Sorry it’s taken me forever to post an update. It turns out that camping in your own house takes up a certain amount of energy and time…

Since last I blogged, a bunch has happened in life:

• I got a hideous cold, fever, sinus infection, bronchitis crud thing that I’m still fighting off.
• While still sick, I visited my folks in Montana. Flying while congested is never fun, and I’d have preferred not to be sick for my vacation, but if you’re going to be sick, there is at least something to be said for being in a house with a kitchen–especially one in which someone else is doing the cooking.
• Bufflehead (the Northwest morris clog team for which I play tuba and trumpet) hosted a weekend dance tour of Napa and San Francisco. I even ended up with one heck of a good sport of a houseguest!
• Last week I finally used the camp stove for the first time to scramble some eggs. Working with the camp stove was the easy part; schlepping the tools, paper plate, ingredients, and so on from the kitchen, loo, and hallway out to the deck and back was a royal pain. The eggs were yummy and I felt terribly proud of myself for making the effort.

…and in the kitchen:

• Two ex-windows which are going to be behind cabinets in the new kitchen have been walled in inside and reshingled outside.
• The opening between my music room and dining room is going to be about three feet wider. This turns out to be a bit involved. So far Jon has ripped out the drywall, cut some studs, and moved two water pipes and two waste pipes (the latter was PVC and is now cast iron, to reduce flushing noise), which involved doubling up two joists and some studs in order to meet code requirements for drilling pipe holes through same. He’s also built stud walls on either side of the opening to provide temporary support, and it looks like now he’s just about ready to start framing out the header. In the meantime, we have to pass through a maze of stud walls to get to the fridge.
• George and Jon have rewired the kitchen, sorting out some screwy circuit-sharing so that it has its own dedicated circuits, and installed umpteen junction boxes where outlets and light-switches are going to be.
• The other opening to the kitchen is going away, to become a shallow pantry/bookshelf, and so far Jon’s got a stud wall started there.
• Herrell is well along in cabinet-making and is actually now ahead of schedule.
• The carpet is gone from the dining room, and hardwood is stacked up and acclimating.

There are piles of wood and tools everywhere. I mean everywhere. I’ll take some pictures tomorrow when there’s daylight.