Sssshhhh, don't bother him - he's working.....

Has anyone out there had the experience of building your own home? No, I don't mean hiring a General Contractor, having him hire all the subcontractors and then, after 6-9 months, you bring all your stuff, turn the key and move in. That's not what I'm talking about, only smart people with a lot of money build houses that way.

When you are like us, you figure out real quick that if this 'building' thing is going to happen, you are going be doing a lot of the hammering and nailing yourself. We were not only our own General Contractor (what? I read a book about it, how hard can it be?), but we put in our own windows and patio doors, laid (?) our own hardwood floors, put in all the in-floor heat, all our own painting, all our own landscape, retaining wall and brick patios, built all three porches, moved in and installed all our own appliances, layed (? - one of them has to be right) all the slate tile in the bathrooms, mudroom and entry ways.......you get the idea, and last but not least, we did all our own trim. We hand picked it out, painted it and started to install it. Now, let me say, anyone who had ever built their own house had told us, "DO NOT move in until you have all the trim up or you will NEVER finish it".

Now, in our defense, we were living in a 2-bedroom apartment with 3 kids, a dog and two cats. An upstairs, really crappy apartment with people below us that were chain-smokers. Unless the people downstairs were sleeping, our apartment smelled like your local tavern down on the corner. Needless to say, getting out of that hell hole was the only thing on our mind. So, guess what?

We moved in without finishing all the trim........over 2 years ago. Guess what my husband is doing today? I am holding my breath and hoping at least the bathroom gets done. You see, we have had many an argument over this f'ing trim thing. Many promises have been made and many dates have been set for the trim being done, many dates that have come and gone.

What brought on the trim issue? Well, I always want to have our friends over for one thing or another and my husband always says, "wait till I get the trim done". Well, I'm done waiting. First of all, they are our friends - they know what we went through to get this damn place built -they don't give a shit about whether their is trim in the bathroom. Second of all, if I wait to have people over here until the trim is done, I'll be too damn old to pick up the phone and invite anyone! Must be a male thing. Does it mean you have a small penis if you can't finish the trim in your house?? Lord knows, it's all about the penis at some point. I don't get it.

So, being the bitch that I am, I scheduled a party here for next weekend! We have a great group of friends that play Texas Hold'em and we have been invited to various houses for this kind of party and it's our turn.

You can guess things are a little 'tense' around here - but it's amazing the kind of work that can get done when you know there are going to be 20 people in your house in a week. Yes, this is somewhat passive-aggressive behavior - so sue me. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.