Bathroom Renovation Bloopers

We're deep in the throes of bathroom renovations and like with any good DIY project, there have already been more mishaps than I can count. Because it's still early in the overall remodeling of our home, I still have my sense of humor and although I hope it stays intact until we hang our last picture on our freshly painted walls, there are no guarantees...

But for now, I'm finding the bloopers entertaining.

Our pink bathtub was made of cast iron, which meant getting it out was not going to be easy. Mr. W tried putting it on Craigslist in hopes that some vintage-lover would bring 5 friends and emancipate it from our property, but after a couple days he got antsy and decided he would "remove" it himself.

And out came the sledgehammer.

He did most of the big hits and then asked me if I wanted to take a swing. I waltzed over, whacked it once, got hit in the nose by a piece of flying debris (please ignore the crows' feet and large pores below), and immediately started bleeding. I'm so lucky it didn't get me in the eye because I wasn't wearing safety glasses. (Note: ALWAYS wear safety glasses when you're smashing things. Not only does it make you look more official, it could save you from a future pirate's patch.)

After we got all the shards of tub cleaned up and relocated to our side yard (for eventual transfer to the dump), we were left with a hole in the floor where the pipes connected to the tub. Of course, we lost a cat down that hole a day later... She went spelunking and took her sweet time coming back when we yelled her name into the crawlspace. Finally, with a plate of cat food in one hand, I was able to reach down and grab her by the scruff of her neck with the other hand. She's been grounded all week.

Mr. W successfully installed the new shower valve and was trying to remedy a tiny drip coming from one of the pipes when he accidentally turned the water on and shot it from the shower head pipe right down onto his crotch. I stood by and laughed hysterically like any good helper would.

The latest endeavor was the installation of two retro-looking globe pendant lights over the sink. Of course they presented some sort of wiring issues which forced Mr. W to suit up and venture into the attic multiple times to get everything sorted out. Thankfully he got them fixed up this morning so we (read: he) can move on to the next thing: tiling the shower.

I'm not yet posting any pictures of our latest progress, but I will give you a little tease of the bathroom's new materials, along with some of our inspiration pictures from Pinterest. Enjoy!

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The Perils of Chicken Parenting

If you're reading this thinking, "Another fricken chicken post?" I apologize. You know how sometimes when people have babies, that becomes one of their top topics of conversation? That's me. With chickens. On this blog. I promise it won't last forever.

Last week, we moved our baby girls into their coop full-time. It was sad that first night not to hear their peeping coming from the pen in the living room. When we went out to lock them in their coop for the night, we had to encourage them to get up on their perch (apparently that's where grown chickens sleep) and I pretty much wanted to grab a blanket and pillow and hunker down in there with them to make sure they were okay until morning.

But by night #2, they were putting themselves to bed when it got dark and had already snuggled up with each other on their perch when we went to close the door to their run. It almost brought a tear to my eye. Such grown-up little girls.

All was well in chickenland until Sunday afternoon when we went out to the run to say hello and found our sweet Samantha puffed up in her coop with one eye closed. Like any good new parent, I immediately panicked. We brought her in the house and set up a quarantine station to watch her. As I furiously scoured the Internet for a diagnosis, I came across one too many stories that ended with "and then we woke up and the entire flock was dead." Seriously. Don't look up chicken stories on the Internet.

Of course I wanted to call the home-visit vet, but Mr. W (the more rational one in this operation) insisted we just try washing out her eye with some saline and seeing that made her perk up. He wrapped her in a kitchen towel (and yes, we called her the chicken burrito) and held her in his lap while I carefully dripped saline drops in her affected eye. There were no signs of any other issues (respiratory problems are common with chickens), so by evening we decided to put her back outside with her sisters.

She was acting completely normal by bedtime and the eye was bright and open. She's been fine ever since.

And we've told her siblings that the next one to kick dirt in someone's eyes loses worm privileges for a week. 

The Byproduct of Looking on the Bright Side

Back in the fall, as part of my coachy coping mechanisms for living in a new house in the country sans-husband, I started writing in a daily gratitude journal. I've done this in the past (usually when I'm down about something) and the practice always seems to peter out as soon as I start feeling more joyful.

This year, I decided to keep the practice going even after I got settled in my new home—and even after Mr. W returned to it full-time.

In the last couple weeks, I've been aware of a sort of rewiring that seems to have set in. And I think it's from consciously, continually trying to practice gratitude.

I think I first realized it when our power went out for an entire day. It was a tricky workday that involved several hours at a local sandwich shop, mooching off the free wi-fi. We had to throw away groceries that went bad in the fridge, and we accidentally killed a big patch of grass when we ran a generator to charge our laptops. But we went to dinner that night and strolled through Solvang, enjoying the electricity humming through that part of town. When Mr. W suggested we duck into a local bar to play pool, I felt kind of giddy. Being there, drinking a beer with him, playing hooky from our darkened home made me have one of those moments when all seems right in the world. Even when we came back to our pitch-black house, we opened the curtains and let the full moon stream in and light up the living room. It was such a beautiful night.

Later that week, when a loose drain pipe behind our washing machine caused a flood on our nice hardwood hallway, I found my initial horror softened by massive gratefulness that Mr. W was there to help get the situation under control. It was so lucky we were home and could start the clean-up effort so quickly—it could have been so much worse had we not been there.

After we got all the sopping wet towels into the washing machine, I walked into the dining room and discovered a snake lizard hanging out under our table. But again, I was eternally grateful to have my partner in crime to handle the reptile wrangling.

This weekend, Mr. W demoed the shower and bathtub in our under-construction seahorse bathroom and I honestly don't think I've ever seen so much dust. People warned me about remodeling dust, but I had no idea it would be a mop-twice-and-it'll-do-nothing-to-the-layer-of-film-on-the-floors situation. When my dear friend SBW came to visit Saturday, I launched into a lengthy round of complaining.

And then Mr. W tore out the floor in the seahorse bathroom. And he had to work until he had blisters on his palms. And while I was putting on my makeup to go run errands, he was on his hands and knees scrubbing off the last traces of linoleum glue. All my frustration with the dust melted into gratitude for his hard work.

I'm not consciously trying to find the upsides. My initial, natural reaction to the bumps is annoyance. But in time, something else rolls in—like a tide smoothing rough sand. It sweeps out the irritation and replaces it with a sort of delight.

And if continuing to write in my gratitude journal will help sustain this new trend, I'll do it as long as I can keep feeling the waves of appreciation wash over me.