OK, florring pictures:

This is the room, Saturday afternoon about 1530 hours (3:30 p.m. for you civvies out there). View from the hallway, the laundry room is to the left just before this doorway. The main hall is behind me, full of all the stuff I took out of this room. Sorry, didn’t think to get a “before” picture, and I wasn’t about to put everything back in there just for that. I’m crazy, not stupid.

This is the view from inside the room. There was carpeting in here before I started this little project. As you can see, Centex Homes didn’t care enough to make sure the floor was cleaned up before the carpet was laid in the first place. When I did the tile (visible in the hall beyond) I had to scrape every inch of the floor so the thinset would adhere. Otherwise, the moisture would have prevented a good bond and I would be replacing all the tiles. Yeah, I’ll pass.

0800 Sunday morning: I started laying the Harmonics brand laminate flooring, with lots of help. (not to worry - church is at 1730)

Sara is the 105 pounds of black lab/Welsh Corgi mix, Sadie is the Dalmation/Pointer mix, Mackenzie (Cocker/Dachshound) is checking out the background, Logan (Mastiff?/Dane?/bloodhound? mix) is sprawled next to me and Cinnamon (identify her breed and win a prize!) can’t get close enough. I’m the one in the blue shirt. How do you like my contacts?

0805: By this time, it was determined that too many cooks would spoil the broth. The were relegated to the other end of the house. Bye, puppies!

0935: Halfway mark - starting to look really nice.

1100: Last pieces fit and placed. The floor is complete, now all I need to do is break for lunch and go to my favorite home improvement warehouse (hint: it rhymes with rowes) to get two curved corner blocks and some baseboard.

Go ahead and “ooh” and “aah” while I run down the street…

1300: Putting the finishing touches on the baseboard - I love paintable caulk. It covers a multitude of sins left over from the original builder - like walls that aren’t quite straight, true, and plumb.

I wasn’t the only one being productive that day:

TMBWitW was finishing up the hall bath - I had applied a smooth coat over the knockdown (next time, I’m just tearing out the old wall board and putting in new. Faster, and less effort) and painted the base blue color a couple of weeks ago. She applied the pictures and redecorated with Winnie the Pooh stuff from various sources.

She likes Pooh a lot:

Next post, I will get some shots of the double wide doors at the back - I haven’t trimmed out the outside, and the inside isn’t painted, so you will be able to see just how out of plumb the walls are in this house.

God bless you all!

Blessings are dispensed without regard to receivers ability to accept said blessing. Winnie the Pooh, Harmonics Laminated Flooring, and any other accidental commercial vehicles used in this posting are trademarks and copyright of their various owner. Hey, I’m an average joe. I just use the things like a good consumer. Were you really expecting a binding legal disclaimer? Pssh. Getouttahere.

Very busy (as I am sure you can imagine). Between shopping for the girl, Praise and Worship rehearsal, and running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I managed to get a new floor in the baby room. And base board. In fact, the only thing left is to paint it and then the furnishing can begin. TMBWitW is thinking Sunshine Yellow.

A man’s work is never done, when it come to finishing the house. I know, I promised pictures of the new back door, so I’ll get those up. Soon. And, I’ll post florring (florring? sheesh. Flooring.) pictures. Very exciting.

Right now the front hall has stacks of stuff from the room that will be the child’s room; we need to find new places to stack our stuff. Either that or have a heck of a yard sale.

Check back soon - I promise, pictures this week!

God bless you all!

Girl!

Expected to join us around the week before Christmas. This places her on or near no fewer than eight other birthdays in that time frame; odds are she’ll be sharing a birthday with someone.

We don’t have a name picked out yet. We (I) had a boy’s name picked out - I was going to name him after my father, which is a family name from way back. TMBWitW is leaning towards a particular name, but I won’t say anything until it is a firm decision.

We actually knew around 2:30 today, as you can tell it’s well past that now; TMBWitW and her Momma had to go to a baby store right away since the sex was known. Shopping, you know.

I am very excited. We are so blessed to have a child! This is gonna change everything, isn’t it?

God bless you all!

In case you’ve not picked up on it, I am a Christian. Carol Wimmer wrote this in 1988, and it expresses my feelings pretty well. I wish I was this talented. I’ll bet you, dear and gentle reader, wish I was this talented as well. Then I wouldn’t be all jealous of people like Carol Wimmer:

======

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I’m not shouting, “I’ve been saved!”
I’m whispering, “I get lost! That’s why I chose this way”

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I don’t speak with human pride
I’m confessing that I stumble-needing God to be my guide

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I’m not trying to be strong
I’m professing that I’m weak and pray for strength to carry on

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I’m not bragging of success
I’m admitting that I’ve failed and cannot ever pay the debt

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I don’t think I know it all
I submit to my confusion asking humbly to be taught

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I’m not claiming to be perfect
My flaws are far too visible but God believes I’m worth it

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartache which is why I seek His name

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I do not wish to judge
I have no authority–I only know I’m loved

Copyright 1988 Carol Wimmer

======

TMBWitW and I will be going for the mid-point ultrasound this afternoon. This is the day we find out if the nursery will be ducks and bunnies or trains and big rigs. She is hoping for a girl, I am hoping for a boy (to name him after my father), but we both feel extremely blessed just to be able to have a child and we will love it no matter what it is. I’m sure you can’t tell just how excited I am.

WOO HOO!!!

God bless you all, and I will be posting later this afternoon with some really cool news. If I have your phone number, I may just call you from the ultrasound room. Won’t that be cool, Gawfer?

It’s that time of the week again! I found a nice red Hawaii’an print for tomorrow. What are you wearing? (A big thank you to Sues for the image)

My headache is gone, the temperature here has climbed back up, and life is good.

May God bless you and keep you always.

Before I left to lay down, I saw this on Sgt. Allen’s blog:

This article tells me if you are buying your cigarettes from a “discount” store, or from someone not actually licensed to sell them, you may be supporting the His-Bollocks organization.

You. May. Be. Supporting. The. Terrorists.

Little helpful advice here - STOP SUPPORTING TERRORISTS BEFORE I HUNT YOU DOWN MYSELF.

Smoking is harmful to your health.

God loves you and wants you to be healthy. I quit with God’s help, so can you.

Naturally, you have to live in the desert and not have had any for a long time to appreciate that statement.

It’s kind of sprinkling here in the Valley of the Sun today.

I’m at home, waiting for the migraine medicine to kick in so I can take a nice long, quiet, dark nap.

You see, one of the side affects of having rain in the Valley is the dropping barometric pressure. For whatever reason (I am sure there is a medical study/connection thingy to prove this) when the pressure changes, migraines are triggered in some people. Like me.

Now, normally I don’t let a little thing like a headache get in my way. Take some Tylen*l or Exedr!n Migraine and work through it. But, when the migraine advances past the simple jackhammer on the back side of the skull into the territory of nausea and dizziness, I pretty much throw in the towel and take the good stuff. I know that adrenaline overrides my migraines in a hurry, which explains why I never really had trouble with them while in the service; but there’s really no call for adrenaline rushes in my current line of work. Except for driving to and from work, but I think I’ve covered that in previous posts.

The weather here is being weird along with the rain - last Friday and Saturday we set record highs (118 and 116 respectively) for the dates; today it’s a balmy and humid 82. I’ve gone so far as to turn off the A/C and open the doors to let the breeze through and let the dogs run in and out without having to be a doggy doorman while I am here.

Man, it’s taking a while for this stuff to kick in. I’m really amazed, considering I took some of the T before heading off to work, some of the E at work (effectively ignoring the dosage instructions, don’t tell TMBWitW, our Doctor, or Sue, OK?) and the good stuff once I decided I’d had enough and came home.

Well, I will stop waiting and go lay down. No sense wasting a perfectly good opportunity to catch some sleep.

May God richly bless your lives, and may you always seek His will in your life.

First, a tip of the hat to rick and kathy for this well worded verse.

Second, a quick salute to my best friend from high school, Bob, who sent me this alert via e-mail yesterday:

Doctors

The number of doctors in the U.S. is 700,000.
Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000.
Accidental deaths per physician is 0.1714.
Statistics: courtesy of the U.S.Dept of Health & Human Services

Guns

The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000 (yes! that’s 80 million).
The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1500.
The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0019.
Statistics: courtesy of the FBI

Statistics show that doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, guns don’t kill people, doctors do.

Fact: Not everyone owns a gun, but everyone has at least one doctor.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!

Out of concern for the public at large, I have withheld statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.

TODAY IN HISTORY

July 25, 1987:

Cary Cartter marries his first wife, which is rectified on April 4, 2000 when the divorce is final. The only high point(s) are the two beautiful girls he helps raise for twelve years, he manages to get sober and quit smoking with the grace of God, and he starts seeing life as it is.

In other news, Cary is now very happily married and expecting his first child in December.

God is good, and takes care of His own. Looks after them, so to speak. Allows them to make mistakes, but loves them anyway. The best model for parenting there could be. No matter how badly I screw up, He will always love me and accept me back.

Please contrast this belief system to the cult of islam, in which you will either conform or be killed. No do-overs, no second chances. Just be islamic or die.

Yes, the “i” in islam is lower case for a reason. This reason. (snappy salute to Gunz, who will be linked as soon as his new blog is up and running)

When are all the “moderate” muslims going to stand up and be counted? When is the violence perpetrated in the name of islam going to be renounced?

Compare that to what happens when a Christian steps out of line – immediate rebuttal, rebuking of the actions that are not in line with Christ’s teachings. Heck, even the little church in Kansas that “protests” the troop’s funerals is being told to cease and desist – and not just by the other churches, but by courts of law. I can’t wait to hear they are coming to Phoenix – I’ll protest their protest.

Sorry for the rambling today, just a bunch of thoughts tumbling around in my mind.

May God richly bless your life. May you find His peace and love in your life. May you know that He will love and accept you, no matter what your life has been up until now.

As much of a techno-junkie as I used to be, I stopped keeping abreast of bleeding edge updates quite a few moons ago. As such, the finer points of HTML have eluded me, much to my web-ring masters’ chagrin on more than one occasion, even though I only posted about it once.

Anyway - Gawfer started a blog roll of his own, with help from the exceedingly helpful and computer-savvy Texas Fred. I got a little piece of code (two things to watch out for - a software guy with a screwdriver, and a hardware guy with a piece of code!) and inserted it in my sidebar - now I have IKA’s Blogroll listed!

Go ahead, get the “ooh” and “aah” out of your system - I’ll wait.

After I tested the view, I noticed that IKA had a scrolling window - saving all sorts of room in the sidebar, especially as the blog roll grows. Well, I knew (being the hyper-aware kinda guy that I am) that Texas Fred’s blog roll didn’t have that little window. It only took me about five minutes of code inspection and some cut-and-paste action, and voila Fred’s roll is in a window too!

I have really come a long way, haven’t I? Well, I think I have.

P.S. to all the CAIR lurkers - until you all start standing up and denouncing the murderous activities of the “minority” of your religion, then the rest of the world will continue to see these actions as the mainstream, accepted actions of your religion, and you wouldn’t want that, would you? Unless, of course, it truly is NOT a “Religion of Peace” as you so heartily claim…

God bless you all, especially those who would reject the blessing - ya’ll are gonna have a real surprised look on your face come Judgement Day!