Mineral Spirits Are Not For Drinking

Tony ripped the sky blue carpet out of the bedroom a few days ago, and seeing as I didn't help him, it became my job to remove the gunk left from the pad off of our beautiful maple floors. He told me to get some mineral spirits to make the process go faster.
I wasn't sure what that was, but I went to Kmart, since it was on my way home and wandered around the floor cleaning isle looking for anything resembling mineral spirits. I hadn't been in a Kmart in a long time, and I have to say that they're about on par with Wal-Mart in my book at this point, which isn't a very complimentary statement. The entire store was void of employees, and the merchandise was extremely sparse in every department. I became irritable when I couldn't find it, as it was already 7:30 at night, so I headed over to Menards.
To get to Menards, you can no longer head west on Bluemound and turn at the intersection or pull a u-turn at any point past Brookfield Road. Instead, the only place to turn around is the extremely dangerous intersection of Bluemound and Barker Roads. So that's what I did. By the time I had scoured the flooring section and couldn't find anything, I was furious. I asked the 16 year-old girl at the customer service counter where I could find mineral spirits.
"You mean for drinking? It should be in the water filtration area."
Um, ok. Right.
I called Tony, who told me it was in the paint section. Of course. Why hadn't I thought of that?

This morning, Tony and I visited the Tile Shop, which I was surprised to discover is huge on the inside, despite the small appearance from Highway 100. We spoke with a greasy car salesman-like guy who helped us pick out some not-so-expensive dark grey tile to match with our dark bathroom theme.
From there, we visited the house. I arived a few minutes after Tony since I had two stops to make (at the coffee shop and dropping off my cabinet samples). When I got there, I found the entire kitchen ceiling had been removed and replaced- with the exception of the drywall- all in two hours. The room had been transformed: the wall which has been a thorn in our side since the first day of demolition was finally gone.
For those who aren't up to speed, an explanation. We had discovered along the way that a wall in the middle of our new kitchen was load bearing, and therefore needed to be fixed before it could be removed. Our original plan to fix the wall failed because we discovered that not only was the wall load bearing, but it supported the majority of the roof. Finally, Greg, our carpenter, found the miracle fix and went into action with his two sons, Matt and Jared.
Side note: Jared is gorgeous. He's a carpentry god. And he was climbing around in the roof above my kitchen, covered in fiberglass. I'm not really attracted to his personality, but I can appreciate a good looking guy.
Tony and I walked around the house, appreciating the work that had been done since the last time we had seen it. When we stepped outside, Tony pointed out an area of wood that needed to be painted on the roof since the roofers had removed some siding when they replaced the roof. I volunteered to climb up on the roof and paint it, despite my fear of heights. The slant didn't look so bad, and I would be able to lie down and paint in leisure, away from the fiberglass that was covering most of the floor in my house.
Tony took two pictures of me on the roof, but I don't have them yet. It was fun, but I did manage to get paint in my hair and all over my pants.
When I got down, Tony and I took a second look at the doorway to the basement, and with encouragement from our carpentry trio, decided to open the doorway by removing the south wall. The result made the dining room appear larger, and far more modern. It looks great!
The floor in the master bedroom was my second chore of the day. I got to work scrubbing black goo off the floor with the Mineral Spirits, but quickly discovered that the fumes made me dizzy, despite the air moving through the room. At Tony's insistence, I wore the resiprator, which took away the smell. About 20 minutes into my efforts, Tony's grandpa wandered in to inspect my progress. He decided he could find a better way to remove the goo and shuffled back out, muttering to himself. I returned to my job, and after a few minutes, figured he had been distracted and forgot all about him. When he did return, he had with him steel wool, two wire brushes and a putty knife. He began using the wire brushes on my beautiful wood floor, which made me cringe in horror. He was scraping the wood! I remained silent, however, because of the unspoken rules within Tony's family, one of which being that it's not a good idea for Lynn to tell Tony's grandpa to do anything. It's a respect thing. Three hours later, we still didn't have even half of the floor clean, and I was trying my hardest to ignore the scratches in the floor, rationalizing that it would be refinished and the scratches probably weren't deep enough to make a difference.
When I got tired of staring at the floor, I went to help Tony clean up by vaccuming up the remaning fiberglass. I'm pretty sure I inhaled some in the process, but I feel ok right now.
At this point, we're over budget by about $8k, but I'm sure that number will continue to increase. Every decision we make we make based on price.
If that weren't stressful enough, I poured apple juice all over my computer the other day, and shorted it out. A surge ruined my hard drive, rendering it useless. If I want to get the data back, it will cost me about $2,400. I'm debating if it's worth it.
I'm also trying to get a second job. I've got my heart set on Starbucks, although I think it might be a good idea to apply to Target. We're going to need the money.