Almost as spoiled as the dog

I'm having one of those weeks that is truly testing my ability to hold my shit together. That's pretty much all I have to say about that.

In other news? Last night my laminate floors were completed!

Dining room

Living room before and after

I couldn't be happier with them. I just added up all the costs for reimbursement purposes and the total spent, including last-minute purchases including some molding and an extra package of underlayment, was less than $700. To put it into perspective, the estimate I was given to have a contractor do the work? $3,120! The amount I was going to be allowed to use out of the account I pay into every month for replacing home systems was $1,786, so there is $1,100 in the account that wouldn't have been there if I'd gone with having the contractor do the work!

Being incredibly cheap is awesome, right?

The other plus to not having a contractor do the work? I got company for four days; company that joined in with my bad "that's what she said" jokes and 12-year-old boy humor. Score! I now owe my friend Dan and his dad, Jeff, my right arm and first born child because Somehow I don't think some pizza and beer is quite enough of a payment.

These two are my heroes.

They let me take the first whack at the old floor, and lay the last piece of flooring, which Pippi supervised.

After removing the old flooring in the living room, why wouldn't you trace a body on the floor to freak out some future tenant?

One thing I learned throughout this process is that the walls in my house aren't straight. Apparently this is common. Even though the walls are wonky, when laying the floor we (ok, "they") ended up not having to do much trimming to the length of the "boards" until the very end, which was good because as it turns out, I didn't measure for the area in front of the stairs or the closet when I ordered materials. And  yet? There are four full boards left over. Win!

Chuck's impressed. That's good enough for me.

Progress in the living room

Progress in the dining room

Pippi supervising

I'm sure Dan and Jeff are glad to be done, have their tools back, and be free of Pippi, who they deemed to be a cross between pit bull and meth addict.

Last night when they finished the floors, Dan so kindly cleared my gutters for me since my HOA still had not done it. Yeah, I'm spoiled. Almost as spoiled as the dog. 

Almost.

WIAW...just in case you care

Yesterday I ate stuff just like I do every day. I hardly ever post photos of things I eat because, seriously, who really gives a flying...you know. But sometimes you gotta follow the trend just to make sure you aren't missing out. After this "experiment", which I (along with Kari, Kara, and Alyssa) did once last year, I'm still pretty convinced I'm not missing out and people still don't care what I ate. But sometimes it's nice to know that not everyone eats only vegetables, chia seeds, and green smoothies. This day was a little different than normal because I ended up scoring free food at work, which was a godsend because I really need to go grocery shopping.

 

7am
Breakfast: leftover wheat pancakes smothered in peanut butter, and coffee. I actually made the pancakes Monday night and had three for dinner. Waking up knowing I had the rest leftover for breakfast made it a lot easier to get out of bed.

Butter and syrup? That's so last year.

10am
Second breakfast/snack: a KIND bar. These are my new favorite snack. I recently got a Groupon for an amazing deal on a big box of them, so I'm set for work snacks for a while.

11am
Third breakfast? First lunch?: Bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. This was the first of the free food for the day. Usually when there's leftover food from a class it's dry bagels and some fruit, so this was a huge upgrade!

1:30pm
Second lunch: Free leftover salad...with cheese AND salad dressing. Oh, the horror!

5pm
An hour workout: 40 minutes on the elliptical followed by weights and stretching
(No, this isn't food)

6pm
Dinner: Three scrambled eggs with spinach and onion, salsa, and toast with butter. I was annoyed my salsa kept making my toast soggy and I wished I had a divided plate...or just larger plates in general (perhaps proof that I was hangry). This was a "throw together whatever you can" meal since, like I said, I really need to grocery shop.

7pm
"Dessert": A glass of pinot grigio and two Dove peppermint bark candy things.

One thing I didn't add in is that I drank lots of water throughout the day, as I always do. I think I filled my water bottle up three times which would mean I drank 60 ounces of water yesterday. Yay me.

Ok, so I did learn something from this. I've got to get larger plates and bowls. Also? I need more bacon in my life.

What do you think you'd learn from documenting what you ate for a day?

Home Improvement failure

Ever since I bought my house, I've had all kinds of ideas about how to make cheap home improvements. I've really only so far mentioned the successful projects. Last weekend I had a rash of unsuccessful projects and started my week off feeling like a total failure. At least at work I know what I'm doing...usually.

Late summer last year, I bought a cheap ($30) 5-shelf bookcase from Target.

Laminate/wood composite crap

It's one of the ones that is literally held together by the cheap fold-out backing, which is nailed onto the frame. Basically: if you ever want to move it after you build it, good luck!

And that's just what I tried to do: move it. By myself. The bottom collapsed.

Now I needed a place to put my books! Soooo I decided to take the hand-me-down TV stand I was going to try to sell on Craigslist (also made of laminate and not selling anyway) and paint it.

Let's just make a long story short: you cannot paint laminate furniture...at least, not successfully.

The other project I wanted to attempt was making a "rug" out of a canvas drop cloth. Sounds really lame, right? I know, but hear me out. Several posts on Pinterest told me it was possible and people have been successful. Since I will soon need some area rugs and I can't afford them, I figured buying a $10 drop cloth and using some leftover paint was worth a try. I had it all laid out and ready to go and then I got cold feet. My confidence was shaken. I just couldn't GO ON!

Ok, it wasn't that bad. I only softly wept...and then consoled myself with frozen yogurt.

There was one "home improvement" project that was successful, however.

FLOWERS!

Too much?