Construction Frustration

I live in a construction zone.

I always thought I was a pretty easy-going person, completely willing to go with the flow. So when the basement flooded on my birthday and we had to replace it all, I thought fine. When we found holes in the foundation and needed them fixed right away, great. Need to change the back siding and a chunk of doors and windows, bring it! We started to see the light in late July as the new basement carpet was due for installation and paint samples had been chosen. Then the upstairs bathroom exploded... and by the upstairs bathroom, I mean the water pipes... and the water destroyed it, the hall, part of the kitchen and the basement. Yes, the basement that was almost fixed from the last flood.

Even with the damage from the bathroom flood, often referred to as our indoor waterfall as that is what it looked like when we discovered it, I just shrugged my shoulders and mopped up (probably helped that I was leaving for the next day for vacation.) As much as the flood sucked, it was way better than it could have been. It could have happened during the next weekend when the entire family would have been away, leaving the water to run for days rather than hours. At least this water damage came from a freak accident and not a natural disaster. We still had four walls, a roof and our health. So all in all, I counted us as very lucky... just very very very pissed off.

Construction started almost immediately, a fact I noticed when I got home from my short vacation, and there is no end in sight. I thought we could get everything done before my brother left for school in Ottawa so he could enjoy our new everything... but that's definitely not going to happen.

I know it's not rational but I am frustrated! I am aware that construction does take time; materials needed to be ordered, crews booked, plans drawn up, and then the actual labour needs to occur. But the copious amounts of dust, lack of counter space and not knowing where anything is in the kitchen is really starting to wear me down. It's not fair of me but I wiggle out of meal duty as much as possible because cooking in that situation frustrates me. The end necessitates the means and I know that eventually I am going to be able to cook in a gorgeous kitchen and have a shower in a gorgeous glassed-in upright shower so for now I must live amid dust and noise.

I did manage my first DIY cooking experiment amid the clutter so look out for that soon. Personally I will be looking out for the smoking hot construction guy my mom swears is currently working on the house. I hope she's right and not describing some figment of her imagination that she created to deal with the stress of the house situation. Fingers crossed!