I don't have time to be sick!

I thought my cold was getting better; then over the weekend, WHAM! I slammed into the mucus wall. Headache, total body aches, sore throat, blah, blah, blah ...

So instead of meeting Mr Honest, handyman/cabinet maker extraordinnaire, and then going to work, I spent the morning going to the doctor and getting a prescription filled. Sinus infection city. Don't get those very often -- I'm blaming it on the snot-nosed kids (not being mean -- they literally have snot oozing from their olfactory body part) at the school where I work. The kindergarteners just cannot get the hang of coughing into their elbows; they prefer the phlegm in your face approach.

Anyway, needless to say, I wasn't too productive this weekend, but Mr. Hubby picked up the slack! He installed all the cement board in LevelHead Jr.'s shower, waterproofed it with RedGuard (good thing my nose was stuffed up -- toxic fumes a-wafting from that agent orange. He even installed a few tiles to practice.

Well, this blog post has sapped my last drop of writing energy, and I hear the bed calling my name and my sleep number - 95. So it's off for a nap ... hope to be back in at least partial swing in a couple of days ...

Here are some pics of Mr. Hubby working hard in the shower.

We've Got to Move, People!

I've been so wrapped up in the renovation of the house -- or more to the point, the LACK of renovation, that I've been in complete denial that we need to get everything in our current home packed and transported to the new crib by the end of May. And since I'm hoping that construction might actually be happening within the month that brings us flowers after those April showers, I better get my little bum moving (no pun intended).

We're also going to be part of a current neighborhood garage sale the final weekend in May, so first I need to separate our stuff into three piles: 1) things we move, 2) things we sell, and 3) things we clandestinely throw into someone else's dumpster under the cover of night.

So I guess this means cleaning the new house, at least the storage areas. I've been putting this off as long as possible, telling myself there was no use in sprucing up with all the construction dust and whatnot. For those that don't know me, I'm not much of a clean freak, actually quite the opposite. I can live with filth that drives Mr. Hubby to the brink of insanity. What drives ME crazy is doing all that work, and within a few days, having it look even worse than before you cleaned in the first place.

And now with a child, that theory is taken to a whole new level. So why get myself so frustrated? Better to leave it as-is and save myself all that stress. That kind of pressure is just not good for a person.

But even I want to at least wipe off the closet shelves before nestling in our precious goods: you know the stuff we've barely touched in our current house but can't bare to part with in the next.

So my goal for this weekend is to vaccuum and dust -- man, that was hard to write -- some of the closets, so I can start moving and grooving. LevelHead Jr. has a four-hour playdate tomorrow, so it's going to be a race to see how much I can clean -- well, at least until I get sick of it, anyway ...

A Big, Fat "TOLD YOU SO''

I met with the electrician/lighting designer yesterday who may or may not have been wearing a toupee. We'll call him Rug Man. He's a nice guy, but Rug Man had this habit of trying to sell services that had nothing to do with the kitchen. Like when he saw the wet bar, he said, "We can put some LED under-cabinet lighting here" or when he looked at the back door light that's operated by a string, "Oh, I know you'll want to change that."

Sure, in a perfect world we'd fix everything at once, but the budget says otherwise, dude. I felt like I should have had a tape recorder to hit every few seconds with the phrase in my best computer voice, "That will be down the line. Right now, I need to concentrate on the kitchen."

When he talked about putting a ceiling fan in the master bedrooom: hit ''play''.
When he pointed out every dated fixture one by one: hit ''play''.

But once I got him into the kitchen and blocked all the exits, he had some good ideas and answered all my rookie questions.

Then Rug Man innocently asked, ''You didn't get a permit, did you?"
I, in my oh-so-proud General Contractor voice, answered, "Yes, I did. Didn't you see the adorable orange permit sign when you walked in?''
"Oh," he answered with a shake of his head.

Just then a memory, not a pleasant one, popped into my head. When I was getting my permit, I was so enamoured with my neon orange buddy that I didn't make room in my brain to hear the county clerk telling me, "Since you're making improvements on the property, you'll have to intall smoke detectors that are hard-wired.'' At the time, I was all, ''Whatever, isn't this permit sign SO cute?"

But now her voice was coming back to me in slow motion like Charlie Brown's teacher, only the words were crystal clear. But they still didn't have total meaning until RM spoke. "We'll have to install hard-wired detectors in all the bedrooms, one in a common living area and at least one carbon monoxide/smoke detector combo, as well. And they all have to talk to each other so that when one detector goes off, they all will."

"How much is THAT going to cost?" I asked in a squeaky, barely audible breath.
''How many bedrooms do you have?" RM countered.
"Five," I mouthed.
He asked me if I wanted to sit down.
Oh, God.
''Could be close to $900," he kind of smiled. ''Bet you're wishing you hadn't got that permit right about now, aren't you?''
Thanks for the insight, Kreskin.

All I could see in my mind was Mr. Hubby shaking his head in that I'm-always-right way he has, "I TOLD you not to get that permit, said it would only lead to trouble." Man, I HATE it when he's right!! The look on his face would be almost as painful as shucking over the $900.

 But when I told Mr. Hubby last night, he was actually really sweet about it, pitying my I-just-pooped-in-the-living-room puppy dog look.

But I'm feeling more optimistic this morning, plus I just had a brilliant thought. The code technically says you have to have hard-wired detectors in rooms "designed for sleeping." But we'll only be using two for that purpose, plus a guest room. So maybe we can eliminate two rooms? It's worth a try! I'll let you know what Rug Man says!

Post Script

I felt the need to clarify that I realize how petty my problems are compared to the devastating attack in Boston. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, families and residents of the entire city, as they work to recover from this coward's act. Let's all realize how short our time may be on this earth. Hug those you love and forgive those who have done you wrong. Life is too short.

Down and Out

Not a great day for LevelHead. I'm fighting a whopper of a cold that I'm sure was caused by my insane schedule the past couple of weeks. My poor little immune system just couldn't keep up. So I'm taking the day off to give my body some needed rest and rehab.

But I have to get myself together by 1:00 to meet the electrician who moonlights as a lighting designer if you use his electrical services, and I'm ALL about the free when I can get it. I just don't know about this electrical stuff -- how many canned lights in the ceiling and how far apart, etc, etc. I'm hoping this guy will wear the hat of a teacher, as well as a salesman.

I also need to learn about preparation for the electrician's rough-in work: where they attach the necessary wires, etc to the studs. Are there codes that require a minimum number of outlets, or is it basically at the homeowner's uneducated whim?

Another reason I'm feeling in the dumps today is because LevelHead, Jr. is having a hard time with the idea of moving. She loves our current home and doesn't want to be transplanted to that "old" place. She's blaming me for "making" her and Mr. Hubby move. No wonder she's been a real pistol with me lately. I thought it was my overall lack of maternal skills that had her upset; turns out it's my inane desire to be a General Contractor that's making her sad. Maybe she realizes it's could be years before I get my GC s%&* together and can actually provide a nice home for all of us.

She's also upset that she has to spend almost every weekend waking moment at the other house while Mr. Hubby and I work on projects. It's not fair to her, I know, but it's the cost of living in a town without family. We did decide we'll try to plan more playdates and allow her more weekend time in her chosen abode.

To make my fabulous mood even better, it's been raining but not enough to pull Tall Drink of Water away from his other job.

So to put it in a nutshell, I'm a sickly, bad mother who can't even do an effective rain dance.

Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer. I'm sure a day of rest will bring me back to the positive side. It's got to -- I've got too much to do!

Inside or Out??

I didn't get a chance to post on Friday -- I was all contractors, work, doctor appointments and school carnivals. Plus, we don't have internet at the new house yet, and none of our neighbors has easy-access wireless accounts that we can mooch. So I'm behind, per usual.

This weekend, I was all ready to get my putty knife out and wage some guerrilla warfare against the remaining kitchen floor adhesive. My plan was to keep hacking away at it until we had an almost level floor.

But on the way inside our new abode, I noticed the zillions of weeds that sprouted up after last week's rain. Sure, the precipitation allowed Tall Drink of Water and Polar Pop to begin their wall removal prep work, but it's also made the front of our house look like a soon-to-be-condemned property. That's a great way to impress the new neighbors.

So what should I do?? Focus on the inside of the house, where so much work needs to be done that it sometimes wakes me up at three in the morning with an annoying, "hey, lazy butt, when are you going to finish peeling off the dining room wallpaper?" OR do we work on the yard, and hopefully avoid a petition signed by the neighborhood, kindly asking us to move to a neighborhood more in keeping with our slovenly ways?

So I decided to do both -- resulting in a half-posteriored job on both -- my specialty. But I did meet a couple of neighbors who were very nice and seemingly agreeable to my promise to get to the outside of the property as soon as the kitchen and LevelHead, Jr's "suite" are finished.

Speaking of LHJ's wing of the house, Mr. Hubby made some great progress on the bath this weekend -- the shower surround is now gone and cement board has been installed in preparation for tiling. Mr. Honest, the handyman, also stopped by on Saturday and patched the drywall where the bulkhead used to be. Mr. H and I have made a date today to shop for bathroom floor tile. I should clarify that the date is with my husband and not the handyman, although if there's a possible discount with Mr. Honest, I may have to consider an "open" relationship. The sad part is I don't think Mr. Hubby would even care, especially if it saved him some money :( ...

Here are a few recent pics: an updated shot of the kitchen with most of the electrical removed from the studs; the newly drywalled bathroom ceiling where the bulkhead used to be; the complete mess of the bathroom right now and a cute shot of the giant hole in our basement thanks to Tall Drink of Water.

Dust Yourself Off!

Well, the LevelHeaded family did a rain dance last night that would rival any contestant on Dancing With The Stars 'cause it's been raining or almost raining all day. That means that Tall Drink of Water was on the scene today with his trusty assistant, Polar Pop.

After forking over a check for $2,000 (OUCH!!) to get the wrecking ball rolling, Tall Drink and PP headed to the basement where they spent the next four hours sandblasting, jackhammering and who knows what else (they enclosed themselves in a plastic tent to keep the dust down, so I couldn't see what they were doing, just could hear the audible chaos). The end result is a 4x4' square cut into the basement floor that descends an additional eight inches into the dirt below. I immediately imagined snakes slithering from the ground into our basement, thinking they had just won an unlimited stay at a 4-star resort (well, maybe this money-trap might be luxurious, compared to their current abode of mud and muck). Tall Drink assured me no snakes will be visiting.

After seeing TD and PP's haggard faces about 75% into the job, I started wondering if 2K was turning out to be a bargain for the work involved...

I left about half-way through the job (more on that later), and at that point, the visibility in the basement was about 5 inches because of all the dust created from their work, but it was contained sub-living area. When I returned, I was taken against my will into a time machine and spit on into The Great Dust Bowl. There's like a three-inch layer of gunk on everything, including, I'm afraid, our lungs if we don't get some major airflow going.

The reason I left the house was to pick up our remodeling permit!!! You have no idea how proud this makes me -- it's like I'm a REAL general contractor, complete with a neon orange notice that I proudly taped to the inside of the glass front door. Too bad it's now illegible because of the dust magnets clinging to the plastic case like stink on cooked kale.

I had the electricians in this morning, as well -- they were also loud, but it wasn't because of any machinery. They both seemed to be hard of hearing because they kept yelling back and forth to each other, even though they were in the same room. I went back to check on them a few times to see if one of them had accidentally started working on a house three doors down, but no, they were just loud and proud. I'm not sure what that was all about, but the end result is a chandelier in LevelHead Jr's room complete with an actual light switch (the ceiling fan the previous owners had was not attached to the switch and had to be manually turned on) and bathroom wiring that will now allow for a normal wall light instead of a '70's disco ball descending from the bulkhead.

All in all, I have to admit I was happier than a hog in slop all day despite the jackhammers and yelling -- things were happening, and I was a GC with an orange permit sign for all to see. Does it get any better than this??

For your viewing pleasure, I'd like to introduce Tall Drink of Water (left) and Polar Pop.