Thursday, October 23, 2014

Welcome to the Jungle

Day #23


While I was repicking out kitchen cabinets,


and out of town at my church’s women’s retreat,

things continued to progress with our house construction.

This happened:


We found handwritten notes right on the outside of the house.

Which will soon be knocked out, so who cares.

Not sweet handwritten notes of greetings or encouragement.
Math.
 We no longer have a construction hole!

You know, Monte actually texted me that he was going to miss our hole.

It was fun.


But it’s over.

Time to move on.

We have walls now and a view from the upstairs bathroom that no longer allows for the windows to be cranked open.

Side view of addition.
Bathroom view.
 So it was decided that we would just take the window out.

It will be nice to not have to worry about if the girls 
are taking the time to close the curtains 
before taking a shower.

I have started to notice that 

ALL our bathrooms have windows.

Windows that always seem to have a construction worker 
right on the other side of them.

Many summers ago, we hired a crew of college kids to repaint the house.

I was using the bathroom upstairs when I noticed (too late) that there was a guy on a ladder RIGHT outside the window.

He waved at me.

Without thinking, 

I waved back,

while sitting on the toilet.

With that memory in mind,

I’ve started to use the basement bathroom.

And wearing my Nesbitt again because I want credit 
for all the stairs I’m running up and down!

When the worker, Jeremy, took the window out of the upstairs bathroom yesterday,

he found quite the colony, nest, hive or whatever you call a whole mess of stink bugs.

SOURCE


One flew up into his hat which he swatted and promptly squashed, thus releasing the aroma worthy of its name.

Jeremy handled it with all the panic and drama of the Child Detection Agency in Monsters Inc.

SOURCE


The debris piles keep forming and of course another dumpster was delivered the day Monte left town. He will be so sad if it leaves before he gets to throw in all the old paint cans and chemicals from our garage.


That man certainly does love a good dumpster.

Yesterday morning, I sat at the kitchen table doing my bible study homework.

We are doing Beth Moore’s Children of the Day on 1 & 2 Thessalonians.

It’s just fantastic.
It was a bit difficult to get the full impact of the homework with Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” blaring from the radio of one of the construction workers.

When AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” came on, 

I had to ask Jesus for some help 
and focus.

The booming and sawing and nail guns have put Nigel over the edge. 

If he isn’t on my lap, he’s right beside me. 

If he isn’t right beside me, he’s following me. 

If he isn’t following me, he’s hiding under the dining room table with a pig puppet that he snagged from Ellie’s room that I don’t have the heart to take from him.

As I typed this, I heard the familiar voices of my builder and workers rising louder and louder. There was a spirited discussion about something involving 5/18 or something in fraction form.

I looked around and Nigel was gone.

Not under the dining room table with puppet piggy.


 He chewed one of the eyes out!

 Is he “going quail” on me??


I found Nigel in the basement at the bottom of the stairs, shaking like a leaf.

He keeps asking for a nerve pill

with his eyes.

Please, Mommy!

As it turns out,

it really is a thing for dogs to go on Prozac and Xanax.

For the love of Pete.

In between Motley Crue, 
AC/DC, 
Ozzy Osbourne, 
Guns ’N’ Roses 
and what seemed like a loooong stretch of Pink Floyd songs,

I heard a big BOOM and a loud exclamation,

“Dagnabbit!”


It seems about right that Yosemite Sam would be apart of our “not so typical crew”.

14 comments:

  1. May God bless you with an oasis of peace in the midst of your construction storm!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:08 AM

    "Without thinking, I waved back,..while sitting on the toilet." Oh my gosh, that's hilarious! I probably would have done the same thing. Kudos to you for having the patience to work through a remodel. I remember when my parents added on to their house, my stepmom practically lived in the garage for months at a time. I don't think I could do it. I'll be looking forward to seeing the finished pictures! Thanks so much for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My builder just informed us that we are getting ready to be “really inconvenienced”. So…stay tuned!

      Delete
  3. Visiting from the FB 31 Dayers page. I definitely have curtains on all my bathroom windows! When we first looked at our current house, the master bathroom had a little valance across the TOP of the window, leaving the bottom of it - where I'd be walking back and forth to and from the shower - open. We promptly moved the valance to the lower part of the window! Thankfully it was on one of those tension rods so it was just a matter of scooting it down.

    Construction can be such a pain, though it's worth it in the end. Sounds like you are handling it with a lot of humor and grace.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Humor? Yes. Grace? Not completely sure about that! :) Thanks for reading.

      Delete
  4. I. Loved. this. I am laughing out loud. (Even though I am Guns n Roses. When I worked as a nurse, I listened to Welcome to the Jungle every day on my way to work to get myself pumped up. I occasionally listen to ACDC, too... I do, however, change the song when I'm on the treadmill if Highway to Hell is on. I am pretty firm in my salvation, but I don't want to listen to that as I am gasping what may be my last breath.)
    And the part about you waving back... oh, my word.
    Bless you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How funny that you don’t want to listen to Highway to Hell as you are gasping your last breath! Not that your last breath is hilarious. Just your thinking it all through is. Thanks for reading!

      Delete
  5. Still...it's exciting to have progress on your home improvement, right? We just had a teeny tiny porch replaced and the kids were so excited to go see it. It's all of 5 foot square, but they jumped all over it!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rabia,

      We are SO excited! Every day is something different to look at and we truly do love all the workers.

      Delete
  6. It is looking great! I loved that you waved back to the guy, from the toilet! LOL. When I was in high school my cousin barged into the bathroom and took my picture while on the toilet. Somewhere that photo is floating around. My face is incredibly animated in it. You can't see anything other than the fact I am on the toilet. I wonder where that photo is. I can't wait to see the finished product.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Karmen,

      You MUST find that photo! If for no other reason--to show me. Than destroy it. Of course.

      Delete
  7. I am vacillating between sighing and laughing out loud with this update!! Waving while on the potty absolutely CRACKED me up!! And I can only picture you trying to do the Beth Moore study with the glaring sounds of heavy medal and a little pup nudging at your side...

    Bless your heart!!! You are enduring the construction zone beautifully my friend!!! When it's done- you better invite me over to see this in all its glory and splendor!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chris,

      You GOT it! Coffee at my house! Hopefully Nigel will be over his nervous twitching by then. Or not hooked on Xanax…

      Delete

Burning Down

The other day I was listening to the podcast The Next Right Thing. It was the episode titled Reflection as Activism.  Emily P. Freeman said ...