Among the delightful surprises of this activity was the discovery of Old Mold behind the wall between the kitchen and the garage.  In the Pre-Code days this house was apparently remodeled—with kite string for wiring, old rolled-up grocery bags for insulation, and electrical outlets all put in upside down.

The mold has long been dead but gave off that Old Mold smell.  Naturally this involved more expenses to rip out all the dry wall and replace the insulation.

The dishwasher had been leaking so part of the floor had to be removed and some of the basement ceiling.  More dry wall replaced.  The good part about this is that since we had to dig into the basement ceiling, the plumbers moved the pipes out of the north wall and into the floor.  In theory this should avoid future frozen pipes.

The wall cabinets and base cabinets are in and the counter tops arrived this morning.  Who wouldn't love to have eight grand worth of solid surface or granite countertops? 

Well, us, for one.  Eight grand was about seven times too much.

We are honoring our fore bearers, the Hoosier Formicans, a race of people who strongly believed that plastic  over wood is the only way to go.

The electricians come next. I have to return the new ceiling fan, because my husband pointed out that it will hang in front of the television set.  We thought were so so cool to have a TV mounted on the wall, and yet we weren't smart enough to initially figure out no one could see it with the fan in the way.  So we will head back to the Big Box store to find a "flush mounted fan" (sounds like a commode, doesn't it?).  Our original intent was to get a ceiling fan that didn't have to be disassembled to change the bulbs, but I'm not sure that is possible.  Most of the flush mounts are one piece.

We are tired of eating out of the fridge in the basement or going out to eat.  My typical lunch is rolled up dried beef with light cream cheese, Cheerios and milk, or yoghurt and an English muffin with jam.  Oh, and bag salad.  You can't beat the bag salad, but now we have to worry about listeria.

Since I broke the guest room sink three weeks ago, we are using plastic silverware and plates.  There's something terribly unseemly about using current bathroom sinks to wash dishes, so I had been using the rarely used guest bathroom with its nice pedestal sink.  The stopper was giving me trouble when I filled the basin, so I just gave it a nice shove and it went through the porcelain and made a lovely hole.

This is now about number 45 on the contractor's list of things to fix.

Now the ever-present contractors are slicing the countertops to make sure they fit. I have trouble concentrating, though I have about six projects due to editors.  I find myself terribly distracted with the crew's arrival at 7 a.m. and constant, unexplained use of an air compressor every four minutes. I am  unable to write anything more than this nonsense.

Probably the lack of protein in my diet.