What are you up to this summer? (page 5)

freemindfade

oh no... you never watched Seinfeld????

Thats a greater sin than apostasy!

My summer is being consumed with getting my Dad's contents ready for auction. Once that's done, the next phase is dumpster and getting anything done to sell his house. So not much fun for me this year. Will be happy when it's all done.

sowhatnow

hmm, what have I been up to

work

filing for divorce

baby shower

work,

puppy and cat sitting for a week and,

work

bridal shower

work

swimming

wedding

work

family picnic

work

still waiting for divorce certificate

work.

Xanthippe

Heaven sorry you're going through that I know how horrible it is.

Sowhatnow, phew busy, busy! At least you're having some fun in between work. Had to apply for my own job again this year. Local authority job, we keep having our budget cut and they keep cutting staff. Applied for my own job twice in three years and managed to hang on to it.

Very stressful and it will probably happen again in three years.Thats why I'm trying to talk about happy stuff to keep myself sane. Not sure it's working lol!

Stirred

Rebuilding...finding work...enjoying journey with family and friends as I go.

Xanthippe

Stirred, I wish you lots of luck finding work and rebuilding your lives. Thanks for the reminder that we should enjoy the journey, sometimes I forget.

OrphanCrow

Packing. I am moving in 3 weeks. Again. But only a few blocks away - down three flights of stairs here and then up three flights of stairs in my next home. I am not sure how many times I have moved in my life up to now...I think this is #47 or #48...I've lost track. At least the last half dozen moves I have only had myself to move - my kids are grown up and gone and I also have given up on hauling deadwood around anymore. ;)

Summer is a good time to move. Far better than three foot high snowbanks and 30 below weather with a blizzard blowing in. I hope it isn't too hot moving day, or thunderstorms. I am praying to the moving gods for good weather and good legs that day. A bag of green will help.

Today I finished an ugly, ugly demo job in my friend's bathroom. She is doing a reno in her bathroom - she wants a Morracan themed bathroom and has purchased some pretty expensive material including having an antique claw foot tub refinished for it. Her floor choice was super expensive floor tile ordered in from Italy and accented with glass mosaic insets and done on a diagonal lay and with a heatpad underneath.

She hired a couple of f**tards to do the whole bath reno and they assured her that they knew how to install floor tile. They "finished" the floor 4 days ago. I went to see it. It was a mess. A mess beyond description. Nothing was done right. Nothing. I can't even get into how bad it was. Unbelievable. The worst I have ever seen.

I will share something personal about myself. I am an experienced flooring installer. Several years ago I trained under and worked full time with a man who had 20 years experience. I was teaching at the university part time and needed another job. So...I became the only woman flooring installer in the city - we did everything from large commercial jobs to high end residential and everything on down from there - even slum housing where you had to get the needles shoveled out of the basements before you could start.

I did it for five years - five tough grueling years. My gawd, when I think of what I put my body through. On some jobs, I would take wrist wraps with steel bars in them and tape them on my arms with electrician tape before staring for the day. My hands were always bandaged and I have many knife scars and such to show off. It was bastard hard work.

It has been ten years since I quit installing flooring except for a few times that i did some flooring for TV shows and movies at the film studios. That was the last I did any. I don't want to do it anymore. I am too old for that shit.

But this is my friend. So, the past three days I have been smashing out hundreds of dollars worth of ceramic tile, and swearing. And sweating. And hurting. Damn tiles are like glass when they break. Cut fingers. But I am finished tearing out. The floor is down to the nuts again. Now I wait for the drywaller to fix the walls where I had to tear off the ceramic base.

Next- installing new tiles. Damn. Not really looking forward to this. My partner and I didn't do much in ceramic work - just a little bit during the last year we worked together. Eek!! I need to do a bit of research here and maybe a little prayer to my old partner - he passed away a couple months ago...maybe he will whisper in my ear what to do! But, as a backup, I have a hotline set up with one of the flooring distributors in town, they will walk me through any problems I may have. I went and talked to them and they still remember me. Nice guys.

Yup. That is my summer so far. Thanks for asking. Hope everyone else is having at at least as much fun as I am. I will buy the beer for anyone who wants to help me move.... :)

Xanthippe

Best of luck with moving house OrphanCrow, hope it's not a rainy day. Way to go tiling floors, I haven't tried that. Sawing up tree branches and painting walls and ceilings yes but not tiling. Hope that floor behaves itself!

What are you up to this summer?

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