The Ringling, Rugs, and Religion

As predicted, yesterday dawned grey and wet.  While that meant that it was a perfect day NOT to feel guilty about not working outside, the weather also meant that we would have to battle rain as we drove an hour and a half south to get to Sarasota.

My nephew Jon sings in the choir at Martin Luther College in New Ulm, Minnesota, where he is a senior.  The choir is presenting The Gospel in Song as their spring concert tour in the south, so we wanted to drive to Sarasota to attend.  The choir is singing in numerous churches in Florida, but that was the congregation nearest to our house.

Since we have never been to Sarasota, we decided to make a day of it.  Rick's research and Steve's suggestion lead us first to The Ringling, the estate and art museum built by John and Mabel Ringling of the famed Ringling and Barnum & Bailey Circus.  We actually learned while on the estate that John made his fortune primarily from investments in the railroad and in oil even though the circus was highly successful also.

Ca'D'Zan as seen from Sarasota Bay. 

The Ringling includes the estate house itself, called Ca'D'Zan or "House of John," the Circus Museum, the Museum of Art, and numerous gardens. Since the rain was fairly substantial when we arrived, we started with the estate house itself.

One of the fountains in the Museum of
Art's courtyard.  Such a statue will NOT
ever adorn the gardens of Gladys!

The house is a Venetian-inspired palace on Sarasota Bay started in 1924 and completed only two years later. The 26,000 sq. ft. house was built for $1.5 million (at 1926 prices!), and plays homage both to Italian architecture and "gilded age" culture.  No detail was left undone (including hand-carved marble bathtubs in some of the 15 bathrooms in the house), and the result is a magnificent structure that served as a winter playground and retreat for the Ringlings, their families, and their rich and famous friends.  Sadly, the Ringlings spent very little time there.  As mentioned, the house was completed in 1926, and the docent who led our tour told us that John and Mabel spent only 4 - 5 months a year there in the winter. (They also had homes in Wisconsin and in one of the New England states for the summer.) Ca'D'Zan was their dream house, yet only three years later in June of 1929, Mabel died of Addison's Disease.  John was devastated with the loss of his beloved Mabel and chose not to spend much time at the house.  Of course, in October of that same year, the stock market crashed and John lost much of his fortune.

In 1927, John had decided to build a Museum of Art to house his vast collection of Renaissance and Baroque art including several massive works by Peter Paul Rubens called the Triumph of the Eucharist.  John wanted the museum open to the public, and it has been that way since it was completed in 1930.  The courtyard of the Museum of Art contains several bronze and stone copies of famous Classical, Renaissance, and Baroque statues including a 16-foot tall reproduction of Michelangelo's David.  The sun actually peeked through the clouds enough in the late afternoon so I was able to sneak out into the courtyard to get some pictures.

One of the plaster sculptures in the garden.

A copy of David overlooks the courtyard
at the Museum of Art.

Neither Rick nor I are terribly thrilled with the circus, so we spent very little time in another building that housed the actual Circus Museum.  They had several wagons and some costumes, but truthfully, better wagons are housed in the circus headquarters in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  Part of Florida's Circus Museum was the Howard Brothers' Circus Model which is a 44,000-piece miniature model of the whole circus experience.  The model starts with loading and then unloading the circus from the trains, using a circus parade to transport the circus to the fields, setting up the Midway and the Big Top, to the behind-the-scenes tents and wagons where the performers lived, trained, and worked.  That was more interesting to me than the actual wagons in the museum!

After The Ringling, we went to a store that Rick found online called Rugs As Art.  The final furnishing we needed for Gladys was a rug for the living room.  We looked at one traditional Oriental rug but felt that the colors were too dark.  Then a nice designer named Sandra offered to help.  We talked about the room and the fact that we wanted the house to have a palm tree/ tropical theme.  She found a rug for us with a fun pattern in the colors that we were looking for and told us to take it home.  She said that we had 30 days to decided if we liked it; if it did not work, we could bring it back for a full refund.  The rug was within our budget, and since we were able to fit it into the Camry, home it came.

Our fun, tropical rug in the living room gives the area definition and gives
it a pop of color.

We liked the rug last night, but we were tired and the lighting at 10:30 p.m. was not great, at best.  This morning dawned cloudy and grey again, but at least we had some natural light.  We both decided that we really liked the rug, so with a sigh of relief, I feel we are done with buying furniture and rugs.  Other than a little artwork for the dining room and perhaps the bedroom, the inside decorating of Gladys is complete. She is fresh, bright, beautiful, and smiling.

After we purchased the rug on Thursday, we went to Publix Supermarket, bought some delicious sandwiches, and had an inside-the-car-since-it-is sprinkling-again picnic at a city park.  We watched the bay for a bit and then drove over to the church for Jon's concert.  The 60-mermber choir delivered an eight-part harmony of beautiful, inspiring music.  We thoroughly enjoyed the concert and had a good time afterward visiting with our nephew for a few minutes.

The rain had stopped by this time, so our drive home was completed in record time.  We were home by 10:30 p.m.  Although the day was full, we had an enjoyable, successful day.  Once in a while, we need to treat ourselves to days away from work and from remodeling. We love transforming Gladys, but life is too short to work every day.  The work in Gladys will wait for us when we are ready to do it.

Naked Gladys

For the last three days, we have been working on the prep for Gladys before we can paint her.  Along the way, we learned a valuable lesson.

We started by getting the soffit ready with patching and priming.  Rick debated on whether he should put the finish coats of paint on the soffits before we took the paint off the walls.  We decided against that, and in the end, that was the right decision.  He would have spent at least two more hours adding the finish coats, and our water pressure treatment to get the paint off of Gladys would have ruined all of that effort.  As it is, even under strict control, the pressure washing to get the paint off Gladys ruined the prime coat on the soffits.  We learned: take the paint off first, them worry about the soffits and the rest of the painting.  We will not make that same mistake again.

Redoing the soffits on the south side will not be that difficult; a little sanding to get the base smooth and another application of primer before the finish coats will do the trick.  Sadly, all of that is overhead work, so it becomes a killer chore for the shoulders.

The south side of Gladys with all of the tan paint gone.

At this point, Gladys is naked on the south side.  Oh, my!  We have taken off all of the paint that is going to come off, exposing a few holes and pits, some settling cracks, and a few upper hairline cracks that I call Gladys' "wrinkles".  Everyone over 50 has a few of those, and Gladys is no exception.

Rick spent this morning painting on a poly-elastic patching compound to cover the cracks.  It feels almost rubber-like when it dries, but that is good because then it can expand and contract as the house "breathes" with the seasons.  (After all, we would not want to suffocate poor old Gladys!)

Tomorrow we will apply the Super Spec 100% Acrylic Masonry Sealer.  We both doubt that this house has ever been properly sealed, so putting that coat on tomorrow will be one of the best things we can do for Gladys. We want the masonry sealed from further moisture or damage.  Rain is predicted for Thursday, so getting that coat on tomorrow (Wednesday) is crucial to our plans and to our success.

Each step takes drying time, but by being patient, we are maximizing our chances of having this whole procedure be a success.  In the end, we think we will have a stronger, more weather-resistant finish that should have Gladys looking good for years to come.

Prep Before Paint

"The most important part of any job is the prep."  I heard that numerous times from my father as I was growing up, and I have heard it countless times from Rick.  Prep is not always fun, but the proper prep makes the difference between a job that looks awful and will fail or a job that is done right the first time and looks great for years.  We certainly are in an extended prep stage now as we get Gladys ready for a new coat of exterior paint.

Our first task is the soffits.  When we purchased Gladys, the soffits had ripped open screens for attic ventilations.  Because the ripped screens provided access, fruit rats had moved into the attic, eating through the outer layer of our air conditioning ducts so they could live next to the moist and cool inner part of the ducts.  Lovely.  Since we wanted to keep boarders out of our attic, the first thing we had to do was to rip down the screens and to put up some aluminum vents.  We had done the job quickly and somewhat sloppily and have taken this long to finally getting back to them.  They need help.

The wooden soffits themselves are rippled with age, warping, and various coats of poorly scraped paint.  In order to smooth everything out, Rick is using an exterior spackling that gives us a smooth surface (after sanding, of course).  He worked on the south side soffit a little yesterday and finished the initial coat today.  Tomorrow we can sand it and then prime and paint it.

The pink area shows spackling that still needs to dry.

We also learned yesterday that the people who painted the house before us did absolutely no prep.  We are both amazed that the paint has stayed on the walls as long as it has.  When we began to scrape the walls, we found that the tan layer of paint came off in large patches.  A closer look at what was left showed a chalky white layer or the base grey of the stucco on our house.  Gladys is definitely showing her grey roots!

We took a paper-plate-sized piece of paint into the paint store just to get expert opinion.  The man in the paint store agreed that the paint had a chalky back and was showing signs of mildew between it and the house.  "It all has to come off," he said. "If you don't remove it all, it will just bubble up and come loose again in another couple of years, and you will have to repaint all over again."  I can guarantee you, that is not going to happen!

Rick worked with the pressure washer today, taking off some of the paint on the lower section of the wall while he let the soffits dry.  In some cases, the paint came off in sheets while in other sections, we will have to use a little more persuasion.

A pressure washer beats having to scrape off
all of the old paint.

Once we remove all of the paint, we will need to patch any holes and cracks.  We have holes in Gladys because each time a new telephone service came in (we counted three dead boxes when we bought her), or when any new cable service came in (at least two), the provider just ran the wires up the exterior walls, attaching it with wall anchors and screws.  We have since removed all of the unnecessary wires, but the anchor holes remain. Thankfully, we only have a few settlement cracks between the blocks that we have to patch, so the patching itself will not take too long.  Letting the patches dry, however, will take 24 hours of patience that Rick will have a hard time finding.

Some of the paint is off, but we have a lot more to remove tomorrow.

With the patches dry, we can the seal the entire wall with masonry sealer.  That will prevent water penetration, chalking, and further cracking of the stucco.  After the sealer dries, we can finally get around to adding two coats of paint to make Gladys beautiful again.

The job of painting her is going to take much more prep and time than we had originally thought, but in the end, the job will be done right.  That is what is important because I do not want to see Rick go through the effort or the expense of doing the same job again in a couple of years.

We thought that we were going to put a new "prom dress" on Gladys, as my friend Rose has said.  Now we know that we have to strip Gladys naked, add new underwear to seal her, add a primary coat of paint like a new petticoat, and then a final dress coat at the end.  Gladys is a demanding old girl, but in the end we intend to dress her right in something that she can proudly wear for years to come.

Troubles and Two Triumphs

Our sister-in-law Chris commented that trouble always seems to find us.  No matter how hard we try, we have something go wrong.  Lately, I think she is right, but I guess that also means that I have to work a little harder to be optimistic.

After three "service" calls (read: $$$) from a HVAC firm and a new thermostat, we thought that we had our air handler/ heat pump problems solved.  Not so.  The system went down Sunday evening; therefore, once again Rick had to flip the breaker, wait a couple of minutes, and flip it back on.  Back in business, for now.  This morning, the system crashed again.  That was enough for both of us.

We went to our favorite home improvement store and came home with 10-gauge wire and a new 30 amp breaker. We knew that when we bought Gladys three years ago this coming summer, the first thing that we had to address was the old Federal Pacific breaker box.  That was replaced by our second day of ownership, but at that time, the electricians just used wire nuts to splice in the heating system wiring with the new box. We also know that this past year, the wires shorted out and took the system down.  The wires were repaired, but not replaced.  Today we took steps to remedy that situation.

Rick started by turning off power to the entire house. Smart move.  He then traced the wire from the air handler located in the attic above our garage to the box.  Of course, that wire came into the box at the very back, buried behind a tripped-out spider's web of wires located in front of them.  He finally was able to locate all three strands of wire and to trace them to the correct splice in one of three wire nuts. We were surprised to find that the wires in the nut were not even twisted together.  They were just held in place with the wire nut, so the possibility of a loose connection at that point was a real possibility.  Rick was able to disconnect the three wires from the breaker and the box.  He needed another half an hour just to pull them back up through the plastic conduit that threaded them down to the box.

Then he started to work on the other end of the line.  At the air handler, he found that the wire was even less connected to the system.  Inside that wire nut, he found the old wire lying next to stranded wire.  Again, we were astounded to find that nothing was twisted together to make a good contact.  Rick cut the old stranded wire off, exposed new wire, and twisted the stranded wire with the new wire. Then all of that was twisted back into the wire nut.  Back at the box, Rick threaded the new wires down the plastic conduit and hooked them up to the new 30 amp breaker.  OK, success.  We now have properly (and securely) connected new wire that is a home run from the air handler to the breaker box.  I know that I feel safer about having the electricity done correctly, and I hope that this new wire will solve our problems with the air handler going down every few weeks.

Our second problem confirmed itself yesterday.  A couple of weeks ago, Stephanie went with us to pick out a counter top for the utility sink in the laundry room.  We have patiently waited for a call from the counter top place to tell us that the top was finished.  We had been promised it last Tuesday, but when we called, we were told that it was not ready.  Fine.  We had plenty other things to do although washing out paint brushes in the bathroom sink was not something either of us wanted to do.

After coming home from Disney on Wednesday, we visited the counter top place.  By this time, we were both convinced that the counter top was somehow wrong.  We were right.  When we arrived, the office woman told us that they had "questions" about the counter top.  We found that they had done a beautiful job of mounting the sink into the counter top that we had chosen, but they had cut the top using the dimensions of the old counter top to which the sink was attached when we took it in.  Our mistake.  We should have not left the sink in the old top and just taken in the template that Rick had painstakingly completed for them to follow.  We had even told the office woman that the counter top had to be cut to the template, not to the old counter top.  Of course, they just cut the new counter top to the old top and totally disregarded the template.

After much English/ Spanish translation discussion (I heard mañana more than once), we finally agreed that we would come back today to pick up the redone counter top.  I do give the place credit that they were willing to rework the counter top to meet our needs.  We paid the agreed upon price, but for all of the issues, they probably lost money on the deal.

Our new counter top supporting the utility sink.

Rick spent the afternoon attaching the base cabinet to the wall and installing the new counter top and sink.  While we had a few challenges, he was able to get the plumbing connected with no leaks.  We now have a fully functioning utility sink, a beautiful new counter top, and a finally completed laundry room.

A replaced cabinet door above the sink and a
new counter top for the sink were the last two
pieces we needed to complete the laundry room.

So Gladys now has a new, clean, strong artery through which she can pump electricity to the HVAC system. (Every senior citizen needs to have her heart checked out occasionally.)  She also has a new utility sink (not located outside, as many are in Florida) with proper plumbing.  Again, we were presented with a couple of problems, but through hard work, we have come out triumphant... and that feels darn good.

Doorways, Disney, and Drawers

My never-resting husband started this week installing what door casing we had left around as many doors as he could finish.  The result is now completed doors in the master bedroom and master bathroom.  The hallway is almost finished, and the guest room only needs casing around the door to the hallway.  We ran out of casing, so back to Home Depot we went to buy more.  That casing, of course, is primed but needs two coats of finish paint before we can install it.

Completed casing around the doors finishes the master bedroom.

Our other chore was to try to salvage the baseboard that needs to be cut shorter around the remodeled closets.  Rick cut the caulk that was on top of the baseboard, took a thin putty knife and slipped it behind the boards, and then gently pulled them forward.  Then patience, more gentle prying with a pry bar, and careful lifting actually provided intact baseboards.  We carefully removed the nails and remaining caulk and were able to cut the baseboard to the correct size to fit around the new casement. Yes!  Neither of us wanted to buy and paint new baseboard.

A crane towers above Cinderella's castle for
some updates and repairs.  I guess even Cindy
needs to remodel her house every few years!

Last year we bought annual tickets to Disney World.  We wanted to take advantage of being Florida residents, and the tickets were a good deal.  We have previously visited all of the parks except the Magic Kingdom, so that was our destination on Tuesday.  Overall, we were very disappointed in our visit.

We were expecting crowds to be low; however, we soon found that many more people were there than anyone expected.  While we did not have terribly long waits for attractions (no more than 20 - 25 minutes), we were not thrilled with the crowds in the stores or the streets.

For whatever reason, Rick was in a foul mood.  Parking has increased to $15.00 per car which really is ridiculous, and this park in particular has lots far, far away from the main entrances.  We waited a bit for a shuttle to the park, only to learn that the shuttles were going to be down for maintenance the rest of the day, so we would have to find alternate transportation (ferry or bus) back to the lots.   The weather was in the 70s and sunny, so at least that was not a problem; I did slather on the sunscreen, however, to stay somewhat protected.

We did find a few good attractions.  The Hall of Presidents was up to date with speeches coming from an automated Barack Obama.  Disney's 1964 Carousel of Progress also was updated to include video games, voice-activated appliances, and laptop computers.  The Haunted Mansion was fun, and Pirates of the Caribbean was a nostalgic revisit for me.  Other than those, however, the rest of the attractions seemed outdated, trite, or just lame.  We avoided roller-coaster type rides since my equilibrium is not the greatest right now.  Ha!  Who knows?  Maybe a roller coaster ride would have made me less dizzy.

A feathered friend and some of his buddies stood guard
while we ate lunch.  No worries about crumbs littering
the eating areas in this park!

Lunch in any theme park will bankrupt a person, and ours was no exception.  We spent $20.00 and had very little food to show for it.  I am so glad that I did not have to pay the bill for some of the families that I saw in the park!  We had brought along our own filtered water, so at least we stayed hydrated for free.

While we were there we saw a couple of "characters" roaming the streets or signing autographs.  Rick snuck through areas where he probably should not have been to get a couple of pictures of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger since our grandson's room is decorated in Pooh and friends.

Just to show our grandson that Winnie the
Pooh and Tigger are real... Tigger holds
a small child while his dad takes pictures.

A riverboat ride in the afternoon offered us some relaxation and shade; however, by that time I was exhausted.  We had booked a hotel a short distance from the park, so by 4:00 p.m. we were on our way out.  We decided not to return for the Electric Parade and fireworks, enjoying an evening reading by the pool instead.

Cruising on the man-made river in the Magic Kingdom
was relaxing.

Maybe we are just old, but we think that anyone who takes a child less than 8 years old to Disney is wasting money.  We saw whining children lying on the pavement because they were bored, hot, or just exhausted, and exasperated parents who had just spent a couple of thousand dollars to give those same miserable children the magic Disney trip of a lifetime.  Clue in, folks.  If the children are less than 8, they will not remember the trip and will not enjoy themselves that much.  Keep your money, take them to the beach, and let them swim for the day.  That is what they want, and you will have a much better and less expensive vacation in the end.

On our way home today, we stopped at Ikea in Tampa to see if we could find an end table for the Florida room.  We looked at many, many different tables and finally chose one that matched the other storage cabinets in the room.  It is small, so it works well with the Ikea chairs; it has drawers, so I can store my sewing materials in it, and it has glass on top to protect it.  We purchased a small table lamp that matches the others in the living room for a coordinated look.  The furniture in the room is all white, so I badly need to find some colorful accent pieces to give the room some zing.  I found a great teal bowl at Ikea, but it was both too big and too expensive to make it into my shopping cart.

The completed table and lamp stand ready to invite us to
read or to sew in the Florida room.

Hopefully, that table and lamp are the last two pieces of furniture that we need to purchase for Gladys.  She still needs a rug to make the living room snug, some accent pieces to brighten the rooms, and a few more pieces of art for the walls.  Those will come in time.  For right now, though, the old doll is starting to look pretty good inside.

Not Stumped at All

Owning a big ol' dually 3500 truck has its advantages.  We have used it here in Florida to haul everything from trees to drywall, and today it served us well as a stump extractor.

Rick starts cutting off the additional branches on the schefflera.

On the north side of Gladys, we had an ancient dwarf schefflera (schefflera arboricola) that has probably been there for the last 40 years.  I say this because although we kept it pruned down to a lower-than-the-roof height, the stump was massive.  I had started excavating the stump weeks ago, but although a little dirt had been displaced, not much more had been done.  Today Rick attacked it with the SawsAll fit with the pruning blade.  He took off some of the larger pieces and then hooked the towing strap around what was left.  Neither of us figured it would budge, but when he put the truck into gear, the stump moved!

This shows the big stump but the very shallow
root system underneath it all!

"Keep going!" I said. "It actually moved a bit."  Rick tapped the accelerator a little, and the stump pulled right out.  Unreal.  We were both amazed because the circumference of the stump was huge but the root system underneath was fairly shallow.

The hibiscus was out of the ground in short order.

"While we have the truck here, let's take out the hibiscus, too," I suggested.   I was rather sad to see the hibiscus go because hibiscus are just getting into the season where they really will start bloom,  but my bush was not the most healthy specimen, and I knew that we would have to remove it eventually to make room for the fence gate.  I knew that the root system of the hibiscus was very shallow, so we did not bother to do any digging.  We just hooked the towing strap around the base of the bush and Rick inched forward.  The bush was unearthed in 2 seconds.

I do what hibiscus around the house and in the back yard, but I will wait until we are ready to plant flowers and shrubs and then start with new plants.  After a while hibiscus get woody, so starting fresh will be easier than trying to transplant and to nurture the old bush. They are not expensive and come in a variety of colors.  I cannot wait to get to that point, but realistically, I know that shrubs probably are not until the 2015-2016 budget.

Another surprise today was that UPS drove up (before 9:30 p.m.!) with our new cabinet door for the laundry room and with the upholstery gun that Rick ordered from Amazon just yesterday.  We had just discussed the cabinet door and did not expect it for at least another week.  As far as the gun was concerned, just note that sometimes Amazon's shipping is fantastic.  Rick had the door installed in record time, so the laundry room needs only the new countertop and sink to be complete. We'll use the gun tomorrow to recover the new bedroom chair.

Our palm tree tissue box cover brings palm trees into our bedroom. 

On a side note, I had mentioned that Rick and I were going to stop at the Art Fair this past weekend.  The Fair was crowded but interesting.  We made one small purchase: a tissue box cover that carries our palm tree theme into the bedroom.  This was a small but fun purchase, and that is what living in Gladys is all about.

Sunshine and Smiles

Last night after a long day, Rick and I went down to the Marina.  The local restaurant on the bay always has live music, so we can sit at the Marina, get entertained for free (yes, we are cheap!), and watch the sunset.

We started with a short walk to spy on the house getting built on Victoria Lane.  The contractor has set up mesh fencing to somewhat outline the house and added a picnic table for the workers.  Other than that, not much has been done.

From there, we went to the bay.  The attached pictures show why the Marina always relaxes us and reminds us why we live in Florida in the wintertime.  Enjoy.

One of the Marina "resident" birds keeps a
watchful eye out for dinner.  The birds in
Florida are magnificent.

Numerous sailboats are at anchor just
a short dingy trip from shore.

Another day ends in sunny Florida.

Short and Sweet

I have neglected this blog for too many days, and as a result, I probably have forgotten half of what we have accomplished in the last week.

Right now I am too tired to try to remember everything, so I will try to bring you up to date through the short and sweet version.

We have continued to work on finishing the inside.  Rick has a coat of paint on all of the door casing, and with rain predicted from Friday to Monday, we will probably get them painted and ready to install. The problem is that the nailed-in baseboard is too long, so we still have to alter that before we can install the casing. That might mean another saw to buy or more baseboard if we cannot use what we will try to pull off and cut.  Sigh.  These doors continue to fight us all the way.

The last few days have been beautiful, but appointments and distractions have kept us from taking advantage of the weather and working outside.  We have, however, just about finished the living room. Our new sofas came on Monday, and on Tuesday we found a palm tree for the corner of the room.  The hunt continues for an area rug, but the placement of the tree allowed us to hang the paintings that we purchased at the Art Fair earlier this year.  The sofas are taking a while to get used to because they are both higher and longer than the old sofa.  However, they are very comfortable and give us both a place to stretch out and relax at the end of the day.

The almost-finished living room.

The old sofa was temporarily moved to the Florida Room.  We thought we would like it there, but when we had it in place, it just did not fit.  The color was dark and wrong, and the sofa reminded us of the old furniture that was crammed in the room when we first saw the house.  Neither of us liked it in the Florida Room, so we decided to take it to our favorite consignment shop in town.  The owner, Denice, was happy to get the sofa today when we took it in.  We also took in the two brass lamps that we had used in the guest room, and since the palm floor plant that I had brought from Wisconsin no longer fit anywhere, we took that in also.  We probably won't get much money for any of it, but we will get something, and all of those pieces are now out of the house.

Originally, our plan was to use the old sofa in the Florida Room and to disassemble the white Ikea chairs. Once we decided to get rid of the old sofa, we put the Ikea chairs in the room and found that we really liked them.  The living room with the new sofas is a little darker now, so I am happy that we still have seating in the light-filled Florida Room for reading and for sewing.

The Ikea chairs will give us a great place to read and to sew.
We know that we need to find an appropriate table to use
between them.

Two trips to a local fabric store also resulted in two fabrics that we thought might work for recovering the new white chair that we bought for the bedroom.  The chair that we had in that room actually was Rick's from his high school days.  To say that it is an antique probably is not an exaggeration.  The chair was dark wood while everything else in the room is white, so be bought an identical chair to the one that I recovered and use at my desk in the Florida Room.  Once again, the black-and-white fabric has to go, but today we brought home the two possible replacement fabrics.  The one that we both thought was the best did not look as good as the other fabric once we placed them both on the chair.  Go figure.  Now we have to see if we have a staple gun that we can use to recover the chair.  More on that later.

In the little time that we were outside, we tried to just scrape and then paint the soffits.  I have been dizzy a bit, so Rick does not trust me on a ladder.  His shoulders are killing him, so working overhead is torture for him.  We hoped that we could get away with a quick-and-dirty refresh, but that will not be.  After Rick scraped a few feet of the soffit, he primed it.  Later he added the final coat of paint; sadly, the results were not good. We are going to have to buy a palm sander, scrape the soffits, then sand them smooth and patch what needs patching before we can get around to painting.  Whew!  This is going to be a thankless task, so I know why Rick is doing everything in his power to avoid having to start this job.  Unfortunately, we have to finish the soffits before we can concentrate on the walls of the house.

I also continue to dig around the big stump that we must remove.  I am getting closer to getting the roots exposed so Rick can cut them and the hole deep enough to pull out the stump.  I hope that we can get that yanked out before the brush pick-up on Monday.

As usual, we have more than enough to do.  We will run out of both time and money long before we run out of jobs; however, that is pretty typical for remodeling an old house.

When Rick stopped at the gas station to fill the Camry, I ran inside to buy a lottery ticket.  The jackpot is up to $400 million.  Who knows?  If we win, we actually will have enough money to hire someone to put in new soffits.  Strangely enough, neither of us wants to move from Gladys.  We would just hire the work done to finish her and be perfectly happy to sit back and relax.  The nice thing about dreams: they are always free.