But we're making progress! Two bedrooms are painted. Except for baseboards, and freshening up doors and windows. One has window treatments, the others are still being sewn by JCPenny and will arrive around Mother's Day. Still, at least I don't have to sew them, and that's something to be thankful for. DH suggested we pull out the bed to put the registers on the wall, but when I told him we'll have to pull it out again to paint the baseboards next month, and tried to explain that we can't paint baseboards in March, they have to wait til May, he got that eyeballs rolling in back of head look, and just said, "never mind". A little like when you are dumb enough to take them along to pick out wallpaper or shoes, and try to explain the choices.

One bathtub is re-refinished. Mr. Tubman came back yesterday, redid the area I messed up, and then very nicely asked if I'd like to see it, and he'd be happy to show me if I wouldn't be offended by having my hands tied behind my back. It looks lovely in a shiny white ceramic sort of way. I've got new border (and I know nobody really loves border these days but there's old border that is gold and will leave ugly marks on the wall and I just don't have it in me to refinish the surface of the wall after the ugly gold border comes down, so I've got new border) to put up, a nice silver/grey/marbley pattern with flecks of cocoa that will look nice with the yet to be purchased Chris Madden white and cocoa towels. I bought new 'stuff' for the bathroom - shower curtain, shower rack, wall thing to hold said towels, so it's almost done.

Mr. Bathtub Man comes back Monday to do the master bathroom ceramic shower, turning it from the minty green it is to a nice ceramic white. Then some monogrammed towels, new mat, and freshen up the trim with white paint. Somehow it always seems to end up with paint involved, but a fresh coat of paint is one of the modern miracles of man - $25 worth of liquid plastic tinted a nice color and you have a new room! So I have a love/hate relationship with paint.

The basement - getting there. This next week involves five days of painting walls, floors, stairs, trim and doors, and I think it's going to be pretty awful, but if all goes according to the schedule created while sitting up in bed at night, it should be done right around our 27th anniversary next week. When we go out to dinner, I honestly don't know which will be more worth celebrating - 27 years of wedded bliss which involved raising three kids through the college stage, or getting that danged basement done! I've dreaded this project that much. I'm happy to know houses in Texas don't even have basements!

March will be a beating, but come April 1 I have lunch with a girlfriend scheduled, and I plan to avoid a paintbrush the entire month, fussing with some of the more fun aspects of fixing up a house, like a trip to Ross or T J Maxx or Tuesday Morning to find fun things for walls, or funky sculptures for the living room or a new door mat. I'm not sure these knees could handle three months straight of painting, so they're taking a month-long sabbatical.

April 27 we're high-tailing it out of here completely - heading to Riveria Maya in Mexico, for a week at an all-inclusive hotel on the white sand beaches, (little photo of our hotel shown - feel free to drool) where we plan to flop our mostly white, mostly untoned bodies down with a book and spend the week taking in more calories than we burn. Because we don't even want to think about May - paint the house, mulch the flower beds, plant flowers, paint the picket fence, put railing on the deck after we repair and paint it.

Yeah, let's not talk about May. Tunnel vision can be a very lovely thing. I may even live in denial, celebrate April Fool's Day by getting my claws manicured.