Ack

Am currently without internet--or phone--at home and likely to be that way for another day.

Before I could post to say that my husband had retired (last week) after 30 years with the bank, he signed on to return to the same bank doing the same job (this week) as a sub-contractor. Boo! Hiss! He was supposed to take at least a month off before returning to gainful employment; December was to be home improvement month.

He claims it still will be, conveniently forgetting that there's a major holiday that takes quite a bit of prep work.

Shopping vs. stripping a room bare.

Addressing envelopes vs. ripping up nasty old carpet.

Trimming a tree vs. painting the ceiling and walls.

Visiting with friends and family vs. installing wood flooring.

We have yet to clear enough room in the packed-to-the-gills garage so that L. can manage to do his own prep work out there despite our taking a U-Haul's worth of items to my sister's for storage on Saturday. We spent most of yesterday replacing our old family room furniture with the much nicer furniture which we brought back that had belonged to my late aunt. It appears that we'll need to rent a U-Haul again next weekend to clear out still more of the stuff in the garage, which means it may be the middle of the month before we can actually start on any painting or carpet removal.

Insanity.

Insanity.

Insanity.

At least Claudius, from whom we expected major issues because things are no longer as they were, has rallied. He's not hiding out, he's not going outside the litter box, he's behaving as calmly and well-adjustedly as I'd like to be.

I hid out in the bathroom long enough on Sunday (while L. and S. came up with a much better arrangement of furniture than we'd previously had) to finish The Echo Maker.