...still has my knees, my hips and my lower back all feeling like the icy grip of winter has frozen them painfully in place. I can only wish that I could get some of the glowing warmth promised by the prospect of Al Gore's globally warmed winters, but there does not seem to be much chance of that. It does seem however that I will be enjoying at least another day or two of a warm glow of another sort, that cast by the suns last rays across the richly finished oak floorboards over which I have been kneeling as I hammer away. Yes folks, I still have not finished one small room's (maybe 12x14) worth of flooring. I have been pretty good about keeping at it though, and each weekend over the past 4 or 5 weeks (with the exception of last weekend when I was sicker than a dog) I have been diligently lining up floorboards, cutting them to size, drilling mail holes, then hammering home the nails to put it all together. I may not be doing as good a job as a professional finish carpenter, but I sure am doing as good or better than the fly by night type of carpenter one normally hires from out of the local Pennysaver. I know, I have hired those types before, and my work is better than theirs by a long shot, cheaper too - though I will admit this laying a new floor thing has gotten more expensive than I thought it would be. My latest expense was a new Jig Saw, purchased today for $69. Sure I could have gotten the bottom of the line for $29.99, but that one was obviously a piece of junk. The one I bought may be a piece of junk too, but at least it fakes looking like a fair quality item. All I needed it for was to cut an indent in two floorboards to go around the radiator pipe, and I sure wished I could have found my old one. The fact is I am pretty sure that the old one died a while back and I threw it out. So I needed a new one regardless of doing the floor. Oh well.
The floor is almost finished though. I would have done more than 6 1/2 rows of boards today, but I ran out of nails. By the time I realized that the local hardware store was closed up tight as a clam, and Home Depot was out of the question. Heck I was just at two of them this morning to by the drill, so I would be damned if I was about to go again. Too bad I did not realize I was low on nails, piss poor planning on my part I guess. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. I figure I'll do another 6 or so rows tomorrow. Then one more good day at it and it will be finished. Maybe, just maybe, when I get hoe after visiting my mom at the rehab center tomorrow afternoon, my son will have gotten the nails and finished off most of the job. One can wish.
All the best,
Glenn B
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