Biting off more than we can chew...

Things have been rather slow on the baby front, so my wife and I have turned our attention to getting the house ready for the baby. This really started back in the spring when we painted our sitting room a light green that we thought would look nice in a nursery. This fall, I decided to take apart the bathroom that will become the baby's bathroom as he gets older. That process began over the Veterans' Day weekend as I worked mostly in the attic, installing a new exhaust fan with light, removing the old fluorescent lighting, and replacing it with recessed lighting. As usual, there were a number of unexpected surprises that led to the lighting project taking two days to complete. The last day of that three-day weekend, Sunday, was supposed to be a day to rest and plan for the next step in remodeling the bathroom. However, we made a run to Costco for some water and other necessities instead. After we returned home, I tried to pull one of the Costco-sized water cartons out of the back of my truck. Unfortunately, my back had already decided it was done working for the weekend. I managed to get the carton clear of the truck when a whole bunch of muscles tightened into an agonizing knot. I managed to get the carton back in the truck, and I crawled back inside to recover. That was two weekends ago. I'm mostly better now, but there's more to be done. We had a painting and drywall contractor by the house to give us an estimate on some drywall repair and painting a significant portion of the house. He's starting in about 10 days. In the meantime, I started another project. This time, I planned to remove the fluorescent lighting from the kitchen, much as I did in the bathroom. One thing though, it had to be done before the contractor starts, so that he can patch the holes where the fluorescent fixtures used to be, as well as the holes I created while running the power for the new recessed lights. Ugh. It's done, and it looks nice. But... Our original plan was to install 10 lights -- six 6" cans and four 4" cans. We cut all the holes, only to find that three of the 4" holes were obstructed by a run of drain pipe above the tray ceiling in the kitchen. In addition, we needed to route power through three joists, not two. We bailed on installing the 4" guys all together. That's not bad because the room is plenty well-lit by the 6" lights. It's just that now we have seven holes waiting to be patched by the contractor. That, and my back is all knotted up again, though not as agonizing as it was after the water incident. Anyway, my original plan was to have the bathroom completely remodeled by the start of the new year. Thanksgiving weekend was supposed to see the majority of the destruction in that room, with the construction happening in December. Needless to say that schedule has slid significantly to the right. Obviously, I need to be in better shape for all this construction. It's a good thing the baby won't be here until May!