I don’t know if you have a Home Depot in your neck of the woods, but this is absolutely my favorite store. I’m not fond of shopping except when it comes to Home Depot, and then I can spend hours and hours wandering around that store. I suffer from insomnia and typically get 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. Before I had little Princess, whenever I couldn’t sleep, I occasionally grabbed a "To Go" cup of coffee and peruse to the nearest 24 hr Home Depot store. Now I just wake her up and make her play with me. Hubby knows that if he wakes and I’m gone that’s where I will be. Unfortunately, he also knows that this visit will probably cost him lots of money and involve starting a new home improvement project. Thank goodness that my husband is very, very handy and can do anything (and I mean anything).

The last time I went for my nightly Home Depot fix I decided that I no longer liked the tile in the front entry way and wanted wood floors. So I did my research, spoke with a flooring person, bought a book or two and all the necessary supplies and was back home before he woke up. It was a Sunday and very nerve wracking waiting for hubby to wake up so I could start chipping up the ugly old tile. I think I drank a whole pot of coffee and completely read the Sunday paper waiting on sleeping beauty to wake up. When he finally moved from the bedroom to the couch, to watch football of course, I got a very large screwdriver and mallet and attacked the floor. He raised himself up off the couch, looked, and said "What the F*ck are you doing?" That’s when I informed him that I was tired of the tile and wanted wood instead, oh and by the way I spent X amount of dollars and got everything I need for this project. He looked at me and said "Your kidding, aren’t you?" "Nope, I’m not and the rest of the stuff is in the back of the pickup". He got up off the couch and walked out to the garage to see exactly what I had gotten him into.

After he verified that I had gotten everything (correctly) that we would need he sat back down on the couch and said "let me know when you are finished". Now I already knew that it would absolutely drive him nuts to "not" be involved in this project as he is quite the perfectionist (I just love that about him) and very bossy to boot. So I started chipping up the tile only to realize that some bozo (i.e. previous homeowner) had laid tile over tile so I ended up having to chip up two layers of tile. It took me over 6 hours to get it all broken, cleaned up and down to the concrete. This is where he stepped in as we had to pour stuff to level the floor before we could put down the Parkay. He leveled the floor and laid the wood flooring, oh and then we decided that the wood flooring would look better if we replaced the white painted baseboards with wood ones which, of course, involved also replacing all three door frames. Whoo, hoo, another trip to Home Depot. Needless to say I now have a beautiful entry way and always receive compliments on it when we have visitors.

Now none of this is actually why I’m banned from Home Depot. Several days later, on Thursday morning, I was reaching into the kitchen cabinet to retrieve my vitamin when hubby says, where is the rock on your wedding ring? It seems that in my enthusiasm to chip up all the ugly, old tile I had forgotten to remove my wedding bands and had broken off the large diamond on the engagement ring. Now our trash runs on Mondays or I would have dug through the broken tile to find it and thought about driving to the trash dump as I was so upset. That is when hubby reminded me that he had the rings insured when he bought them so all we had to do was turn in a claim. Fortunately it only cost us a $50.00 deductible and the ring is as good as new. Unfortunately, as part of the bargain, I’m now banned from visiting Home Depot on my own. Boo hoo. Oh, well, he likes to shop there to, so now I just have to wait for him to wake up and take me.