Tornado...

Sunday afternoon as Robyn and I passed the 3M building on Interstate 94 on the way back to our house from Home Depot, the tornado siren went off.  Startled, we looked at each other and said, "Wow, that was loud."  We had already heard on the radio about the tornado warning and to be honest, I was more concerned about it having rained all weekend which prevented me from cutting the grass or moving my table saw outside.

It wasn't until we woke up this morning that we heard about the tornado that had struck north Minneapolis about 15 miles from where we are going to live.  Although one life was lost in the storm, this tornado paled compared to the tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri and the ones that struck the southeastern United States.  ...sort of puts my complaints about the rain in perspective and helps me to remember my blessings.

It was just one of those weekends.  I should've expected it since there was a bear wandering around in our part of St. Paul last week.  The weekend got off to a great start. Robyn discovered that the scraggly bushes on the side of the yard were actually lilacs and there were blooming...

These, along with the crab apple tree, add some well appreciated color to our yard.

Everytime we came back to the house, Robyn, taking a big sniff, would ask me as I was unlocking the door, "Can you smell the lilac?" Unfortunately, the only way I could, with my bad sinuses, would be if they were practically in my nostrils.

My plans for the weekend was to get flooring down in the living room, dining room, master bedroom; paint the middle bedroom; and get a functioning bathroom.  Thanks to Tino; Mary and their daughter, Danielle, we were able to accomplish most of that.

Danielle has a gleam in her eyes as she shows off her paint work in the middle bedroom (that's a Sherwin Williams' color called Griffin.)

Tino was much more efficient at laying the laminate than I was...

Friday evening, when I was at wit's end trying to get the joints to fit together properly in the master bedroom, Tino, along with Mary, came over and not only showed me some tips and tricks but also put most of it down.  When Sunday evening rolled along, we had a pretty good system going with me doing the cutting and Tino doing the laying. 

After Tino put that last piece down in the dining room...

It was great seeing the results...

Mary demonstrating how exhausted we all are...

Our final activity for the evening was to unroll the rug for the living room that Robyn had found on clearance at Home Depot...

Copper thinks it will provide a nice play surface.

As for the bathroom, the most productive part of the weekend was hitting my finger with the hammer while nailing up a support for the edge.

Jamming a splinter up under the nail of my pinkie finger was no comparison.