85 A.D.: The Chrysalis

chrys·a·lis (krĭs'ə-lĭs) n.: (1) a pupa, especially of a moth or butterfly, enclosed in a firm case or cocoon.  (2) a protected stage of development.

We all remember grade school science, and the remarkable journey of the caterpillar to the butterfly.  And then we became teenagers, and formed our own protective cocoons of locked bedrooms and overamplified music in a desparate attempt to contain the massive mind and body upheavals within.

If only our own pupa stages had ended with that definitive metamorphosis to adulthood, where we emerged confidently from our shells to say, "Here I am, world.  I'm me, and I rock."

Unfortunately, it's not so easy.

77 A.D.: You Gotta Start at the Bottom

When you're building a house, you can do all the planning you want - move a wall on a whim, add a doorway just for fun - but there comes a time when you just have to put pencils down and start building.  And when that time comes, you gotta start at the bottom.  You may have lofty visions of vaulted ceilings, but before all that you have to dig a hole and pour a foundation.  It's dirty, painful, and not at all sexy, and yet it's the difference between a house of rock and a house of cards.

Our family's foundation-building has been similar lately:  Sleep.  Eat.  Breathe.  Pray.  Lather-Rinse-Repeat.  (no, seriously, I'm trying to take more showers.)  Lost amidst the kids and the busy and the life is that you can't build a thing without a foundation that can sustain the weight of it all.  Going faster, ignoring the center while dancing on the edges, only works until the rains come, only works until you drown without even knowing why.

I'm tired of drowning.  Time to rebuild on dry land.

66 A.D.: Worst. Blog. Ever.

Blogging about the construction was supposed to help me get into a writing rhythm.  Judging by the fact that I've now gone two months (!) between posts, I clearly have more work to do before I've got this right.  Fortunately, so does our contractor.

66 days into the project and still standing (in mud).  Progress is coming in chunks but is coming nonetheless.  Pics of the new pool getting framed and sprayed after the jump.

7 A.D.: Universal Pain Assessment Tool

Sitting in the doctor's office waiting for the results of our son's flu test, I drifted to the handy chart on the wall to self-assess not only the fever boy sitting in my wife's arms, but the general state of our family after one week of construction.

We are decidedly in stage 4, the not-so-happy-but-not-so-sad-yet face.  Living in smaller quarters is a bit of a trick, as we have absorbed the demo-ed areas into our life.  The kitchen now doubles as a home office.  The living room houses outside toys.  And the dining room is a domestic United Nations, with a little bit of everything.

1 A.D.: A Slow News Day

The demo guys seemed to have expended all their fun tearing frame down yesterday, because all they sent today was one lonely soul with a jackhammer who had to jack, pry, and haul all by himself for 8 hours.  As a result, the awesome gush of progress from yesterday was down to a trickle today.  Oh well.  Pool guys come tomorrow to start framing the new footprint.  Click through to the pics, and to more on the 1963 newspaper.