'. So, just imagine one there… and here).

Teaser pic #1

On a different note, I do not understand why almond colored light switches were all the rage back in the day. Or maybe this is just my dad's favorite color, because every house I have lived in has them. For those of you who do not know, I have only lived in houses my dad built. This includes the one I just bought from a complete stranger. My dad helped build it thirty years ago. So, I know who to blame for all of the things that are wrong with it, starting with the almond light switches (smiley emoticon here).

Teaser Pic #2

I am waiting to post full room shots until next week. Most of the trim will go down this weekend, and I want y'all to get the full affect of the completed rooms, but in the mean time you can salivate over the painting progress that is happening.

One area of the house that I do not think will ever seriously be included in a progress report is Michael's office. This room is the ugly step child while we focus on getting the rest of the house Frances Harper ready. For those who have seen our current office, you know that it may remain ugly forever. Those in the know is a group consisting of just Michael and me because NO ONE sees the office. It is that bad.

Hope everyone has a great Thursday!! 

Playing and Planning

Do any of y'all play the lottery?

I do, weekly. I play Mega Millions on Tuesdays and Saturdays. I want to win, but honestly, I enjoy planning out exactly what I would do with the money.

There would be no boats. No mansions. no fancy cars. Well, I am addicted to Royal Pain, the TV show, and it tempts me to buy a place in The Hampton's. Maybe along the lines of Mrs. Newburg's place? Or, this one would do.

I plan out how much I would give my parents, how my sister's  allowance would work. I plan what I would purchase for my house (I wouldn't buy a new house); I plan the type of car I would get, Subaru Forester. I also plan out how I would explain my extra funds (some of you may be thinking, 'no one would ask', you obviously do not know my family).

I would tell no one that I won (for those that telling would unavoidable, nondisclosure agreements would be involved). Also, Michael would keep working.

I know I would be ecstatic if I won, but I get more than two dollars worth of fun out of just buying the ticket and planning. This all to say, last night I matched no numbers. I rarely match a number, but I keep playing and planning anyway.

Two Days and Two Months To Go

As the title suggest, I am counting down the days until I am internally alone again. As I type this I can see movement rolling across my belly.

There are many things I miss about not being pregnant. Here are a few of them: diet coke, sleeping on my stomach, hard physical exertion, diet coke, being able to move easily. I miss the fatigue of a long run and sore muscles in places other than my back. 

While I do not enjoy being pregnant, this pregnancy has given me a great amount of free time. This time has encouraged me to try new things, such as blogging. Also, I get to spend my days doing exactly as I please (for the most part). This time has been a mini-retirement of sorts and has allowed me to learn a couple of things about myself. 

I have learned that I need daily goals and accomplishments or I quickly become depressed. These do not have to be major things. In fact, they can be as small as doing our weekly grocery shopping and vacuuming the house, but for sanity, I have to get at least a couple of productive things done every day. 

I have also learned that I need companionship more than I previously thought. I thought I was always fine on my own, but now I know that I am happier when I have a couple of people or dogs to interact with. 

These are my two most constant companions. Such cuties!!! 

I am sure once Frances Harper is here I will look back on these quiet and physical cumbersome days with longing, but right now I am just ready to have my body back. So, heres to 62 days left! 

Happy Tuesday!

Fumes, Fumes, FUMES!!

Floor fumes, primer fumes and paint fumes are abounding at the new house! Here is an update on some recent jobs that got completed without this pregnant person's participation because we could not find a VOC free primer, and we want Frances Harper to be one smart cookie. So, I was benched for these jobs, except for offering support and guidance of course.

The first update is THE FLOORS!!! A job I would not have been a part of even if I was not prego.

Pretty floors, shiney floors, ohhhhhh FLOORS! (Cloudy Mondays call for lots of exclamations. Consider yourself warned.)  

All of our trim has now been primed. I repeat ALL of our trim is primed! Sprayers and free laborers come in super handy for such jobs. Hey, Daddy!

Here we have his other half and our other free laborer. Hey, Mama! (Aren't my parents great?) She is working on cleaning and priming the windows.

We also got our interior doors all painted. As you can see from the photo, we chose the $30, six panel doors over the $60 five panel doors that we were considering. I am still coveting this, so saving $ is important (dreams are important). 

I thought this was a very clever way to arrange the doors. You can see that are balanced on a couple of boards at the bottom and have one, to which they are secured with a short nail, running along the tops of all of them. This way all sides are accessible and they do not take up much room. 

One other thing also got primed this weekend…

… Frances Harper's room!!!

We primed it with a product made by Kilz that is designed to even out the differing textures of sheetrock and sheetrock mud. The primer takes away the sheen of the sheetrock mud that can bleed through your paint and leave a visible shiny spot on your freshly painted wall. The only draw back is that it is oil based; of course, it is also very fumey.  For those of you who have used oil based, you know how awful it is. We should avoid dwelling on such nightmares. 

Hope everyone else had a great weekend!!

Doors Galores

Happy almost the weekend!!

Michael and I have an exciting weekend planned for the new house. We will be purchasing new interior doors and priming the trim, if the weather cooperates. The trim will get primed outside, so we need everyone to pray for no rain!

We are hoping this changes by tomorrow! Weathermen are consistently wrong so… hope springs eternal. 

The interior doors we currently have are similar to the ones below, only imagine this one in that nice greenish stain. These are not doors I can live with. Well, I could if there was no other option, but I would stare at them daily and wish they were different. If I was more of a free spirit, I would be tempted to say that we just won't have any doors for a while, but I am not an exibitionist. So… we are going to replace them.

While my first choice would be solid wood doors, stained the same color as the floor, that is a touch out of our price range. (A solid pine door is a little over $100.00 and this is not our forever home. Our forever home already has them.) 

I have narrowed down our door options to the following two. We would not buy it in blue, but I thought the blue was easier to see than the all white one. 

The five panel one (door on the right) is a little over $60 and the six panel door is a little over $30. I have until this evening to decide if the extra cost is worth it to me. The good new is we only need 7 doors. Part of me says, I will be using them and looking at them every day, so I should get the ones I really like. The other part of me says, it is just a door and anything is better than what is currently there. 

Decisions. Decisions. 

Thoughts? Is anyone else have home decisions to make this weekend?

Also, for anyone wondering about a floor update -- because I can not walk on the floors I am not really able to get any good pictures of them. So, tune in next week for progress pictures!

Send a Note? Yes!

"Yet, in spite of the universal need, and almost universal habit, there are really but very few persons who write a good letter; a letter that is, at the same time long enough to interest, yet not long enough to tire; sufficiently condensed to keep the attention, and not tedious, and yet detailed enough to afford satisfaction; that is correct in grammatical construction, properly punctuated, written in a clear, legible hand, with the date, address, signature, all in the proper place, no words[117]whose letters stand in utter defiance to spelling-book rules; in short, a well-written letter."

This quote was taken from the The Ladies' Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness by Florence Hartley (a real page turner) and is in honor of the fact that I am writing thank-you notes this week. I am sure Ms. Hartley would find my notes lacking, but I enjoy sending notes and cards and believe it is the thought that counts. I do not get caught up on saying the exact right thing, or on having perfect grammar (I never learned it anyway). A note is simply an easy way to let someone know I am thinking of them, and in this case, thankful for and appreciative of the gift they gave. 

Emily Posts has several rules for thank-you notes, but in deference to Ms. Hartley, I will keep this "sufficiently condensed to keep [your] attention" and paraphrase those rules by saying, it is never wrong to send a hand-written thank you; after all, who doesn't want to feel appreciated? And is there a cheaper or easier way to let someone know you care than simply writing that in a note and buying a stamp?

Sending cards to people also has the added benefit of allowing you to buy cute stationary, which is abundant despite the letter being a dying art. (You can see examples here, here and here.)

And if you want some more exact guidelines than my thoughts that sending notes is nice, you may go here. 

Have a great Thursday!! Did anyone else go the entire day thinking yesterday was Tuesday?

Progress Pics? 0

Despite having promised daily updates on the flooring, I do not have any pictures for you today. We keep our key to the new house in a hidey spot, at the new house, but when I stopped by yesterday evening… there was no key. I think the flooring guys may have taken it with them. So, I could not get in to take pictures. This will just add to the suspense for tomorrow's progress report.

I also did not imagine that y'all wanted to see lots of pictures of sanded trim, which I am still working on, so I have no progress pictures of that either. Just imagine a sanded pile growing, and the non-sanded pile shrinking, slowly.

For today, I will simply leave you with these links that made me smile recently.

Have you ever seen anything this adorable? Well maybe this. I can't wait until Frances is big enough for those!

Of course, this made me smile.

I am very curious to know what a reasonable offer on this would be. Any takers?

And I really wish I was writing this from there. 

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Oh What It Is To Be Green

Continuing with the flooring theme from yesterday… here is a quick update on where we stand (or should I say lay?) with the floor installation.

This is the view from the kitchen, looking through the dinning room, foyer and into the living room. (Ooing and Ahhing are appropriate)

This is Frances Harper's room, but this is how the whole rest of the house looks outside of the dinning room, living room and foyer.

They got about half of the floors installed yesterday. They should finish installing them today.  To help them move quickly, Michael and I cut the air conditioner on when we went over yesterday evening. Or, they will at least be more comfortable as they crawl around on their knees (which is never a fun way to spend your time). 

Now, moving onto what I am working on this week. As you may remember, we had to remove all of the base boards and door jambs in preparation for the flooring (you may read about that here). We will re-install the trim once the floors are done, and we will also take this opportunity to put crown molding in many of the areas that do not have it (kitchen, living room, master bedroom… the list gets shorter the further into this I go). 

Michael and I were fortunate because my dad had  a bunch of crown molding that he was not using (it was scrap from a previous job because there was a mix-up on what color it should be stained). This has saved us the expense of buying trim! YAY!! So our crown molding will require the same investment as the other trim in the house-- time and paint costs. Time is what I am investing in the trim this week. 

ALL the trim has to be sanded (so that we can paint it).

I have sanded the left side of the board in the middle of the picture.

I have completed about 1/20 of the all the trim. Sanding is not hard, but because I am pregnant I have to wear a face mask (which is no fun), and I constantly want to sit down. Some of you might be asking why I do not just leave the trim in the house stained. The answer is... the trim in the house is stained a greenish color. The picture below shows what I am talking about.

My succinct opinion is that this color is ugly. If your trim is stained any other color, I would encourage you to NOT go to the hassle of sanding and painting it. Or, do not be pregnant while you do it. But alas, my trim is puke green and must go. I hope your trim is not.  

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Progress! Progress! Progress!

As many of you know, home improvement schedules must be flexible and tasks are often completed more slowly than one hopes. The good news is that our floors are being installed on time!! Ryan Williams, the man installing the floors, said he would begin today, and he did. Feel free to jump around in your chair and cheer. I am.

(Yes, I am responsible for the deforestation of a small forest.)

This is one of the piles of flooring that was delivered on Friday. The piles of flooring got me excited, and I can hardly wait to go over and see the floors this evening. Hopefully, they will get most of the installation done today. They will come back tomorrow to sand and put on the first layer of stain. 

While Ryan Williams stuck to his schedule, the rest of us have fallen slightly behind. We were hoping that before the floors were installed, we would get the walls and ceilings painted. As you can tell from the strip of wall that is visible above the pile of wood, this plan was a little overly ambitious. The walls did not get sprayed. BUT, the ceilings did! (For sanity and morale, it is important to focus on the positive)

This is the ceiling in the dinning room. This is the only room that had crown molding, and we were able to prime it while we sprayed the ceilings. I wish we had a picture of the ceiling pre-paint so you could see the comparison. Just use your imagination and picture a swatch of ceiling that is slightly yellow (or if you have not painted your ceilings in the past 10 years, just look up). 

With the ceilings painted and the floors going down, things are really beginning to move. Hopefully, we will make our June 1st move-in date. Fingers crossed.

Tune in tomorrow for more flooring progress and to see the project I will be tackling this week.

Happy Monday!

Figs-Strawberries?

A couple of months ago, Michael and I purged our tiny house of a lot of unnecessary clutter. We got rid of boxes and boxes of stuff that we do not use and do not need. There is a real sense of triumph when you are able to cart off a good mountain of clutter. I instantly felt less encumbered.

One item that did not get carted off was this recipe box.

I do not know how old the box is, but it is metal and has been used enough that the paint is coming off some of the edges. Also the box was made in the United States so… obviously it is from a different era. Getting back to the point though, the box is full of hand written recipes cards, and ones clipped from newspapers or torn out of magazines. NOT A SINGLE CARD IS BLANK!

I love the box, and I am amazed at the amount of time someone put into collecting and writing out these various cards. I was shocked when I found it at a flea market. 

As my husband and the helpers at Goodwill can attest to, I am not a pack rat or a hoarder of things. I will happily throw away pictures (my father almost has a coronary at the mention of this) and give away gifts that I do not use (sorry family), but I could never part with something like this. This is a family's history. 

One of the cards has a recipe titled "Figs- Strawberries". This is obviously in a shorthand that only the writer and those close to her would get (I think it is also fairly obvious she has exceedingly different taste than me. I take my figs in a newton and no other way.)

In case you can not read it, the recipe calls for 2 cups of figs, 2 cups of sugar, and 4 boxes of wild strawberry jello.

Somewhere someone is talking about the weird fig jello recipe so-and-so used to make; much the way my parents talk about the corn cakes my grandmother used to make. They can't replicate them and other recipes are not the same and my grandmother is no longer around to ask. 

For me, these recipes are traditions that should be passed down. So while I will never make "Figs-Strawerries", I will keep this person's box, simply because to me it deserves the respect of not being at the flea market. 

I hope everybody has a great weekend, and now I think maybe I will make this just to see what it is. 

Snow!? No.

All of those who have sanded sheetrock mud, please raise your hand. Those with your hands raised can sympathize with me, and those of you with your hands down (for reasons other than you were too self conscious to participate) are lucky -- this is a job you should continue to avoid at all costs.

Sanding is nice in one way because you instantly can feel improvement in the wall's surface. In all other ways this is a pretty awful job. Here is why…

Can you see that fine white powder that is sitting on top of the chair rail? Good. Now, imagine it coated all over you. Not good. That is sanding sheetrock mud in a nutshell.

On Tuesday, I went around mudding the gauges and nail holes and nicks that were marring the sheetrock. I then let the mud dry overnight, and I sanded all of these spots on Wednesday. Sheetrock mud was also my solution to all of those lines of glue that were causing me such aggravation last week (you can read about that here).

I enhanced the picture a little to make the glue more yellow and visible. This glue was stuck at every place where there had been a seam in the wall paper. When sanding the glue off did not work, my dad suggested mudding over the glue and then sanding. The wet mud would either loosen the glue, making it easier to sand off, or would cover up the glue and allow me to make the surface smooth.  The Old Man was right. 

These walls were pretty easy as far as mudding goes. Find a gauge, hole, or nick. Sand rough edges off. Put mud on your knife. Smooth mud onto gauge, hole, or nick. Scrape off excess mud. Dry. Sand until smooth. For those visual learners among us, you can scroll through the next few pictures. 

I have never felt a baby's bottom, but I would wager these walls are as smooth as one. 

(every line of white mud is where a seam of wallpaper glue was and represents about a gallon of white dust that was left behind)

Overall, a job well done. Now I can devote some time to clearing out my nasal passages (the dust does not only get all over you, but it also gets all in your nose).

Have a great Thursday!

" Is Inches

Now that I am a homeowner, I spend a significant amount of my time looking at things I want to buy for my house. When I am not looking at things I want to buy, I am sleeping. I am not one of those pregnant women who are full of energy. I sleep A LOT!

I think this light fixture would be great in the dinning room or it would look really dinky.

I really love this sofa, this rug and this pouf.

While I spend a good amount of time picking these things out (and even research the quality of the materials used), no one should expect to see them in my house any time soon. This has to happen first.

Yesterday, I was picking out countertops. I knew exactly what I wanted. Butcher block countertops in cherry with a varnique finish. I found them too! FOR ONLY $102!!! Finally, something I could afford.

I was ready to order. I just wanted to check with my dad to make sure 12 feet would be enough. When he got home, I was telling him all about them and the lengths they were available in: 6 feet, 12 feet, 18 feet…

I am sure you can tell where this is going. He was doubtful from the beginning and disbelieving after 6 feet. That is when the light bulb went off for me… " is inches, not feet. My countertops cost $102 per foot. So, I am back to praying for this.

In the meantime though, I am still going to pick out everything that I want. Hmm… I haven't looked at chairs for the living room!

Happy Monday! (or it will be once you watch the video at the end of the post)

Running a tad later than normal today. I have quickly learned, when you do not have a regular job, Mondays become your catch-up day. Monday is now when I do all of my errands that I used to do on the weekends. Now, I can savor having accomplished so much all in one morning.

We had a very busy weekend in our household. As I mentioned on Friday, my sister and dad were working a booth together at the Indie South Fair.

This is Mary Frances in the booth. She and her friend made all of the pottery and my dad made the red cabinet behind her. Michael and I went over Saturday afternoon, after all the work had been done, and had dinner with everyone. Athens is really quite the charming town. 

We also worked over at The House. MORE round-upping had to be done. Some of those weeds are persistent critters. I also worked on more of the wall-paper. I will have a full post on the new developments in that department tomorrow. Of course, we took our trusty helpers to the house with us to work. 

Cooper likes for him and Macy to sit on the same side of the backseat. She would rather not. 

And on a side note, I read this on Friday. 

And my mother-in-law shared this on Facebook over the weekend.  Super cute. 

Hope everyone is having a great Monday!!

"Funny thing about weekends…"

"… when you're unemployed. They don't quite mean so much, except you get to hang out with all your working friends."     -- Today's musical quote is courtesy of Primus.

I hope all of you working folks are looking forward to the upcoming weekend. I am looking forward to spending time with the Hubbie and also the rest of my family, including that sister that lives in Athens! The Indie South Fair is taking place in Athens, GA this weekend, and my talented sister and dad will be selling some of their wares. All those available should come by. I will of course be supporting them with my presence, and I also hope to knock out some more work at The House (I believe our undertaking is big enough that it now warrants capital letters).

As an update, we are continuing to work on preparations for painting (you may read about how that is progressing, here) and hardwood floor installation. -- I hope to complete the rest of the sheet rock work this weekend!

One task that is complete is the removal of the trim. ALL of the baseboards and door jams had to be taken down because with the layer of particle board gone, and the disparate heights of hardwood and carpet, the trim would have been at the wrong level once things were all said and done.We also decided to go ahead and take it up before floor installation so that the floor installers could easily get the hardwood in place and would have one less thing to work around.

This pile is one of two cased openings. In addition there are, ten door jams, three bedrooms, the living room, dinning room and hall worth of baseboards to be removed. In order to keep this from being a 1000 piece puzzle at the end, I have bundled each rooms trim and marked it with an appropriately clever title. 

(by 'appropriately clever', I meant clear and predictable)

For any readers out there who may be faced with such a chore, stay tuned. For those who will never face this task or are already familiar with it, you may skip to the cute picture and anecdote at the end.

For trim removal all we needed was a pry bar, a hammer and a pair of blue snips (a the more technical name -- pliers, but I don't use this). If we had been removing painted trim, we also would have needed a box knife to cut the caulk. Alas, we caught a break on that one. Below is an action shot…

Next you just use the snips to pull the nails through the trim in the same direction they were shot into the trim -- this keeps you from making further marks on the face of the trim. Below is a picture of me pulling nails out the wrong way, notice the craters I have made on the face of the trim at the base of the nail (I had already completed a whole room's worth before I realized this was the wrong way).

So, don't do it the pictured way. You also want to remember to only use the pry bar where the nails are at in the trim. This means that you will be using the stud behind the sheetrock for leverage, instead of just sheetrock, and you will avoid putting huge holes in your sheetrock as you pry the trim loose. 

In conclusion… isn't Macy cute. She likes to climb up behind me and stand in the chair I am sitting in so she can be close and look out the window. This was taken with the laptop camera while I wrote this. 

Have a great weekend!!! 

"You've got to know when to hold'em, Know when to fold'em, Know when to walk away…"

(Imagine Kenny Rogers singing the title to you for an instant mood lifter.)

For me, some DIY home projects are more emotionally grueling than physically taxing. I like projects that push me physically. I always feel a great sense of accomplishment from pushing myself to complete something that was not easy and enjoy the muscle fatigue that comes afterwards. These provide their own high. Today though, I am not working on such a project. There is no muscle fatigue, or sense of 'WOW! Look what I did'. Today, there is just monotony and dust and minuscule progress. Today, I am working on paint prep and after an hour, I was ready to boo-boo.

As I have already shared with y'all, I have been working on removing the wallpaper. Removing wallpaper was not bad. I could immediately see my progress as I went around the room and when I was done, the room looked dramatically different. Task Complete. The walls were paper free! Many 'Excellent job. Well done, Emily.' were handed out from me to myself. BUT… then came the next step. The sheet rock was pretty banged up. This originally did not bother me because I was on wallpaper-removal, and I was not concerned about all the gauges and glue residue that were left behind. Now I am crying (usage is more literal than figurative) a different tune. The picture below shows some of the sorry shape of the sheet rock.

Every gauge has to be smoothed out and all the glue residue, which is the darker yellow lines, has to be sanded so that it texturally does not stand out. This is all in preparation for the painting that will come next. I do not have all of the pictures to show you the vast quantity of sanding that needs to be done. I was to over whelmed to take pictures. Below is the tool I was using to sand. I spent an hour sanding this morning and am not even half way through with the dinning room. 

After the hour mark, I had to sit down to regroup. Regrouping did not go so well, and I ended up leaving. These tedious and seemingly never ending projects are the ones I struggle with the most. In my head I know that I just have to stick with it, and my hard work will pay off. I will finish and when we paint, I will be glad that I put in the time to do a good job. I know all of this. But today… I just can't believe those things. 

Sometimes, the best way to handle a project is to walk away. So for today, I am not worried about all of the sanding. It will be there tomorrow, and I will tackle it then, more motivated to do the job needed. And until then… I will do other things.

 I hope everyone has a great Thursday.