Permission to do anything

It seems as if The T and I have managed to overcome our blockage regarding the Remodel (I capitalize it because it is going to be with us a long, long, long time). After not making any progress for many weeks, we've managed to cross four items off the list—the least of which was to make a list of tasks we have to do. This circular referencing has done the trick and I think the ball is rollin' now, baby.

Item #1 Make a list.
Item #2 Determine which of us will do what on the list.
Item #3 Make sure at least one of us is home when the contractors show up.

So far, so good. After much deliberation, the future woodstove has completely circumnavigated the first floor of the house and is going to be installed in the spot we originally picked out. Are decisions decided like this for all remodelers? I kid you not when I say the stove started in the middle of the southwest wall, slide to the north east to act as a room divider, perch in the southeast corner for a bit to admire the view, and then scoot over to the southwest corner to catch its breath before settling back where the journey began in the middle of the wall.

Now that that is settled, we can call Brien to start pounding out the construction documents and get a little more detail on paper.

We also asked a contractor to {cough cough} submit a bid for the bathroom out in the Taj Garage. Since we are so anxious to get the bathroom done out there that we're going to go with this gent who is a worker for our architect's father's construction business. He's a bit of a known quantity by Brien and we're anxious to have the plumbing room completed so we're going to accept his bid unless it's off by a power of 10.

We also met with our gardener. Didn't know we had one of those, did you? Well, we didn't know either until we realized he had us pegged perfectly after about 20-30 minutes of circling our lot with us. Our gardener, whom we'll call Duane, summed us up in one fell swoop when he pointed at me and said I like chaotic splashes of all kinds of color all mixed up and then pointed at The T and said structured color was more her speed. It was that accurate assessment of our design, er, styles that won him the contract to turn our drab city lot into a northern amazonian jungle, complete with wild felines.

We asked him where we should locate the outdoor cat enclosure. The grrllzz want to be outside and I want them to be contained and safe from traffic and the fleabags across the street. The T voiced her concerns over having the pen near the front of the house where its addition might make the house look "white trashie." Duane slowly turned and looked out the front window and across the street. He drily said, "You have a pink house across the street. What are you worried about?"

Point taken. Where's my shovel? I see some ground that needs a breakin'!