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weenies and onions and taters sound pretty tasty and I actually have all those items. 

For the future, perhaps someone from church or the neighborhood would be able to loan equipment-like a sander- in exchange for cookies or just for kindness.  My knees are a hot mess from arthritis and need to be parsed out for the long list of jobs this summer.  Sweet friend will be planting 10 new rhododendron for us.  

I think you both should find assurance in the fact you could still accomplish such a difficult task and did such an amazing job so I give you lots of ????????. Praying you feel better soon and for a successful surgery 

Your floor looks beautiful, well done! We finished laying a wood floor last night at 1 am. Our new wood burner is being put in today. They only let us know a few hours before. The old fireplace got dismantled and floor done, but we were both a bit tired and cross at the end.  

Love the pictures from your garden, always look so peaceful. Blessings, from Pam in Norway

We have lived just like this, several times, while renovating an old farmhouse. We would have to move furniture around and walk in between. But the results are always worth the trouble. I love the photos of the birds :) I tried several times this week to take pictures of the birds, but they kept flying away the moment I would step outside. It's Spring around here too (for now. 

The floor came out beautifully!  Nice job!

I spent the last few weeks cleaning out my attic, which was horribly over-stuffed with junk left behind by other family members who used to live in this house.   It's difficult to work up there, because it's not tall enough to stand up in, and I have a lot of lower back issues anyway.  But now the attic is only 1/3 full, and that with things I actually want to store, which are now organized and accessible.  It feels great!

The floors look beautiful, gdonna; both you and your husband are hard workers and it shows in your home. I wish I could do my floors but some of the planks would have to be replaced in larger areas; it would cost (as it was estimated) between $8-$10,000 which we do not have, so I just keep them clean. That bluebird is a gorgeous colour. I know that you know that hot dogs are very high in sodium and NOT good for your heart. But they are delicious.

Take care of yourselves.

Oh, my that does sound like a real job.  The hard part is that to do it you really need to move everything out----totally out---which is a job in and of it's self.  Do the sanding and varnishing and then move everything back again.  At least with something like painting you  can if need be move things away from two adjoining walls, paint them and move the furniture back into place.  You can then, if necessary, take a day or two to rest up and do the other two walls later.  I always like to do things in pieces.  It extends the time when things are all hither and yon, but sometimes is easier on the person doing the work.

The floor though looks beautiful.  It is shiny, I always opt for satin finish but it isn't as durable as glossy.  Shiny does take some getting used to when it has been along time between refinishing.  

I love the pics of the bluebirds.  I saw two males just this past weekend.  I think they might have been brothers or maybe cousins and wanted to get houses in the same neighborhood.  No sign of wives though.  Just an initial scouting party maybe. 

That floor is gorgeous!  Good job!

My sister and her husband refinished some wood floors in the older home they bought.  They had to rent a sander, as a previous owner had glued carpet down right on the wood floor, and nothing else they tried was getting that glue off.  It was still quite a job and took several sandings to get the glue stripes gone.  

I loved the bluebirds.  I have feeders outside my living room windows, and I can spend hours just watching the birds.

Oh my that floor is absolutely beautiful!  Makes me want to tackle something here... like my horrid countertops. LOL  I also make the weenie bake, except with Kielbasa!!  It's a quick and simple meal!

Oh your floors are beautiful! I would love to tear up the carpet in my living room and work on the hardwood floors underneath but they were so badly damaged when we bought the house and my husband says they aren't worth saving. 

My husband shoots a deer every year and we always have some of it made into deer sticks so we have something quick and easy to grab for a snack, especially in the winter.  This year we had some of the meet made into ring bologna too and I'm going to try making the wiener/potato/onion bake only with the bologna.  I might add some green beans too.

I love the bluebird pictures and seeing your tomato plants. It's still cold and wintery here in Iowa but the robins are making their way back so we know spring will be here soon!

My almond tree with beautiful pink blossoms has started to bloom, my earliest tree;  but we're supposed to go down to freezing for the next week or so.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

I've got so many projects on my "should have done five years ago" list;  for instance it's time for a major declutter (again).  I'm definitely a proponent of slow and steady, but I have to actually start the project first!  Maybe I'll go fill a bag for donation now, and make that start.

Woohoo Gd- That floor is beautiful! Well done. 
I hope the landlord has improved the little bird apartment too by now- a dust and clean and maybe a few nails to level it up. Don’t think the floor requires the scrape, sand, polish treatment though- phew!
Like the one dish supper meal - we enjoy a similar one here too and lately we have enjoyed our version of ‘Fried rice’ with leftover vegetables added plus fresh corn from the cob and a little bacon. It’s a one disher too. 
It’s Autumn officially here now down under and my husband is stacking wood in his newly made woodshed.  We love this time of the year and the next three seasons best of all, so will be making the most of the woodburner, the fresh, cooler days and our simple little home whose quiet shelter we value.
  There is so much discontent and unhappiness everywhere, we often think  and we are so fortunate to have warm shelter, food to eat and calmness in our lives amongst our trees and plants.   

Happy days to you.
Felicit
  

That sounds like a lot of work, but that floor is simply BEAUTIFUL.

Oh my, the floor looks wonderful!  Absolutely wonderful.  Thankfully it is so good looking it might help you forget the progress pain ;).  I have gotten out of shape and am going back to the gym…Monday was my first day so Tuesday I had lots of aches.  Now I have a name for it.   Thanks for posting, I love this blog ;).  

Your floors have come up beautifully! You must be thrilled. A great excuse to deep clean and polish everything whilst it is spread out. When you get it back in the room it will all be so nice and fresh you won't know yourselves! Though in the meantime it is a bit annoying to have stuff everywhere I know. 

We are coming into Autumn here and our farm is in the sub-tropics. The last couple of weeks has been incredibly hot and humid. I have not had much energy for anything other then the basics. The humidity is so tiring. But there seems to be some cooler, less humid days ahead so I am looking forward to getting some outside jobs done. We are working on a garden bed and pond area and there is the usual farm jobs to do. 

xx

Oh your floor looks very nice.  And I was groaning with you.  Took us 3 months to refinish the heart pine floors in that old house we lived in.  $100 of just sandpaper. Heart pine is HARD.  Hard to first get linoleum glue off.  That required pouring boiling water on the floor, laying down heavy layers of newspaper to keep the warm water put.  Then scraping. Tried four different solvents before learning about the hot water. Those solvents did NUTHIN’!    So I understand the crawling on the floor (but we were 25 years younger!  And had the help of a teenager.   I can’t imagine doing it now!). My applause that you could do that.  I am enormously impressed.   I also understand real well the sleeping with stuff piled up in the bedroom.  The sofa and all other living room and dining room furniture went to our bedroom, the kitchen and another bedroom during our project.  To reach the underwear drawer required kneeling on the sofa and hanging over the back to carefully open the bottom drawer a few inches to wiggle my fingers in to get undies.  Finally learned to just fish them all out and leave them piled on the sofa.  The things DIY folks do. But man you saved a bundle. And the result is wonderful!

and I like the idea of the recipe.  That will go on my list to try for sure.   Our bluebirds for the first time in 12 years are rejecting the nest box so far!   Even the chickadee seems to reject it.  I suppose it is because the habitat has changed with the building of the subdivision behind us even tho no building has been happening near us yet.  It’s so sad.  They usually have a nest with eggs by now.  And I always love seeing the babies fledge.  Yes, this warm weather is suckering us for sure.  It was early like this the year we had a blizzard come that year and freeze all the pretty azalea blooms .

Grandma Donna,

Your flowers are so pretty, I hate the thought of them getting frosted. I do hope you have lots of apples this year. Our Winter has been mild so far, but I am wondering what March is going to bring. I hope the peaches don't get frosted.

The Bluebirds are so pretty. I hope they settle on one of the boxes. 

I am sure that was truly back-breaking work to refinish the floor...but, oh my...how fabulous! It's so beautiful and the colors of the wood are gorgeous. If it was me, I would sit in the doorway for a while and just look at all that beauty. ;-)

I bet at times you feel like a rat in a maze with the furniture all over the house and just paths to get through. But all will be back in place and you will have a "new" house to enjoy. I understand you wanting to get as much done before the surgery as you can. Then during your recovery, you can sit back and enjoy your home and garden. You look like you have a great start on your garden. I have months before I can get into the dirt, but I am working towards that day.

I am going to steal your hotdog meal. It will be a quick meal on busy days. Like a previous commenter, I will make it with hot dogs or keilbasa, whatever is in the freezer.

Thanks for a great post~

Grandma Donna wrote, hello to all, I have enjoyed reading your comments, thank you for the compliments on the floor, we are letting it cure as long as we can stand walking around the paths, a good excuse to stay out in the garden. :)  We got some needed rain today, not much but all of the seedlings enjoyed their first rain bath. High winds expected tomorrow, now that we have the new roof on, I sure hope those winds do not get too high.  

I like your ideas of using Kielbalsa sausage or whatever you have in the fridge with the potatoes and onions.  We have been using the Hofmann natural casing no MSG German Brand Franks, they are quite tasty.  We do not eat these a lot but very good for a quick meal and healthier than picking up fast food.  

Thank you all for being here, it feels nice to have everyone coming in talking to one another.  

Donna, the floor is so beautiful!  You and Charles did such a fantastic job but I can just imagine how difficult it was and how hard on the body!  You both deserve a good rest from all of that!  

The birds are so adorable.  I have a little feeder at the kitchen window.  I love watching the little chickadee's and other birds coming to eat.  Sometimes they squabble when they're anxious to get at the seed but at other times they wait patiently for the other bird to finish before they take their turn.  They're so funny!

I recently moved out of my house (which I sold) and have moved temporarily into my daughters house.  I had a beautiful yellow rose by the front porch of my house which I hated to leave.  I had saved a clipping telling how to root a rose cutting so I decided to try it to save my beauty.  The directions are to take a cutting from the rose, stick the cutting into a potato ( Yes!  A potato! ????) and then plant the potato in a pot.  It seemed hard to believe that it would work but I really wanted to save my rose so I gave it a try.  It works!  The new starts came up very quickly.  It's now been nearly a month and they're growing so fast although one of the pots isn't looking very good and I don't know what's wrong with it.  Anyway, here's a picture of how they look tonight.  

Also, Donna, you didn't tell us about that sweet little duck in the garden.  Is it yours?  Just visiting?

Jackie 

Oh, Weaverbird what a wonderful tip about rose cuttings.  I've never heard about the potato thing but your cuttings seem to bear our the usefulness of that unusual practice.

The floor looks beautiful! You did an amazing job. Whenever I complete a big task, or even organize something, I can't stop looking and admiring it. I am sure every time you go past the room you peek in and enjoy all that hard work.

We are expecting 8 to 12 in of heavy snow this evening here in Michigan. So thankful I have groceries and fuel and a good book! Flowers are a ways off here. Yours are beautiful.

You and Charles did a lovely job on your floor.  We have similar floors on 6 rooms of our house and the small hallways.  This was my grandparents house that we bought 22 years ago.  We removed the really horrid and worn out carpets in all but 2 of the rooms, but never got around to refinishing the floors.  My plan was to pay someone to do that, but I am thinking that my not happen.  Out of curiosity, how many hours, between the 2 of you, do you think you put into this project?  None of our floors have been painted, so we don't have to scrap paint. One of the floors has some issues.  I think it can be sanded and re-stained.  It won't look perfect, but it will look a lot better than it does now!  However, we are not exactly spring chickens, and my husband, although great with anything mechanical, is not too interested in any house repairs.  :(

We are just starting to see budding spring flowers here.  I go back and forth on growing a small container garden, as the deer have become quite fearless in coming right up on the porch to dine.  It seems that unless we fence things off, it would be a waste of time unfortunately.  

Your bluebird pictures were lovely.  They are in our general area, but I have never seen any in our neighborhood.  The day after I read your recent post, I saw 2 of them!  I was so excited!

Grandma Donna wrote, Weaverbird, as Victoria w said, I too have never heard using a potato rooting a rose, my mother grew roses but I have only grown the old fashioned wild rose. My problem here is finding a location that has enough sun to grow roses.  It looks to me like you might be sprouting potatoes, is the stick part in the in the pot on the right the rose cutting?  If they are you might need to save your cutting from rotting and cut off the bottom part if so but I do not really know very much about rooting roses. Maybe someone here in the forum understands rooting roses, I just don't want you to loose your cutting of your beautiful rose. A county extension service can usually help if you go to them or ask someone at a nursery.   The duck in the garlic patch is part of our backyard garden friends that Charles occasionally gifts me from the garden center.  They are cement garden cuties.  The one in the picture you are referring to Quackers, we have another duck called Albert, at turtle we call William and so on. 

Deborah M, you have had quite a winter up there this season but the warm weather will be here soon.  The seasons seem to be rolling by so quickly.  We are possibly going to put the furniture back in the room this evening, we have waited seven full days to cure to make sure it is hardened so less chance to scratch. :)

Grandma Donna wrote, Debbie in PA, I really cannot say how long because we had to scrape the paint and with scraping the paint off some of the old varnish came up with it but much did not. I started long ago scraping, had to do this to get the paint off and I gave up because, well I would get so sore.  We did this in a weekend, but it was a lot of work because of our age, knees and back. Lol  Depending on the size of the room.  I still need to do other rooms, I wanted to get this one finished because it was partially scraped and sanded and part painted and looked pretty bad. I will take on another room once I have surgery and am completely healed. Maybe a 2024 project.  It looks like the bluebirds have decided on a house, neither of the two I took pictures of.  Hope to get more pictures of them at their new house. :)

gDonna, I think you are right that I am sprouting potatos!  I figured that out just yesterday.  I will try to see what else I can do to save the rose.

Grandma Donna wrote, Weaverbird, you can save your potatoes too by adding dirt up to the top of the pot or transferring the whole thing to another larger pot and fill it up to the top. You just might grow you some potatoes. :)  normally when potatoes grow you keep covering the stem until you run out of room to add anymore soil.  I hope you at least get some potatoes. :)  

That sounds exhausting.  The floor looks fabulous!  Your dinner looks delicious, too.  We have some sushine now, after that intense CA blizzard.  I am cooking up a storm.  Sorry to hear about your aches and pains.  I hope your surgery goes well.

I loved your painted floors, but I have to say it...the new floor is absolutely beautiful!!!!

Your floor is beautiful!! It reminds me of my grandmothers floor. In my house I have horrible fake wood downstairs, old lino in the kitchen and bathroom and carpet upstairs which of course is very bad quality and is stained and torn. I rent so I’m not allowed to change the flooring myself and I couldn’t afford to anyway but oh how I wish I had real wood floors. I remember helping my grandmother polish her floors. She would always make us lemonade afterwards. 

Grandma Donna wrote, Hello to all, the floor was only part, I have been very busy painting walls and trim.  Thank you for all your wonderful comments.  I enjoy reading along with your comments.  I hope to pick things up soon as I am getting the house put back together from the dust from sanding and furniture pushed around.  Just wanted to pop in.

I read your blog for quite awhile off & on but never signed up to comment. 

I love the floors. They look so nice. 

I also wondered what part of the country you live in to have so many flowers blooming right now? Do you mind sharing what state you're in?

Grandma Donna wrote, Hi Jenny Y, welcome to the forum.  Thank you, we are enjoying the floor in the bedroom.  Now we have to gradually do the others.  :)  

We live in Southeast Alabama and our Azaleas and trees have already budded and leafed out.  We have baby fruits on our trees.  It is a bit too early for them because we are hovering just above freezing last night and maybe again tonight.  Last week felt like summer. 

Last week we were 80 plus degrees.  We are having big swings in the temperature and the trees think it is spring.  We are still in winter and five days from spring today.  I am happy you signed up to the forum. 

I love the pictures of the birds. We have had a very noisy woodpecker coming lately. He's enjoying the signs of spring at our house along with the other birds. Our bluebird came and brought his wife and so did a cardinal. We're excited to see if we can find a nest this spring. We have been enjoying the smell of our viburnum shrub outside our bedroom window. If anyone wants a heavenly smelling plant I can't recommend it enough and the blooms are amazing. I love the yard sculptures! They add so much fun to a backyard. The floors...wow...they just look beautiful. Last week our son and I decided last minute to see if this recipe I found for floor polish would work and save our wood flooring. It has LOTS of issues with scratches from the previous owners and we thought it wasn't savable. Here's the recipe I used and guess what? It looks amazing...so glad I tried it. It's 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/3 cup white vinegar, and about 4-8 cups boiling water.