A Tile-Filled Weekend...

This was a very productive weekend for me.

Well, I suppose I should say that if you consider spending a total of 15 hours on your hands and knees pulling up vinyl tile productive.

It's a weird form of productivity. I think it's all about goals. In the grand scheme of things, peeling up old vinyl tile piece by tiny piece does not seem like it's really that significant. However, there were 384 tiles altogether.

You might wonder how I know that but, well, I did some math and I don't think I'm far off. Also, the room is 384 square feet. The tiles were one foot square each. The maths isn't THAT hard.

However, after I spent my entire day on Saturday peeling up tiles, the last couple of hours on a Sunday where I could actually count the last few remaining pieces of evilness seemed like a triumph. By the time I got to that very last tile, I had found a new definition of the word "overjoyed."

My tools were the following: A tile scraper, my Wonderbar, knee pads and gloves.

I have to admit, last weekend was WAY more fun. I'd much rather have been eating at Babbo that eating the microwave Lean Gourmet pizza for dinner that I had on Saturday night.

Still, I triumphed. The evil old vinyl tile is gone and I have a clean, even concrete floor upon which I can lay my new tiles. As I said, in the grand scheme of things it may not seem like much but, well, to me, I may as well have conquered Mt. Everest.

As a result of my tile prying, I have a grand total of 9 blisters on my hands. I have bruised knees and an aching back. I also feel slightly awesome because, well, I set my mind to do it and I did it.

I feel a little bad for the dogs though. Many times, Sookie tried to climb into my lap because she wanted a cuddle and since I was just sitting on the floor, why shouldn't she climb into my lap? It was nice to have a cuddle but, unfortunately, it wasn't condusive to tile prying.

It's sad, really. Last weekend, I spent a wonderful three days wandering around Manhattan with my good friend, eating good food and enjoying nice weather. This weekend, I enjoyed 93 degree heat and quick food while spending almost the entire weekend in my Tuscan room.

On the bright side, I do feel quite pleased that I did it by myself. I also learned a lot about vinyl tiles. I also feel that now that I've stripped that room down to its bare bones, it's really my room and it's really my project.

On the downside, I didn't do very much else this weekend. Next weekend will be dedicated to putting down new vinyl tiles. I'm hoping that if I ever move and the person who buys this house doesn't like my tiles, they won't have quite so hard of a time pulling them up as I did.

Being a homeowner definitely leads you to do some interesting things, that I will say. Nevertheless, with a weekend like last to fuel me, I really am not complaining. A project like that leads to plenty of meditative thinking because there's not much else to do while prying tiles. I learned that a) I'm a little obsessed with HBO's "Game of Thrones," b) I can't wait for "True Blood" to come back and c) I really should edit some of my earlier novels and think about self-publishing them...

There was a lot of other thoughts too but most of them were about food which, really, isn't a surprise, is it?

Now, on Sunday evening, my aching back and tired bones are ready to relax for a couple of hours before its back to work tomorrow. In a way, it actually feels nice to know I worked hard today.

If only I didn't have to work hard tomorrow too...ah well, you can't have everything! :)

Thanks, as always, for reading and Happy Monday!