Poem of the Week: Sea Fever

Sea Fever

By John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

HT: Poetry Foundation

How it All Turned Out Part 2

 The old home school room is our brand new office!

It has space for all three of us to have desks as well as storage for all my books and homeschool supplies.

 My desk is in front of a window, looking out on the neighbor's beautiful beech tree, and flanked by bookcases.

It's so nice to have a (relatively) uncluttered work space in a sunny room!





Leena's desk is the black one, and Klenda's desk is the white one near the closet full of art supplies!

I really like having our work spaces together- lots of creative energy!

Last, but not least, we put the guest room mostly back the way we found it, but we reorganized the sewing and craft storage in the closet.

We also switched out the desk to a larger work table to make projects easier.

Actually, we've been using it as our bedroom because, just as the main floor air conditioning went out when we were moving furniture out, the upstairs AC went out when we were moving furniture back! 

The new heat pump was turned on at 10 pm last night, after about a week of no AC and temperatures in the 90s!  The kids have been camping out in the basement, and the Emperor and I have been staying in the guest room.

How it All Turned Out Part 1

If I was going to go through all the trouble of moving everything away and back, it sure seemed like a good time to reorganize.

We drew scale plans of rooms and furniture and worked out how we would use each room.

So this is our "new" living room!

We mostly shuffled furniture in the living room and guest room, but the office/store room and home school room got a complete overhaul.  I guess, technically, we don't have a home school room anymore.

 Instead, where our office and store room was, we have a museum and game room!


On the left is the plan, and on the right you can see the museum half of the room.






And here is the game half. 


We like games, can you tell?

Technically there are puzzles and some craft and science kits in there, too.

In the hidden corner, we are storing all our paper good and cleaning supplies in the closet behind the curtain.

Tomorrow: the guest room and new office!

Zoo Trip

 So, what do you do while you are waiting for your floors to harden?

We took our hard working Zoomlians on a mini vacation to the zoo!

We haven't been to a zoo in... well, looking through the archives, 2012!

We only saw the lower part of the zoo since we were taking our time.   Hopefully we'll go back and do the upper part later this summer.

 We saw a real live tarantula in an exhibit.



And a real live (wild) rat snake on the path!

I'm pretty sure this was the animal that left the biggest impression!


 But we did see lots of monkeys, orangutans, and gibbons.  The Emperor juggled for the gibbons, always a fun thing!

And we saw lions, and tigers, and T-rex skulls... I've never been sure why they put the T. rex in the big cat exhibit, but I'm not complaining!

You may have noticed that Zorg was missing- he was at scout camp that week and had a wonderful time- but that's another blog  post!

More Madness (With Details and Advice in Case You are Contemplating Insanity)

Once we were ready to sand, we had to seal off the rest of the house.

That meant you could go in the kitchen door to get to the kitchen, the dining room table, and the upstairs bedroom, but you had to go in the front door to get to the work area, and the back door to go downstairs.

It was a little crazy!

Last coat!

But we used water based polyurethane, so we never had to move out (oil base requires fewer coats but has toxic fumes),

We put down four thin coats, buffing (another sander rental!) before the final coat.  Sanding took 2 full days, and finishing took another 2 days- but those days were easy since we were waiting about 6 hours between coats.  I guess we actually put a fifth coat on the front hall since it gets the most wear, but we still finished that fourth day.

Here's the part I wish I'd known when I did this the first two times.

Theoretically, you can walk on the floor in socks after 24 hours, in shoes in 48 hours, and shortly thereafter, move in the furniture.  We did do the sock thing at 24 hours, mostly because we were refinishing and reinstalling all the shoe molding.

But this time I waited almost 4 days to move the furniture, and 5 or 6 days to move in the table and chairs.  Also, the Emperor added felt covers to the plastic glides on the chairs, and we haven't had a single scratch.

This is significant because the other times I did this, the finish under the dining room table was badly scratched within a week.  In dining rooms, you sit on the chair and scoot it into the table while putting weight on it. Tough on the floor!

The floor does a lot of hardening in the first 5 days, is mostly done after the first 60 days, but will continue to cure for the entire first year!

The Madness Continues

When we started the floor project, we knew it was going to be big.

We knew it would take us three days to get everything off the main floor (or packed into the main floor bathrooms!).

We got it done on schedule, despite the fact that our main floor AC died immediately before we started moving furniture.

We even had enough of the afternoon left to paint the dining room, living room, hall and home school room.

What we did not know was that the professional who was supposed to be doing the actual refinishing would bail on us 12 hours before he was supposed to start...

 Which meant we ended up doing the actual refinishing ourselves!

On the one hand, this is the third time we've done our own floors, so we knew we could do it, on the other hand, we were 15 years younger the last time we did this!

Also, the first sander we rented was defective.

But we did do it, even if it took us a few extra days.

We can do it!

Somewhere in the middle of hauling sanders, Zorg told me I looked like Rosie the Riveter, and wanted to take a picture.

It reminded me that it was a great team project, and a great way for our kids to see us tackle a big project, and for them to help the family in a concrete way.

I've had a few friends tell me they "could never do that."  I think one reason it didn't occur to me that I couldn't was that my own parents were never afraid to jump into the deep end.  Their philosophy was that if you didn't know how to do something, you should figure it out and try it!

Midsummer Madness

Probably time

We've finally decided that we must refinish the floors.  I refinished them once, right before we moved in, but 15 years and a half dozen children later, they are in pretty bad shape.

I looked up some information on floor refinishing and it suggested that two adults, without pets, would need to refinish the floor at least every 10 years, but if you had a child or a dog, you'd probably need to do the floors every three or four years. 

Seriously?  Does anyone refinish their floors every three or four years?

Office before

The problem, of course, is not the refinishing of the floors. 

The problem is that you have to remove everything from the rooms before you refinish the floors.

Homeschool  room before

Everything. 

Even in the closets.

Homeschool room mostly after

That means everything out of the dining room (easy), the living room (not so easy), the guest room (could be done), the office/store room (really hard), and... the home school room (you've got to be kidding me).

I decided we had better start with the monster, so we got the homeschool room done on Monday.  It's all crammed into the library now.  Only 4 rooms to go!


It's like moving (without changing address) in that you get a fresh start at getting rid of junk and organizing your space.  I can tell I am going to love having done this!

Haircuts!!

Before

After!

Poem of the Week for Father's Day: If

If—

By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Source: A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943) 

HT: Poetry Foundation

Congratulations, Webelos!

Oob crossed over from Bear Scout to Webelos I, and Choclo crossed over to Webelos II.

That means that next year they will be in the same den before Choclo eventually crosses over to Boy Scouts!