It has been a while since I last wrote. But trust me, my life is only about the house. We do have the roof and according to sources there has been progress in the basement. My trusty neighbours swear that piles of gravel have been tossed in but I will have to take that at their word because I am not in the mood to climb down a rickety old ladder into a darkened basement to find out for myself. When I wander the floors I will access, I see nothing new.

I'm a little on edge. My TAPS order was supposed to be delivered today at the insistence of John the contractor but was there anyone there to receive it? No. Is John returning my calls? No. Is the house progressing as it should be? I'm not sure. Having now spoken to a guy at TAPs, they cannot reship the order until Wednesday at earliest or Thursday with the bathtub.

Paul and I are filled with questions like why are the windows not installed? where are the windows? where is John? why is John not responding to our messages? why is there no one working on our house? where is the plumber?

Of course, when we are asking these questions, we're not speaking as cleanly as I'm writing. Fuck seems to be our/my favourite word of the moment. I am finding myself so irritated and stressed and financially strapped that the word is slipping out like melted butter and in all contexts. I am finding it handy to use as an adjective, an objective, a noun... Some car boxed me in at the school while I was picking up Jakob and I couldn't get my car out so the word "fucker" just poured out of me. Unfortunate that Satchel's new friend was sitting beside me, coming home with us for his first and probably last play-date.

Satchel and I spent the weekend in London working with my sister Shirley and her husband Jon to finalize the details on the kitchen and the bathroom vanity. All I need to do is find a kitchen sink and pick the hardware and counter top. I am told that laminate is not the horrible product I had always thought it as so I may have to check in to it - which irks me to no end because from the beginning of this project, John the contractor was always saying to me "Meg, you have to give up on the stone for your countertops, you can't afford it, you have to take laminate." No fucking way I would think to myself. But now that everything seems to be costing a hell of a lot more than expected, bring on the laminate samples.

Here's the link to Shirley and Jon's shop, Artisan Interiors. Jon does fantastic mill work and it is definitely worth working with them even if they are based in London: http://www.artisaninteriorsinc.com.

I will list my friend Eve's email address because she has been so wonderful; patiently answering my never-ending list of questions on counter tops, hardware, appliances and she has such a fantastic modern flair to her sense of design: hillcrestdesign@sympatico.ca.

Satchel has a friend over, they are driving me insane. No, they are driving me fucking insane. I'm going to have to finish up later.