Have You Ever Vacuumed Concrete?

So, last night I found myself in a cleaning mood. Yea, I don't know what happened to me. I must be coming down with something. So, I started to vacuum and made my way towards our dining room. In I go, and as I was half way finished I started thinking about the fact that I was vacuuming concrete? Why, you might ask? Well, one of our precious pets decided that our dining room carpet was a lovely place to have a potty break when she had been inside too long, before we came home to let her out. That, over time, spells (or should I say 'smells') yuck. So, one Sunday afternoon I went to children's choir practice. When I came home, Rick had torn out the carpet and padding in sheer frustration. Hence, the concrete floor.

The only problem with that is he tore it out over a year ago. Yup, and with no plan or savings towards a new floor in mind. With 2 kids in private school, one of which is therapeutic, there's not a lot of extra cash floating around here these days. Every time we seem to have money saved up for the flooring here comes a car repair bill, a big dentist bill or a vet bill for a sick, stray black kitten that just happened to wander into our yard, I swear!

So, we have a concrete floor and tell ourselves that our friends and family will still love us even if we have a concrete floor, right by the front door, next to our nice foyer, for every one to see as they walk into our home! Yea, uh huh.

This past week I was at my friend Cindy's house. She and her hubby, Andy, have their own business, work from their home and are raising 2 little kids. They just bought a gorgeous sectional couch that is so comfy to sit on. The only problem is their family room isn't big enough to hold it so it's split, with one half on each side of the room. They will only be in their current house for a little while longer and so the sectional will fit in their new home. In fact, they have a few other things in the house that they want to keep for their new place but it's packed into this one for now. Plus, Cindy LOVES to sell things on Craig's List so she has her old sofa and chair still in the house to keep safe until she sells it online. I couldn't help but laugh out loud as we worked around couches and boxes while fixing lunch and chuckle about how different our lives are than what I thought grown up life would be.

Go back to the spring of 1987 in Austin, TX. Cindy and I are students at UT and in her apartment. We're sitting on the couch that she is now trying to sell on Craig's List (it's real suede and in great shape!). Cindy and Andy are getting married in June of '87 and I know that Rick is going to ask me to marry him some time soon (he did on New Year's Eve of '87). We think we're pretty grown up, for the most part, and fairly mature. We read Bride magazine, Cindy paints her beautiful long nails, I learn new ways to put on eye shadow and we talk about our wonderful guys. We have visions of houses and dream careers, living near a park and meeting there as we raise our babies in family bliss.

Now, here we are 21 years later - I'm vacuuming tumbleweeds of dog hair off of my concrete floor just before I run out the door to pick up my children from their therapeutic school that we can't afford to drive into Houston rush hour traffic to get to someone's (mine or their's) psychologist appointment while Cindy cooks a meal, while walking around a couch in her kitchen, answering her cell phone from women in tube tops that shouldn't be wearing tube tops (I'll explain in a minute), checking her computer to see if a potential tenant has any felonies, helping 1 child with her homework while listening to her 4 year old having a fit because she won't let him go into the garage and see all of his Christmas presents!

How does that song go .....

Okay, I promised I'd explain the women in tube tops. Cindy and Andy are in the rehab (construction, not detox) and real estate business. They own homes and apartments in Houston, as well as some apartments in Galveston. People still trying to recover from Hurricane Ike are looking to rent the ones in Galveston, with help from FEMA. Some of these people, according to Cindy, do happen to fall into the butt crack, tube top wearing, missing some teeth category and I heard some interesting stories the other day. I told 'ya, I wanna be a Toys R Us Kid. I bet some days Rick, Cindy and Andy do too!