Back in June my brother, Jacob, helped me rip the carpet out of the house, pry up the hundreds of thousands of staples, tacks, and nails, and thoroughly scrub 50-year-old asbestos tile. In August I drove to Lumber Liquidators in Eugene and picked up 1/2 of my order of flooring. Mike, the super talented builder/craftsman/and now licensed contractor (congrats, Mike!), picked up the other half.

In September, when my husband was here for a visit, he and Mike started nailing it down.

And now it looks like this throughout the whole house. This is tiger strand bamboo.

I’m in love. (And look, I even washed the floor before I took this picture. Shiny!)

Here’s a link to the wood flooring I got.

It’s November. November, people! Wasn’t it just November not too long ago? I’m telling you, Father Time is rolling the seasons out way too fast for me. And the colds. I mean really. Is all this coughing and carrying on really necessary? Last year it felt like we were sick all winter long. I hope we’re not in for a repeat of that.

My mom gave me a tin of Badger brand chest rub this year, and I love it so much that I hardly ever break out the Vick’s any more. It smells delightful and not at all medicine-y, but it works just as well. I try to always reach for this and hot tea before I break out the “real” medicine.

I hope you’re all enjoying your Halloween. Gavin barely fits into the zebra costume I made for Olga two years ago, but since I was too lazy tired to make new ones this year, he’s wearing it anyway. Olga opted for Magical Angelina Ballerina Fairy Girl, thankfully pulled together out of things we had. Next year, there will be something new. I promise.

And this year, after many failures, I actually looked up directions for roasting pumpkin seeds, rather than winging it, and I’m happy to report that they turned out delicious.

I know I harped on about painting the fence in my last post, but you really can’t appreciate just how long it takes to paint pickets until you’ve done it. I think painting probably took twice as long as everything else combined, including digging and setting new fence posts, hassling the lumber yard, and hanging the gate (although we all agree, we’d rather paint another fence than hang that gate again).

The weather has been a little touch-and-go here, so some days we blew off work to paint. (Of course we always make up for it… )

We used a taught string as a guide for the tops of the pickets (you can barely see it in the photo above to the left of my head) and a 2×4 scrap as a spacer between pickets. I held up a spirit level every few pickets and made adjustments when needed. We’re using special screws that are “dactrotized” and apparently won’t rust or corrode in our marine environment.

We’re not quite finished putting up pickets, but many of my neighbors have already stopped to say how much they like the fence. I love it.