.....During......

Surprise! I'm still here!! "Here" is a relative term, actually. The kids and I are living with my Mom this week, but I have a lot of catching up to do before we get to that point....

Right before I fell off the face of blogging earth we piled all our belongings into the center of each room in our house and threw open the door to welcome a team of painters. Painters who brought with them tall ladders, the infamous Autumn Blonde paint, and the worst stomach virus known to man. That very weekend Nana went into the hospital with dizzy spells, Papa's back went out, Oma had a third surgery on her hand, and Granna got very sick and had a number of tests run. So, the Oldies (but very Goodies) in my life all decided to fall apart at the same time my household did. Emma was the first person in our house to hit the skids, followed by both boys and Hannah.

Then I got sick. The Mom of the Manor got sick and went to bed for three entire days.

And from that point, my friends, we were living aboard the Titanic.

It goes without saying that you can have concern for grandparents and live with no furniture and no kitchen and seven strangers in your house dribbling wet puddles of paint for two dogs and four children to walk through if and only if the Mom is semi conscious and directing traffic or at least yelling at all the people (and dogs) who are doing things wrong while trying to renegotiate a contract with the flooring people via seven hundred urgent phone calls. Because if the Mom can't clean wet paint from the dog's tail while microwaving spaghettio's for the third day in a row and playing charades with non-English speaking workers then it all heads south in a hurry. Because that's what Moms do during renovations. That and head to Starbucks for yet another cup of concentrated caffeine with extra heaping spoonfuls of sugar or to Sherwin Williams for the sixth (seventh, eighth, ninth) shade of green paint samples.

Now that Buzzard is a pretty tough bird, but he was no match for the renovation/sick kid/sick wife three headed monster, and it was no surprise when he crawled home from work one day and straight into bed. At that point I was pretty sure we should just tear the walls down instead of paint them.

So that's a quick summary of the lemons, but there is lemonade to share as well. Walls, trim, and staircase have all been painted and floors are going down this week. Built-ins are in progress and waiting to be installed. I have many photos to share but do not have access to my home computer today. My Mac is, like everything else I own, shrouded in a beach towel and sitting somewhere it doesn't belong. I gave my Mom some of her pain pills, then asked if we could move in for a few days. She has been an extremely good sport this week, and has learned that a broken arm really isn't the worst thing that can happen in life. :-) Life really can get harder after all. Nana has clean sheets on the guest room beds up at the farm so if we get evicted here our next victims are ready for us. We are many. We eat a lot of food, generate a lot of laundry, and have "stuff" that spreads out. That isn't as noticeable to me when we're living in our own house. Hmmmm.

It is close to midnight now and Buzzard is at the house installing bead board in the guest bath. The floor people took the toilet out of that bathroom to install the new tile and it occurred to me that it would be much easier to install bead board without that toilet in there. So I convinced Buzz of my theory, who did indeed seem super convinced when I sent him to Home Depot at 9:00 tonight. I told him while he was working in the bathroom he could also go ahead and choose one of the seven colors of paint I have on the wall in there. In between all his sawing and gluing and nailing I thought he could just take a quick peek is all. Because now that I think of it, once all that bead board is up it probably makes sense to go ahead and paint those walls before we put the sink in. I'll wait until tomorrow to convince Buzz of that.

I have lots of stories to tell over the next several days, and hopefully the ability to share the "during" photos too. These renovation realities are part hoot and part heartache. Stick with me because in the end, I do have hope that I will have a finished product to show you!