A New Floor?

My inlaws' neighbor passed away. He was a flooring salesman, only 60 yrs old, a smoker with throat cancer.

He left some tile samples in his yard, along with a pile of patio pavers and some lumber. We were told to help ourselves.

Now, all of a sudden, I have materials for:

The main path through our garden

Our dining room floor

A building project of some sort (shelving? a bed?)

It's the floor I can't stop thinking about. I know this is a crazy idea. I know that tiling a floor is a lot of hard work, and tiling one like a crazy patchwork quilt might be even harder, and I also know that it would probably have to be redone in order to sell the house, when the time comes for that (hopefully 20 yrs or more down the road!). But I don't think I can resist! Some times in life, one must do the thing that one is compelled to do.

I laid the tiles out in the backyard to get a look at them. They are various sizes and various colors. And they seem to be all the same thickness. They are mostly earth-tones, with some blue-grays (and one brighter blue which might get excluded from this project). Now, this is not enough tile to cover our dining room floor. We'll have to buy another 60 sq ft or so, and that will have to wait since we don't have money for that at the moment. It will be funky, for certain. But, as Steven says, it'll be better than the ugly, stained, worn out carpet that's there now! Amen to that.

NOT a good idea!

It seemed like a great idea at the time. I needed some little gifty things for coworkers and aquaintances at holiday time, and Clare wanted to make soap, and we had these little plastic pigs... so we made PIGS IN SOOOAAAAP! a takeoff from the Muppet Show's "Pigs in Space" skit, only in the form of glycerine soap. We embedded the pigs, along with some little stars and glitter, in soap. The problem comes when the soap gets used and those darn pigs' feet start to jut out. Clare calls it Pokey Soap. I couldn't bring myself to give a gift that pokes, so I have one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom, and several others stored in the linen closet. Would you like a bar?

Do you Sudoku? Clare does.

My Sudoku addiction has rubbed off on Clare. After tearing through two store-bought books - they use stickers and aren't particularly cheap - I figured out an easy way to make some puzzles for her. The kids' version is based on fours instead of nines - four squares in a block, row & column, and the stickers in the books have pictures from kids' cartoons. So I drew a grid and made copies and use colored dot stickers from the office supply store. I think it is better than the store-bought books because for one thing it's easier to see the "lay of the land" - you can tell more easily that a certain row is missing a green dot, for example. She's gotten really good, and is not bored with it yet. It's fun to see her being able to think a few steps ahead and figure these puzzles out.

A Pox on Us!

Chicken Pox! What a curious thing. The grumpy face above has not been the general attitude regarding this illness - she's been mostly in very good spirits. I, on the other hand, have been itchy! I have a couple dozen spots, more like welts, mostly on my sides, but some on my tummy (how wierd having chicken pox on top of stretch marks!) and elsewhere. Clare has them all over her torso, on her legs & arms. None on her face yet, and hers are fading fast now.

She broke out with spots on Friday, 3 days after her birthday. Chicken pox are most contagious from 3 days before symptoms show until the last ones scab over. So, that means that everyone who celebrated her birthday with us was exposed! We have our fingers crossed that it will not cause any cases of shingles for her grandparents or anyone else...

Our contagiousness has created an interesting situation. A number of our friends have been on the lookout for chicken pox and the news was greeted warmly:

"We heard that you have chicken pox and we would really really like some!"
"That's great that Clare has chicken pox!"

Like us, they believe that having the illness gives a person greater immunity than the vaccine does. Also, being exposed to the virus ourselves helps our bodies have more resistance to shingles. Here's an article about that: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=12896

And another with general chicken pox information: http://www.909shot.com/Diseases/chickenpox%20facts.htm

That said, I have no idea why I have chicken pox, since I'm told I had them as a child (2 or 3 yrs old?). Or is this a mild case of shingles? It doesn't look like the pictures I've seen of shingles, and seems just like big chicken pox. I am not aware of being exposed to chicken pox since my younger siblings got them, probably 30 years ago, which could explain why I caught them now. And, though it's a bit inconvenient being quarantined (except for contact with friends who *want* to be exposed), it really has not been any big deal.

And I wish the best of luck to those we have exposed!