Friday, July 20, 2007

What excites your senses?

This may seem to be a little but of an odd question, but it came to me this morning as I sat in the chair at JC Penney’s hair salon getting my hair cut. I was immediately relaxed as Becky (my haidresser) started to cut my hair as I usually do. This led me to think about other things that create a very relaxing feeling in my body and mind. In fact the first thing that came to my thoughts was the dentist. Yes, the dentist! I am one of those weird people that love to get my teeth cleaned at the dentist. In fact I also prefer to have a hygienist that doesn’t talk a lot while cleaning my teeth so that I can sit back and enjoy the process of my pearly whites getting scrubbed. I love to hear people complaining about the fact that they have to go to the dentist. I actually have my teeth cleaned more often than usual because I enjoy it so much. This brings me to my hair cut. The icing on the cake to getting my hair cut is the shampooing of my hair. I love to have my hair shampooed when at the hair stylist. Becky and I started talking about this with a story I told about a high-end salon I went to in Dallas where my two sisters frequented. This story of fancy to do salons led Becky to give me a hair shampoo/massage that lasted at least 15 minutes. I was in heaven. There is just something unexplainable about the relaxation of someone shampooing your hair.
I tried as I began to write this blog entry to think of other things that excited my senses, but nothing hit me immediately. I know there are more things, but most likely I take them for granted. So I pose you this question and request. What excites your senses? Do you take those things for granted? Lets all take a moment each time we get to experience one of these great enjoyments of life and really appreciate it. Its these moments that make everything come full circle for what this life is all about. I will be paying close attention to things throughout the day that bring me great enjoyment. I hope you do the same. 
P.S. As I sit and write this, I am at the local Starbucks enjoying a great cup of coffee. This excites me and I very much appreciate it!


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Saturday, July 7, 2007

Here's the deal on the Pergo floor thing.

I recently decided to take on a project at Dina's in the form of some renovation work. Dina had some Pergo floor that she had ordered for one of the spare bedrooms quite some time ago. The kids had finally moved out of that area of the house, so it was time to enjoy a nice new floor. I volunteered to take on the project along with one of her daughters boyfriends who enjoy taking projects on with me. We started by pulling all the carpet and padding out of the room. WOW - what a dust and debris container carpet turns out to be! I would rather have a hard floor in my house any day of the week. It also seems to be perfect flooring for people with electronic gadgets. My computers and other devices seem to create a lot of dust. After removing all of the old carpet and the removal of the base molding we began to lay out the plan on the new floor.

We had to place a moisture barrier between the concrete floor and the new Pergo. This comes from Home Depot in 3 foot wide rolls and is essentially just plastic. We cut strips and overlapped them until the entire surface had been covered. The seems where taped with special tape that resembled the same material as the barrier only with sticky backing. It was time for the wood flooring. I expected the process of actually laying the floor would be much more complicated. You decide the direction and start laying the planks. Everything is interlocked using a proprietary tongue and groove system. When you reach the end of a row, you measure the length need for the last board. Cut to fit! You then start the next row with the leftover piece of the last cut. This helps create a random pattern so that one can not see the seems. Pretty cool. The only other exciting part of the project where some areas that required detailed cut ins form the jigsaw. We completed the entire project in 6 hours. Not bad for our first time.

Well, that was my exciting Thursday. Bye.