O Editor, Where Art Thou?

Well, on the floor.

Yes, literally on the floor for most of the past month. You see, I had this flash of artistic vision as to what my kitchen ought to look like ... and then, what the floor ought to be. I wished for natural slate, but after running a thumbnail across a sample in the tile store, realized that two big dogs would leave toenail scrapes everywhere that would ruin the look. The solution: porcelain tile with a slate look ... and when nearly three years had elapsed, we had the cash to make it happen, more or less.

I have no idea what made me think that I could lay tile in any accurate or appropriate manner. Or what made me think that it would be easy. All I can imagine is that angels were whispering things to me in my subconscious, and then laughing themselves senseless afterwards.

Lowe's had a nice tile called "Castlestone Harvest" that I fixated on, and off we went at the beginning of March, me thinking we could tile the kitchen/family room in a week. I knew from talking to a slate tile salesman that we'd need to lay out the pattern before we ever mixed a bit of adhesive, and we did, at least the first bit.

We began with the white marble hearth. Multiple persons tried to convince me to tear it out and have a cohesive tile not only on the hearth but on the fireplace itself, but I held to my black/white-and earthtones design. From that hearth tile, we ran a laser line to the front of the house, finding that there was a line to the front door entry tiles, off by half an inch due to sloppy chalklines made by the original builders, who were paid cheaply by the hour, and did not care about their work.

We began from the back room's focal point, the hearth, and put in a border of itsy-bitsy tiles -- and built out from there, adhering to our laser line to keep things straight.

Now here's the thing: if you want your tiling done right, and in a timely manner, hire a professional crew. Yes, it's damned expensive, but unless you are an artistic-vision control freak, you really want to spare yourself the physical agony of tiling.

It hurts.

Even with knee-pads, your knees and ankles will kill you. Your back will scream with the effort of bending, and your elbows from the lifting of heavy tiles. Your hands and wrists will swell from the effort of placing and pressing and leaning and prying up -- tiles are heavy, as compared to plates and pots from dinner or shovels and rakes from cleaning horsey paddocks. Indeed, nothing I have ever done has ever compared to the effort involved in tiling.

Truly, it was a learning experience.

Things I learned:

• Yes, Virginia, you DO have to remove the baseboards. You'll be thankful you did, later.
• Buying tile from "big box" stores will get you unevenly-sized tiles. That can be okay if you know it in advance and have a tile saw to trim off that aberrant 1/8" on the one side.
• If you're going to do it yourself, buy a decent tile saw. Expect to spend $250 at least.
• And a laser line to make your chosen reference points perfect. No, seriously. Use the tools of the present age.
• Open up your boxes of tile two or three at a time. One of our boxes was apparently a "return" -- the returners had picked out of the box all the bright and interesting colors and replaced them with grays from other boxes.
• After grouting, and smoothing the grout with a sponge, let the thing dry, and then wipe off the haze with a dry old towel. It will save you a bazillion arm swipes with the wet sponge as you clean up the grout haze. You still need the wet sponge step, but it is greatly minimized.
• YouTube is priceless. Watch a hundred how-to's.

Now here's the thing: it's easier to hire someone to lay the tile, if a lot more expensive. But the fact is, every single one of those tiles is set by me for color contrast, direction of "grain," visual impact, and focal points. I knew where I wanted the eye to land and be led. Opening up several boxes of tiles and finding four or five outstanding colors and squeaking "Ooh! I know exactly where this tile should go!" is something an installer would never be able to replicate.

The result was simply stunning. The cabinets (a bit weathered after 20 years but I wanted to keep them like that) and the family room sofa and chair, the stained white marble hearth, and the tables absolutely glow on the slatey floor. We have an area rug to use, but can't bear to do so yet -- the tile is so lovely.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, I'll have a day when there aren't baby toys scattered everywhere, and I'll post a pic or two of the rooms. One special one that picks up my Audubon bird prints that hang on the wall ... not planning it in advance, the colors of the tiles echo the predominate colors and tones of the prints.

Bliss.

Fun Is Hard Work

Today began with a 7am wake-up. I really didn't want to get up that early, but I had a trail-ride scheduled, and that meant I had 2 hours to come up with a cover image for the Piker Press.

And to eat breakfast, get dressed, and make lunch for three riders.

I had a couple reference photos to work from, and chose to use pastels on black paper. Six colors only. The result was simplistic but worked. I photographed it, loaded it to my computer, and darkened the background, correcting the glare of the light on the paper.

I like the pants the best, and the shoes weren't too bad.

Then it was off to the kitchen to make sandwiches on french rolls (cheese, salami, bologna, turkey) and vinaigretted lettuce to add later; I packed chips and oranges and soft drinks into my cooler-on-wheels, and off I went for the ride.

Which was exotically beautiful, because Woodward Reservoir has been partially drained, exposing yards and yards of sandy beach. The grasses are green (green is our winter color) but the weeds were brown, and beyond the golden beach, the water was bright blue, and crested with little whitecaps on the waves. Sunshine kept us warm enough.

Whitecaps? On a reservoir?

Yezzz, the wind was up, about 15 mph, stirring the water. And right out of the north, so we needed the sun to keep us warm enough.

When we had our sandwiches after the ride, I watched the waves on the reservoir, just drinking in the gold and blue and green, glad to be done with the saddle, looking forward to a hot shower at home. Dink, after a week of good food, had been a handful -- he can't wait to get out on a new trail, and always starts out like he's on fire. That's good, that meant he's improving, health-wise, but wow, it also meant I had to ride like I knew what I was doing, not slog along like a sack in the saddle.

Good sketch, good ride, good day.

Self-Portrait

That's me, contemplating my work load.

Not only am I supposed to exercise the horse three times a week (and those are trail rides, not 45-minute workouts in the arena), and do laundry, and contribute to the household cooking, but also I must do all the correspondence, reading of submissions, art work (except on rare occasions), uploading of acceptable works, yada yada yada for the Piker Press.

I want to take more photos, and upload them to Flickr. I want to draw, and paint in both oils and watercolor, and do papier mache. I want to walk by the river with my husband and my dog. I want to fiddle with my tomatoes' end of season.

And I want to finish my neglected unfinished novels!

Waking in the morning, I feel like there's a pile of rocks hovering over me, waiting to drop. There reside all the things that I have to get done that I haven't got done yet; prioritizing has to become the first thing my muddled mind undertakes.

Ah well. It's better to be busy than bored.

And I'm NOT shaving my legs until I can wear shorts again.