I will be having houseguests soon -- that will sure light a fire under me to get things done! A friend from high school is coming on Sept. 2; and a friend from Andy's preschool days is coming out for the Tinfoilman Triathlon on October 15. Ron's parents are going to visit too -- October 8-15. Of course, those of you who are part of my family know that the traditional response to houseguests is to go absolutely crazy the day before they arrive and throw everything you don't want a houseguest to see into a closet and padlock the door. I am hoping to avoid that panicky day, and get a few things done at a leisurely pace.

Ron and I have been talking about ripping out the carpet in the main rooms of the house. The family room and the living/dining room combination have pale beige carpet that has been completely destroyed not only by the arrival of a dog, but mostly by the arrival of the Howe Destruction Force (and you know who they are). I think we are planning on taking up the carpet, repairing any cracks in the concrete that we find, and then painting the concrete. I am not very interested in staining the concrete right now (a very hot thing to do out here), because it costs a lot and the results are uneven, to say the least. You have to find someone really good to do it, or the floor looks a totally different color from one side of the room to the other. Painting the floor with an epoxy paint has the added benefit of being indestructible. I think I am going to paint the floor a color called Toasted Pecan -- a warm light brown. This will be alright with the peach paint on every surface until I decide what color to paint over the peach. The painting project probably won't happen until spring.

I also would like to take down the curtains in my room. They are original to the house (1979) and are dry-rotted in a big way. And I hate the pattern. They are spectacularly ugly. However, the big arched window in my room is large enough to need a special curtain or custom shutters. I think we are going to go with custom shutters, mostly because getting curtains to fit an arched window about 7 feet across is going to be difficult.