Our tiles came in to ProSource, so we went to Largo on Friday to pick them up. At the warehouse, the worker, Matt, stacked our nine boxes of tiles on a skid. Two sets were bundled together in three-packs, but the last three boxes were loose from one another. Matt picked up the skid on a forklift to bring to our truck; unfortunately, he had set one of the boxes on its side, and when he rounded a corner, that box when tumbling to the warehouse floor. We heard what sounded like a china hutch tipping forward and spilling all the plates. The medley of breaking tile seemed to go on for four or five seconds. My heart sank. Out of 11 tile in the box, eight of them shattered. Matt sent us back to ProSource to see if they could get their hands on another box of tile from the same dye lot. For those of you who have never tiled before, be aware that tile, like cloth, needs to come from the same dye lot for it to coordinate.
Kevin, at ProSource, immediately called DalTile to see if they had any of our tile and dye lot in stock. Thankfully, they did, so our next stop was to go to DalTile. After a lot of running around, we came home with all of our ordered tile, the thin-set, and the bullnose to use as baseboard in that room.
We were going to pick up grout at the warehouse after we chose some to coordinate with the tile, and that turned out to be more difficult than I thought it would be. We did not want to go too light, but we also did not want the grout to stand out and take the eye away from the tiles themselves. Finally we agreed on a grout called Latte only to learn that the warehouse where we picked up the tile was out of Latte. Are you getting the picture that the warehouse was not a good place to be on Friday? We'll have to return to Largo next week, now, to pick up the grout. Our plan is to not start this job until we have everything in the house. We have to be without a washer and dryer while we are tiling the laundry room floor, so we want this job to go smoothly. We'll start by laying down self-leveling compound on Friday, lay the tile on Saturday, and grout the tiles on Sunday. If you know of any tile prayers, now would be a good time to say a few.
Another task that we completed while we were out was to go to AAA. We learned that they sold Disney World tickets and that as members, we could get a discount. Our week-day season passes were only discounted by $14, but that will pay for one day's parking at Disney, so why not? Actually taking the paperwork in and getting the tickets at the park still will be a bit of a run-around, so we are going next week for just one day to get that taken care of. Then we will return in April and stay overnight at least once to see the evening fireworks and after-dark performances. Tinkerbell, here we come.
I am excited that my friend Bonnie is coming for a visit. We decided early on that our house would be our house, not an easy stop for everyone who knew us. As such, we made a short list of relatives and friends who we would welcome to visit us at Gladys. Bonnie is one of those friends. She has very patiently waited for us to get Gladys into "visiting" shape, and now we feel that we are ready to extend an invitation. Bonnie is a friend and former office mate of mine. When we met over 20 years ago, we learned that our birthdays are only two days apart. My birthday is on March 19 and hers is March 21. We decided that we should have a birthday dinner each year on March 20 to celebrate making it through another year. Bonnie e-mailed me and said that she was sorry that we could not have our traditional birthday dinner this year, so I invited her down so we could celebrate together. Although she cannot come for March 20, she is going to visit with us for a few days in early April. She is a seasoned traveler, and I cannot wait to see her again.
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| The artwork in the new laundry room. |
Part of our decorating scheme for Gladys is to fill her with pictures that we have taken, starting with some pictures from the Florida Botanical Gardens that we want to use on the laundry room walls. We bought frames with wainscoting (which matches our new interior doors) for three pictures that we had printed, but the middle picture really should be horizontal instead of vertical. In order to get some more pictures, Rick and I decided to revisit the Botanical Gardens while we were picking up the tile since the Gardens are in the same general area.
Rick actually dug out his tripod and good camera, and I used my trusty Panasonic point-and-shoot. Unfortunately, I do not have any of the shots that Rick took, so you will just have to put up with my photography in the following pictures.
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| Florida's Botanical Gardens |
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| One of the winter blooms at the Garden. |
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| This bloom may be printed for the new center picture in the laundry room. |
One fact that we learned had to do with a strangely behaving black, fuzzy-headed bird. This bird was standing on a fallen tree branch over water in the Garden, holding his wings widespread while flaring his tail. He looked like he was dreaming about flying without really doing so. Was he hallucinating?
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| The anhinga, acting as he should to dry his wings. |
When I got home, I looked him up in my trusty Birds of Florida book. (Thanks, Stephanie.) I learned that the bird is an anhinga, also known as a water turkey or a snakebird, because he is an excellent swimmer who, when submerged up to his long neck, looks like a snake in the water. He also is a graceful flyer, but is rather clumsy on land. Oh, and he was not hallucinating. When the anhinga swims and fishes for his diet of fish, frogs, water snakes, and leeches (yummy!), he naturally gets soaked. After he feeds, according to the book, he "spends much time perched after swimming with wings and tail spread out to dry." Who knew? I went to take pictures, and learned something new about a bird I have never seen before since his natural habitat is eastern Texas, Luisiana, Mississippi, and Florida.
Our tasks today were two-fold. We took the unpainted closet doors out of the guest room and added them to the painting schedule. We have glued and repainted the guest room hallway door, and today we attempted to seal the closet doors. We know that both need to be replaced, but the money is just not available this year.
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| The guest room with the new ceiling fan. |
The other task completed today was to replace the wobbly ceiling fan in the guest room. Stephanie has been complaining about the fan for a year, so we bought one quite a while ago but have not had the time to replace it. Bonnie's imminent visit has prompted us to do some of these "little tasks" that need to be completed anyway. So Bonnie and Steph, the ceiling fan is now new, non-wobbly, and terribly bright since the one bulb was replaced with four. Bring sunglasses when you come to stay in Gladys' guest room!
I am happy that we have come to Florida, and I am excited to continue to learn and to grow with this new Southern culture. Gladys also continues to change, and that makes me happy, too.
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