This year, we added some other events to our busy time of the year. First, after being over seas all summer, Steve came home the day after school started, in the middle of August. Very exciting!! In September, Steve and I went on an incredible cruise vacation to celebrate our 15th Anniversary. Nathan's third birthday was the day after we got home from our cruise. Two weeks after that, We had new floors put in the house. One week after that, we will celebrate Annalise's 10th birthday! Double digits for my baby girl! I can't even believe it!
Right now, we are at the "new floors" stage of this busy and exciting time of the year. This stage started last week. We had to pack up everything in our bedroom, and on the floors of our closets. We also had to pack up everything in the office area, living room area, and dining room. For the kitchen, we just had to get things off the floors in the pantries, and take things off the stove, and top of the refrigerator. The floor guys moved the big furniture, we just had to have everything off it.
We were scheduled to stay with our friends around the corner, in an in-law apartment they had built on to the back of their house when her mother came to live with them several years ago. Her mother has since married, and has left their apartment fully furnished. it was a perfect place for our family to camp out while our floors were being torn up and re-laid.
Steve and I picked out this beautiful porcelain tile, that looks like hardwood planks. I was excited that he liked the tile enough to want it not only in the living room/kitchen/dining room/office area, but also in our bedroom. I really dislike carpet, and didn't want to replace old carpet with new carpet. Until he saw the tile that looked like hardwood planks, he was dead set against having tile in the bedroom.
The man at the flooring store told us that we would have to be out of our house from Thursday, until Tuesday. He said that the floor guys would spend all day Thursday ripping out the old floor, then spend Friday and Saturday laying the tile, and Monday and Tuesday grouting. We weren't happy about that, but were very grateful that our friends were willing to let us stay in their in-law apartment that long. I finished up the packing on Wednesday night, and put Nathan to bed at his usual time. I had planned on getting the five of us packed up for our five day "vacation" away from home after I got Nathan in bed. A little while after I put Nathan to bed, he started crying. The kind of crying that says, "I'm not messing around because I don't want to go to bed, there is something VERY wrong here!" I rushed to his room, thinking he'd gotten out of bed, and gotten hurt somehow. I WISH he had gotten hurt! In reality, he had thrown up all over this bed, and was still throwing up when I got in there. Long, disgusting story short, he threw up until a little after 1am. I did load after load after load of vomited on laundry in those hours, while everyone else slept. At a quarter to eight Thursday morning, the floor guys showed up. As prepared as I thought I was going to be, I was completely unprepared!!! Annalise was just about ready to walk out the door to school. Nathan was still laying on the couch, with a trash can at his side. I had gotten dressed, but was still trying to scarf down my breakfast. Gabriel was in the shower. Those guys came in, and got right to work. Right in the middle of me trying to clean up a sick bed, and a child who was still not well. Right in the middle of me trying to finish my breakfast. Right in the middle of Gabriel trying to get ready for school. Chaos and disarray!!! I don't handle that kind of pressure well. I started freaking out. I started just grabbing things I could think of that I knew we needed, but my brain was stuck. I couldn't think! (and in case you are wondering, I got NOTHING packed up for the five of us after Nathan went to bed, or after he started throwing up.) By the time the last of us left the house, presumably for the next five days, what we had was woefully inadequate. I managed to grab a package of diapers, and a package of wipes. I also managed to grab a change of clothes for Nathan, and a shoe. Yes, just one shoe. I couldn't find the other one, and the floor guys were moving furniture into his room, so I couldn't look for the other one. Other than that, we all had the clothes on our backs, and the phones in our pockets, and the kids and Steve had backpacks. I had my purse, of course. That's it. Nothing else. No shower stuff. No hair brushes. No tooth brushes. No medicines. No contacts (for Steve). No jammies. No other clothes. No food.
As I was getting into my car, the head floor guy, a guy named C.W., came to talk to me. He said that they would rip out the old flooring that morning. He said it shouldn't take more than an hour. He said that they would lay most, if not all of the tile that day. He said they would finish laying the rest of the tile (if there was any left to lay) on Friday, and then start grouting. He said that the grouting would be finished on Saturday at the latest. He said that the worst case scenario, if things go wrong, and bad things happen, the last of the grouting will be done on Monday. Ok, that's a heck of a lot better time table than the man at the store gave us! I was excited about that! Then C.W. said, "You aren't coming back here today, are you? Because you can't walk on anything we lay today. You can't walk on it for 24 hours, so you wont be able to come back into the house until tomorrow morning at the earliest." My addled brain held this information so it could examine it at its leisure once it found a place that was not riddled with chaos. So I nodded, and left. Nathan and I got to the in-law apartment and I started to take inventory of the situation. No other way to say it. I had totally dropped the ball! Man was I going to be in trouble when everyone found out that they had to wear the same clothes to sleep in, and go to school/work in the next day. Plus, Steve was going to have to go to work blind, because he not only didn't have contacts for the next day, but he also didn't have his glasses! And I don't even want to get into what I was thinking about with my medications being missed a day.
Suffice it to say, we walked on newly laid tile that night. We crept into the house, and walked carefully on the tiles and gathered up everything we needed. All was well. I'd spent all day stressing about it, and about Nathan being ill, and about Val being stuck in the back yard...
One thing we noticed when we stole into the house Thursday night, was that C.W. was right. They laid all but 7-8 tiles that day! Woo Hoo!!!! On Friday, they grouted, and put the 1/4 round in. By dinner time on Friday, they were moving the furniture back!! Yesterday morning, we moved back into our house, with new floors!! The grout still has to cure completely, so the tiles still have that dusty, dirty look. Tomorrow I will be able to properly mop and clean up the tiles. After I do that, I'll put all the rugs and stuff back down.
Nathan was very ill on Friday, and I was worried we would have to take him to the hospital. He had gotten very dehydrated, (he had only peed one time in 24 hours), and was running a fever. I couldn't get him to drink anything either. Luckily, once Steve got home from work, he was able to get Nathan to drink some pedialyte, and then gatorade. By yesterday, Nathan was very much better. Today, he's back to normal. Tomorrow he will be happy to help me clean the floors, I'm sure!
I estimate having everything unpacked and put away by Wednesday. After that, we just have Leesie's birthday, which is a week from Tuesday. Steve has missed her last two birthdays, and he's going to miss this one too. He has been scheduled for continuing education. He asked if he could go at a later date, told his boss that he will miss his daughter's 10th birthday, and his boss just doesn't care. He wants Steve to go now. Fine. I spit in his general direction! Poor Leesie. This will be her third birthday without daddy. At least this time he'll be back the following week, instead of the following month, like the last couple of years. We will have something little here at the house, with just her brothers, and me, on her actual birthday. The weekend after daddy gets home, we will have her big party. We only do big birthday parties on the 5's. That's what you get when you have a mom with social anxiety! She will be able to invite friends from school, and we are going to have it at a place called Plaster Palace. She and her friends will be able to pick a plaster craft, and paint it however they want, then have pizza, drinks, and cake. Gabriel had his 10th birthday party at the bowling ally by our house in GA. They both thought that was the best party in the whole world! They got to bowl, play video games in the arcade, and eat pizza and cake. Up until I pointed Plaster Palace out to her a few months ago, she's been sure she wanted the same kind of bowling party for her 10th birthday party. Plaster Palace wowed her away from the bowling party! It should be fun for a gaggle of girls to paint plaster crafts. I'll be sure to bring the camera.
I am including a few pictures of the floors, the way they looked when we walked in yesterday morning. They still look like this now, but will look better after tomorrow. I'll probably have to mop them a few times to get all the grout dust and stuff off. That should be fun for just the first few minutes!
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