Lorenzo went to Mayne on Saturday morning. He'll be coming home tomorrow morning. He isn't feeling well - has a bit of a chest cough. He really needs a rest.

Anyway, he did what we should have done from day one: he bought a paint sprayer. It's made by Wagner, it cost $99. at Home Depot....

In about an hour, the ceiling on the main floor was done. The next day he gave it a second coat. He could not believe how easy it was, and what a great job it did...

Is there something wrong with us? Why did we hire and fire Dud? Why did we hire and fire whats-her-face? And why did I spend three whole days just to paint a bathroom? You'd think after all the renovating we've done we would have learned a few things. I think we were intimidated by sprayers - that's the only explanation I can come up with...

I could have painted my furniture in minutes, instead of doing it the slow way with a brush. Wow... This really changes everything.

The wood stove arrived...

There it is...

I was talking to my brother on the phone tonight and he asked how the cottage was coming along. I admitted that I wish we'd never bought it. This has taken such a toll on us. Countless weekends spent apart has been hard on the kids and hard on our marriage. He spent our anniverary in a construction zone while I was here with the kids. It has physically and mentally exhausted my poor husband. He's had to endure dozens of ferry trips back and forth, difficult and complicated renovations including re-locating the bathroom and repairing the king beam. He's installed new doors and windows, new electrical, new plumbing... When we had trees removed he had to clean up all the branches and stumps which took two solid days.

And while he's there, his phone never stops ringing because he has a company to run.
Add to this, having to deal with unqualified painters who don't know what they're doing. They have cost us nothing but time and money and we have only ourselves to blame - we should have bought a sprayer!

It has been harder than we anticipated, obviously. My brother said we should have bought a piece of land and built a house from scratch; it would have been easier and probably would have ending up costing about the same.  Or maybe not... if you buy a vacant lot that has to be cleared and leveled, has no services (hydro) and you have to arrange for water and septic and a bunch of other stuff including permits, it can be a headache and we didn't want to go that route. We chose this headache instead!

Just writing about this blasted cottage makes me feel tired...

We are very lucky though, and I need to focus on that. For twenty years, Lorenzo and I swore that one day we would spend Christmas somewhere warm. This year, we're going to Mexico - we leave on December 20th. I don't think Lorenzo has ever needed a holiday more...

Playa Gemelas, Puerto Vallarta 
(view from the apartment we've rented....)