All I Want for Christmas...

Being the owner of a tea shop has its advantages. For example, all day long I get to drink the best teas from all around the world. And, of course, the tea pantry in my home is as full and varied as it gets. But at home, it's important to have favorite place or two to enjoy all that wonderful tea. One of mine was in front of the fire in our cozy living room on a nippy winter's night. That's all I really want for Christmas this year. That sounds easy enough, but with a major remodeling project that has taken the better part of the last 6 months, and is still not complete, it may or may not happen.

The project began with the intention to enlarge our 2nd bedroom/study/office into a master bedroom, add a master bath, and enlarge and finish the basement area into a 3rd bedroom/family room. Several other rooms were affected as well with a new closet being built into our old bedroom so that its closet could be opened to the hallway, making it into a first floor laundry room. And our breezeway was completely overhauled with new windows and doors. That left only the kitchen and living room in tact.

That is, until, because of one delay after another, the builder left the back part of our house (behind the living room wall) open without a roof for 7 weeks! ...only covered by tarps through torrential rains! Consequently, we ended up with mold--the nasty, toxic kind--growing in that living room wall. Our house is small to begin with, but now we are down to the kitchen, which is so full of drywall dust that it's practically unlivable, and we can barely get around the bedroom, which stores more than its usual share of stuff including our two cats, their food and litter box. It will all be worth it in the end, but we never imagined we'd have the living room torn up on top of all the rest. And we never imagined that it would take until Christmas!

So, Dear Santa, please do your magic and make it so that I can at least move my counch back into the living room by Christmas Eve. All I really want is that Christmas cup of tea with my hubby in front of a nice cozy fire.