out with the old, in with the new

chris texted me the following picture, with the phrase "i miss it already" attached:

yep, our old pepto bismol pink toilet and pepto bismol pink pedestal sink are currently hanging out in the woods next to our driveway.  i guess when you have a porta-potty in your front yard, there's really nowhere to go but up.  (our neighbors must love us.)

but on a positive note, we are officially underway with the renovation.  i keep likening the demolition phase, which is what took place this week, to christmas.  every year on christmas morning, i'm struck with how quickly everything gets undone.  i mean, that pile of presents underneath the tree takes months and months of planning, researching, comparing prices, shopping, paying, wrapping ... and literally, in five minutes, it's all over.  (of course, your hope is that whatever was in the boxes provides thousands of hours of entertainment and joy to the recipients, so it's not really all over ... but you know what i'm saying.)  and that's what i've been thinking about as i've witnessed the tear-down of our kitchen, playroom, laundry area, and powder room.  it took months to build back in 1971, and it's taken us many hours to make it liveable for the past three years, with installing hardwoods and painting and rearranging.  and then, in a mere two days, it's all gone.  BAM.  there go the walls.  BAM.  there go the sinks.  BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.  there goes one pink ceramic tile out of 512.  BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.  there goes the second pink ceramic tile out of 512.  (who knew ceramic tile was such a pain to remove?  perhaps the fact that it was installed over olive green linoleum slowed down the process a bit?)

as an extremely visual person, i'm loving this phase.  i can finally see exactly what the space is going to be.  i can envision what's going where, what the flow will be like, and how truly different it's going to look.  i let the kids walk around the area with me so they could see exactly what was being done.  i don't think they really quite understand the transformation yet, but they still thought the process is pretty interesting.

in the meantime, we've been trying to fill our days with activities that don't involve being at home.  we've been bowling with friends ...

enjoying treasure box treats after a great visit with the dentist ...

and playing with my new white iPhone4, which is a very overdue replacement to my two-year old, shattered-screen, slow-as-molasses ancient black iPhoneNegative3.  here's a self-picture susanna took with it:

you know what they say -- "out with the old [pepto bismol pink toilet], and in with the new [smartphone extraordinaire]."  a pretty fun tradeoff, i do say.