It has been rather fun to come home each night this week and discover what the contractors have been up to that day. Tuesday night I came home and after dropping my stuff on the table, immediately went out to the enclosed back porch and climbed up into the attic to check out the great expanse of clear space (aka storage area) that’s now available up there. They put down a whole lot of plywood flooring, which means there’ll be less walking around on wobbly boards when one of us has to venture up there. And now that the attic has finally been completely freed of rats and all possible rat-sized entrances sealed up, we can now feel safe putting stuff up there, without fear that it will be nibbled into bits. Granted, we still haven’t actually *moved* any of the Christmas stuff up there yet (and I suspect it will remain stacked in the dining room until the weekend) but at least now we have the option.

This evening when I came home, I got to wander around downstairs and gaze in awe at the (finally) completed baseboards for the seemingly never ending floor-replacement project we started this past summer. Richard got the majority of the baseboard and transition strips attached, but the sections around the doors stumped both of us, plus there were several of the transition strips between rooms that didn’t want to stay attached and we’d pretty much thrown up our hands and hoped either inspiration would strike, or else the project would magically finish itself without our help. This week Richard, realizing that the chances of the two of us getting it done by ourselves any time in the near future were pretty much nil, asked the contractors if they could add that to the list of repairs, and so, armed with saws and caulk guns, they’ve nearly finished what we started over six months ago. The floor looks *so* much better now that there aren’t those ugly board edges visible in the doorways. Plus,since they actually have a clue what they are doing (unlike Richard and I), they used caulk, which fades to white and does not turn an ugly yellow color and require touch-up painting like the putty I used everywhere else in the room. Sigh.

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This weekend Richard and I sat down and made out a menu for the week, so we could try to get back into the healthy eating thing. Of course, that flew out the window the first night, when neither of us felt like making – or eating – the item we’d planned just 24 hours before. The problem with being adults, you see, is that there is no one around to make you stick to things.

On the plus side, we have still been eating healthy, despite our blatant disregard for the silly things like weekly menus. It helps we did a decent enough grocery run that there’s plenty of options to choose from, and it’s been too wet and cold out for us to want to venture out to a restaurant instead. So far this week we’ve had Tuna Pie and Black Bean Soup and because I’ve been in a mood to cook, and also because we happen to have all the ingredients at hand, this evening I threw together two more tuna pies to stash in the freezer for lunches and dinners later. It may not be exactly what we’d planned when we sat down and made out the menu, but the real goal in doing this was to cook and eat at home, so even if the actual hasn’t quite matched up to the plan, at least we’re on the right track.