and how was your weekend?

The quality of writing in this post probably won't be very good (not that it is usually stellar anyway), because I'm having trouble even putting words together today.

Let's just look at a few elements of my weekend, shall we?

* The drywall guy, Fred, stood us up again (yes, for the second time) this weekend, so we still don't have completed walls in the bathroom.

* I made about 5 trips a day to Home Depot, Lowes, etc. to purchase things, and then take them back when they didn't work, and then buy new ones, and then take those back when they didn't work---because apparently, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING can just be easy, especially not when it has to do with this house.

* If you've seen the house (or pictures), you know that the front door is beautiful, and it has a lovely large stained-glass style window. Well, last night while we were sitting on the front porch, the dogs started barking inside, and Todd went to bang on the window to make them hush--and as soon as his fist hit that beautiful glass window...KERACK! Shattered.

Ahhh...but that's not even the kicker. Wait til you hear this next part.

* We met the previous owners of the house yesterday, because they were back on the street visiting some of their old neighbors. We started talking to them about the house, and I mentioned that our next project was going to be the kitchen and laundry room addition. And she says, "Yes, that used to be a porch--but something had happened, and the people that were the previous owners decided to close it in." And I said, "Oh yeah, there was a kitchen fire, right?"--because that's what the next door neighbor had told me. And she looked at me kind of funny and said, "Well, something happened..." So I press her on it, and she finally says, "Someone was murdered in the house."

I'll give you a second to let that soak in.

So she tells me the story...about how an elderly black lady had lived there, and someone had cut into the house through the porch and killed her...and after her death, the family decided to enclose the porch. And as she is telling me the story, she says, "I knew that something must have happened because of the issues I was having. None of the neighbors wanted to tell me what happened, but I finally got the story." So I stupidly ask, "What issues were you having?" And she responds, "I would see her in the house."

Great. So if you are keeping track, in addition to living with fleas and termites and spiders, I'm also sharing my home with an older black woman who doesn't realize that she isn't living there anymore.

Can I move back now?

Please?