Time swims on

Where have I been?!    I have been designing a kitchen in a week or less.  For years, I have torn pages out of magazines and organized them in a "dream house" binder.  I'm sure many people have this book of "when we redo the kitchen", "when we build lockers in the garage", "when we gut the master bath" ideas. So now I am confronted with all of these design decisions.  Turns out I should have kept the binder in the safe deposit box!  I do not know the whereabouts of the binder - was it water damaged and tossed in the dumpster that could fit a Volkswagen Beetle?  Is it in the warehouse being ozoned?  Time will tell I guess, but by then, all decisions will be made.

Most waking hours this week have been spent looking at this:

I'm thinking about just taping the pictures up in the house and eating out every night.  It would be so much easier.   But when I get overwhelmed, I think about how far we have come in a month.  The house is gutted, the trusses are ordered, the house smells like ozone and not fire (which also stinks but it is a better stink if that makes sense).  We have come from this (get ready for it):

A picture of our upstairs hall.  By far not the worst picture I could post, but you get the idea.  We have come a long way.

This week, the children's counselor told me that when we return to the house, we need to press the smoke detector and have a fire drill.  Caroline and I looked at her like she was crazy.  She said it will help us to hear the smoke detector in the house and check for safety, but not immediately think the house is on fire.    Fun times ahead!!

Speaking of fun times, we gained yet another pet this week: a fish for William.

Duncan the fish - picture taken by William ("look Mom, he's looking at the camera")

Duncan the fish came courtesy of this letter written to Bart by Owen:

Dear Dad,
We need a pet fish for William.  He needs a pet.  Me and Caroline have pets.  I will help him to feed it and clean it.  Everything in his room burned.   He needs to be happy.  Think about it.

Love-Owen

So there.   I told Mr. Animal-lover that we were so proud of him for thinking of William (who seemed perfectly happy before the fish) and that I have been a mother for 10 years and I know that he too would enjoy the fish since the boys share a room now.  And he gave me that great sly smile and we winked at each other......on the way to the pet store.  In the end, he was right.  Duncan the fish, named after the Duncan the friend, has made William very, very happy.

But, this is a child who is also made happy by his latest craze - his frozen water collection.

The only question now is can we afford a stainless french door refrigerator with ice-maker to support his freezing needs?