I haven’t posted recently about the construction project, or about anything for that matter. I haven’t had a day off in weeks and my body is weary, but my hands have taken the worst beating. My fingers are arthritic from all the manual labors, and the skin on my fingertips is flayed and cracked from tiling (mark my words, cutting and laying glass mosaics is bitter work). So typing literally hurts.

In addition to random tasks like trimming kitchen cabinets and cleaning up debris and feeding my children (most of the time), I’ve been doing a lot of tiling recently. If I ever tell you I plan to lay 200 square feet of two-by-six-inch subway tile on walls, in a brick pattern, slap me silly and then institutionalize me, because I’ve done it twice now and it’s as endless and insane a task as knitting a sweater for the Statue of Liberty.  If I ever tell you I want to lay glass mosaics that are “paper fronted” instead of “mesh backed,” go on and slap me silly again. I have been tormented by our beautiful, miserable tile choices.

Here’s the good news. We have a kitchen again. Our plumbing and electrical work is almost done. I have pictures. But I’ll tell you about all that later. Right now I need to tell you about the dream I had last night:

I live in a cave system, along with other people who appear to be part of my village. Heavy rains are falling. I peer out a hole in the cave in which I’m sheltering, and I watch the torrential waters fall. Suddenly I know a giant tidal wave is coming! It races at me and breaks through the hole in the cave! But it isn’t water. It’s a mass of tiny green mosaic tiles cresting in a wave over me. It crashes down and crushes me. I wonder if I’ll die from the weight of it, if I’ll suffocate under it. But I manage to push my way up through it and catch air.

I wake up in a cold sweat.

And that’s how the construction project is going.