for a messy person, I handle clutter remarkably poorly

One of the concessions I made about the pregnancy and renovations was that I wouldn't take part in anything that was too dusty. The problem, of course, is that, until this week, it's been too rainy to do any of the cutting (of drywall, subfloor, or floor) outside — not to mention that they've been measuring and cutting as they go, rather than all at once — so, while the boys have been renovating, I've been elsewhere.

Mostly the kitchen.

No, really. It smacks a little bit too much of traditional gender roles, but, I mean — these people are in my house, literally rebuilding a room for me. The least I can do is feed them. That's one reason. Another is that, honestly, I really can't eat pizza that often — not even in undergrad. Which means that somebody has to cook, and that somebody might as well be the one person who isn't laying floor. That's another reason.

And finally, I think I have been a little bit obsessed with keeping the kitchen tidy because it's literally the only place where I can do that right now. The second floor is a write-off, including the bedroom. And the living room is slowly devolving, because I've been either buying or scrounging around for books and magazines, and after I've finished them there's no place to put them away (yet). So they're sitting in piles. Ditto my spring and summer jackets, and shoes — I've needed them (for obvious reasons), but they're such a pain to get in and out of the second bedroom right now that I just leave them out. (When I don't have to dodge around bookshelves and office chairs, it's much easier to put them away.) So the foyer, which leads off the living room — also a mess.

Meanwhile, the dining room has turned into the de facto office, as the actual desk is in the bedroom (but partially blocked off), and the filing is in the second bedroom (almost entirely blocked off). So the dining table now has all the stuff that we need to keep track off, like the contact for the window quote guy and bills that we've paid but need to keep. And that pretty much covers the entirety of the house, except for the bathroom (which is too small to store anything other than bathroom necessities, thank God), and the hallways ... which have paint cans lining their walls. Both floors.

(There is the basement, which I am also not supposed to spend too much time in because of the whole toxoplasmosis cat litter thing.)

So, you see: I am going mad. Cooking is good, because it distracts me and makes me go mad slightly more slowly. And the payoff is usually eatable, which is a plus.

The whole point of writing all this was to preamble a great spaghetti sauce I wanted to share with you, but this post is far too long and wordy as it is, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. Here's a renovation update, instead:


Last weekend was a painting weekend — they had finished the drywall and initial mudding on the long weekend, and Pd finished the rest of the mudding through the week. I'm going to hold back on the reveal until the whole thing is done, but you can see the aftermath (and some of the colours) in the picture above. They put the flooring in last night so, if we manage to do a second coat of the paint in the erstwhile den tonight, we might be able to move furniture back into the two rooms by this weekend.

After that we'll have another room to paint — we need to stagger them as we've moving our bedroom from one room to another, and while we're using low-VOC paint, they still need to air out for a few days before we can sleep in them — and then more furniture moving, and then unpacking/decorating. Everything needs to be done by the end of the July long weekend. It doesn't sound like a lot, but we've plotted it out, and we might squeak in just under the wire — essentially, we are saying that we need to set up half the house, from scratch, in a month. While working full-time and subtracting two weekends lost from prior work and social commitments. I'm not saying it's not do-able, I'm just saying that it's ... well. Ambitious.