This was a week of transition. Miranda and children stayed until Wednesday morning so life around the house was not dull. While Dan was still here on Monday the whole family, and Sandy (yes!), went to Cranfield Beach to play in the water. That was a refreshing break for them since the temperatures have been in the 90s most of the week. While they were having fun in the sun, I was busy at the rent house. Dan invited the sister missionaries in the afternoon for some preparation day activities.
Tuesday I installed vinyl planking in the kitchen. At least I was inside with air conditioning. Because I rented a floor roller (100 pound roller), I needed to complete this job in one day so as not to incur additional rental charges. And this house is 15 miles away, so once I leave town, I don't come home until the job is done.
Then on Wednesday, when Miranda and children drove off to visit Kera and family, I was busy sanding the hard wood floors of two bedrooms, hall and living room, approximately 700 square feet. Another long day. These floors had previously been sanded by someone less adapt at this procedure than I, as attested to by the number of 'divots' in the floor. Because it is a drum roller (about an 8 inch diameter), if you hesitate or bounce the drum, it will leave roller marks in the floor which require more sanding to remove. And the sander weights more than 100 pounds! And yes, I do add a few divots of my own. I managed to get the two bedrooms and hall mostly done in one day, but the living room has proven to be a real challenge.
Sanding floors is a multi step process, starting with 20 grit sand paper to remove the layers of whatever the floor was coated with. Then switch to 40, and 60, then 80, and finally 100 grit. That is a lot of walking slowly back and forth. And if you didn't get it cleaned off with the 20 grit, chances are good it will still be there at the end of the day; so it is important to do a thorough job first. The living room had an amazing number of divots, which may be why they stained that floor, which is why it has been difficult to sand. The wood absorbed the stain differently, so as I sanded it the first couple of times, there were these color variations across the floor that were hideous and unacceptable; more so since it is the first room one sees walking into the house. So I came home.
This is the before picture of the living room.
This is what it looked like after day one of sanding.
I was back on Thursday and finished the last sanding in the the bedrooms. I also rented an 'edger' to do the edges since the drum sander gets to about 6 inches of the edges. The edger is a 6 inch orbital sander that takes off if you don't have both hands on it. But it does a great job along the baseboard. I had stalled doing the living room until last, so by late afternoon I attacked it again with 20 grit paper and had some success. Another late evening, but one more day should make this a nice looking floor.
This is one of the bedroom floors, mostly finished.
Friday, Sandy and I drove to St Louis to attend the temple. A young man from our ward received his mission call (to the same mission his cousin was called to a year ago) and was going to the temple for his first time on Saturday. We thought it too much for Sandy to drive up and back all on the same day, so we made a two day event of it. She even drove 45 minutes so I could catch a cat nap. We did a session and then went to Five Guys for dinner. I know, a rather romantic play to eat while in St Louis. But, Sandy ate an entire hamburger and her share of their great fries. One of the workers in the temple has a large home near the temple and has offered their guest room for out of towners needing a place to stay. So we connected with him and stayed in their home. He is an eye doctor (retinal surgery and such) who I believe attended Harvard Medical School and is in the process of retiring since President Eyring called him to serve as the next temple president starting in November.
The next morning I observed that there were four generations of the Maple family in attendance as Jordan (Rhymer) received his endowment. Following the session, we visited briefly and then headed home.
Add to the list of things I did not know: there is a Costco only a few miles from the temple, and on our way home. So we left them a small inheritance as we traveled homeward. We had planned an Aldi stop in West Plains and they got what Costco didn't. But we should be stocked up for the return of Deborah's family on Monday, and Rebecca's on Wednesday. This is especially important since Rebecca has at least a dozen pies to make by Saturday afternoon. We are hosting the second annual birthday pie-day celebration at our house then.
At the end of this week, Sandy is better than at the beginning; that doesn't mean she didn't have some dips in the middle though. She has been walking daily, went to the beach on Monday, attended the temple and today the scale indicated a higher weight than she has seen in weeks. Your prayers, calls, notes are appreciated.
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