Tuesday

Well, I guess we're all prepared for Kev's surgery today. We've grocery shopped, changed the sheets, cleaned the house, re-arranged, purchased crutches and a grabby hand thing (Which delighted him because it has a LCD light on the end. He's so easy.) and done everything else we can think of to do. Including moving the new kitchen table upstairs.

I hated to move that upstairs because I still have to tung oil the topside of the table and it's a rather pungeant product. However it was move it last night or wait until January to get it upstairs. I'm pretty pleased with the tung oil as a finishing product. It gives a nice and rich looking gloss, is pretty easy to apply and seems a durable finish. Downsides are it's more expensive than varnish at $16.00 for enough for the entire table and requires "timing". You apply it fairly liberally and then wait 5-10 minutes and buff the excess off --- but if you wait _too_ many more minutes to do the buff, it tends to get sticky. No big deal to fix that, you just wipe it down with a bit more oil and then buff it but a large project means you're doing it in sections. I still have to tackle the chairs but I'm pleased so far with how the table has come out. It's not the best work I've ever done because it has so many nooks and crannies on the underside, some areas look a bit differently than others. Eh, if someone wants to crawl under the table to look at it, they've earned the right to criticize my work! I've taken pictures as I've gone along and as soon as I finish up, I'll post them.

I've totally fallen in love with those staining pads though--they work perfectly to apply stain or finish oil and work much better than using the old "lint free cloth" option. Fairly cheap at $3 for four of them but always buy one more bag than you think you need.

One nice thing about being housebound for the next month or two is it'll give me lots of time to do projects on my own. I now have the perfect excuse to paint some of the rooms I can do solo without Kev discouraging it because he doesn't want to do it. Sherwin Williams here I come!

Outside of that it's horribly boring. The only exciting thing is I found a really great and really easy breaded baked chicken recipe. I'm not a fan of breading normally but this is really good. I got it from the America's Test Kitchen show. I love that show. Even Kev has gotten hooked on it. Have you ever seen it?

Samantha Who last night was fantastic. That show makes me laugh like a fool.