Remodel #3 Day 2: Fine Layer of Dust

Another day and quite a bit of progress has been made. I'd forgotten how dirty things can get with drywall. There is a fine layer of dust on everything, including inside our kitchen cabinets. I guess I have another chore for Saturday. The electrician was here and was able to put the light switch where I thought it should go upon thinking about it rather than where we'd planned for it to go when we made the initial drawings. No word, yet, on the tile but I'm guessing that won't be an issue either.

Today's pictures are probably the last of the interesting ones since the rest of the work is paint, trim, and finish work. Exciting things like that. Paul apparently thought we needed a picture of the electrical wire so there you go:
Looking from the living room, the new door into the guest room/den and Jub coming down the hall. I guess we'll need to figure out what that room will be called now. Of course, we still refer to the second bedroom upstairs as "the new room" even though it will be Baby's bedroom. Maybe when Baby is about 16, we'll stop calling it the new room. About the same time we stop calling him Baby.
And with both doors shut to keep the cat out. The doors will be painted to match the rest of the trim in the house.

Mud and tape on the inside of the room (also on the old door frame in the hallway) as well as trim. I'm happy he reused the some of the trim and drywall. Makes me feel all ecological and green (and like I probably could have paid less for this project since they're reusing all my stuff). I'm happy with how the electrician re-ran the wiring. We were told to be prepared for him to cut the ceiling to move it. This makes much more sense to me.
Looking out the new door into the living room (notice the cat in the picture?). The light switch was supposed to go to the right of the door or on the long wall, two feet over from the corner. MUCH happier with this solution.
There won't be an update tomorrow as the carpenter isn't going to be coming in--he's got a few loose ends on another project that he's going to finish up tomorrow and then will be back on Thursday to finish the trim and probably get started painting. This project is going quickly from the time Paul and I had the first conversation about it (late October) until it will be finished (late December). Considering I didn't call the contractor until the middle of November, this is a really fast turn-around.

Remodel #3 Day 1

This morning started the remodel to change the door from the hallway to a French door off the living room. I ran home during the morning to be with Paul when the lead carpenter came--he was scheduled for 9:00 but called to let us know that it would be closer to 10:00 because of the Monday morning meeting. Paul didn't want to be the one in charge of meeting him and going over plans but it's not as if he could really mess things up. Paul and I talked over where the new door would be placed as well as the option of having a border tile laid in the doorway from the living room into the new guest room/den. I showed Paul the house key as well as an index card with our cell phone numbers to give the carpenter. That's all I would have done had I been the one meeting the carpenter this morning. When I got home this afternoon and met him, all was well. The door was in the correct place and he didn't think there would be a problem with the tile. We chatted briefly about where the light switch would be located next to the new door as the electrician comes in the morning and I leave for work before the workmen arrive.

Today's progress--The new door way from the living room into the guest room.
No more door into the hallway.
The doorway from the guest room into the hallway. It took me a second to realize that the carpenter had reused the drywall which is why the hallway door and the bedroom door were the correct colors. I'm going to repaint the guest room--not 100% on the color but I've found a couple I like. I'm debating using the color that was in the guest room in Baby's room. I like it.
Looking into the living room from the guest room.

The cat is utterly confused by the changes that are currently taking place. Yesterday when Paul and I were finishing cleaning out the guest room and moving furniture, we left the door open and didn't scold the cat for going in the room. Up until then, that was always the "cat-free room" as a nicety to our guests and he was never allowed in the room. Yesterday and today both, he was standing in the middle of the room, meowing as if to get our attention to the fact that he was misbehaving. We just let him have his moment.

And because I love playing with things like this, even though we don't actually own the sleeper & ottoman, this is the plan for the room layout when all is said and done.

27 weeks and the cat

I was woken up at 5:00 this morning when the storm hit--lots of wind, lightning, thunder and rain. Because the weather was so late in getting to the area, the delay wasn't called until almost 6:00. I waited until 5:45 to get ready for work so I'm ready to go a good 2.5 hours before I need to leave for work today. Oh well. I just hope it doesn't become a snow day since the make-up days for those are added at the end of the school year, when I'll be on maternity leave.

And since I'm up and around, I thought I'd take advantage of the time to do a little blog updating, both here and at my (little known) book blog that has been commandeered for a school assignment this semester. The semester ends on Dec. 10 and my plan is to take the posts from there and move them to a blog for my school library. I've got a couple of book reviews and a journal entry that I need to catch up on by Thursday. I'm not taking a class next semester so after I'm finished with this, I'll be done with classwork until next June.

This is 27-almost-28 weeks. Last week, I had a coworker tell me that I was "huge" and a woman at church tell me that I was the cutest pregnant woman. I like the lady at church better for obvious reasons.
Not huge although I could definitely tell that I've grown this week. According to an email update I get, Baby is probably about 2.5 lbs. and 16 inches long, on his way to what we're expecting/hoping to be about 8 lbs. and 22 inches. So from here on out, we're both just getting fatter. :) I am curious as to see how big my belly button can actually get. I have a fairly deep "innie" and it's getting flatter and flatter every week. I think it looks rather alien-esque now.

I liked this next series of pictures because it is such a common, and amusing, battle of the wills occurrence at our house. Anytime Paul sits down, the cat feels the immediate need to sit in Paul's lap. Typically Paul will acquiesce but occasionally, he just wants to be left alone. And poor Jub will put on his most pathetic look and sit right beside Paul, hoping that eventually Paul will give in. It was a new thing for Jub to sit on the footrest portion of the recliner.
Jub's pleading his case with me--he'd probably like me to tell Paul to let the cat sit in his lap. Instead, I continued to take pictures.
That man has no heart. It's just a little lump of coal. Sad, I tell you. Sad.

Sad, neglected little blog

Things have been busy around these parts and add in a good bit of laziness when it's not busy and this little place ends up a bit neglected. From my vantage point, however, things are going well for our little clan.

Paul had a business trip to Berkeley right before Thanksgiving. It was his first in many months--good and bad. It's always nice to have him home but since the lack of travel is due to lack of funding, it's not necessarily a plus. Because he didn't get home until Tuesday afternoon following a 24-hour shift, we opted not to travel any farther than his parents' house for Thanksgiving. It was just the four of us for dinner, football, and board games. A nice way to spend the holiday.

I had a doctor's appointment just before Thanksgiving. I will admit that I have an issue with the nurse who does all the vitals--she won't let me pee before she weighs me. She's nice enough except for that because while I know I'm gaining weight at a healthy rate, I'm enough of a girl that I would prefer to be naked and empty before stepping on a scale. I did convince her at this appointment to let me take off the boots I was wearing because I knew they weighed about 2 pounds (I'd weighed with them on and off at home just to see). Small victories. I saw the PA for this appointment with the OB popping in briefly just to check that things were OK. He said that personally, I was quite interesting but medically, I was utterly boring which is just how he likes his patients to be. I've had very little swelling (only one day after a VERY salty meal), my energy level is still good, Baby and I are both gaining weight and growing at a healthy rate. I was sent with orders to return in four weeks, just before Christmas, and to have the 1 hour glucose test done before the next visit.

I played hooky from work on Friday to complete the glucose test as well as run an assortment of errands that just never seem to get done when I have to do them after work. I had been advised by several friends and my sister to select the orange flavor and chug it like I was back in college. And to hope it was cold. I did just that (and the drink was cold). I don't think there should be any problems with gestational diabetes. I've been asked by several people about traveling at Christmas--I've not actually asked the doctor (nothing like waiting until the day before we're scheduled to leave to do that) but again, I don't think there should be any problems. I've not had troubles with the pregnancy at all so while I know I'll be grounded to ABQ during January and February, this will be one last trip I can make. And if the doctor says no, we'll just pull a Smokey and the Bandit except for trying to run beer across state lines with a really cool Trans-Am, Paul will be transporting a pregnant woman in a Subaru Forester. Eh. (Oh, but I just looked on IMDb to make certain I had the right movie and Sally Fields character's name was Carrie. Didn't remember that at all but I probably haven't seen that movie in 25 years.)

And in other news, I met with the remodeling contractor and that is scheduled to get started on December 14 with a completion date of Dec. 22. We didn't get to add the lovely flooring I'd selected to the project at this point in time. Holy cow--I have good taste. When I saw that 1/3 of the cost would be floors, it didn't take much time for me to say that the current carpet will be just fine. It's not a big room so that might be a DIY project for us at a later date. In anticipation of the remodel, we sold the hall tree bench and the futon that was in the guest room on Craiglist last week. I probably didn't price them high enough since I sold both quickly but if I'd priced them higher, I might not have gotten any takers. Catch-22. But both pieces are gone and we've got a little extra money in our pocket to put towards new furniture for the room.

We've decided to go ahead and do the our neighborhood holiday party even though we'll have construction happening. I didn't wrestle up a Christmas tree this year because between the construction and the belly, it just didn't seem worth it. My MIL gave me a 4-foot pre-lighted tree so I've got that and will probably do the mantle and put out a few other things to gussy up the joint beforehand. Our neighbors probably won't even notice the difference in decorating that I normally do, and if they do, I think they'll understand. We figure that if nothing else, they will probably be curious to see what's up at our house when they see the contractor's truck again.