![]() I am not God. It has taken me a while to accept this concept. I find it difficult to give up the illusion that if I just do the “right” thing I can control the future. Like the junior high students I used to teach, I sometimes think I know everything about the world, but the reality is that I need to rely on entities that have a great deal more knowledge and understanding than I could ever possess. Therefore, when it comes to floors I must put my faith in a thoughtfully selected flooring contractor. I have been wanting to rip out my old wall to wall carpet for quite a while (see my previous post from 10/7/2015 “IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN.”) I mean this literally. If I could have, I would have grabbed a utility knife and a crowbar and attacked it with a vengeance. Like my body, it had deteriorated into a bunch of lumpy waves as it lost it’s shape over the years. Perhaps there was a subconscious desire there to change something in my house that I couldn’t change in my body. Anyway, my dream floors are wood. My hope is that they will make keeping the volumes of cat hair that emanate from my kitties easier to whisk away, and it will look beautiful to boot. The process of determining exactly how to acquire wood floors has been an exercise in letting go. I had no idea how many choices there were. My brain kept leaping from one possibility to another. Bamboo? Green and trendy, but maybe too trendy. Natural maple? Beautiful, but expensive and shows every scuff. Prefinished and engineered? Less troublesome to install but do I really want to clean out all those little groves? After perusing a number of flooring stores and contractors I had gravitated towards traditional, three-and-one-quarter-inch, engineered, natural, unfinished, red, oak – whew! But WAIT! The installation process was looming before me. It involved ripping out not only the carpet, but the old wood floors underneath it too. Not to mention I would have to hustle my kitties to a friend’s house where we would reside for a minimum of four weeks while all the ripping and refinishing took place. ACK! I felt like I was standing on the edge of a gigantic cliff, unable to take the leap of actually deciding to do something that would be incredibly disruptive for me and my cats. Luckily I had selected a very patient and flexible contractor who had a good reputation and an appreciation for old houses. I decided that I couldn’t make a decision until I saw exactly what was under those ugly old carpets, so yesterday they came and ripped them out. I knew some of it was old fir flooring but the house has been remodeled so many times I figured the old stuff would be a mish-mash of wood not worth saving. Lo and behold there actually were cool floors under the carpet! They aren’t hardwood and they aren’t perfect but they are old growth fir, and after 84 years they were not in bad shape! Some people would pay big bucks to make a floor look officially “distressed” the way these floors look. I was smiling and my contractor was smiling. We talked about the history in these floors and the craftsmanship that went into them. Repairs will be needed but they can be done while my cats and I are still in the house. We will only need to vacate the premises during the actual refinishing. During this whole process I have been practicing breathing and letting go of my preconceived ideas. I thought about my Dad and how he would appreciate that I am able to use what he taught me about patience, problem solving, and wood grain. I have been learning to trust that I can make good informed decisions by doing my homework and having faith in the universe. Yes, there is a God!
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Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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(from an entry posted on 5/1/2015) “I definitely fit some of the characteristics of a little old lady with cats: Retired - check, Single - check, Like to knit - check, Have cats - check. . .I do not want to get stuck in my Little Old Lady persona, however. In fact, this blog is a risk taking experiment in exploring and redefining what I want my retired life to look like.” Categories
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