Firstly, an update on the pup. Thank you guys for caring, and for sharing your own stories. Pet love cannot be underestimated, taken for granted, or fully explained if you haven’t experienced it. And I, for one, am among the lucky who get to experience it. The doggie had her visit with the specialist today who was pleased to see that the palliative care medicines that she’s on are helping. A lot. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that she’s got cancer, and that she’s not a candidate for surgery. After a long visit, and a slightly less-long conversation amongst ourselves, we’ve decided to just try to keep her comfortable for as long as possible. Chemotherapy, while possibly (20-30% chance at 20-30% improvement) assisting in keeping up her physical quality of life for as long as possible, would no doubt strain our baby’s nerves, thus degrading her emotional quality of life (vet visits are the bane of her existence and always have been). Short term problem, sure. But when we’re looking at only a couple of months (at best) for our little one, those short term problems really add up. So, for now, we’re on a hospice-like path. She’s regained her usual spunk, thanks to the steroid/painkiller combo, and has her appetite back. We’ll see how long the current drug therapy works, and adjust as we go. We’re hoping that if she were able to choose for herself, this would be the choice she’d make.

So, that’s the personal stuff. Not to diminish it, but we’ve got other fish frying, and I can’t dwell on my fears all day. (That’s not good for my nerves, either.) So, let’s get back to the family bathroom, just for a moment, shall we?

*Lyrics from Bonnie Tyler’s 1985 hit Holding Out For A Hero.

In case you missed it, we began this project in December. That’s right. Of last year. This has been the most linger-y, most annoying, most satisfying and most fully conceived space I’ve had the pleasure to tackle. I have bought art, specifically for the space; I have procured accessories for the space; I have had a cabinet built to fit a specific basket; and, I have thought about and wondered about just about every inch of that space for months. So, you can imagine how weary I am of it, and, simultaneously, how excited I am to finally get to style it up. I’ve been working very hard to finish the painting so that the plumber (tiny Dave, though he’s hardly tiny; more like just smaller than the rest of the Dave’s we know) could get the bulk of the installed elements in, so that I could get back to focusing on the softer elements.

Then tiny Dave arrived. And he worked for a few hours. And he seemed a little confused. The parts didn’t seem to be adding up. We assured him that he had everything. He kept working. Then we all realized that while, yes, he had everything that we had received, we hadn’t received everything that we were supposed to. That’s right: missing parts. Ugh. Missing parts after 6pm on a Friday equal delayed gratification. Dave was able to put in a few items, but by the time we all realized what was going on, it was too late to do much about it. Blerg. And, by the time we sorted out who was supposed to send which parts to us, we were looking at another 7-10 business days. But, tiny Dave will be back later this week to finish up what he can, and then he’ll come back again to finish finish. Phew.

Anyway, some pictures of where we ended up, including a few of Bec and our lovely spring week. We’re getting there. It’ll just make the final reveal that much more gratifying. To me at least. Enjoy!