goodbye to Brisbane

I have to admit feeling a bit sad about leaving Brisbane for the first time. I have been moving fast looking to the future for weeks now. This week was no exception until I did the last few wipes of the kitchen sink yesterday. I'll admit to crying a bit then and actually I'm crying now. Brisbane was a known. I was comfortable there, in my own domain. It wasn't perfect but I KNEW what was good and bad. There will be much to discover in the new neighbor hood, I find myself worrying about the unknowns that might be... what a waste of time and energy that is and I'm plenty short of both. I'm hoping writing this might help as these days of the actual transition are tough. I'm needing some rest and I miss working my dogs and teaching my students!




 The floor removal at Brisbane was full of unpleasant surprises. The tiles were not screwed together as I thought, they were bolted with winged molly rivets.


Here is a shot of the little bastards...... there was no easy answer, they just had to be drilled out and the then the little bits pushed through with a metal stick and all the slivers vacuumed up.

















 At least it was just the tiles around the edges of the room but some tiles had four on each corner and some along the sides as well.... it took David 7 hours of drilling to do three sides of the room.




















The following day we had my family (Jason, Sheila and their three boys) Tammy and Elena, Karen Charles and David and I to take the floors up. Step one was popping all the little rubber plugs out of the floor, this as it were was the "fun" job when all was said and done.
























Washing every one was not so fun
Sheila did it for hours, oh yeah and then we have to get them dry







When we started lifting them up there was water under all of them!! We flipped them over and put fans on them (great idea Karen!!).

The next day I had movers come and get them and know they are in storage at great expense! Wanna buy some flooring???

Karen on a stack : Then the stacking started, lots of stacking, over 400 tiles

we figure they weighted about 30 pounds  

Jason and Kyle on the last three tiles!!

 the empty room on Oct 31 2011, this is with no tiles, the lines are dirt.

Good bye Brisbane, so many good memories we will take with us that will last forever