View from the "front" door.

I put front in quotes since this isn't technically at the front of the house but on the driveway side. BUT, this is where the main entrance of the house will be.

View from the garage looking into the house through the "mud" room.

We will call it the mud room but it could so easily also be called the "place we drop all our guff" room, or the "leave your shoes and boots here" room, or the "drop your filthy gardening clothes here" room. Now, doesn't "mud" room sound so much easier than all that?

View of the mud room from the outside.

View of the "study," or room where T will watch lots of television (far left corner). On the right you see one wall of the kitchen and a sliver of kitchen window.

So much to share I don't know where to begin. I got back last night from Boston to find that T had fired the crew of carpenters. This is not a bad thing as they turned out to be a bunch of "fair-weather" carpenters with bad attitude who were both expensive and slow. (BTW, have I used enough quotation marks for you in this post? What a nice change from my usual dependency on parenthesis, non?).

You may think that T is a hard-ass but you would be so wrong. He gave them every opportunity to turn things around-- a hundred second chances. If it were me, they would've been fired the first time they didn't show up without calling, or left at 1pm (after arriving at 11 am hungover) cause they wanted to go skiiing. T is so gentle-natured it tore him up to cut them loose, but this morning? He is so happy and the bad cloud is gone. He had gotten to the point where he dreaded going to the job site in the morning cause of their attitude . . . can you imagine? Dreading going to Soliden? How insane is that? So, please send good wishes up to the sky that we get a happier crew who has a good work ethic and wants to create a good work environment (hot young studs, optional).

Boston/Cambridge was freaking magical. My friend Tara is a goddess and everyone should have such a friend. She plied me with gorgeous wine and food, took me to her gym where we did lunges and squats to the point that my ass and hamstrings are STILL sore three days later. She took me to the most faboo stretching class that has ever existed. (frecklegirl and anyone else who lives in Cambridge-- you MUST check out this class if you want to feel amazing--- it is in Central Square at the Dance Studio right across the street from Central Kitchen. The class is Wednesday nights at 6:30 with Lisa, who is just AMAZING. Take my word for this, AH-MAZE-ING).

I also got another Thai massage (not quite as excellent as the first one but still truly wonderful and it continues to hold first place as my current favorite kind of bodywork.

The end result? I feel so good. I feel like my old self again. And am ready to face the world. Because in and around all of this bodywork, eating and drinking, I also got some good good good writing done.

And, I also (for the very first time) went to the NPR studio and watched Ta in action as she produced two shows back to back. It was sooooo cool. I promise to post this weekend about that in detail as it deserves a full blow by blow. Right now? I must go get my car registered and inspected. Then I meet T up at Soliden and we are going to snowshoe up the hill behind our house site. (I'll post pics if any come out good). No promises, my pics from this week were pretty disappointing to me. It's still a hit and miss game for this guppy photog.

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