So I'm at home today, most likely burning vacation time, because we live in a suckily (is that a word?) constructed house. Seems the wooden beams and such that make up the addition (TV room, half bath, and laundry room) are rotted. Bad enough that we were in danger of having part of the roof collapse. Fortunately, we were given a warning in the form of a leaking wall during our last rainy spell.

Now the good news is, we are renting this house, so the landlord has to pony up for the expense. The bad news is, he (like most other landlords) is cheap - he wants the carpenter to try to save the incredibly crappy wood paneling in the TV room, for example. I think that's what the carpenter was trying to tell me this morning.

I gotta tell ya, there's nothing quite like walking into the kitchen and having no wall in the next room; though it is a nice day and it's neat to see what a sliding glass door would look like back there. Hey, I'm trying to have a positive outlook on life, look at me go!

The walls are currently vibrating as the carpenter drills and hammers and whatever else he needs to do to complete the mind-boggling task pf replacing the wooden beams that are holding up an existing structure. Buddy the Stupid Dachshund Next Door is barking non-stop; earlier he was barking at the big air compressor that was in the carport at the time. What a maroon, as Bugs would say. But I'm hard at work on Operation: Non-Fiction, sipping hot cocoa and trying not to think too hard about the chance that the roof could collapse onto the entertainment system.