Decorating Diaries: Bees & Rotted Boards Update

All is better in Harrisland.  I got lucky when I called Pest Control yesterday and the guy was at my door within 15 minutes to spray the bees.  I vacuumed up about 100+ dead bees bodies last night.  But better dead than alive, is my view.  The bees started appearing upstairs today in my office window which is directly above the downstairs window they were in yesterday, so I had the guy come back out today and spray upstairs.  I'd say the bees should be gone within the next 3 days.

Also good news with the rotted boards.  They don't appear to be from a plumbing link in the new bathroom. Rather, it appears they rotted from the inside out just due to exposure to the elements.  It's no lie to say I am thrilled by this news.  I had visions of both bathrooms being torn apart at once.  Our contractor will replace the boards by Monday, and all will be good in the decorating world.

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!

THE BOOKS ARE COMING!!!!!

Praise the Gods, they're on their way!  I just hung up with the delivery house and Lessons In Stalking will be at my door this Thursday between 3-5.  (In a slightly painful aside, they actually could have delivered the books to me tomorrow, Wednesday, but I have interviews lined up in the afternoon. I had to grit my teeth not to cancel the interviews to be here for the books instead.)

I can't wait.  Wow.  I have so much to do.  Pre-orders to ship out, I need to get books to Amazon asap, buy shipping material, send out review copies...the list goes on. 

It almost feels like it's not really happening.  Sort of like Christmas as a child.  You wait and wait for what seems like forever, then it happens and afterwards you're like, "Wait.  That was it? What happened?" 

Everything feels new now.  For so long the mindset has been "Get the books in.  Get the books in."  Now the mindset is "Do publicity and call everyone and run here and run there and write a press release and mail out copies and on and on and on and on...."  Hysterical yet joyful chaos probably best describes today's mindset.

I have no idea how big a carton (or cartons) 2000 books come in.  This ought to be amusing when they deliver it.

Dena