Waiting

New door new door new door new door...!

It was supposed to be rainy and icy this morning, but right now the sun is shining. According to wheather.com there's not supposed to be any real preciptation until around noon. I'm waiting for the guys, hoping they get here in the next few minutes. They said 8:30...

Christmas Time is Here

In celebration of the season, I decided to change my blog (Thanks, M, for the link to the free backgrounds!) I guess I could have gone classier, been more polished... but since I'm around kids all day, think about kids all day, and I named my blog after a kid's book, this design was more suitable for me. It makes me wish I had Christmas Break. Or a pair of snow pants I could don to go roll around (comfortably) in the snow.

And there is snow! Sigh. I love it, and I hate it. It started Sunday and quit last night. We only have a few inches, but the roads are gross. Winter is here. BUT! We have our tree. We put up our Christmas lights. We watched Charlie Brown's Christmas and The Grinch. It feels like Christmas. I have three weeks of work left before Christmas Break. Wonderful, wonderful. I'm totally enjoying the Advent season. My only problem is a lack of inspiration in the gift-giving department. I have no idea what we're going to get people. I have no idea what to get D. Sigh.

Other news: Lord willing, we should be getting a new front door tomorrow (Merry Christmas to ME!). Right now there's about a half inch to an inch of space all around the door. You can see daylight when the door is closed, and the cold blows in. (I feel like we ought to go Ma & Pa style and hang a quilt over the door to keep out the cold.) There's call for more snow on Wednesday, though, so who knows. I'm afraid they'll cancel, though we haven't heard anything yet.

That's what it used to look like. The sink was falling off the wall. The floor was giving way underneath us (but we didn't know it). The tile was cracked, the crumbly grout piled up in the corners. There was mildew under that lovely wallpaper border. And it was sponge-painted.

This is what it looks like now. New floor. New wall. New toilet, sink, cabinet, mirror, curtain, towel rack, and window. New caulk in the tub. It's sooooooooo pretty. The bathroom was under construction for over a month. Now, it's like a surprise party every time I turn the corner and see it.

Miracles

I filled up my tank today - needed about ten gallons - and paid $19.64. Joy.

Dad2 is here this weekend, making great progress on the bathroom. I will post a picture today or tomorrow.

Thanksgiving is on its way! Yay for a 4-day weekend!

Who Knew?

Having a house means working all the time. At least, that's what it feels like.

Maybe one day D and I will be better at keeping up with housework... As it is now, it's all we can do to stay on top of things. And when I say "on top", I really mean, "It's all we can do to keep the house from eating us alive."

Take today, for example. We were out late last night at an Over the Rhine concert with some friends. (Fabulous concert, good times.) When we finally dragged our eyelids open this morning, we were confronted with myriad opportunities as to how we could spend our day:

Cleaning
Grocery shopping
Folding laundry
Raking leaves
Cleaning the gutters
Straightening the house
Sweeping, mopping, vacuuming (I hate those chores with a passion. Not sure why.)
Errands (the bank and the cleaners)
Returning stuff to Home Depot and Menards
Continue working on the bathroom or basement

What fun.

Well, this is what I mean. It would have been great if David could have done a bunch of stuff on the bathroom and the basement. But, truth be told, the leaves had to be raked. Again. And the groceries had to be bought. I had to go to the cleaners. (This week, I managed to seriously stain ALL THREE pairs of dress pants I own - one right after the other. I have to wear a skirt to work on Monday because I will have no pants.) And the bank.

And we had a productive day. It was good. I did those three errands. D raked, did the returns, and bought us a new tall ladder so were no longer the moochers on the block. I straightened. David helped.

And then we crashed on the couch at 2:00, ate lunch, and watched dumb TV for an hour and a half. And then he disappeared into the basement (last I heard, he was trying to play some flute-thing... no idea...), and I decided to clean up the kitchen. And then I messed it up again to make an apple pie. With a brown sugar crumb topping. I'm pretty happy about that.

But look at how much on that list didn't get tackled today. Sigh.