My laminate flooring is being installed. A co-worker of my mother’s is doing the job and my number finally came up in his To Do list. (He’s a busy guy!)

New floor on the left (looking pink here) and hardwood under the ripped-out carpet on the right.
Screws aplenty to try and alleviate the annoying creak.

That gorgeous hardwood floor (or potentially so) was also throughout 95% of the sewing room when we ripped up that carpet almost two years ago to install laminate. The thing is that the entire upper floor of this house has been re-arranged (many years back) with walls being knocked out and put up and, as seen in the bottom right corner of the photo, there are several areas where patching has been done. The sewing room had a 3-foot by 3-foot square of plywood laid down to fill a hole in the floor half in the closet as well as patches where walls were moved. I’m guessing the 3x3 spot was the hatch down to the basement as there never used to be stairs; the stairs to the basement now are in the addition at the back of the house. I can’t picture it but apparently the upper floor used to have the kitchen, living room, a dining room, three bedrooms and a bathroom. It currently has the kitchen, living room, bathroom (moved from its original location), and a decent-sized bedroom (my sewing room). The patch in the lower right corner was one side of the doorway into the dining room (the other is covered by the laminate flooring); that wooden wall in the upper right corner is the part wall in my kitchen and it backs my stove and one of the counters as you can see in this post. I’m going to cover the wood as it will be the only thing that colour on the living room side. I will remove that piece of trim just up from the floor and fill the join and then I’m considering priming it and painting in the same colour as the walls to enclose the room.

I’ll continue to show progress pictures as things move along. The area where the loveseat is will be where the dining table goes. The couch on the left will be sold as it’s not going to fit with the rearrangement of furniture.

Today was my first of three shifts before I’m on annual leave for nearly two weeks! Wooo!! In my excitement yesterday (and energized by B’s completely awesome behaviour the past two days (and, it turns out, today as well) I decided to do a bit of baking.

oatmeal banana chocolate chip muffins

peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

The muffins were made from a recipe that I found here and they are absolutely fabulous. I used soft wheat flour instead of all purpose and added in a couple small handfuls of chopped pecans since school is out for the summer and I don’t have to worry about a nut restriction for lunches. It’s a good thing I froze six of the muffins for later enjoyment or the entire batch would be gone by now.

The cookies were from an old faithful recipe that I used to use all the time growing up but I tweaked it this time around. The recipe can be found here among other places; my copy came from a Good Housekeeping magazine or something similar in a Criso ad. (I don’t recall my recipe calling for butter-flavoured Crisco, just the regular stuff.) The substitutions I made were to use 1/4 cup of butter along with 1/8 cup each of mayonnaise and applesauce for the shortening, 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup of white flour, and a mix of almond and peanut butters. No matter how much I stir my natural peanut butter each time I use it, the last inch in the bottom of the jar is always quite dry. I had a part jar of almond butter that was a little oily so I mixed the two together and now have a small jar of peanut-almond butter. I’m not sure if it was the result of the natural nut butters instead of sugar-laden "regular" peanut butter but the dough was very soft. I ended up adding in appoximately 1/4 to 1/3 cup of quick oats. I usually roll the dough into balls by hand but used a small cookie scoop this time around. These cookies turned out slightly different than non-tweaked ones but they are no less delicious. Soft, chewy, nut buttery, and with just the right amount of chocolate chips for me. If you make these cookies, be aware that they will not look done at the 7 or 8 minute mark when the timer goes off but take them out anyway. They firm up and get a little browner before your eyes as they rest on the cookie sheet.

And a very happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canucks!