The money we spent at Lowes was not nearly as frightening as I expected. Even with the bathroom vanity being out of stock, and not having the linoleum we wanted. We’re picking the latter up today at Home Depot, and workers come this afternoon to start ripping up flooring in the bathroom so we can start work on the plumbing. Finally! A little scary, but finally! Once all this is done, it’ll really feel different. The Incredible Tilting Toilet will no longer tilt, there’ll be a new vanity, the original clawfoot bathtub will be facing in the right direction, we’ll have use of our washer and dryer, and there’ll be new, period-style flooring in three rooms (downstairs bathroom, utility porch, and kitchen). And _then_ we can finally unpack all of the kitchen stuff and really get settled there.

After Lowes, we went to the Mongolian BBQ, which was strange because the only time I ever go there is for Shire birthday parties with 20 other people. The line moves much faster when it’s just the two of us and other regular diners…

And after _that_, Brian and Morgana came over for a little bit, so Brian could help Ken move our old sofas onto the truck, and the media room sofas into the living room. They approved of the new kitchen cabinet, brought catalogues (danger!), and Morgana and I talked about goth Halloween decoration plans.

Ken and I tried to put together the new media room sofa, but Ikea, in its final act to piss us off completely, did not include the necessary washers.

Today the guy came to remove the palm tree from just in front of the porch. It touched the roof, and between that and the eucalyptus in back that touched the roof, the insurance company cancelled our house insurance policy. (I hate insurance companies. Why can’t they say, “fix the two trees and we’ll finish processing your policy”? No, they have to _deny_ us a policy instead. Asses.) I harvested some of the eucalyptus branches and leaves for myself and the local Herbal Guild, for potpourri and the like.

<><><>

There is now a big hole in the downstairs bathroom where the toilet used to be. The toilet is in the back yard, looking like it dropped out of sky. We’re going to have to have the clawfoot tub refinished, as the outside back of it is…not white.

Me, I’m mostly hiding in the upstairs office, wasting time by researching goth decorations.

Ken bought washers and put together the sofa, so now the media room is in really good shape. Time to break out the Roboto and put the witch’s hat on it…