We are having the floors replaced in our kitchen, hallway, powder room, mud room, and foyer. The laminate, hardwood and carpet has been removed from these areas a tile has been put down.

It's taking forever. Okay, maybe not forever, but much longer than we thought (we were initially told 5 days, we're on day 9 heading into day 10).

While all this has been going on, I've been working from home -- with the exception of three half days, my parents came to watch the workers. So I've been working from the living room, and relaxing from the living room, and pretty much spending all my time keeping me and the two dogs contained in the living room. And while the set-up may seem ideal to some (who wouldn't want a full size fridge sitting next to their TV? ), I'm sick of my living room. Fortunately, Chris is staying home tomorrow.

I think it's coming together nicely.

In other news. Chris started back in sort of his old role with his new company last week. He's been swamped getting things back in order and coming up to speed on what's going on.

This blog has been idle for a while so now there are a bunch of little things to write about.

We've now been in our house for a bit over two years and it's finally starting to look like a home. For our two year house anniversary, we actually hung pictures. And we've finally been putting colors up on the walls (pictures maybe coming soon -- no promises). Our great room is now orange, and while I was at the Web 2.0 Conference, Chris surprised me by painting our kitchen the yellow I had picked out and bought months before. Our latest project is our bedroom which is finally not blue. The bedroom is still in progress, but we hope to finish it up soon.

On the work front, I'm changing positions. I'm moving over to dev instead of just supporting them. Chris thinks and change is in his future, but still working where he's working, just maybe for someone else.

Last weekend, I assisted Kerry with a wedding for a couple hours in the morning. Here are a few shots from the day:

One of my recent design project: Birth Announcement's for Lilly -- one of Kerry's clients. The photos are by K&R Photography:

That's what Chris said when I took the cake out of the oven on Easter morning. Whoops.

We need to back up the story a bit. First of all, I'm not known for my cooking skills. I'm much better known for my cooking mistakes. Anyone who can burn pasta probably shouldn't be baking a cake.

Like the cake to the left. This was probably my last attempt at a cake. This was Chris' birthday 5 or 6 years ago. I had remembered that he said he liked his mom's pistachio nut cake and had gotten the recipe from her specifically to make for his birthday. As you can see, it's not exactly what he had expected. When he saw it, he was laughing so hard he was crying. Not one of my finer moments.

Fast forward to this past Saturday. We were doing our grocery shopping for Sunday's Easter dinner and had yet to decide on a dessert. The prepared deserts left a lot to be desired so our only option was cake. I told Chris that I'd rather make a cake than buy one. The look he gave me was priceless. He reluctantly said okay. I asked him if he was convinced we weren't going to have dessert. He said yes.

So I get up Sunday morning and mix the batter and put the cake in the over. All is going well until I check on it about 10 minutes before it's to come out of the over. Uh oh. Uh oh. What asks Chris. Well the cake has risen into the rack above it. Whoops. Despite that, everything turned out ok. The cake was actually quite yummy (probably could have cooked it a couple of minutes less. And in case it didn't work, the back-up plan was molten chocolate cakes from Let's Dish

And the cake? The recipe is going in the rotation when I need a dessert to bring to a function/event/party/whatever.

Mom and dad have left Oklahoma. This is what they write:

8 days until the due date for the 2006 Stracensky Family Calendar. Please remind any family members who may have not checked this blog lately (or ever).

And I'm up early waiting for the guys to come back and touch up the stain on the door. It's raining today, so I don't think they're going to get both the stain and the poly done today and I think it'll probably take all day for the stain to dry again. Ugh. Also LoJack is coming out to verify something with my car. They'll be here between 8 and 12. Cisco and I are heading out to help Kathy with an agility demo. Actually I might bring Berkley too, he could use the practice and she might need a dog to help administer the CGC test. Even though they've both passed, Berkley is definitely the better demo dog.

Happy wet and rainy Saturday! Oh and I turned the comments back to letting anyone comment. Hopefully I won't get too much spam, we'll see what happens.