Me: I’m really wishing I’d been smart enough to keep champagne on-hand — not to celebrate the completion of these renovations, but so that when the flooring guy calls, like he did this morning to say he won’t be here until tomorrow, I’d have something acceptable to drink before 9:00 a.m.

Alaina: Katie. You’re renovating. You’ve done it before — you knew it wouldn’t go smoothly.

Me: No. I didn’t! It went SO smoothly in the last house. It went so smoothly that I assumed that everyone who complained about how difficult renovations are just didn’t have their acts together.

Alaina: …

Me: It went SO smoothly that I didn’t even mind washing dishes in the bathtub for a week.

Alaina: …

Me: It went SO smoothly that I never found myself digging through dusty bottles of liquor wondering if gin mixed with applesauce would be an interesting twist on a screwdriver.

Alaina: …

Me: I’d call it “the monkey wrench.”

Alaina: …

Me: Dammit, I just burned my crumpet!

Alaina: ?

Me: Trader Joe’s makes these tasty little crumpets you just pop in the toaster, and I totally just burned mine. And my house sucks. And my life is basically over. And people with their act together don’t burn their crumpets.

Alaina: I’m hanging up now.

And that’s almost exactly (but probably not quite) how my harried conversation with Alaina took place a few minutes ago. It’s true. I call my friend, who’s a stay-at-home-mom with two kids under three, to complain about the chaos that is my life and utter what could quite possibly qualify as the most privileged-sounding phrase ever spoken aloud in the history of middle class America —

I just burned my crumpet.

But in all fairness, she probably couldn’t hear most of it in the car over her 10-month-old’s busy babble and her 2-year-old’s shining rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

So it’s practically like I didn’t complain at all.

But I mean, come on — wouldn’t you complain, even just a little, and especially to your bff, if you’d spent the morning frantically transforming your living room from this:

to this:

Only to have the floor guy call to tell you he’s not coming, after all?

And seriously. Don’t even ask me where we put all that stuff.

(guest room)

and

(garage)

Which I guess is okay because it’s not like we could feasibly host guests anytime soon, and garages are apparently for people who don’t burn their crumpets.

But don’t worry about me too much. I’m still trying to stay zen about the whole thing, regardless of the fact that it’s starting to feel like I’m living on the losing end of an episode of Hoarders. I’m making some extensive travel plans for this fall, and I’ve still got other things to keep me sane.

Like this:

And these:

And also actual floors:

With stain:

Which is a far cry from a couple of weeks ago:

So. We’re getting there.

Wherever “there” is.