It’s Groundhog Day. The day we’re supposed to (superstitiously) find out how much longer winter is going to last. And the snow in our yard is at least 3′ deep. Groundhog or not, winter is here, and she’s not leaving anytime soon. Our Family Bath project looks like it might not end any time soon, either. Which is starting to really bring me over (you’ll have to watch Better Off Dead for that reference). Sigh.

But let me rewind a bit.

J.J. and his new helper, mini-Caleb (aka: tiny Caleb, Fluff but not Fluffy, J.J.’s Bitch, or my personal fave, R-dog) came by last week to finish prepping the floor, and to put up the bulk of the waterproofing and Durock. It was a teaching day for J.J., as he was embarking on breaking in a new apprentice, since big Caleb (or regular Caleb, whichever) will be heading to Kenya for the next few months to do charity work. So, even though they worked a whole day, they only got a little bit further on the prep work. The bulk of the fine tuning and the complicated, intricate and math-heavy tile layout was left for Caleb to do on his next trip (slated as “early” this week – turns out early meant Monday).

So when an unexpected truck arrived at our driveway, and it contained two willing tile workers, I just accepted it as a gift and moved forward with my day. At least that’s what I told myself to do when Team Tile showed up unexpectedly Monday morning (while I was still in my robe and pjs). Lucky for all of us I was here and not in NYC with Jeff (who had some business stuff to do). After another full day of work, we’re still no closer to having the tile done. Well, I suppose that’s not exactly true – the bulk of the prep work, the really tricky, mathy, hard stuff is done. Now it’s just a matter of getting several days from J.J. to finish up the project.

I guess the abundant snow, the seemingly ceaseless shoveling, and incremental progress on the bathroom is starting to get to me, to wear me out, and flatten my spirit. The purple room (guest room) is in shambles, there’s dust all over the place, muddy footprints are on every footprint-able surface, boxes of plumbing parts, and even some furniture (I ordered a new desk on sale that has no where to go since my office is housing the mattresses from the guest-room-now-workroom) are cluttering up the living room and dining room… the house is a wreck, and now we hear that it might be as many as 5 more days (which equals 5 more WEEKS at one day/wk) until the tile work is finished. See? Completely brought over.

But, I’m trying to remain positive. The work that J.J. and Caleb do is impeccable, and very much worth the wait. But all this waiting is making me cranky. We can’t move forward on the carpentry without floors, and we can’t fix up the walls without a bit of help from the carpenters. And, since the floors are in a state of pause we can’t mess with them too much – very specific pencil marks are on the floor mapping out the tile layout. So everything must wait until we get some concrete progress. And waiting in a dusty, winter-bound house that’s been in some state of “under construction” since JULY isn’t easy. Sigh, again.

Alas, we must wait, and take it one step at a time. Things will progress. The room will be beautiful. And we will get to have our house back. So for now, some pictures of the progress thus far… enjoy!

* The lyrics for today’s post are from Sonny & Cher’s I Got You Babe as featured in Groundhog Day, the movie.