Pardon my dust

Excuse me for a minute...

AAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!

*whew*

Okay, I feel better. A little.

The renovations are proceeding apace. First let me make this abundantly clear: the man we hired is doing a good job. A very good job. With the "after" pictures, I'll be putting a word in for him.

So the problem is not Dan. We'd be having the same problem if Dan was Stan or Yann or Fran.

The problem is this: my wife and I are quintessential homebodies, the both of us. If it was at all realistic, Eva and I would never leave home; we always feel slightly on edge past the edge of our property. It's compounded when we invite what's Past The Edge....inside with us. We feel...compromised. Have you ever been laying in bed and you suddenly get to thinking, I wonder if I locked the side door? Like that, except all day and all night.

(It just occurred to me that friends, reading this, will conclude we'd rather you never darkened our door. Please don't think that. Friends are great. Family's great. We love you all. Just please don't come in here and RENOVATE!)

As I write this, we're still without a functional shower, and that more than perhaps anything else, grates on our nerves. Eva's in particular. Her body runs hot. On any day when it's not actually snowing, Eva is apt to be, uh, what's that word for what females do? Ah, yes, glowing. On summer days, she glows red hot. She needs air movement and she needs hydration and she needs both badly. Me, I don't sweat much, but I likes me my showers. The only thing that could possibly make a shower more enjoyable is a second showerhead mounted on the back wall of the tub. Don't think I haven't thought of it. As it was, we broke down last night and went to Eva's work and showered there. I felt a thousand times better.

We haven't had to live without an upstairs toilet, which is great. The bathroom is floored, the drywall is mudded, and tomorrow the shower surround gets installed, complete with, yay yay yay yay shower doors hooray! I haven't had shower doors in more than a handful of the dozens of places I've lived in and by God do I miss them.

In addition, our master bedroom closet--which is exactly doubling in size--is almost done. I think. And today the living room carpet went bye-bye and was replaced with a laminate so close to what's already in the kitchen, they might as well be identical. Most of that's laid down now; all that remains is a corner by the front door and to reattach the baseboards.

Our dogs are freaked, which is understandable. Dan and his helper have played with the Tux and the Peach on their breaks, for which we are eternally grateful. A contractor who is not a friend would probably not do these jobs with the dogs around, and as I may have mentioned a time or two, our dogs are special in more than the obvious way. Let's put it this way: they are VERY VERY VERY VERY happy to see the Mommy and the Daddy each day.

It seems silly to be stressing out over something we asked for, we're paying for, and which--let's face it--is going very well. Silly or not, it's there. I can't wait until this is over.