Pulling Things Up

This weekend I've been pulling things up. I spent 3 hours on the stairs pulling up carpet staples and nails. I filled a soup bowl with staples and nails. The treads of the stairs look like very nice wood which I will probably countersink the nails, fill in the holes, sand, stain and varnish. The risers, on the other hand, look like plywood to me. I think if I stain them they will looked like stained plywood. I guess I'll try it and if it doesn't work, go to plan B. Plan B? I'd like to tile the risers. If you've ever noticed the stairs in Charlie's house on "Two And A Half Men," he has tiled risers and they look very sharp. The thing is, I've never tiled before and I doubt the risers are square. Tiling such small irregularly shaped spaces might be too much for a first time project. Maybe I'll paint the risers. Or I could stencil them. I will try stain and varnish first and see how it goes. I've also been pulling weeds. The dandelions I've pulled out have such thick stalks it's almost like pulling carrots. On Saturday I had the unique experience of having my body traced with chalk on a concrete driveway by a 3 year old girl and a 4 year old boy. Wow. I traced both of them so it was my turn to get traced. I layed down on the driveway and handed them the chalk. The boy said, "I'm giving you long hair." I said I just got a hair cut. He said, "But I'm GIVING you long hair." When I stood up I saw that yes, indeed, I had long hair sprouting in all directions from my head. Looked like I had stuck my finger in an electrical socket. When they were tracing the torso, they both took a short cut from the hip to the hand. I said, "Hello - I have a waist here, we don't need to go so far out from the waist." They both ignored me. I ended up with webbed arms and wild hair. Actually, it was very fun having the two of them work on me like that. They were really concentrating. For their little size, they had to do a lot more moving that I did when I traced their little bodies.