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Amanda and I have been busy little bees these last few days. So has Miles, actually. Observe.

Amanda’s mom was in town over the weekend, so we spent a bit of time hanging out with her. However, Saturday morning/afternoon was deemed mother-daughter time, so I was stuck at home by myself. Struck by a bit of boredom-inspired productivity, I decided to clean and organize the back porch. The porch has been my impromptu storage room ever since I moved in to the house nearly a year ago. There have been boxes stacked everywhere, furniture shoved uselessly against the back wall, and random stuff my parents left strewn about. As of Saturday evening, though, it was clean and usable as, well, a back porch. Featuring seating for 8, even.

Miles was also productive during that afternoon. He used his spare time while I was occupied to learn how to jump over the back fence. He escaped the backyard four times in total. The fourth time, I had to drive around the neighborhood to find him, then wrestle him to the ground in a stranger’s yard to get a leash on him. And then I rearranged the stuff in the yard slightly to make it tougher for him to get out.

Sunday was friend Juan’s birthday, so we celebrated with a brunch at Hannah and Juan’s place. It was a delicious time – we had authentic Costa Rican breakfast cuisine, Bloody Marys, and coffee cake. Miles was kenneled, so he was generally good.

After work on Monday, Amanda and I decided to drive out to West Des Moines to go to Lowe’s and Petsmart. We picked up some sample tiles at Lowe’s to try out in the kitchen, as we’re planning on redoing the kitchen floor in the next couple of weeks. I also bought some grass seed and mulch so that I could try again for some grass in the backyard. We stocked up on pet food at Petsmart, and also got new a new toy, tag, and box of treats for Miles. I guess we were feeling generous. When we got home, we discovered that he’d gone Number Two in his kennel (which is in our bedroom) while we were gone. It was pretty nasty to clean up, as it required climbing headfirst into the kennel. I was feeling significantly less generous after that.

On Tuesday, we decided to let Miles back into the backyard in the afternoon while we were at work, since the drizzling rain was supposed to have moved off. Of course, it poured that afternoon, suggesting we’d have a soaked puppy when we got home. However, Miles was pretty dry when we got back after work, which meant he was smart for once and stayed on the porch during the rain. He must’ve gotten a little bored, though, because he chewed the arm off the wicker loveseat I had just gotten cleaned up and arranged the Saturday prior. I was fairly annoyed with him as I grabbed his water bowl and headed inside. He didn’t seem to notice, though, because he happily jumped up on me as I came in the door, sending the water bowl crashing to the floor, sending ceramic shards everywhere. My annoyance went up a notch or ten, and then a bit more when I sliced my thumb picking up the pieces. I spent the rest of the evening seeding the back yard, trying not to use my thumb. Miles spent a good portion of his evening in his kennel.

Boy, it’s been an eventful last few days. Amanda and I spent the weekend — and then some, as we finished at 11pm last night — refinishing my floors. They look great now (I’ll try and get pics up semi-soon), but boy were they a lot of work.

We even went so far as to make things harder on ourselves. At first, we were just going to do the main living area and the attached hallway, but at the last minute we decided to tear the carpet out of the then-office, now-dining room and do that room as well. And that made things significantly more difficult, because where the living room carpet had been stapled to the floor, this stuff had been ~glued~ down with something nasty and gunky and black, and all that had to come up too. So we spent a good ten or so hours sanding the floor down, alternating between the rented floor sander and my random orbital for the many, many places the bigger sander couldn’t reach..

After the sanding, we covered parts of the floor in wood bleach (oxalic acid) to lighten their color a bit (and it did, although the areas are still a bit darker than the original wood), let it sit overnight, then cleaned up that stuff with water and baking soda (the directions said to use borax, but baking soda seemed to do the trick just as well). Once the water had dried, we stained the wood a lovely golden color, which I chose simply because it was my favorite, but it just happens to match the other wood in the house almost perfectly (go us!).

The stain took a really long time to dry, so we only got one coat of finish on the floor Sunday night, which meant we had to put off the remaining three coats until Monday. Which was probably just as well, because we were both horribly sore by that point. Sanding for that long had taken a lot out of us… the vibrations were murder on our hands, and our knees didn’t appreciate all the kneeling for the hours of detail work.

I was still really sore when I got to work on Monday, only to discover that my office had flooded over the weekend. A water heater on the third (top) floor just outside the CEO’s office had burst some time Friday night, and the water ran unabated until someone discovered the problem on Sunday evening. At that point, the water was ankle deep on the third floor and had permeated the ceilings, walls, and stairwells on through to the ground level. About half the building was fairly damaged (none of my stuff, luckily), and about half the occupants (including half of my department) had to move to a different building. So I got to spend a portion of the day helping tear down and move electronic equipment, activities of which my body did not approve. ;) And then there was still the finishing of the finishing to do. Amanda and I did a coat over the lunch hour on Monday, then after work, and then a final coat late last night.

I stopped by over lunch today to check on the floor, and it looks really good. I’m really quite proud of the work we did. Especially when you consider the money we saved. After people here in the office found out we were refinishing our own floors, many mentioned the prices they’d paid to have their floors refinished, and depending on square footage, decade and contractor, prices ranged anywhere from $3,000 to more than $8,000. Not counting sweat equity, we managed to spend just under $280 on rentals and supplies. That’s less than $1 per square foot! It would have been closer to $400 without my Woodsmith Store discount, but that ~still~ would have been a savings of 90% or more over what it would have cost to contract that work out.

For our next major project, Amanda and I are thinking we’ll tackle the kitchen floor. The linoleum has warped and cracked in a few places, so we’ll probably tear it all out and lay down a new floor. We’re thinking either ceramic tile or a laminate faux-tile, depending on price, durability, and feasibility.

But not for a while. I think we’re ready for a break. :)

Update: I finally got around to posting a pic of my floor. Check it out above.

Busy week, tis been, tis been. For worky values of busy, anyway. My evenings have been fairly lax, so far as I can recall. Amanda and I made a couple of meals (last night was meatloaf, earlier in the week was salmon, and I’ve forgotten all others), watched a couple of movies (La Cité des Enfants Perdus last night, Blade Runner a couple nights ago, and I’ve again forgotten the rest), and went out with her Garden Gate co-workers one night (but I’m not even going to try naming them all).

This weekend should be more than sufficiently busy to make up for all of the easy nights I’ve had recently. Tonight Amanda, Anne, Justin and I will be going out to dinner, then heading to the Iowa Cubs home opener, then warming up in the bars (prolly El Bait Shop or High Life Lounge, if you wanna find us) afterwards.

Tomorrow morning, I’m going to get up early, move everything out of my living room, and head to the Woodsmith Store to buy supplies to start Refinishing My Floors(!), which should take at least all weekend. Most of Saturday will be sent sanding down the floors. Saturday night, we’ll probably be attending a small get-together at Chuck’s house, to celebrate Anne making it back from Amsterdam and Hannah making it back from Costa Rica. At least, that’d be a good excuse for having the party. Sunday, we’ll be putting down a new finish.

Things that made this week cool:

• I’ve already burned nearly 2,000 calories in the workout mode of DDR. I started doing the workout mode last Friday.
• My flags came! I ordered them on Tuesday and had them on Thursday. Flagline rocks on shipping. I plan to hang my pirate flag tomorrow.
• I’m finally getting around to refinishing the floors.
• My boss has been gone to a conference all week, and we pranked him something fierce. See photo above.

I’m sure other cool stuff happened, too, but as I may have eluded to earlier, my memory isn’t working so hot this week. ;)

It’s been a busy ten or so days since we’ve last spoke. So busy, in fact, that I haven’t even gotten around to purchasing a replacement flag. That’s the route I’ve decided to take, by the by. I plan to buy at least two flags: one pirate and the other foreign (but not Middle Eastern (I’ve nothing against the middle east, but I bet some of my neighbors do, and I’m looking to annoy, not incite violence or vandalism)). I appreciate all the comments, by the by. Good conversation in there. :) I’ll keep you updated as to the status of my pole. If you catch my drift.

Somewhere amidst the great flag debacle, Valentine’s Day happened. Amanda and I had decided we wanted to do something rather simple to celebrate. Somewhere along the line, though, simple got tougher. :p I decided I wanted to make her dinner, so we had pot roast (avec potatoes, baby carrots, onions, garlic, soy sauce, numminess), fresh baked bread, a nice bottle of wine, and cherry pie a la mode for dessert. Amanda has a thing for pie; she claims them better than cake, which I personally claim is signs of mental instability. But I digress.

Really, the cherry pie was the only tough part - my newly purchased crock pot took care of the worst of the roast, and the bread machine turns out nice whole wheat loaves regularly now (I haven’t bought bread from the store in months). But the pie made up for the others. I decided I wanted it to be wholly homemade, from the crust right down to the filling. And so it was. There were only a couple of problems with this plan. First, there was a slight difficulty in rolling out the dough, largely stemming from the fact that I don’t own a rolling pin. Instead, I used an empty wine bottle covered in saran wrap. It worked okay, but not as well as a nice wooden rolling pin (or even a full wine bottle, methinks) would have. The result being, the crust was a little too thick. And then I didn’t to all to hot a job sealing up the crust at the edges, so it looked a little slapdash when I was done, and had pulled away from the edges of the pan in a few places. And then, I think I ended up using too many cherries in the filling, so the whole thing ran over into the oven (and under the pie), stinking up the house and gumming up the pie. It tasted pretty good in the end, though, and I guess that’s what matters most. ;)

So that was V-Day. The evening after, we went out to Taki for a surprise birthday dinner with Sara (the birthday girl), her boyfriend Chuck, Anne, and Hannah. The food was awesome (I had rare steak and rare eel in one night, which is pretty tough to beat), and the company was good, but the waitress was a bit of a choad. Rude, anyways. But yes. Night otherwise = good.

Friday was pretty darn dull, really. Amanda and I both worked late, we had a frozen pizza for dinner, watched some TV, and had fallen asleep on the couch by a little after 10pm. I guess we’re getting old.

We made up for it on Saturday, though, lemme tell ya. First off, I decided a bit randomly Saturday morning that I was finally annoyed enough with the living room carpet to do something about it, so Amanda and I spent from 10am - 4pm or so tearing up my living room carpet. I now have hardwood floors! Of course, they’re not in the best of shape. In another month or so, we plan to sand them down and refinish them. Mostly, we want it to be warm enough we can open windows for ventilation without then dieing of exposure as a consequence. Also, I think some of the furniture will have to go out the front door to refinish the floor. To tear out the carpet, we just moved the big pieces to one side of the room, tore everything up on that side, and moved them back.

After the carpet was out, we headed up to Ames for a lunch/dinner/gorging at King Buffet. We both had been missing the place. ;) At one point, I had chicken, beef, shrimp, and frog all on my plate at the same time (I guess steak and eel isn’t that tough to beat after all). After dinner, we headed back down to Des Moines and went out to the bars (newly opened 101 Lounge (it was okay-ish) and Hessen Haus) with the same group as from Thursday night and proceeded to get trashed. Chuck, bless his heart, gave us a ride home.

And now you’re caught up, more or less. I’ll spare you the sordid tales of IHOP for breakfast/lunch (onion rings and pancakes, mmm…) and taking out the trash in my robe and fuzzy slippers (leaping snowdrifts in a single bound!). Hmm… you know what? Now that I think about it, both of those topics would have made for better posts than this one. Ah well. No turning back now.

You know, for the record, I didn’t specify how much later. :) Patience is a virtue, children.

So! Yes. My blog is up and running again. I’m a little annoyed with my webhost over the ordeal. I got an email from them last week saying they’d randomly decided to move me to a newer, faster server. I was happy about this, until I noticed that my blog’s database did NOT come along for the ride. I emailed back and forth (and back and forth…) with their tech support about this for five. Stinking. Days. Before I solved the problem. Yeah. ~I~ solved it. Five days emailing their tech support and I ended up fixing it myself. Admittedly, I did need their help getting to the solution, but still. It kinda sucks that I had to fix it myself. Normally their tech support is great on the rare occasion I have to use it, so I’ll assume things’ll get better for now.

Alrighty. Big announcement time! Some of you already know, but here t’is just the same: Amanda Marie Wurzinger and I are a couple. :) We have been, in fact, since December 9th, meaning we celebrated our first monthiversary just last week. I waited to post about it because there were a few people I wanted to tell in person first. And then, once I’d spoken to them all, my blog broke. :p So goes life. You know now, and that’ll have to be good enough.

What have we being doing with ourselves? Good question. We keep busy. We went to the Nutcracker Ballet in Ames one weekend, although that might have been before we were an official couple. We’ve went to two Iowa Stars games since the big day (the Stars lost both games, but the last one was really close), which is fun and I hope to continue going. We watch a lot of movies, though we’ve not yet seen one in the theater together (we’re hoping to change that this weekend).

Last weekend, we painted my upstairs living room. T’was a chore! I’d been saying I was going to paint it for months, but hadn’t gotten around to it. On Saturday afternoon we made the spontaneous decision to paint the next day, so we ran to The Woodsmith Store for supplies. I heart my employee discount there. :) I got two gallons of paint in two different shades of pale blue-gray, four rolls of painter’s tape, roller covers, tray inserts, drop cloths, and so on. We, my friends, were going to try vertical stripes.

And try we did! And I think we did a pretty kick-butt job all around. It was close, though. I almost didn’t buy enough supplies. We were very literally scraping the bottom of the can for the base coat. We finished with maybe an ounce or two of useable paint left. And then, after the paint had dried, came the stripe-taping. It was wearing work, and we ~very~ nearly ran out of tape. I’d bought four rolls of the stuff, which is 240 yards (720 feet) of tape. When I taped off the last stripe, I pulled out the remaining tape to see how close we cut it. I had less than eight inches left.

Now my living room walls look awesome, but they are making my furniture look crappy by comparison. I’ve decided I need furniture covers in a rich, solid color of some sort. That’ll come some other weekend. I still haven’t gotten my living room put back together again yet. When I do, I’ll take pictures and post them to flickr.

That’s a good enough update for today. I get the feeling I’ll be posting again soon. If anything, we have a new guy starting in my department at work next week, so my work load should lessen somewhat.