Boring Update

Here I am, eating a Lean Pocket (yes, Lean) and some baked Cool Ranch Doritos, drinking a Sam Adams Boston Lager (it is always important to note exactly what beer one is drinking--Sam Adams in and of itself is not an adequate descriptor), listening to Interpol's "Evil" at the moment, and blogging.

This is night #3 alone with me, myself, and the cats. Ashley is in Benton, working on the new house. "New house?" you ask. Yes, new house. Well, actually it is an old house, built in 1931 (Craftsman brick), and it has been in her family for twenty-plus years now, but she and I now officially own it, so it is new to my ownership. I am extremely excited at the prospect of home ownership, especially of a house for which I do not have to have a mortgage, but at the same time it is rather nerve-wracking. We are currently doing some remodeling work that has to be finished before we can move in--painting walls, patching and refinishing the floors, buying and installing appliances, that sort of thing. We should be finished with our bit (the floors will be done by hired help) in a few weeks. Then it will just be a matter of living with orange Formica kitchen counter tops and without the services of our to-be-remodeled master bedroom and our to-be-built master bathroom for a few months. Then the real fun begins...

So far I have learned how to tear up a linoleum floor (kitchen) to find the treasured hardwood floor beneath, destroy a closet while salvaging the cedar lining, and pull up hardwood (the master bedroom will be carpeted--maybe a mistake) in order to use it to patch the dining room's bay window floor, the old floor furnace hole between the living and dining rooms, and part of the kitchen/breakfast room floor. I also just about broke my neck cleaning pine needles out of gutters and roof valleys.

The work has been delayed twice now. My father-in-law, master craftsman extraordinaire, is in charge of the project, but suffered for well over a week from a pinched nerve. About the time he started feeling a little better, my long-ailing grandfather died. Life goes on, however.

P.S. Blogger's spell check dictionary is just about worthless.