Not the Shire yet.

My friend Rex, lead singer of the Gonnas, is a building contractor when he's not lead singing, which is most of the time. He's remodeling our bathroom this week, and doing a bang-up job. That is to say, he's doing a lot of banging and kicking up dust.

Nah, he's great. But our house is giving him a run for his money. The water damage on the drywall behind the original tub surround was incredible--picture the slums of Mordor™ times two. We're talking holes in the wall, mold, poorly cut plaster, the whole shebang. All the old drywall has been replaced with concrete board.

The area under the toilet was destroyed, too--the water damage turned the original plywood to sponge, so that had to be replaced before the tile floor could go down. So, we spent last night in a Holiday Inn.

Have you ever gotten a one and a half year old to sleep in a hotel-issue crib? If you have, can we borrow your one and a half year old, 'cause ours is clearly defective. E only slept when in our bed, between us. D, who is four, had an entire double bed to himself and slept like a baby. (Well, given our "baby" experiences, perhaps the phrase needs revision.)

Speaking of babies, I found out today that a friend from high school had his first kid--a little girl. May he and his wife have even more fun with theirs than K and I have had with ours.