A couple of days ago we mutually decided this would be a good weekend to pull up the square of cat piss-smelling carpet in the living room and put down laminate that matched the other half of the living room. Seemed like an easy, weekend project, right? NOTHING IS EVER EASY IN THIS FAMILY. Hell, that’s our family motto. That, and “This is why we can’t have nice things“. The previous owners had stashed some leftover laminate in the garage, leaving about 40 square feet of untouched, still-in-the-box planks. We needed to cover 192 square feet, so we went to a couple of different stores Friday night and we informed that the laminate we needed had been discontinued. Naturally!

This didn’t deter us, however. I mean, that carpet had to GO. It didn’t smell like cat piss when we moved in (naturally), but pretty soon the smell started rising. And then when we turned the black light on it, we could see the cat piss splattered all over the carpet like a crime scene…GROSS.

 So yesterday we went ahead and removed the carpet and the pad underneath. Here’s a self-portrait of me sweeping up all the crap leftover from removal. Removal of the carpet was a cinch; removing the tack strip and all of the staples was more difficult. I stupidly didn’t wear gloves at the beginning and promptly got a big ol’ blister on my thumb, which immediately broke open. BOO.

The next step was doing a little bleach job on all the exposed wood, as suggested to us by my father. Since I’m the one in the family that is the “super sniffer” and annoyingly sensitive to chemical smells, Josh strapped on his expensive special mask and bleached the floor with a sponge mop. Although we had all the windows and doors open with three fans blowing, we sequestered ourselves in the basement with the dogs for a few hours last night. Bleach stinks.

While I worked on my latest Mandala painting Josh went back to Home Depot and found some laminate that is almost a perfect match–only issue is, it’s a different brand (they don’t carry the brand of laminate that was on the floor either, typical!). It fits together but doesn’t “snap”. My father said a little color putty and face nails could fix this problem. It will really only be an issue for one seam–the rest of the new laminate snaps together the way it should. So why couldn’t we finish this “easy” project in one weekend, you ask?

Apparently the new laminate has to “acclimate” to our home for a couple of days before we can install it! Booooooooo.

So our living room is going to look like this for a little longer. Heigh ho. It will all be worth it in the end, because that room will no longer smell like cat piss, one of the worst smells ever. And who even wants carpet any more? Carpet is gross. When you have pets. Think of the pets!

Here’s a pet! Angus is much healthier these days. We went to a thrift store and bought him a massive glass cake pan to replace his tiny fish bowl, because I read that Betta fish like large but shallow pools of water. I also put a shot glass in there because I remembered my previous Betta Seymour liked to hide in a shot glass.

The wind snapped off the entire top half of our Magnolia tree the other day. Lame.

Today’s goal, after coffee and breakfast and application of Pamprin (I have that stupid Mittelschmerz today) is to run with Josh and the girls at a new series of trails.

Gorgeous Rose of Sharon flowers spotted on our walk.

My co-workers were absolutely incredulous that I’ve never seen (or heard of) “Vision Quest”, a movie with Madonna from 1985. One of them even suggested that my Madonna card be revoked! I had to listen to “Confessions on a Dance Floor” during my run the other day and soothe myself with the knowledge that my Madonna card will NEVER be revoked. I mean, I suffered through “Dick Tracy” and “Who’s That Girl?”, gimme a break.

Roses from the front yard, mmmmmm. We just bought rose fertilizer–now we need to use it.

Once again Instagram helped me identify this berry plant, which looked different from all the other berry plants at the park. Turns out it’s an “Evergreen Blackberry”, which is rarer than the other blackberry bushes we have everywhere. Thanks Instagram!

Still looking for that poison oak someone warned me about at the park. Still haven’t found it. Maggie dog got into something disgusting at the park on Friday and needed an entire shower, with soap, to get free of it. Sigh. 

Here she is putting on her cutest begging face for my chocolate ice cream bar. Someone had told me these “Magnum” (snicker) ice cream bars were amazing, and they were right! I highly recommend the dark chocolate one.

It’s raining this weekend! Hooray! Hooray for everyone’s yellow grass and wilted plants! In fact, it’s sprinkling right now, as I type this! You go, rain.