Meeting Persephone

Ok. I'm nowhere near as riled up as I was last night when I wrote the previous entry about my house. I should be - but I'm not. Actually I should be more riled up - but I'm not. And so, ready or not, here's the story of the day. Fasten your seatbelts, it's a bumpy ride.

Hubby and I were going to head into town early today to start making choices for those items we wanted for our bathroom remodel. We'd taken our measurements and were finally ready to look seriously. We typically do things like this for weeks or months before making decisions and purchases. It's not terribly productive but that's how we roll. Mini Me had a choir concert to attend and had to be at the school by 7 a.m. (after getting home late following her managing "job" at an invitational track meet last night). The power went out just before 6 a.m. and therefore she had to shower in the dark and Hubby raced her to the school where the kids/zombies were filing in slowly dressed in their choir "blacks". Hubby came home and within a half hour, the power was returned. No idea why it went out in the first place but the whole town was dark. So with electricty returned, Hubby jumped into the shower. I'd had a whopping 2 1/2 hours of sleep at this point and was still lazing around. Hubby gets out of the shower and we cuddled up on the bed.

12:48 we both wake up!!!! It seems we'd both fallen into a sound sleep and managed to waste half of the day. Brilliant. Now we're approaching the time when Mini Me would be returning from her choir concert so we hurried around and got ourselves dressed and ready to pick her up. Met her at the school, went to eat, and then took her to get her hair cut. In between time she asked if she could spend the night at a friend's house (of course). We put her on hold because we seldom see her anymore but after a couple of hours of listening to all of the "friend drama" we caved and told her that once we got some of our other running done she could go to her friend's house.

We went to local house-reno store and were browsing around at items we would need but had no intention of buying yet when a light shone from the ceiling of the store right down on a medicine cabinet that was on clearance (marked down from $200 to $63). I told Hubby that we were taking it NOW! When the Gods hand you a gift like that, you do NOT pass it by. We got the last one in stock and I was feeling pretty good about it. Hubby was liking it too and so we wandered around a bit longer looking at vanities and pedestal sinks, still unsure which one we were going to use in our small single bathroom when it happened again! A beautiful cherry cabinet vanity with a granite top and vessel sink was just lit up on the shelf. I told Hubby that this one was THE one and so Mini Me went to fetch a flat cart so we could haul it away with us too. It wasn't the copper vessel that I'd fallen in love with but it was a much better deal and I have no regrets. So much for "just browsing". Two gifts like that and I was feeling pretty cocky! Hubby kept saying, "I don't think they're both going to fit in the back of the Jeep." He's always worried about practical things like that. I was so stoked that we weren't getting stuck with pressed wood items that I stared him down and exclaimed, "it'll fit!" We made our way to the cashier who was clearly impressed with the deals we'd just gotten and then headed out to the Jeep to load our new booty aboard.

The Jeep is a small SUV that Hubby needs for work and was the smallest and most fuel efficient vehicle he could find that would hold all of his equipment and still do the the job he needed it to do. It's a work vehicle. A lot of Hubby's supplies were still in the back. He looked at me and I scowled at him. "Well how was I supposed to know," he exclaimed, "we were just supposed to be looking!?!" "Because we always do stupid shit like this," I replied. He pulled out a measuring tape and declared that there was no way that our new purchases were going to make it into the back of the Jeep while I was pondering leaving his supplies in the parking lot (just until we could get the new stuff home and come back for them!). After much heaving, unloading, and re-loading we finally got everything into the back of the Jeep with Mini Me only slightly pinned by the medicine cabinet's box. She was fine (she told us repeatedly). We got everything home and unloaded into the house and then took Mini Me and another friend to their friend's house for the weekly sleep-over. From there we had to go back and do more shopping. This time I asked Hubby if we were to decide to pick up the flooring if there would be room - yes, a little sheepishly this time. So we went for round 2 (or 25 if we're being completely honest as it's been at least a year long process at this point).

We picked up the flooring we knew we wanted and then looked at seamless shower enclosures. Before we really knew what we were doing we'd tagged a shower enclosure to pick up next week(after I'd jokingly told Hubby that it would most certainly NOT fit in the Jeep - he didn't find me funny at all), picked up the flooring and grout, and a new shower head. Paid for the shower enclosure and all other items. Then we made it to the grocery store and our weekend shopping was finally at an end. WHEW!!!

If only my story were done I'd be a happy girl and you'd certainly be less bored (assuming anyone's reading this far into it). We got home and started pondering where to put everything until we were ready to use it and how things were going to fit together. I told him that we'd make room and even if the appraiser showed up before we had the jobs completed at least all of this stuff being in the house showed that we were making the improvements! We weren't doing bad at all until a thought occured to us. We had made certain that the walk-in shower enclosure was the right width to fit in the old shower's hole, but we hadn't thought about the depth. Now in a panic we called the store where our shower was waiting in some lonely room for us to come claim it with a vehicle that would accomodate its size and asked to speak to someone who could give us the dimensions on said enclosure. We have since learned that the enclosure is 3 3/4 inches too deep for the effing hole that it was intended to fill!!!! "WAHHHH"!!

Hubby with his migraine and I with my cap (full of Nyquil) put our heads together and started to plot. Extend the walls of the bathroom? Well we could, but once we do that there would no longer be room in the cave for us to sleep. Shit! Well what if we just built out the one wall? Well we could, but then there'd be no room to walk in the bathroom. DAMMIT!! Ok. Ok. Don't panic. I have an idea....

We've been planning to move upstairs into a nice sized attic. It's in need of some attention before we can officially move into it, but if we wanted, we could get it livable fairly quickly with some determination (and obviously some money). This way we can put the shower directly into the cave so it essentially has its own room and then we'd have a "powder room" for the toilet and sink. "I'll make it work," I promise. Hubby lets out a sigh and then resigns himself to trust me because we have no real other options at this point and I've never led him too far astray yet.

Remember how I'd said that things like this always happen in this house? I wasn't kidding was I?? Something ALWAYS comes up that has to be handled before we can do the job we'd initially set out to do. The upside? Once the "master" bedroom upstairs and the bathroom are done, we only have the living room, dining room, and utility room to paint and the kitchen to redo. The back porch won't take much work at all since most of the work will be in reusing what's already there and adding some sheetrock, flooring, windows, and a new door. That still sounds like a lot of work but it won't be bad (I hope).

And so we are on par and if we were golfing I'd say we were doing pretty well despite what seems like some ugly results before we've even really gotten going.

Welcome to my world.