Dd asked her therapist to ask dad for a phone of her own. I'm actually against her getting in to having her own phone but if it were to just call me or dad then I would pay for it myself. Its $10 a month. Therapist thought it would be a good idea so she mentioned it to dad and he said no. He doesn't allow cell phones. Therapist has not been pleased with dad ignoring dd's requests so I expect her to let the judge know. There are so many things but there are ways around the courts. Dad could say phone was dead or they lost it or he could 'remove' it when dd isn't looking and then say it was lost. Or he could use it as punishment for behavior which I doubt he would need to do because dd is so scared to misbehave with him. She isn't afraid of dad by the way, but SM is very scary to her. The only thing that keeps me sane sometimes is knowing that dd has stepsister there with her and I think that keeps dd sane as well. She says she is scared to be there alone. Not because they would hurt her but it's unfamiliar to her. She doesn't like spending the night with people. She likes being at home. She would much rather a friend spend the night than go anywhere. And I think going to bd's is no different. It's just new and the room is different. She says she is scared of the noises and the tree outside the window. Etc. Nothing to do with bd or SM just dd not being familiar. She calls me from school on Thursday's and Fridays to say 'good night'. It's sad. She should be able to pick up the phone and say, good night right before getting in to bed. I remember when she was about 6, it was her first holiday away and she was gone for a week. She called half way through the week and was ok at first but it was about mid sentence #2 when she just bust in to tears and said she wanted to come home. They took the phone and hung up. I didn't even say anything to make her cry, she literally had just said hi mommy and I said HI DD!! How are you?? And she just bust in to tears. I do not believe they were being mean, I believe she was 6 and home sick. Nothing more. But they think that if she misses me it's disrespectful to them. There are times that out of the blue DD will say 'I miss my dad' and I always ALWAYS give her a hug and say I know but youll see him (fill in the date). If they did that, she would be fine. If they just let her know it is OK to miss someone then she probably would feel more comfortable. I hate to think what all of this does to her mind. Like what little things are swirling around in that brain when they do things like this. She always gets a tummy ache before she goes to their house. Never fails, Wednesday she is clingy and sick. I just comfort her and act like it's just a belly ache... Never fails though. She is never excited. My dd is a spitting image of her dad. Down to the shape of her toes and toe nails. I'm not even sure who the mother is. Lol I just wish he could enjoy every little minute instead of it being about erasing her life from the moment she arrives to the moment she leaves. I know this is awful of me but I'm going to admit it anyway. If we don't get what we want (no school nights) then we are moving. We live close so that this will be easier on dd. I don't transport her so it didn't matter to me if we lived 99.9 miles away. (we have to stay within 100 miles) But I knew that he would get his visitations back (it's what I wanted also. What's best for dd). I knew that if we lived far like we were, school mornings would be awful for her and/or he wouldn't get her. If they don't make changes, we are moving back. We moved away from everything to be closer so it would work out but I'm not staying here and putting dd through this again. I know I might get slammed for saying it but I'm already ready to move. We rent because we weren't sure where we would settle and this trial is going to be the deal breaker for us. Move back to where we are from and where our family is or stay here to keep dd close to bd. I sure wish he would just see the sacrifices we have made as a family to help him and dd have a better, closer relationship. I thought he would be more involved but he's not. It really did nothing for us. We actually hate this town. And this situation makes me hate it even more.

Our main sub - the guy that is assembling our log house - is handling the scheduling of the subs. He is also the site foreman. DH and I are doing the rest. This arrangement is saving us a bundle of money and we are getting precisely what we want inside the house, etc. We are very clear with our foreman about this; he expects to be on the site every day once our house actually starts going up. He lives about an hour from here - he may decide to live on site - not sure about that. I am giving the subs the name and phone number of the foreman; they know that he is the site boss, although I will be back up if they can't contact him for any reason. It helps that our foreman is a nice guy - we trust him to look out for our interests as we start building. I do think that expectations need to be very clear from the beginning and all along the way.

Thanks for all the sympathy everyone - I know you all know how I feel :) Kateskouros: that's funny, but looking at it, it does seem as if ice skates would make those scratches - haha! There's little ice skating around here right now though since it's in the 80's and 90's, so I guess they'll have to come up with another excuse :) Kat: I know you realize exactly how I feel since you've heard all my rantings through email :) Maybe I'll have some GOOD news eventually! Remodelfla: yes, we've decided that it practically has to be a sanding issue. The scratches are hard to describe and actually look a bit different in person than in the photos. The kitchen photos do look as if the scratches were sunken in, therefore maybe didn't take the stain, but in person look a bit raised - I know that sounds crazy, and it's the weirdest thing I've ever seen!! I don't know much about woodworking and definitely not refinishing floors other than what I've read, but we're wondering if the reason it became so apparent once the poly was down is due to the waterbased Bona opening the grain of the wood - does that even sound possible?? I posted a question on the floor forum but have gotten no replies - it doesn't seem to be very active compared to this one! Anyway, I'm putting one more photo below of the scratch in the bedroom (which we KNOW was there before the sanding started) because it does look slightly more as if it's raised. Picture a scar - you know how once scar tissue forms, there's a raised area. That's kind of what it looks like in person! I have no idea why the one in the kitchen looks as if there's no stain at all because it does have some on it - but the more they tried to "fix" the worse it became. Desertsteph: we saw the floors after every process dried, so we first saw the stain and there were no scratches, then one coat of poly, and that's the odd thing I was referring to above - only after approx. the second coat of poly did the scratches emerge. So I saw the floors one morning when I was leaving for work, and then we didn't go up until later that evening when the poly dried. We IMMEDIATELY noticed that and contacted the floor company. The "coordinator/scheduler" said that he was out of town, but would send the guys over to look at it the next day. That's when everyone said they had no idea how it could have happened but it couldn't possibly be from their equipment. So...we began investigating and found everything I wrote above to Remodelfla. We haven't moved anything back in and weren't planning to for several days just to make sure we gave the floors plenty of time to "cure" or whatever. Unfortunately, everything is in storage which we are also paying for much longer now! Seaglass7: thanks for agreeing that it's unbelievable that the company would try to blame us for the scratches and that I'm not just being picky! I was honestly beginning to question whether we were just expecting way too much and if anyone else would think it looked fine (as the floor company tried to say!). We asked them if since they think it looks fine, if they are OK with us posting photos everywhere as a reference for them - see what they say about that - haha! Rubyfig: we do know that the refrigerator was pulled across the floor, but it was well BEFORE the floor company started. And we didn't worry about the fact that we could see scratches in the new unfinished wood because we thought they would be sanded out!!! And none of the appliances were moved after the floor company started - they simply stained around them. It would have been impossible to move the huge refrigerator and get it back in without completely messing up the floors after finished, so we just elected to stain around it. Not the best option, but oh well. Lukkiirish: Yep, that's the "profesisonals" we were lucky enough to choose. You'd never believe this company has been around for at least 5-10 years and isn't just some one-man operation with a hand sander or something - haha! They seemed fine until we had issues - that's when you find out what companies are TRULY like! I'm beginning to REALLY regret not going with prefinished :) Floor in bedroom - scratch corresponds to one that was there BEFORE sanding. It was a fairly deep scratch made by the bed which we just ignored knowing that we'd eventually refinish them - little did we know we'd have the scratch forever - haha:

It seems like the large overhang in the first attempt would have reduced usable drawer space, so hopefully that's better now. The difference in slabs doesn't look bad to me, just different. The birdseye view accentuates it, but I'm guessing that's not your typical vantage point. It might be hard at first, but if you can embrace it as an example of nature's infinite variety, you might feel less sad. The biggest question is whether the cracks are in unsupported areas and whether the rough spots could be smoothed out. Can you seek a second opinion from a different fabricator? If you learn that it's just a cosmetic issue, that might help put your mind a bit more at ease. Your kitchen still looks really beautiful, and once the icky feeling from the contractor fades, hopefully you can still love it as much as you'd hoped.