Floored

For those keeping track, after my last update, the score stood thus: Evil Spirits of Homeownership 1, Mary 0.

The good news is that the floor-in-a-box I brought home the other day did its best to live up to its "Easiest Floor In The World!" promise.  I have no yardstick for the difficulty of flooring installation (thank God), but since I lived to tell the tale, I can only assume that "Easy" means something like "This may not suck as badly as you fear".  And Lo, there was a bathroom floor:

Here's a somewhat more traditional view:

Of course, the packaging on the Box O' Floor failed to contain many helpful facts.  For example, while the admonition to let the flooring reach room temperature was nice and all, more useful would have been "Warning: If you are older than 25 years of age, crawling around on your hands and knees to install this product will probably hurt. A Lot."  So much for truth in advertising.  There may have been a time in my life when rolling around on the bathroom floor for the better part of two days would be no big deal to my body.  But this is not that time.  My knees hurt.  My back hurts.  I'm tired of breathing in various fumes. 

But at least it's over now.  And while it wasn't precisely what I had in mind, I did manage to find peace and seclusion from my Spring Break-ing family.  For some reason, they all went quite scarce.  It was around the same time the boxes of flooring came into the house.  While I had hoped that the bathroom painting project would get them out of my hair, I didn't know when I conceived it that I would be the one in the bathroom, while they did other things.  Like run away as fast as their little legs would carry them.  DIY Weanies.

They did come back, though.  About the time I was lying on the floor trying to straighten my spine out again, and wondering how traction really works.  They all said they were really proud of my work, and glad that I had done it.  And then I went downstairs, where I noticed that when Mommy spends two days in the upstairs bathroom, the rest of the house gets destroyed in inverse proportion.  The place was such a wreck that I realized the only clean place to eat dinner was back in the new bathroom.  Campbell thought a picnic was a great idea, and joined me without hesitation.

Now that's dining atmosphere.  Cam and I agreed that the only things missing were some candles, and someone to serenade us with a violin.  Just as well, though. 

They would have had to stand in the bathtub.