Floor finis

Monday, June 30, 2008

At midnight I finished laying the tiles in the family room. It took all day to do 10...yes...10 tiles. These were all the ones that had to be specially cut and fitted. I went through 5 tiles on one corner that was all weird cuts and angles.

I plan to spend the nights this week to do the touch-up work before I have my neighbor help me carry in all the heavy furniture. It's been a year since I started the project, and I'll take a photo once the room's all put back together.

In the meantime, below is a shot of my fabulous critique group. :) Carol

From L to R: yours truly, Sandy Madden, Marcia King-Gamble, Vicky Koch and Linda Conrad.


Proud of Maddie and myself

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I'd realized that I had bitten off more than I could chew with respect to the family room makeover. The rubber backing from the carpet pad had fused to the concrete. Combine that with the fact I wrenched my shoulder putting on the donut following a flat tire...scraping the rubber off was not only tediously boring but painful as well. I puttered at it in brief spurts for a few weeks.

Then this past week I decided I needed to gut it up and finish the project. When my Friday calendar cleared out, I took the day off. I finished the scraping and then vacuumed and mopped the floor. Saturday morning I applied the primer and began applying the self-adhesive tiles. The next problem was since this was a converted garage with paneling and base board put in after the carpet, everything was recessed and there was no straight edge to line the tiles up against.

But by Sunday afternoon I had finished laying all the whole tiles with only the perimeter, which required tiles cut to size, to do. However, when my neighbor came over to check on my progress, Maddie rolled over to have her tummy rubbed, and I noticed the underside of her chin appeared to be raw. I halted everything and ran her to the vet.

Good thing. That bacteria had broken out in a new spot. However, while I was at the vet's, a thunder boomer knocked out the power. I waited all afternoon for him to surgically clear up the spots. Poor baby was totally knocked out by the anesthesia and wasn't herself at all yesterday.

Even worse news from her perspective is I have to exercise tough love. She came to me only eating human food and I never before could get her off it [guess who has more willpower?] But the vet put her on hypoallergenic dog food to build up her immunity system, and that is what she is going to get from here on out. I don't want her to go through any more outbreaks.

Maddie's being a real trooper and eating a little bit of the food. She doesn't like it, but she's doing it so I'm really proud of her.

Now it's on to finishing up the perimeter of the floor. :) Carol

My terrific critique group

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

This past Saturday I drove down to Miami to meet with my critique group at an outdoor mall. As I mentioned before, Sandy Madden and her hubby moved away last year, but they were in Miami for the weekend. It was great seeing Sandy and everyone else. We first critiqued in the coffee shop at a Border's and then finished off with lunch, sitting outside.

Let me tell you, there are exciting projects forthcoming from Marcia King Gamble, Linda Conrad, Sandy Madden and Vicky Koch. I'm always blown away by their talent and their imagination.

The next time several of us will see each other will be at the RWA conference in San Francisco in July. Can't wait! :) Carol

Down Time

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

I sent off my latest proposal to my agent on Sunday, so I'm supposed to be in down time. I really need to finish the family room makeover. Ha!

I started on researching my neighbor's geneaology as he didn't know much about his mother's side of the family. Of course, I've gotten hooked on the project. I have tremendous patience when it comes to sorting through online records. So far I have found passport photos of his paternal grandfather and his maternal grandfather. Cool! He has a Scottish connection so that's a big yee-hah! as I love everything about Scotland.

So family room is waiting for me. I've promised myself that I will tackle the scraping again tomorrow. :) Carol

Maddie's still doing fine

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

She's back to bothering the cats. I'm up to my eyeballs with day job work. Rather than working on the family room, I used the past weekend to finish the 3rd chapter of my latest proposal. I still need to do the synopsis [yuck!], but I hope to get that chore done by beginning of next week so my agent can shoot that off to editors. Then I'll return to the family room floor project. Scraping off the rubber gook is unbelievably tedious, and my shoulder's not happy about the exertion factor either.

Since I have taken everything out of the family room, including the TV, I'm not catching any shows right now. All I can do is watch DVD's so I'll have to watch So You Think You Can Dance once it hits the Hollywood stage. :) Carol