Relatively Good Progress

Despite my attempts to resist the pressures coming from the new consultant, I find myself working with some efficiency on the bathroom project. Jam (that's the consultant's name--he thinks he is so cool) is at the work site bright and early each morning, and his sole mission in life is to motivate me to finish the bathroom project in a timely manner.

So I take my sweet time fixing the coffee and having breakfast and checking my email, determined not to let him get under my skin. But there he is, unflapped, and before long I'm lulled back into the bathroom to do work. Boy, he's good.

I've got half the big shower wall done, leaving for now the three-dimensional issues (where the ceiling tiles meet the wall tiles) on hold until the walls are done. I've put a batten board down the middle of the wall to keep me completely centered, and it's a good thing, considering how the lop-sided tiles are so irregular. I'm doing the right side, then the left.

I thought I was making some good progress until Cheryl popped in (accompanied by Jam) and said "Gee, I thought you would be further along by now."

For most people such a statement would have some clear intent, a more-than-mild rebuke for being so slow, but from Cheryl I took it as a statement of fact; she simply thought I would be further along, and she did not consider it necessary to edit her feelings before letting them pop out. I love her very much.

But, in fact, I am making remarkable progress, though with an unfortunate setback Wednesday when, in the middle of setting tiles, I could not remember how many rows of dark green should be on the wall. My notes, it turned out, were not as clear as they should have been. More later...