Today Barney arrived to start the demolition on our master bath before it is made into pretty pretty remodeledness.
knock knock knock knock bang smash jigga jigga riiiippppppp..... 
Barney has no idea how much I'd rather be helping him, but the bathroom is small, I'd just make a mess, my back and arms really don't need the abuse, I'm finally on antibiotics for this bleck I've been fighting/succumbing to, I have to work, and well, he's the professional. It was fun to see parts of our bathroom troop out the front door piece by piece as I was checking in online and tracking down the Rx from the back-up doctor and the pharmacy to see where it was. sigh.

This evening we fly out to Boston (staying in Braintree) for two nights, and then on to Plimoth Plantation for more embroidery and some visiting with my MIL. I've got a small stack of print pictures of our sailing expedition to pass onto her, which I know she'll appreciate. (Reminds me, I still need to make a disc of pictures from Jan and March for my Mom.) Hopefully this will be a nice relaxing, fun, and invigorating break and I'll come back a little sore but rested. That's my plan anyways. Can't wait to see our list of items in the MFA. Me, my camera and my back-up batteries and memory-card, and notebook are totally ready. Must contain drool. I really hope those pink, green and gold garters are sprang, but they could be a simple braided pattern. We'll see!

I am packed and ready to go. I did most of my packing last night, and have clothes, activity bag (knitting, embroidery, reading, camera), directions to places, and toiletries. Oh, and my wallet in case I forgot anything. One of the other small pluses to having our bathroom remodel starting a few days early is that it will go on for 3 days when I'm not home to have to get up early, and use the hall bath, etc. If I'm really lucky (and Barney's really good) it will all be complete to my satisfaction (aside from the back-ordered light) before Sapphire. I won't count on it, but that would be awesome.

 I had a good weekend. (Too good of a weekend if you ask the bathroom scale...) 

Friday night we were lazy and ordered a pizza while we watched the Tomb Raider Double Feature on HD TNT. It was cool, with limited commercial interruptions, and I got to contemplate outfits for Bob's next party. Alan had also started a fire in the fireplace, so I watched much of the movies from the floor near the fire with my knitting in hand. I got a start this weekend on a pair of stockings for Plimoth Plantation, and so far things appear to be going well. 

Saturday was alisandramel's Bridal Shower of amazing pinkness. The pink was apparently to annoy her, but there were pink balloons, pink napkins and cutlery, and folks mostly came in pink-ish PJ's. Though Mel in her custom pink union-suit was the best part. We had a great afternoon of sitting around and chatting, and reading from a 1950's book of articles on a Successful Marriage (yes, I found the article on petting amusing), and playing the TP dress game, and eating way too much tasty food, including the biggest, densest, and tastiest cake I'd had in a long time. We all had such a ball that we even overstayed the time allotted, and finally removed the burden of playing hostess from Christy and left. 

I had carpooled to the event with Theo, and got a ride home from Vic who was staying with us overnight. I had offered to those who wanted to continue the Slumber Party theme into the night that our home (with bartender) was available. I also called the attack_laurel  and her Bob to come on over since I had a feeling she'd like some Vic time too. We hung out and partied well into the evening with delivery chinese food and sushi, as well as purple drinks from the bar, pool and girlie movies in the basement, and lots of fun chatting in the living room. I ended the evening knitting in the basement, after folks had gone home, and watching Firefly. I then went upstairs to clean up from the party, re-load the dishwasher since Mel's sis had put in items that aren't dishwasher friendly, re-stacked to include other found items of glassware, and dug through the trash to find the missing spoon, japanese soy sauce dish, and pair of permanent chopsticks, before setting the dishwasher to run overnight.

Sunday morning was waffles and chicken mango sausages with Vic before she got on the road to visit with a friend before heading back home. (Vic was kind and helped me unload and reload the dishwasher before she got on the road.) Hooray for fun guests. Then we settled down to the work at hand. Alan had plans to take down and rebuild the 90 gallon fish tank in the living room to do a fish rotation before the delivery of the new 90 gallon fish tank and stand for the den. While Alan was playing with fish and fish poo water, I set to working on the closet re-org in the blue guest room. Phase One was planning and buying materials from the Container Store Elfa shelving sale a few weeks ago. Phase Two was demolition of the old cheap closet system trying not to tear up the walls too much. Phase Three was completed last night before the bulk of the Superbowl, which was spackling, sanding, painting and cutting in on the edges of the closet. Now that those are done, we can get on with Stage Four which is installation of the Elfa closet system and putting back away more organized of the pile of stuff currently taking up residence on the guest bed and floor of the guest room. We pack a goodly amount of stuff in that 7'x5'x2' space. :)

Sadly the weekend ended with the Patriots losing, me screwing up a row in the knitting and having to take it out and re-doing it poorly (twisted stitches), and us losing our two pink-striped torpedo barbs and the jawless rainbow fish in the trauma of moving them to a holding tank while the living room tank is redone. sigh.

On my door at work I printed out and posted this picture from Theo. The caption I gave it is "What did YOU do this weekend?" Heh heh heh.

Alan I started off our weekend with a trip to Coronation for a transfer of royal stuff as well as to witness Val and Arielle's last court and the Coronation of our new Crowns. It was a wonderful last court, and I admit that I was very touched at the gift of a Undine from Arielle's hand. I also got all teary at Gabrell's well deserved Queen's Order of Courtesy. I tried to get more pictures but each time I pulled out the camera, I had to set it down to go up in court, for Gruffy's Pearl, Alan and I's Undines, and then for Duchess Isabel's due Nonpareil. Valharic and Arielle's reign was wonderful, sincere and inspiring. I do not envy Logan and Rowan for following them. May Their reign be equally inspiring.

I was really not feeling well. I half thought of hitching a ride home with Kynny or Lisette, but Alan and I headed down to Troy for the demo party. Despite getting a nap in the truck, I was a bit grumpy, so I got a Happy Meal and a nice long nap once we got there, and Alan set to work busting stuff up. When I woke up I was feeling much better, and helped with the making of the cooler full of mojitos, and had a lovely night hanging out with bad women and the rest of our destructive friends.

We had a lot of fun at Corby and Thjora's tearing stuff up. Sunday I got in on the action, first helping to remove the nails from the breezeway roof joists, and then helping Corby, Bonnie, and Philip install the new clear corrugated plastic roof, to let in more light.  Then Theo gave me a nice lesson on how to operate the the front-end loader, and with some tips from Robear, I excavated ten loads of dirt and added to Fort Red Clay in back and the front fill area. Insert Tim Allen big machine grunt noises here. It was lots of fun, perhaps too so. Afterward, we had another relaxing evening of great company and tasty food. 


Monday was too busy for any in progress pictures, but I did try to take some of the end result. Since Corby was on the backhoe, I cleaned up breakfast dishes, and then went to help Thjora and Bonnie take the insulation out from the dining room's former fireplace box.  Then BonBon and I got to work on tearing out the dividing wall in the laundry room to make it nice and bigger. That was when I discovered how much the crowbar was my friend. Love the crowbar. Then Robear, Bonnie and I started to take down the non-structural header between the foyer and living room. A job that Alan helped us finish up while Robear gave Thjora a primer on operating the front-end loader and backhoe, TLB.  

Happily I got another go on the big moving equipment and created another big pile of dirt excavated from the former carport area. All in all a good day's work. Actually a good weekend worth of work on behalf of many hands. Folks and pups were dog tired by the end, and well deserved of rest.
 

Finally Alan and I departed for home, got McD's on the road for dinner and made it home around 8. I had just enough time to head out to IKEA to get the parts for a new cabinet for our dining room, thus ending the weekend of massive destruction with a bit of creation. We still need to install the hardware on the doors and drawers, but it is already being useful. Now I just gotta figure out what to do with my mom's old busted buffet.

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Oh, and the latest little meme: