. I learned yesterday I was accepted into a study to determine if mindful meditation helps with insomnia among MS patients. Well, I knew I was in the study but didn't know if I'd be in the control group, which attended no classes, or in the study group itself. So I'm in the latter, which means 13 weeks of classes each Friday afternoon, plus 3 "assessments."
The benefits for me include learning a lot more about mindful meditation, a subject that interests me, getting paid $200, and a free FitBit, which I'll be using during the course of the study.
My only expense will be the gas money for driving to and from the hospital, about a 30-minute ride one way.
I recently cancelled my (Frontier) phone service and bought Magic Jack, which has a new phone number. I noticed today that my old phone number is still in service, so I had to call them back. It should be gone in 1-3 days, which is good for me because I noticed since cancelling the old number that I'm getting lots more spam, since my new number is not registered on the Do Not Call list.
I was unable to register the new number because the system "recognized" I was calling from the old number! It also appears that while I can make outgoing calls from any of my 7 phones (2 sets of cordless phones and 1 regular), I only receive incoming phone calls from the 1 regular phone. If I'm on a phone call on that line and I pick up one of the cordless phones, I get a dial tone.
I suspect (hope) that this is also caused by the fact that Frontier hasn't yet terminated my old phone number. I checked my Panasonic cordless manual to see if there was anything I need to do to "format" when you change phone numbers, but there doesn't appear to be anything....it's all kind of confusing but I hope it straightens itself out shortly.
As far as the carpet/floor painting project in my family room, I decided to remove ALL furniture in there and do all the prep and paint for the whole floor instead of trying to do one half at a time. It just seemed like it would be double the work. Of course, that means all that furniture is piled up in my living room and dining room,and it's generally a mess on the 1st floor now. I have just one more piece of carpet/padding to remove, and then I'll drop it at the dump today since I have little room for it to just sit here.
Here's what the room looks like right now...you can see in back the large entertainment center..it's actually 2 pieces but still heavy as heck.
I was able to move all the furniture out MYSELF except for a sold oak and very heavy entertainment center, which would take 2 brawny men to move. I suppose I could try calling a moving company and ask for 2 men to move just that (and move it back without scratching a newly painted floor), but the cost would be ridiculous for just that, and the whole idea of me doing this was to save money by doing it myself.
So while it sounds totally tacky, I'm kind of resigned to just cutting away the carpeting around the entertainment center, and painting around it, leaving a rectangular piece of carpet in place under it. Totally tacky, right??
I guess my desire to get rid of old stained carpeting was greater than my distaste for painting around the entertainment center.
I actually even considered just leaving the current "battleship gray" paint with white splatters AS IS, calling it "urban chic" and leaving it at that.
On today's agenda I hope to do the following:
1. Rip off remainder of carpeting and padding, including around the entertainment center.
2. Use tools to pry up the tack stripping around rest of room.
3. Bring all this ripped up stuff to dump
4. Vacuum
5. Begin using wood putty in the many holes and maybe some of the larger scratches, cracks. Let dry.
6. Do a 2nd lead paint test, just to be sure. The 1st one came out negative, but I'm not positive I exposed all the paint to swab, so want to do again for peace of mind, and I should be getting that 2nd lead test today via Amazon.
6. Do a light sanding.
Vacuum again.
7. Prime some spots where there's bare wood.
This should take most of the day, if not tomorrow.
I'd also like to hit the paint store to get color swatches. I have 2 options I can't decide between:
1. Use the same light taupe color I used in adjoining sun room, or
2. Use a very dark brown (almost black) with high gloss as a contrast to the medium oak brown furniture, white walls and taupe trim. I've seen this beautiful look in home decorator magazines.
One writer cautioned against using glass paint and suggested at most semi-gloss because the high gloss looks "like plastic." Not sure if I'd agree or not.
Please weigh in on the issue of painting around the entertainment center instead of trying to move it, and the color choice for floor.
Be mindful!
August 31st, 2018 at 01:04 pm
August 31st, 2018 at 01:26 pm 1535721970
August 31st, 2018 at 01:36 pm 1535722617
August 31st, 2018 at 01:56 pm 1535723817
On the other hand, it may drive you nuts;only you know about yourself.
August 31st, 2018 at 01:59 pm 1535723964
August 31st, 2018 at 02:45 pm 1535726751
I was going to suggest the plastic gliders as well. We use them frequently after we empty the piece out. Maybe as Butterscotch suggested ask some of the folks you've hired to help for a few bucks. We did that a few years ago before we bought the furniture sliders.
August 31st, 2018 at 05:13 pm 1535735616
Also, this piece is so heavy I'm not sure I could even lift it to place gliders under it.
However, I may think more about getting the gliders anyway, to possibly use with the entertainment center to just move it to other side of FR while I painted, and also to more easily move other furniture back to avoid scratching new paint.
August 31st, 2018 at 10:29 pm 1535754591
September 3rd, 2018 at 09:45 pm 1536011124
Congrats on getting into the mindfulness study! Will be interested to hear more about it. There's an MBSR program run by a local hospital that a friend is attending this month and invited me along, but I've just joined an orchestra and the timing conflicts.