What have we been up to the past few weeks?
We have been doing yard work for the McIntyres (a family in our ward). We have relaid bricks bordering flowerbeds, trimmed a tree, put snow guards on the roof of the garage so the snow doesn't fall on plants this winter, begun varnishing the wooden play structure, pressure washed a fence, etc.
On Wednesday, July 13, we found out that the person who is going to move in after us needs to have moved all of his things out of his current apartment by July 22nd. (He will then be out of town until the latter part of August, so we can stay until he gets back). We still hadn't finished refinishing the floor of the room where he is going to be putting his stuff. We decided to finish the two bedrooms that we had already begun as soon as possible. Adam had work Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I ended up finishing the sanding Thursday and Friday morning (we can only sand in the mornings because Brother Risley who we are living with works at night and sleeps from 11am - 7pm). Friday evening, Adam and I put on the first coat of polyurethane on the floors in the two bedrooms and the little hallway between them. We had a paint roller, but we didn't have tray (and this is about 10:30pm because after Adam got off work, we worked at the McIntyre's until dark). We ended up taking a little cardboard box and covering it in plastic wrap to make our own paint tray. It worked quite well, considering. After we finished putting on the polyurethane, we sealed the door with painter's tape and went to bed. Saturday morning after I took Adam to work, I tried to lightly sand the floors as the label instructed. The sander wasn't working well at all. It was quite the struggle and I didn't know how well I had done. I finally just went ahead and cleaned the dust off the floors and put on a second layer of polyurethane. Saturday evening when we checked the floors, they looked wonderful. We re-sanded the floors, cleaned them and put on a final coat of polyurethane. I must say, the end result looks better than I expected at those times during the process when I didn't know what I was doing and I felt like I didn't have time to do it as well as I would like.
One of the things we do to relax is read or listen to The Wheel of Time books together. It is one of Adam's favorites and he wanted to share it with me. We just started book five this week.
I have also been working on officially changing my name. I received my new social security card in the mail this week. Next, I need to go to the DMV.
Adam likes to try things. Recently he has been exploring different things in the kitchen. He tried making flavored yogurt and yogurt using whole milk. He is currently experimenting with sugar in making candies and figuring out the properties of sugar with and without other substances.
