Where did that week go. I can tell you. It went with me outside trying to work on this huge deck. Rather then write it all over I copied and pasted my tale of woe I sent to my good friend Barb.

Here it is: "sorry I haven't got back sooner but since thurs. am I have been slaving outside on our deck which is 20" deep and runs on 3 levels the complete back of the house.I was going to have someone come in and power wash it then went to Lowes and was lookin at stain and they had a deck cleaner that you just sprayed on and waited 5-10 minutes then spray it off with the garden hose. Sounded real easy. It worked really well and we had picked out what they call a tone stain. Just a hint of color in the clear stain. They sell little samples so brought 3 home and tried them on a piece of the bench. Decided the light cedar would work. Well by Sat. morning the bottom deck had dried for two days and I decided to put the stain on. First I didn't nderstand the direction on the item I bought to apply the stain. There was a container that you poured the stain into and then just went down the wood with the pad. Well the stain poured out like a lake because I didn't have the on -?off switch in right. After 2 gallons of stain I finally knew something was wrong and got the old boy to help me fix it. He figured it out. Well the color came out so strong it is just horrible and where there was still dark color underneath it came out black. I could have cried. Of course Harv says "its not bad" trying to make me feel better. With the rest of the deck I went over it again with the cleaner and then used my neighbours power washer and the dirt just rolled off so if I had used the cleaner and the power washer it would have worked fine. Well I have now cleaned the whole deck twice and can't do anymore because it poured rain last night and it is supposed to rain thru Thurs. Maybe good - give me a break from it. I called Olympic stain this morning and talked to a tech and he said they didn't sell anything to remove it but Lowes should have a deck stripper made by another company and that should take it down. So off to Lowes again and get the stripper and see if I can at least get the orange out of it. So that is my tale of woe. Of course I haven't been getting any flowers in because I can't put them on the deck."

Well off to Loews I went this morning and bought 2 gallons of the stain remover and now I just have to wait for this rain to pass thru and pray the stripper realy works. At least it should take some of the orange color out plus the block. I took pictures but it looks mild in the picture as in real life.I roughly measured the deck and it comes close to 1000 sq. feet.

I also have some pics of the top deck to show it nice and clean and for Susan from "Plays With Needles" I have to clarify something. In the very last picture on top it looks like a giant mushroom in my yard and Susan came back and said she liked my mushroom. I laughed so hard I almost fell off the chair. It is really my bird bath turned upside down for the winter and is too heavy for nme to turn over. Well it is turned over now and the birds are enjoying it. Susan maybe I should get a mushroom as it looked kind of neat.

Hope you all had a good weekend with your friends, families, etc. I will have something special to show you tomorrow if I can get a good picture of it.