sand and re-sand

I've adopted the whole "if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything at all" mentality. This is why I haven't blogged since last Wednesday. But then, today, I decided that it's my friggin' blog and if I want to whine and complain then that's what I'm gonna do because it's MY blog and I do what I want on my blog.

I don't even know where to start.

First day of school. Busy but mostly uneventful. We get up at 7. We leave at 7:45. We get to school just before 9. Sounds normal, right? Well it's not normal to drive an hour to school but apparently that's how I roll. Like a total maniac, I do everything the hard way. Last Thursday and Friday I spent a lot of time driving and waiting for kids. Getting the teen registered for high school only took about 7 hours of really annoying tasks. Seven hours I'll never get back. (Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it wasn't seven. But still........)





Jack and Chandler wouldn't let me take any pics. Whatever.......

While I was dealing with children and new registrations and all the driving the man was sanding hardwood. I tried my hand at the sanding and it was dumb and exhausting and was taking forever. He took over and rented many a tool until he found one that worked. I won't comment on the quality of the job he did.

I love you Darcy.

Friday we picked out a stain we both loved. Spice. The paint store only carried it in little bottles. It takes a week to order it in gallon cans (of course it does) which would be half the cost. We don't have a week. Two choices: one, buy 20 little bottles for $300 or find a stain that is similar for cheaper. The man said he would search out the perfect stain look alike on his way home. He came home with a stain that looked nothing like it.

I shook my head no.

"Don't shake your head no at me," said the man.

"It's too dark," said the woman.

The next morning, we set out to gather 20 bottles of this Spice. Three Rona's and one Ben Moore later we had 20 bottles. The guy at Ben Moore said "This is the best stain in the world. It doesn't smell, it only needs one coat and it is seamless". Perfect.

With my mother at my house with the kids, which I am pretty sure is not where she wanted to be, we put the stain on. It took forever, we covered 1000 square feet. It looked BAD so I put on another coat. I still hurt from this 8 hour pilate-like workout.

The next day we went to check on it (after we attended our new ward which only has two words to describe it and they are 'gong' and 'show', but that is neither here nor there).

Floors...... Not perfect. Hideous. Blotchy. Light spots, dark spots, seams up the ying yang and the man's not so stellar sanding job glowing though the stain. We hung our heads in defeat.

This brings us to today. We had only one option. Re-sand the floors.



Even Holden lent a helping hand.



Today we re-sanded floors all day long. The man stayed after I left to sand all night long if need be. He has no bed, no blanket, no pillow, no food, no water, no me.......

We move in 5 sleeps.

You can imagine what the stress of this has to done to him. He is a bear, to say the least. Cranky, miserable, unhappy, exhausted. On Saturday, we had Chinese for dinner and his fortune cookie said 'Your magnetic personality will draw people to you this month'.

I laughed till I cried.