Okay, guys. Today is the day. The magical day where we once again have a shower!

It's been I-don't-know-how-many days since I've showered in my own house (my parents live three blocks away, so they've been nice enough to let us wash off our filth over there), and I'm so excited I can barely contain myself.

Or, at least, as excited as I can possibly be at 6 o'clock in the morning.

Having a working shower is almost as exciting as having a working toilet, which we already had one of, but two toilets is ever so much nicer, and we were without for around four weeks. We were wildly optimistic with the time table because we didn't take into account that EVERYTHING would go wrong. Like, everything. It was ridiculous. I don't know how my husband didn't just throw in the towel, but I gave up a long time before he did. I wasn't doing most of the work, though, so it didn't really make that much of a difference.

It came out so great, I almost can't believe that a bathroom this pretty is in my house. Here are the pictures to prove it:

Here is our ultra super fancy old fiberglass shower surround from the 80s. This is after it's been scrubbed down with bleach and everything. That black stuff was sort of a permanent reminder of the people who used to live here, I guess. Gross.

This is what it looks like now:

Yep. My husband did that, all by himself. He's pretty studly.

And here is the other side, complete with bucket for containing the leakage from the fifty-year-old sink:

Pretty fancy, huh? It was pretty difficult to give up a vanity that looked that sweet, but I think we'll make do:

I realize the open shelving seems like it would look craptastic once you get stuff in there, but we just bought a few baskets. It's just the two of us, and we're pretty tidy. You may have already figured that out. 

Finally, the toilet. The weird, awkward, square toilet that was so custom we couldn't buy a new seat for it because they don't make them anymore (I realize it was already in a picture, but it deserves its own section):

Yep. And if it looks crooked in the picture, that's because it was. That orange blob behind it was the towel that faithfully gave its life to soak up the leakage (it was clean water, not poop) from the hoses in the back. Here's its replacement, along with a good look at the tile floor that looks like wood, but is actually tile. It's so cool:

I realize the door frame is dirty. Well, it was dirty. It is no longer dirty.

But isn't that great? Isn't my husband the best, handiest, awesomest guy EVER?!?

Yes, he is. That's why I let him have the first shower.

So there you have it: The grand before-and-after tour of our new fancy bathroom. Jealous? Yeah, you probably should be. It's outstanding.

I feel like someone has ripped a hole in my heart, spat on my lifeless body and then stomped all over it with pointy, pointy shoes. Why?

My favorite pants are no longer fixable.

Sigh.

I tore a big hole in the butt of them a few weeks ago while at work, and, although the hole was from wear and not on a seam, I did a fantastic job of mending them and they were as good as new.

Or so I thought.

Today, while checking to see that the shelves in the back were fully stocked, I squatted down and heard the increasingly familiar sound of the thin, worn-out seat of my pants giving up the fight.

It was like the universe was whispering to me. It was saying, "Hey, you. Stop wearing comfortable pants at work. You look like a hobo."

"Also, everyone hates you. Go eat ice cream."

I might be exaggerating, slightly, but I don't think so. After all, we've had such good times together. I can't help but dwell on all of the comfy non-stomach-squishy goodness that my pants and I have shared over the past few years.

I am also thinking about the sad lack of comfortable black pants in my dresser at home. Granted, these pants are at least a size too big, but I like the convenience of not having to unzip my pants when I run down the hall to go to the bathroom. Really, these bad boys will slip off with just a slight suck-in of my abs.

It's great. Don't judge.

Anyway, besides having to make sure my butt is always either in my chair or up against a wall for the rest of the day, I am having to contemplate a replacement pair of pants. Beside the fact that these pants, which I got online a few years ago for a mere $15 on clearance are now $60 (which I realize wouldn't be that bad, since I know I will love them and wear them all of the time, but I just can't), I feel like I am losing a dear friend.

Can you just see us running together in a field in the sunshine? I can.

Well, not really the running part. At any rate, I probably need to stop hanging on to them. It's time.

Remember the episode of The Cosby Show where Rudy loses her fish? It's like that.

We'll be having a funeral this evening. 

Pants are optional.

Last week, I got yelled at over the phone by a guy because the thing he wanted to make an appointment for takes about half an hour longer than he wanted to be in our office. So he screamed into the phone at me for five minutes, expecting me to give up and say, "Sure, sir. We can totally do that procedure in 15 minutes. Totally." But I didn't.

Apparently, wherever he grew up, screaming at things makes them magically morph into exactly what you want them to be. Therefore, I will now start screaming at:

• Broiled fish, to make it taste like fried chicken, but still be low-calorie and healthy
• The beginning of my work-day, to make it start at 9, rather than 7 a.m.
• The middle of my work-day, to make it shorter and more pleasant, and to make me less sleepy
• The end of my work-day, to make it happen sooner, like 2 p.m., but still allow me to make the same amount of money
• My fat, to make it go away in all the right places and stick around where I still want it
• Dirty public restrooms, so I don't have to sit in other people's pee just to add mine to the pile

and, finally:

• Nasty customers, to make them turn into sparkly unicorns that make magic and candy and never, ever yell at me for things over which I have no control

Oh, and they prance. Did I mention the prancing? That needs to happen, too.

So, if you know me, expect me to start screaming a lot more than usual. Pretty much all of the time. Apparently, it works on certain things and I just need to figure out which things so that I, too, can have a magically delicious day.

Just like that guy.

He was as angry as Deep Roy in Eastbound and Down. Which I haven't actually seen, but look how mad Deep Roy is. Even with a Tootsie Pop.

from marshalmanlove.blogspot.com

That's pretty mad. I've tried screaming at this picture but no sparkling happens. In fact, I mostly just get creeped out from looking at it too much. Oh, well. There goes my theory.

I guess I'll have to try something else.

Eyebrows are really important, you know? They just are. I'm told that, at some point, they actually served a purpose, but scientists have been unable to figure out that purpose, unless I missed the memo. Or else they're supposed to catch the sweat before it rolls down into a person's eyes, blinding her and making her say, "Sassafras! I need some eyebrows, stat!"

I can see this scenario in my mind, and it is delightful.

At any rate, I would just like to say that, for those of you who are lucky enough to have eyebrows, you should definitely consider keeping them. 

There are people who, through no fault of their own, have lost their eyebrows (seriously), and I imagine it's really distressing to have to try to draw them on when all one wants is to have a normal-looking pair of eyebrows sitting atop one's eyeballs, all prepared to catch sweat and what-not.

So, for your sake, for your eyes' sake, for your Mom's sake, and for the sake of all of us who have to look at you:

DON'T SHAVE THEM OFF AND THEN DRAW THEM BACK ON.

Just, no. Don't do it. And if necessary, and there's no alternative, use a stencil. If it seems like too much eyebrow, it's probably too much. Don't think this:

from drawcentral.com

Note that the bird looks angry. That's not what you're aiming for.

I hope that this clears some things up for people. I'm not judging, but when you get something like this going on, well, judge for yourself:

from imgarcade.com

Yeah. That. You're going to have people coming up to you saying, "Surprise!" ALL DAY LONG. Just, do the best with what nature gave you, and don't try to be an artist. Unless you are an artist.

Then just go for it.

from omgplace.com

Yes, yes indeed.

Dear 1960s House Builders,

I want to thank you for making the walls in my house so super ultra not straight. Because, really, who wants straight walls? I realize that it's been giving my husband fits as he's trying to put tiles on the shower walls, but I think it adds an extra layer of panache to our house to have it be ever so crooked.

Also, I really appreciate the way whoever put the nail into the copper pressure release pipe thingy that goes from the hot water heater to relieve pressure if there's an issue of some sort (I have no idea what it's called, but that's okay…I don't have to know how everything works, as long as it does work) just hammered it down in order to get the shower surround installed without fixing that piece of delightfulness. I love the idea that, at any time, we could've had a little explosion in our walls. I know it would've driven me crazy to do something like that and then just leave it for someone else to fix, so thanks. I appreciate it. My husband did, too, as it gave him an opportunity to take a day off from his construction project and learn how to replace a section of copper pipe.

Finally, I wonder why you didn't go ahead and draw crude things on the studs before putting up wallboard. Why not? When we lived in the quad that was built in the 50s and my husband took down the sheetrock, there were all sorts of fun drawings of male body parts on the studs. Also, lots of beer cans and cigarette butts. It looks like you didn't have any fun at all making this bathroom. How sad. Not one single cryptic message, either. Tsk, tsk.

That's all,
Love,
Me

P.S. Since you're probably dead and you may have been hearing the names my husband's been calling you as he's been dealing with this project, try not to take offense. I'm sure he means them with love.

So I have a great husband.

I already knew that, but I felt the need to share. Over the past six days or so, he has completely dismantled our bathroom (down to the wall studs) and repaired plumbing issues, run electrical wire so I would have an outlet if I should ever choose to use a hairdryer (unlikely, but maybe someday I'll give it a go), patched holes, put up wallboard, and completely remade a shower floor.

He is really tired.

Come to think of it, I don't know how he got up this morning and went off to work, but he did. And he wasn't even grumpy.

So, yeah, he's pretty great.

The tiling still needs to be done, the toilet still needs to be put in, and the vanity needs to be assembled, but all of the structural work is done, plus some extras that came up when the walls and/or flooring were removed. I'm pretty sure that a massive flood occurred at some point. Yeah. Thanks, previous owners, for covering all of that up so it was impossible to see.

Anyhow, the pretty stuff is coming up, so that's probably going to be more exciting. He just finished six days of drudge work. Ugh.

And then, after all of that, he grilled steaks for dinner last night at my parents' house and then went home and swept up the floors so they weren't so gross from the concrete dust.

Therefore, I made him a chocolate pie.

He is pretty darn outstanding. And cute.

He's going to hate this, but I had to. I just had to.

Hahahahahahahaha.

Yesterday was ceramics day, so I got ready and headed up to my class. I love this class, mostly because it's really difficult and I like that I can see my progress every time I make something.

Last semester, since I was just starting, I just did the class projects along with everyone else, but since this is my second semester, and the instructor is awesome, I have been just working on the things with which I felt I needed to get more comfortable. I'm hoping to be able to take this class every semester for a while, so that I can keep getting better and making interesting projects. 

Anyway, I've been working on hand-building, trying to get things more straight and even and not so lopsided. I've never been all that great at straight lines. Then, I made some simple things and worked on glazing. I felt like that's where a lot of my stuff went astray last semester, and I wanted to have a chance to just make some simple shapes and experiment a little bit, especially because I prefer the matte glazes and the ones that do weird runny stuff when they're fired. It's really great to see something that looks one way completely change after being subjected to high temperatures. Totally my favorite part.

So I decided that I had enough work on those things and I wanted to get back to the wheel yesterday. She told me to just go ahead and do it, so I got a blob of clay and started. 

My first attempt was great. I wanted to try making just a straight-sided cylinder thingy, and I did. It went really well, and I was happy. So I took it off and prepared another bat.

Let's just say the second one did not go well. I had a nine-year-old kid standing at my shoulder half of the time asking me, "Why did you do that? Why did it fall? Why don't you make it stand up like the other one?"

At this point, there were many answers I could've given her, but I just said, "If you have questions about the wheel, you should probably ask our teacher. I obviously do not know what I'm doing."

It was a mess. I tried two separate blobs. I tried going slow and going fast. I couldn't get it centered, the clay got too wet, everything was wrong. I ended up covered in clay, with splatters all over my pants and two mushy balls of clay.

I had to do the unthinkable. I had to admit defeat and ask for help.

For some reason, when they do it, it looks so easy. I had done about three things slightly wrong, and then the other things I tried to fix the problem were only making it worse. 

I realize that next time, I have to go in there and try again, but I made such a mess, I'm concerned that I might die. Just…die. I almost want to go back to hand-building, but I know that would be admitting defeat and I can't do that. I just can't.

Ugh. I hate being that bad at something. I just hate it.

This past weekend, some people from my work and I did a 5K to raise money for a no-kill animal shelter in our state. While I think it was fun and all, they sprinkled us with this multi-colored cornstarch stuff and now I keep blowing rainbow boogers out of my nose and it's a little disconcerting.

Every morning, I forget and then go in and blow my nose. When I see blue crap all over the Kleenex, for just a second I think maybe my brains are coming out of my nose and this is the first sign.

I am not good first thing in the morning. I don't have what you'd call, "thought processes." I have extra-startled reactions and an incredibly angry looking face. I don't know if my husband's used to it yet, but I truly want to kill everything that requires me to speak during the first half hour of my day.

It's kind of rough.

Then again, I usually have dreams that involve being stabbed or something and I'm usually still trying to get my brain out of dream mode, so maybe that's it. 

Last night, I dreamed that my husband and I were doing sheet rock work in my uncle's house (he builds houses and stuff like that for a living, so, yeah…he would totally have us come help him with that…not like he has a crew of guys for that kind of work), and we didn't have enough sheet rock and we couldn't get the wall straight.

It was a very stressful dream. Especially since I have helped my husband with sheet rock before, and I do believe it is my least favorite project ever. And his, too. Thank goodness our bathroom re-model is going to be fairly free of sheet rock work.

However, the bathroom is half-demolished, and the real work starts tomorrow at 6 in the a.m., so it's on. No more leaky…well…everything. The whole thing is leaky. And it smells funny. Of course, now that the sink and toilet and floor have been removed, we know why it smells funny in there, but still. 

So much water.

Old houses are the best, no? We're going to need so much cake around here.