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.

It is cold and raining outside.
In 20 hours we'll be down in sunny Florida.
We could use some sun and relaxation.

Last night we met with a bathroom remodel estimator and signed a contract to have our master bath finally redone. I got to punch a hole in the wall to determine that it was an empty wall built out to fit the shower pan. So, in its place we'll have a nice soaker tub with a removable shower head to a hand-held sprayer. And the tub should be easier to clean than this icky shower pan and the sliding glass doors. So excited and looking forward to having a clean new bathroom with non-broken floor tile, nicer fixtures, easier to clean, etc. Sadly poor Alan was stuck at work a little late, so I got to hang out with the estimator, showing her around, and picking out choices for our redo. Luckily Alan liked all of my choices, so verified that we're still on the same page aesthetically, and then we got to work on a few final details together.

This does mean that house-guests are discouraged during the second half of May as we'll only have the hall bath as our full bath. But we also got a quote for remodeling that, at a later date, which I'm also looking forward to. The one qualification was that I'd remove the special wallpaper myself. Must not start wallpaper removal until after the master bath is done and we have financing in place for more home improvements.