Nesting Under Duress

I'm very glad Mike and I are together for many reasons. Lately I'm most glad that we have been feeding off the other's energy, alternating turns in being the horsepower behind necessary renovations brought about by this kid in me and a bit of a disaster this week.

In the beginning of all this mayhem and foolishness, I was the catalyst that turned the house upside down, moving all the equipment in the gym to the garage and all the guest room furniture into the gym-turned-guest room. My reason was pragmatic: I realized that in another couple of months, I won't be able to move much anything (Mike took care of the big stuff, but I probably lifted more than I should have anyway), so I wanted to take care of the heavy lifting as soon as possible.

But as soon as the nursery was empty (and I was completely worn out), Mike took the reins and could not wait to paint. Since he would be actually painting, I happily gave him the task of picking out the color, and I. AM. ENAMORED. Inspired by the green-blues in the waves at Rosemary Beach, he selected a hue entitled Waterscape. It feels like you're sitting in a big Tiffany box, only not so bright. The pictures below are awful of the color - there is a lot more green - so you'll just have to come see it for yourself. He chose very, very well.

OK, the painting was done. Then as soon as Mike was worn out, I decided that our furniture would be scratched at Cullen's Playpen (which, of course, it wouldn't. I was being a worrywart.), so we had to have that delivered. Then began the task of unpacking the stuff, which was truly set up to withstand a nuclear meltdown. I've never seen so much packing material: the boxes were bigger than I am.

Dante helped.
Some people might say, "Aww, isn't that sweet? She's nesting!!!" Trust me, all ideas were produced solely out of practicality and snowballed into complete havoc.

I have some ideas to finish the nursery, but we'll wait until Friday the 13th, when we discover the sex of our bun. We will recover the rocker and add a mirror and a few lamps to coordinate with the bedding, and I hear blackout curtains are popular for nurseries, even though this is a north-facing room with plenty of shade. We'll figure it all out in the end. The point is, we worked for days and weeks on this project, and as soon as we thought we were finished with home improvements for a while.....

.... it rained.

And rained.

Rain would not have been a problem had our roof been on the house during said rainstorm. But we were having it replaced, and God thought now would be a good time to bring us even closer together. I was at a funeral when it rained. The roofers were on the south side of the house and didn't see me when I came in. Going to turn off the alarm, I slipped in a puddle of water and almost busted my tail. My first thought was that I'd left on a faucet... No. Washing machine blew? No... And then I looked up.

About the time the alarm went off, the roofer was ringing the doorbell to apologize profusely for the rain in the house. The garage, back hall, utility room, dining room, foyer, hallway to the office, office, jack and jill bathroom, and the door framing in the nursery all have damage. Some of the carpets were soaked, especially the one in the office, and some of the hardwood floors had standing water on them.

It was a big, fat mess.

So the next few days were spent moving everything in Mike's big, messy office into the nursery to clear the wet carpet. The good news is that we now have no option but to organize it when putting everything back together.

I could find the bright side of a plague.

Painters came two days later to make repairs, but there are some spots that still need work. They are planning to come next week to finish up the door framings, and I hate to tell them they'll have to do something more about the back hallway. Probably the most frustrating part of the whole deal is that I can show the painters 6 times where the paint is cracked and warping in a spot, and they won't do anything about it. But all Mike has to do is call them once, and they take care of it.

Grr.

I've mitigated this ineffectual female syndrome by having Mike write up a list of things for them to do. Maybe that'll help next week. Wish me luck.

But all's well that ends well: Dante has a new favorite spot in this world.