When last I touched base, Todd the Vinyl Planking Guy had just broken a screen door window, tried to blame it on a bird, and ended up a few boxes short of flooring.
Boy, Thursday was a weird day.
But Friday was better. Todd showed up at 9:30, immediately apologizing for being late. He was halfway to our house to install the rest of the flooring when Home Depot called him and asked if he was planning on picking up the rest of the flooring. Apparently he was running on autopilot and forgot that the flooring wasn’t already in his truck(?), so he had to backtrack to Home Depot, delaying his arrival a bit.
Oh, Todd.
Fortunately, he finished up the rest of the job without incident. That evening, we wasted no time in unpacking our albums and setting up our record player.
The Neil Young album was a gift from Justin the Realtor. Fittingly, it was the first record we played.
We didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy our new setup though, because the carpet installers were coming to do the bedrooms on Monday (today). That meant emptying out all three rooms Sunday evening–including my home office–and moving all the furniture into the living room.
Was that a pain in the ass and a major inconvenience? It was, but we told each other it was just for 24 hours. Normally I go into the office in Janesville on Monday, but today I worked from the dining room table with mattresses piled up against the wall behind me. Not ideal, but it was less disruptive than Thursday. Carpet installation is a little less noisy, and this crew didn’t cause any Todd-level chaos. The only problem was, they barely spoke English and I don’t know Spanish. The language barrier reared its ugly head when the lead guy asked me a couple of questions and I had to have him repeat them multiple times. It’s uncomfortable when that happens, and then when I suddenly comprehended what he was saying, I was so excited to understand him I overcompensated in the enthusiasm department.
“Oh, you want me to open the garage! Of course!! I’m happy to do so!!!”
The only incident of note occurred when I had to pee. I got up from my makeshift desk, walked to the bathroom, but was stopped short because the carpet crew were using it as a staging area. They’d removed closet doors and put them in there, along with rolls of carpet and padding.
No problem, I thought. I’ll just use the basement bathroom.
Only that one was inaccessible too, because Tara and I had moved the treadmill and loveseat out of the family room and into the hallway between the bathroom and garage so they could lay carpet down there.
I pondered my dilemma for a few moments. It was mid-morning and they had hours to go before finishing. I knew I couldn’t possibly hold my bladder that long, but then a lightbulb went off when I realized we have a stand of woods on the edge of our property. Five minutes later I was back at my computer after using the green latrine. Whew! I was good for the rest of the afternoon after that.
They finished up at 3:30 and I was very impressed with their work. What a difference between the old mismatched carpet that we’d splattered with paint and the plush new stuff.
You think that’s something, check out the basement the first time we saw it versus today.
I am so glad all the big projects are now finished. We can finally unpack all our stuff and settle in. It’s only a matter of time before I find that elusive potato masher!
Living in Wisconsin is giving me whiplash.
Last week was unseasonably warm. We reached the 80s three days in a row and actually had to turn on the A/C. I held my breath when flipping that switch; we didn’t even know if the A/C worked because the home inspector was unable to test it out in February given that it was 15º that day. Fortunately, it came right on and works great.
Saturday, we ran errands in shorts and t-shirts and marveled over our backyard. The grass is nice and green, flowers are blooming, trees are budding. It felt like we’d skipped straight to summer.
That’s when Old Man Winter said, “Hold my beer.”
Sunday we awoke to a cold rain. It poured all day and then turned to snow in the evening. We went from 82° on Saturday to 32° on Sunday. A 50-degree temperature drop in a little over 24 hours is just plain nuts
Not that I was complaining. Three days into false summer and I was already over it. We only got a little bit of snow anyway and it’s already melted.
Mark My Words 
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