3/26- More work in the garden today, through softly falling snow.  Among other things, I planted 3 hydrangeas and a small lilac hedge.  There are still perennials left, but I’m not going to fuss about them.  All of the plants that I’m really attached to are in the ground.  Let the cold come.  I’ll build a big fire, crack all the windows and paint.

3/27- We’ve started installing the floor.  It’s going to be a slow process.

3/28-I think the painting excitement has officially worn off.  A box of paint came last week and I still haven’t even opened it.  A month ago I would have had the can opened and a splotch of paint up on the wall approximately 10 minutes after it’s arrival.

(and the award for least flattering picture ever goes to…)

3/29- The flooring is going exceptionally well.  Steve and I can accomplish a lot in a short time, working together with few distractions.  On the days when it’s just me, working with small children under foot, things go slower.  But it moves forward, at least a bit, everyday.

3/30- after shorting out the electric in the kitchen twice, the dishwasher broke today.

3/31- Steve and I woke up feeling awful, along with several under-the-weather kids.  Decided to lay low and cancel our plans.  By the end of the day there was a hole in the bathroom ceiling, a trash bag full of broken vent pieces, a hole in the attic floor, a partially uninstalled old dishwasher and a box full of new dishwasher in the hall.  Standing in the kitchen, channel-lock pliers still in hand, I asked Steve if he thinks these kinds of things happen to other people.  He thinks so.  I’m not so sure.

I present to you, the gallery of holes:

Someday soon (it’s best to remember that “soon” is an extremely subjective term!) there will be pictures of pretty things, talk about paint colors, freshly sewn curtains, pictures hanging on the walls.  Right now?  There are holes.  Holes in ceilings, holes in floors, holes in walls.  Above is the bathroom ceiling.  Below is the attic floor, over the bathroom ceiling.

And this one?  Well remember how we decided to have some wiring run now so that we wouldn’t have to tear open walls?  See how well that worked out?

New discovery!  The wiring was not run by a professional and therefore nothing is where you would expect to be.  And more relevant to the photo above, things are where you wouldn’t expect them to be and sometimes get inadvertently drilled into.  Which is what earned up the above holes in the dinning room wall.

4/1- installed the new dishwasher today, including scraping off and cleaning out the dead mouse we found behind the old one.  de-light-ful!  It doesn’t turn on either.  Apparently the appliance currently on the front lawn being rained and snowed on wasn’t the problem so much as the electric in that area of the house.  right.  It was in sad shape anyway and we did want to replace it, just not right now if we could have helped it!