Decorating Diaries - A New Hell Begins

I'm a prophet.  In my last entry, written approximately 5 hours ago, I wrote to stay tuned for more chaos.  Never has there been a more self-fulfilling prophecy.

I walk back in from a lovely writing session with my friend Bernie, and am greeted by Keith, our wonderful painter guy who comes once a year to touch up the outside of the house and do a quick inspection.

"Follow me," he said, waggling his finger. 

First he showed me the bees.  Yellow jackets, to be exact.  We knew there were a few in the walls of our exercise room and had asked Keith to spray outside.  He did, causing--at the moment, at least--approximately 50-100 bees to swarm inside the room.  Right now they're crawling over the window and light fixture.  I'm waiting for the exterminator to arrive as I write this and praying the cats don't get stung.

Then Keith showed me the back of the house. Specifically, the wet, rotted boards that oh-so-easily break off.  The new shower we installed last year apparently has a leak.  So, when our contractor gets here today it will not be to rip out our OLD bathroom, but more than likely to rip out our brand spanking new one to fix the leak.

For a bonus, I was also shown a rotted out door to our crawl space and some gutters hanging by a string.

I keep reminding myself...is this a problem or an inconvenience?  And really, it's just a huge inconvenience.  So I'll just hang out with my little bee friends and remind myself that it's all good.

Meltdown

Yes.  So.  Had a bit of a meltdown last night.  Our general contractor called about 9pm and said hey, since it's raining tomorrow, why don't I come over and spend the day ripping out your bathroom?  We said sure, great, why not?  But after we hung up, I started freaking out.

"What if we can't get the floor people in?" I demanded of Blair.  "What if we rip this bathroom out and then it just sits there for a month because we jumped in without having the other contractors lined up?  Then we've surrounded ourselves with mess and chaos for no reason."

"Well, call back and say we want to wait," Blair advised.

"Oh sure!" I said.  "You know the cabinet people want to be in by the 15th.  We've got to get this started."

"So we'll go ahead then," he said.

"How can we go ahead when we don't know what the floor people are doing?" I shrieked.  "Are you even paying attention?

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"No!  I am not okay.  The books are coming in and I don't have the delivery materials and I've got to plan the launch and fix my website and I've got a million classes coming up to prepare for and you're working 14 hour days and are unavailable and now, in the middle of all this chaos, now is when we decide to rip the bathroom apart and you know how I feel about living with dirt and I'm the one that's going to have to make all the calls and deal with the headaches and scheduling and chaos and I'm just feeling stressed and waaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!"  And the tears came.

Poor Blair.  That's all I can. I would run screaming from the home if I had to deal with a neurotic like me.  And when I get wound up like that, the nicer he tries to be to me, the meaner I get.  He tried to give me a hug and I almost decked him.

I'm feeling much better today.  I woke up and Blair walked in the room and looked at me.  "Feeling better?" he asked, warily circling the bed. 

"Yes," I said, feeling foolish. "Sorry."

So what the hell.  We'll have the bathroom ripped out today.  We've got another one we can use.  And just because it's messy and things aren't where they're supposed to be, I can breathe.  I'll deal with it.  For a short while, anyway.

Stay tuned.  Much chaos sure to follow!

Updates All Around

I don't have enough of any one subject to make a full blog entry so I thought I'd take today to piecemeal updates on different projects.

1. The Battle of "You Know."  As mentioned in a prior post, I am trying to break myself of saying "You know" and "okay" in everyday speech.  Progress is being made in that I'm catching myself saying it (4 times last night at Wendy's in about a 20-minute time frame--sheesh!) but I haven't yet stopped  saying it.  That will come.  I'm also expanding the "no-no" list to include "actually."  I start way too many sentences that way.  "Actually, I think you're right."  "Actually, I think we turn left here."  There is just no need.
2. Big Cat Book Project.  Completed and turned in.  I'm very happy with the final product and they seem to be too.  The release date for the book is April 2006.  For a person with little to no patience, I chose a really poor field to enter.
3. Lessons In Stalking.  My first ad for the book came out in the November issue of Cats & Kittens.  The editor there was good to me and not only placed an ad, but gave me a book review and put a picture of my book in the Table of Contents for people to flip to the review.  I'll just sit back now and wait for the orders to start pouring in. =)
4. Decorating Diaries.  We meet with the bathroom woman this week.  I don't think that's her official title (at least, I hope not) but lucky her, that's how we refer to her since we'll be selecting the cabinets and tile with her.
5. Cats.  They're lucky their cute.  I spend 10 minutes every morning going around the bottom half of our home, opening windows to let in fresh air.  We have the old fashioned windows that swing out vs. up, so to open a window means pushing up the storm window, shoving the window open, locking it, then pulling the screen down.  Not to mention bracing most windows with a post so they don't accidentally slam shut on a kitty tail.  My point being, a fair amount of work is involved.  So what do the cats do?  Hunker down in the air-conditioned upstairs for five-hour siestas.
6. Public Speaking.  I'm signed up to do an October workshop for the WGOT and the library on Public Speaking Tips for Writers.  However, looks like my Saturday magazine writing class is not going to make.  The college instructor said the gas prices were really hurting attendance at non-mandatory classes--people just can't afford to drive out to them. It's schedule again for November so I remain hopeful I'll still get the class--and some magazine writers--going.

And finally, Dena's tip for the day.  Throw out your scale.  We got rid of ours about 2 months ago because it was never right and would show a six pound weight gain or loss from day to day--talk about mood swings! But I feel great without it.  Now I actually go by how I look and how my clothes fit vs. a number on the scale.  Yeah, yeah, the experts have been saying that for years but who listens to them?  Trust me--much happier life with no scale.

Decorating Diaries - Update

Lest you think the master bedroom/bath do-over has been shoved aside, I will enlighten you with updates.

The decorator called a few days ago to say our curtains would be in on Wednesday (tomorrow) BUT the rods to hang them from were on back order and may be another two weeks.  My question now to myself is why I allowed myself to be convinced to order rods? Since when did I become too good for Target?

The bedding will be another two weeks as well.  VERY excited to see that final project.  We however, need to get on the ball and order new sheets.  Right now we're on cheap green sheets that have never really fit the bed.  We have a double pillowtop mattress and queen sheets are too small and king are too big.  We went with queen but every time we roll over we can feel the elastic on the bedcover give another quarter inch.

I have promised myself good  sheets.  High thread count sheets.  Oprah-like sheets.  I have no idea where one goes to obtain such sheets, but I want to buy them soon.  It would be a major letdown to put the beautiful new coverings on my bed and then slip into icky old ugly green sheets beneath.

As far as the bathroom....I think we're regressing.  We've gone from high-end designer look to a "Look, let's just let Lowe's do it" mentality.  I tried to talk Blair into holding off another year as we've got a few other things we're paying off right now, but he says (and I know I'll agree with him come December) he doesn't want to live through another winter of ice-cold floors.  It really is about 10 degrees colder in our bathroom in the winter than in the rest of the house.  I'm just not looking forward to contractors and dirt and scheduling gone awry.  But this too shall end.

So that's all there is.  I'll let you know when the damn curtain rods come in. =)