Monday, November 19, 2007

How do I get this mug out?

Help! Seriously, help!!!!

I was doing the dishes and the little espresso mug wound up inside the coffee mug. In trying to extract it, it got stuck.

I tried a few times, played with the angles, but it just got more wedged. Now I can't even wiggle it.

Okay, maybe it's because the hot water is making the mug expand? I left it on the counter for a few hours but nothing changed.

Well I'll shrink it! That'll shift something. Into the freezer it goes. Hours later, still no luck.

Anyone? Any ideas?

Friday, October 05, 2007

Queen For a Day!

Yesterday, my older daughter got upset and shouted that she was tired of me always deciding when to leave, when to stay, where to go, what to do, what to eat.

I was taken aback but paused and tried to get some wisdom on how to respond kindly.

I waited.

Then I figured what the heck! I'll offer her the chance to make all the decisions. It must feel quite disempowering to never get to say.

So I declared Saturday her day to be "Queen For a Day!" She gets to decide everything, absolutely everything, including what we will each wear. (We get to say no.) I don't think she'll abuse this; I think we'll be quite smartly dressed. At least I hope so. I sure hope it's not a crazy expensive day.

She wanted to eat out all day but I pointed out that she might as well have exactly what she wants so there may be some supermarket trips on the agenda to buy ingredients for whatever she wants to eat. I know her first request is going to be chocolate chip cookies!

I can't wait! This is going to be fun!

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

We were on TV! Four times! And in the New York Times!


But this is not news. It's olds. I just nwo thought of it and that it's actually pretty darned cool so for posterity, I thought I'd write about it!

We were on Spanish television twice for being parents doing Elimination Communication (EC). That was a bit nervewracking because, well, first of all, Spanish is not my native language, and second, well, ya know, it's TV! We were on two different programs. I can't even remember the names now! What a shame! We were mini-celebrities for a while; everyone in our area seemed to have seen the programs and recognized us. At the end, one of the programs had some so-called expert come on and get the last word. Whatever. My husband was totally brilliant and eloquent. I was so proud! My older daughter wanted to be included and so she was.

The other two times we were on TV were to do with a woman who was doing something or other political down in Miami Beach while nursing her daughter at meetings - and the mayor said something totally foolish so there were nurse-ins. And a followup interview or perhaps it was even two followup interviews. I totally forget. Mostly we just stood around with our babies for the three minutes of airtime. We were probably used. Whatever. I'd do it again.

And we in the New York Times, also for EC. That's me nursing in the photo, wearing the pink pants.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

BECAUSE I SAID SO: Do You Need Fire to Build a Toilet?

If you have not discovered this blog, have a look and get reading!

BECAUSE I SAID SO: Do You Need Fire to Build a Toilet?

Like a zillion others, I discovered this mom when I was forwarded the link to her eBay auction for some Pokeman cards that one of her kids had sneaked (yes, she wrote "sneaked" and not "snuck" - I love her already) into her shopping cart.

Now her life is in the process of being turned upside down as she is being discovered. It's wonderful to watch this process unfold. She'll have a book published soon and will be all over the media. They are gonna be so rich!!!

Monday, September 03, 2007

Eating Grass

Okay, this is made with an intention of pure fun. Seriously. Yes, I'm poking fun at my dear, sweet husband, but it's stuff that makes me totally laugh out loud, and if you knew me, you'd know that was saying something. Some people sprinkle all their writing with "LOL" and I would if I were but I just rarely even chuckle.

Without further ado, here are some gems.

But I Eat Grass
My husband is not a native speaker of English. And even if he were, he still might get some stuff wrong. I know when I was a girl, it wasn't until I was around 8 or 9 that I realized the word was "vacation", not "bacation". And even then, it was only because I saw it in writing. And "naive" was "nave" to me when I was reading until I was perhaps 18 years old. Sure, I knew the spoken word, but I never connected the two.

So for my husband, it didn't cause him any worry when he heard people say, "but I eat grass". He wondered a bit what those crazy people were doing eating grass, but he just chalked it up to another crazy thing English speakers say. Well, it turns out that what they were actually saying was - can you guess? - "but I digress". Said quickly, I guess it flowed to his ear as "but I eat grass" and somehow he was able to justify that. This has led to an in-joke of "there he goes, eating grass". I guess every couple has their in-jokes. We have some fun ones!

Here are a few others:
obeast (obese)
high strong (high strung)

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Stuyvesant High School: Alec Klein: "A Class Apart"

Today, while driving, I heard on the Diane Rehm Show that Alec Klein, Stuyvesant graduate, class of 1985, was guest speaker. Mostly I heard "something something Stuyvesant something something" while answering a non-stop stream of questions from my two girls and trying not to shush them. Of course I had to hear about the show on my car radio and still 10 minutes from home, cell phone battery beeping in its death song because I hadn't charged it properly. My wonderful aunt called and I answered the phone with "NPR, right?", totally taking her off guard with quick wit (or so I tell myself) as is my way. So of course I arrive home totally frazzled, rushing my 2 kids, running around plugging in radios, frantically redialing the telephone, heart rate through the roof. Luckily, I got through and was accepted and spent most of the show taking deep breaths. Turns out that the heart rate was not due only to running in the house with two kids. But I digress.

This Alec dude is the real thing. I very much enjoyed everything about him as a speaker and he is the kind of person I'd love to hang out with. An excellent listener and speaker, a pleasant voice; a great combination of qualities.

I, of course, was so darned nervous about being on the radio plus I was playing a bit of a devil's advocate so I hope the poor undeserving guy didn't find me a total bi-yach. Oh well. Can't be helped.

Being the Stuyvesant Geek that I am, I of course had to make an outline of what points I wanted to touch upon. Of course I was on hold forever and most of them did feel watered down by the time I spoke at the very end of the show. But still, I felt I brought something to the table and my aunt was kind enough to call me afterwards and say I came across well. I just hope my mom never, ever listens to the program. She's a nice lady, really.

So anyway, Alec talked about how students prepare for the entrance exam to Stuyvesant and how students and parents alike feel it's going to prepare them in some way for entrance into an Ivy League college. That was not my experience at all; with a 99% college bound class of 850 students, each requiring 3 letters of reference for every single college application, we were limited to 7 or so college applications. Because my average was just a hair under 90, I was pretty ordinary. Add to the that the fact that I did not find my niche at all among the students there and I definitely didn't have any sort of backbone or even awareness to seek out a guidance counselor, I got well and truly lost in the fray. If I had perhaps done more extra-curricular activities, I might have stood out from the extraordinary in some way, but I didn't really do all that much. But without more confidence, raw talent, and skills, I was unlikely to stand out from my classmates enough to be in the top 20% who had a chance to get into an outstanding college. Had I attended my local inner-city school, as I did for one year of junior high school, risking life and limb on the bus (I do not exaggerate on this point) and learning to lie low, I would have been a star, adored and coddled. In 8th grade, I was given the opportunity to skip straight into 9th, which I gladly did. They still didn't know what to do with me and sent me to a nearby college to sit in on a few classes. Imagine if I'd gone to a local high school how outstanding I would have looked to any college I applied to.

Alec pointed out that it doesn't really matter where you go to college. You can in fact get a good college education in many colleges and universities and excellent preparation for your chosen field.

Agreed.

However, it does matter what you study. I didn't manage to excel in much in Stuyvesant and I was left only being accepted to schools where I applied based on my math scores. High School math was a joy. University math was a different animal. I don't know who could imagine the two are related. A few months into my college career, it became clear that I didn't have the skills required to do that level of math. I felt alone, terrified, trapped. I was a math major and now I hated math! To make a long story short, I wound up on a career path I felt stuck in in order to pay back those darned debilitating student loans.

Alec pointed out that the dirty little secret is that 90% of people wind up in careers they hate. Another excellent point.

Alec: two, Ellen: zero.

In the end, I question our entire education system from soup to nuts. I am unschooling my daughters and am 100% confident in what I am doing. They may go to school at some point, or perhaps not until college, or perhaps never. They may simply take whatever classes they choose and never get a degree. What is the big deal about a degree? I have no issue with prerequisites but most fields to not require one to actually complete a degree. And how many people do we know with degrees totally unrelated to their current field? Me, for example. Not one single course I ever took as an undergrad has any bearing on what I do now. I learned it all on my own, as an adult unschooler. The value in this method of learning can not be underestimated. It may not be for everyone, but perhaps it could if we were not so dumbed down.

One point I did not get into was how I learned to cheat in high school, having never dreamed of such a thing before that. Never underestimate the level of cheating at Stuyvesant High School. In fact, the New York State Regents exams were stolen and I was freely given answers to the Chemistry Regents by a brilliant but perhaps philosophical student who felt it unfair that some should be paying for answers. How even though I purposely got 20% wrong, my teacher still thought it awfully suspicious that I'd done as well as that in a class I clearly didn't grasp. How unfair it felt that in subjects where I did excel, I was asked, or more accurately, forced, to share my answers. I cheated on the Spanish Achievement and placed too high in University Spanish. I was lost and cheated on my first Spanish university exam but was caught. That was the first time I had ever been caught cheating. Were the Stuyvesant teachers ignoring it or was I really that accomplished a cheater?

Getting back to my thoughts on Stuyvesant, I do not know what I think of it all. It was a powerful, pivotal experience in my life. One that marked me forever. I dream of high school still, not really of college. I think about going back to high school and looking up classmates, reconnecting with some, just catching up with others. I'd love to find Kendra Behrends, who didn't even graduate with my class (she went back to private school, lucky girl) and I'd love to know what happened to my high school boyfriend. I have caught up with Janice, who I also went to college with, and who I just saw a few months ago. I have had the brief pleasure of catching up with Frank McCourt on two of his tours, the last one only a few months ago.

And I have to admit that it saddened me deeply when I learned that the old building was being torn down. I never actually returned to visit it but just knowing it was there, as I remembered it, was a comfort. I have little desire to see the new digs even if there is a pool now.

Friday, July 13, 2007

I saw Harry Potter last night!

No spoilers! What an unexpected treat! I happened to see an ad at 7pm that said it's out. I was like, "Wha....???" Well, without too much thought, I told my husband that my older daughter and I were off. I nabbed tickets online, thinking it might be sold out, wondered how I'd missed that it was released, and off we went! It was not sold out and even though I bought tickets for the 8:00 showing, we snuck into the 7:30 theater, which was still showing previews.

It. Was. Awesome!

By far, the best Harry Potter movie. Actors: more refined. Effects: amazing, except for Voldemort's nose, which still looked all blurry in many scenes and distracted me. Plot: Great - moved right along and was very true to the book. I haven't read it in over a year and I don't recall missing anything critical. I wonder how they do that? What a job; boiling down so many pages and letting go of so much good stuff.

I'd have liked to see more of Tonks. I was really looking forward to her character but she, like many aspects, was glossed over.

Still, I found it much lighter than the previous movie, and walked out with a bounce in my step.

I think my daughter was quite lost. She's seen all the others and we thought she followed, but now maybe she's getting old enough to realize how much she's been missing. Anyway, she didn't find it as scary as some of them.

I wonder when it is officially coming out. I thought it wasn't until this weekend. Oh well! How lucky I was to get this early look and not have to deal with lines or crowded theaters.

Friday, July 06, 2007

Wow! I've visited 19 countries!



create your own visited country map
or check our Venice travel guide

For someone who feels like she hasn't traveled much at all, this is pretty darned amazing!

Here's my list:
England a few times, with a lot of driving and even trips to Jersey Island
France but only briefly
Portugal also briefly
Spain twice, 2nd time alone for 2 weeks
Italy briefly, including Vatican City
Greece briefly, including one island, sorry can't remember which
Germany briefly and again 2 more day trips
Holland for a month on business
Belgium weekend trips to Bruigge - wow!
Finland for a week for business
Argentina for 5 weeks for business
Uruguay during weekend break on business trip
Brazil during weekend break on business trip
Paraguay, I think, during weekend break on business trip
Chile for a week for business
Canada a few times
Mexico for our honeymoon

I think that's it! And yet, I feel like I haven't traveled very much at all and definitely not nearly enough. I'd love the time and money to do a lot more traveling!

Friday, April 06, 2007

Frank McCourt

Brushes with fame remind me that people who wind up in the limelight often do have a special quality. It's more than just charisma. If I could see auras, perhaps it would be clear to me what the difference is.

I am lucky enough to be one of a small number who had Frank McCourt as a high school English teacher. It was so difficult to get into his classes. I didn't even know about him at first so I only got to do 2 or 3 semesters with him. Those classes were usually the highlight of my school day.

Recently, I attended a book fair where he spoke. When it came time for questions, I was there with my high school yearbook and the whole audience was impressed. I am not surprised; I had the same exact experience shortly after his first book came out. And, as before, people treated me as a celebrity-by-association after the talk. Mostly, people want to know how he was as a teacher.

He was, as it turns out, exactly like he was as a speaker. Charming, funny, entertaining, full of delightful stories, humble, real, accessible, lovable. I wish I could have more of him in my life!

I have some really awful audio from that talk. Even if you can't quite make out what he is saying, you can just feel the energy from all the laughter. Now if only I could find the time to figure out how to podcast it. I might have to make it into a psuedo-video so youtube will take the darned thing.

Oh and yeah. One more thing. He inspired the name of this blog.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Rave about floorshop

I just want to post a quick note about the outstanding customer service I received from floorshop.com. I am also going to rate them on their website. Ordering was easy and they did their best to answer my questions. The phone was even answered on weekends and holidays! And I mentioned in my long entry about the whole procedure that a few boxes were damaged. I initiated a claim but told them not to bother since I had left myself a little leeway and did not mess up at all so I didn't need the extra boards. Well, they really insisted on following up and have reimbursed me for the 2 boxes without my having to do anything at all. This is really above and beyond! I am so thrilled. Granted, it's not big bucks as their price was so amazing in the first place, which is why I went with them but still! Nicely handled! Thank you, floorshop!

Friday, February 02, 2007

The Other White Milk

Okay, give me a freaking break! A simple slogan, "The other white milk" has the pork industry big guns going after a mom with a blog. Oh pullease.

I'm putting the phrase here. Will they come hunting me down too?

Sunday, January 21, 2007

I was duped about birth by the doctors

Well, not quite true. I've never personally seen a doctor of any sort while pregnant. True! But I met someone recently who was being convinved to undergo a schedule c-section and I felt the doctor's arguments swaying me just as they were swaying her.

These doctors prey on our intelligence, if that is what it takes. I can see why the more educated are more likely targets for this often unnecessary and dangerous (and unnatural) procedure.

In this case, the arguments that were swaying me were that the doctor was the "only OB in the area who does these types of high-risk deliveries", and that the amniotic fluid was too low. (Funny, his name didn't ring any bells.)

On the former, this mom's baby was breech. I was born breech. Laura Shanley had an unassisted breech birth. Breech babies come out naturally all the time. The thought about most breech being dangerous is that the head is born last and the baby will suffocate in there.

Um. Hello? The baby wasn't breathing before. They all come out and start breathing. Get off your back, use gravity, and birth the head! Then concern yourself with baby breathing.

Now, on the amniotic fluid thing, I have no clue. And then I thought about it and realised that no one ever measured my amniotic fluid during either pregnancy. And I bet in most cases, it is not measured. This mom was at about 40 weeks. Well, duh! Shouldn't her fluid be low? The baby is about ready to come out. (And sure enough, another friend said she was told she had low amniotic fluid and then during birth, she lost gallons of it, so apparently they were, ah, slightly mistaken.) Okay, trample me if this it totally ignorant but my point is that in normal pregnancies, they just don't check this and know what the range of normal is, nor what the meaning or risk of this "condition" are. They only check in cases where they think something is wrong so the data is quite limited. I took statistics. Most people don't have a clue about the validity of statements such as these. Just like the fetal monitoring during contractions: well of course the baby's heart rate is going to soar while baby is getting squished. Duh.

I don't think we convinced this poor mom to trust her more spiritual side and to simply trust birth. I don't know that you really can do that for anyone that hasn't been doing this sort of mental work throughout their pregnancy and possibly starting even earlier.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

After photos

Okay, by popular demand, here are a few pictures of the room (and our laundry). We haven't painted the baseboards yet - they come primed. We haven't finished up the threshold covering thingies. We haven't put the dust ruffle on the bed yet - it wasn't dry. And the laundry needs sorting. So excuse all that and have a look at our new room, which we are proudly displaying for the first time in four years!



Monday, January 15, 2007

Laying a wood floor

We finally had the money and inspiration to put down a wood floor in our bedroom. Well, the latter applies to me, I guess, since I am the one who researched it and went ahead and ordered the wood after getting the all clear from my husband. The carpeting in there was so horrible looking, I am sure it is a lot of the reason we don't breathe too well. When I pulled it up, some of the boards around the edges that have little nails sticking up and hold the carpet in place were rotted out, as were parts of the padding. More mold and icky unhealthy stuff. I have always thought carpets were disgusting because they house mites and dust and who knows what else, and because of the chemical off-gassing but seeing what it was like under there, I wonder how people can still choose wall to wall.

Last weekend, we took all the furniture and moved it out. We removed the base boards and dug out the pieces of wood that held down the carpet. Then I painted the room. How freeing to paint and not worry about drips! Since then we have been sleeping with the beds up against the couch. I admit it was fun for a few days, kind of like camping out, but the clutter is getting old. It will feel so spacious once we get it moved back.

The wood I ordered arrived early in the week. I so wanted to do bamboo, which is environmentally responsible and quite reasonable in cost, but more than that, I wanted the project to be doable and finish quickly and come in at the lowest possible cost. The wood I found was $1.09 a square foot. We have no cross ventilation in there so I didn't want to deal with glue fumes at all nor lose time to clamping and waiting for glue to dry. I wound up choosing a no-glue floating laminate floor. Now I realize it's mostly pressboard and plastic. I think I read somewhere that the wood you see on the top is actually a photograph of wood. That would make sense because the instructions I found online said to be sure to open a number of packages at once and take wood from all of them for even color distribution. I quickly realized there was no need for that.

Three of our packages were damaged in shipping. I marked it on the bill and I could make a claim but the replacement wood wouldn't have arrived in time and I was determined to do this project all in one day. I doubt they would refund me and I certainly have no need for more wood.

Since we were already moved out of the bedroom, it had to be this weekend. It's a three-day weekend, which has turned out to be important since we are not quite done yet. Since I knew I'd ordered plenty of wood to do both the bedroom and closet, I decided to simply not make any mistakes and not need the damaged wood. I will let the company I ordered from know that they really need to pad the ends of the boxes. If the shipper so much as puts the wood down on end too heavily, the wood can be rendered useless, depending on which end. I guess you are supposed to carry the boxes from the middle? But they are heavy and awkward. I think I even chipped a corner at home before I realized how delicate those grooves are.

Before I started, I figured I'd just cut the ends off the damaged pieces, but in actual fact, it doesn't work like that. If you cut off the left end, you can use the piece to start a new row. But without the right end, the wood is useless unless it's the last piece of the row. I did salvage a few of the damaged pieces for starting or finishing rows but I wound up with over 2 boxes of damaged wood and still nearly a box to spare. Thank goodness I am good with measurements and sawing and didn't make a ton of mistakes! My husband could not figure out how I was measuring and marking and kept trying to correct me but I confidently tuned him out and I was always right.

We had checked out rental saws last weekend at Home Depot and were told there was no need to reserve. Wrong! We got there and they had nothing for us in an 8" saw but they called over to another store and they had a 12" saw and put it on hold for us. Of course it was more expensive and much bigger. We had hoped to get a whole lot done on Saturday but unfortunately, we didn't even get home until nearly dark and started working then. The tutorial the guy in Home Depot gave me was great. I took a woodworking course in college (twice, actually), and used to be pretty comfortable with wood, but later, I took an adult education course at a local high school and I lost confidence completely. In retrospect, I decided that the problem was that the high school's saw blades were dull and filthy, covered in sap, and with proper equipment, all my skills would come rushing back. True! I was only nervous for the first few cuts. After that, I really fell in love with the machine and was able to fudge my way without an actual clue through a few tricky cuts where I had to get around a corner. I only messed up one piece trying to get the hang of it. Well, I did do a practice piece and thought I had it but nope. So I think that is the only bad cut I made! Except for the times I tried to used a piece that had already been cut for the end of a row. Oops. But those pieces were already started so it was no big deal.

So many elements of this project didn't really come clear until we were well underway even though I read a lot of articles online. Most articles had no photos or were about a different type of installation. The spacers made no sense to me at all but what I finally realized is that our walls don't go down to the floor at the outside edge (you only see this when the baseboards come off) so the spacers simply won't work. They just tip over. I was also totally freaked out about how to do the final row. I assumed I could rent a saw to cut it to width, but nope, the saw I rented can't do rip cuts and I wasn't about to rent again. I assumed I could take the pieces to Home Depot, but nope, they only do cross cuts. I added up the inches and assumed I'd need a fraction at the end. When we got to the last row, I was flummoxed that the piece worked so perfectly. Well duh. I was adding up 8 inch widths, but with the tongue in groove, the actual width is something less than 8 inches so it worked out absolutely perfectly. Whatever. Thanks angels! We do have a gap in the closet but I am ignoring that. I will leave spare wood and a puzzle for the next owner.

The first row was hell. I was going to do this project myself but I was pretty near tears within a short time. The spacers kept falling right over. When I tapped the 2nd row into the first, of course it moved way under the wall and I just didn't know how to hold it out. And every time I laid the next piece of the 2nd row and tapped it in, the previous piece on that same row came out a bit. It was so silly, running back and forth, tapping, crouching, back breaking. I asked my husband to help and he hit the same problem. Now, I am one of those types that has a short span of patience, and we'd mostly snacked with all the running around getting ready to start, so I was really losing it. He helped at that dance for quite a while. I shouted profanity, I think. Not sure, really. Not my best moment. Finally, I thought maybe a third row would help stabilize the whole thing. I just do what I wanna do and so does my husband, so he didn't embrace my idea, but he didn't stop me, either. Thank goodness, it worked! My short patience came in handy that time. I did really gain a new appreciation for his ability to persevere in a frustrating situation. I am not sure now how long we were doing that dance. It could have been half an hour before my stroke of genius.

Another sticking point for me was how to do the last piece of each row. I knew that the rows were tongue in groove but I hadn't realized that end to end, they were also tongue in groove. So I didn't understand how to do the last piece. I called the flooring company for advice and they told me to build a whole row and then slide it in. It sounded great in theory but in practice, it didn't work at all. It just came undone, even if we worked together. At close to 20 feet, that isn't gonna cut it with floppy wide laminate. Maybe it's a different game with real wood. So anyway, the solution was to simply tap the last piece in straight because there wasn't enough room at the edge to compensate for the tongue and then pull it snug from the end. The spacing around the edge of the room is less than the width of the groove. So the last piece of a row needs to slide right onto that groove. There is a nifty tool you use to pull it in. The installation kit came with no instructions so we made up how to use it. We put one small lip down over the end and hammered on the other sticky up end to snug up the end piece. Seemed to work but it did mean that the nifty end-pulling-in-tool got bent out of shape periodically. Lots of pausing and loud banging to try to reshape it. Also, the plastic tool we used to tap each piece in was pretty bashed up by the end of the project. I believe I paid about $25 for our installation kit which included those two tools plus the useless spacers. I just saw much sturdier, nicer versions of those two tools at Home Depot for reasonable prices so I will quite happily toss ours now that I know what to look for and where to find it. No more woods floors going down here, but I do intend to do this again some day. Though if you'd asked me in the first 30 minutes I'd have said no way!

We worked later than we should have the first night but figured only our downstairs neighbor would mind and as far as I can tell, she's away. Today at noon, a neighbor from the floor below, down the hall, came pounding on our door, totally worked up into a frenzy. She said everyone was furious and that we had to stop right away. She had company over. Sundays are not for working. Everyone was going crazy and she was going to call the police. My husband dealt with her as best he could while I stayed out of sight. He couldn't get a word in edgewise! I called the police and they did confirm that there is an ordinance, but that if someone did complain, they would just ask us to keep it down. No jail time or anything. I said that Sundays are only a quiet time if you are Christian. She was a bit stumped by this. My husband went downstairs to talk to the neighbor and explain that we had paid a lot for the saw and needed to finish up. She had supposedly been throwing a tea party but he found her home alone and probably somewhat embarrassed at having lied about that. She agreed to give him 2 1/2 hours. Well we worked like dogs for the next 2 1/2 hours. We had done about half the first night and it had taken us about 4 hours. We finished the bedroom and the closet in two hours. I laid out the pieces, my husband crouched, crawled and tapped, I measured end pieces and cut them, and we both sweated a lot. It was just as well because it motivated us to haul butt, but really this whole unneighborly thing was silly; I have heard loads of people banging on their project any day of the week, and well past 10pm. Oh well. She could have been out enjoying an extraordinarily nice day but she chose to annoy herself with her thinking about what we should be doing.

My husband struggled a lot with the last row. It was just like the first; the moment he got one piece in right, the previous one would slide out. We tried a variety of techniques to overcome this issue. All of them involved a lot of loud banging. Finally, as time was ticking down, I came up with a solution. Again, impatience does lead to some brilliant solutions. What I did was I took a junk floorboard and put it on the floor, flush to the piece we were trying to snug up. I took another piece and laid it on the lip where the groove sticks out to maximize purchase. And I wedged as many pieces as were required, in this case one, from the top and against the wall. Then I pushed the vertical pieces out from the top and quite silently and easily slid the last row snug, piece by piece.

We returned the saw with 1 1/2 hours to spare and chose our baseboards. When we got home, we realized that the floorboards didn't have enough space at one side of the room - the side where we finished. All that tapping had caused the floor to slide so far to that side. It wasn't going to work. There was no room for the wood to move so it could actually take down the wall if left like that. Perhaps since it isn't real wood, it won't move much, but I didn't want to risk it. And on the other side of the room, the gap was too wide and the baseboard didn't cover the gap. We were gonna use that poor beat up old nifty tool but I couldn't see how a person standing on the floor could bang on a little piece of metal and cause the entire floor to slide. So my husband suggested we try my wedge technique again. It was superbly easy and totally quiet. We had agreed no banging past 2:30pm. We shifted one side, then the other, and centered the floor in the room. I did leave too large a gap in one place between two doors. Oh, that was my husband, actually, as he was responsible for setting the starting gaps and this was on the left. So the baseboard isn't going to cover that gap. We are going to see if we can stick a little something behind the bottom of the baseboard to make it stick out enough to cover the gap.

Home Depot didn't have the threshold covering to cover the gap to the closet nor the little tiny version of same to cover the very edge at the bedroom door. There is a marble threshold but if I don't cover the tiny gap, it will fill with filth. Those last details will have to wait. I surfed a few sites but couldn't find the one place I'd seen drawings of all the options. I put what I think is called a quarter round molding at the edge by the balcony. Probably not the right thing at all but it was a bit of a splurge and is the only solid hardwood in the room. It's cherry and it's gorgeous. The balcony doors are metal and this will cover the base and make it less likely that we trip over it, an unexpected bonus. I guess I'll have to glue it? I wonder what kind of glue is right for that job.

We did most of the sawing of baseboards by hand this evening. I had wanted to use that nifty saw I rented and play with angle cuts, but I wasn't prepared to rent another day and we just didn't have enough time yesterday since I didn't have the baseboards in yet. Doing it by hand sucks but the miter box we picked up today is better than the one I had before. My husband did the first load of cuts but then he lost interest about halfway through and I took over. I have always hated sawing but I got a sort of zen about it. I did the first cuts backwards, a tip I remember from that college course; just lightly drag the saw towards yourself. I just did as many pulls as I needed until I got deep enough into the wood that the cuts on the miter box would line up the saw. The baseboards are just a bit higher than the box. Then when I started sawing, instead of using a lot of pressure and having the saw skip and have to constantly reset it, I figured out to just relax and used only the weight of the saw on the push stroke. It went slowly but so much more smoothly like that. Better to relax and not be frustrated. Tomorrow, more bang bang. But according to the downstairs neighbor, projects are to be done weekdays from 8:30 am to 4pm. No problem there. Then the furniture comes back in and we're done! No more stinky disgusting stained smelly filthy carpet!

Next time I do this, I will use real wood. Now I know. I still love the floating glueless aspect of what we did, but it's not actually a wood floor, just a picture of one! Still, it'll be much cleaner and I bet my daughter's sinuses are much better for it. Poor thing. This project has taken a toll on her. We've had to ask her to stay out of the bedroom entirely, which she doesn't always agree to, because everything we're doing just makes her more sneezy and stuffy. I do hate that we didn't use a natural product and I wonder what kind of chemicals it gives off but we're not going to be here that long and it simply wasn't worth the investment to go for real wood. When we move to a place we intend to stay, I'll be researching these issues very carefully.