from dust to dust

Is it possible to be made of dust, yet still be living? There is dust everywhere and this is only the demoltion stage. Regardless, I am happy to anounce that our basement is undergoing a facelift. I don't even dare show you pics of the untouched before since it was not pretty. Think gold flowered wall paper, wood particle board paneling, mirrored wall tiles, and light fixtures that could double for medieval headpieces (plus, they were hung too low - those medieval people were short weren't they? - so you'd crack your head if you chose to walk with good posture).

What is it about taking a sledge hammer to a wall that is so deeply satisfying? My father-in-law, who was helping us (thank you, Mont) commented that he'd never done this before. If you haven't had the opportunity, by all means, search out a friend with a scary medieval house and offer your helping hand. It may take care of a few months of therapy since you can literally feel the repressed anger and aggression (ahem, not that any of us have this brewing or anything) and let it shoot right out of the end of that heavy-as-hell hammer. I even karate-chopped a few sad pieces of drywall. We only made one trip to the ER - Spencer, following his mama's fine example went ahead and karate-chopped some drywall of his own and caught Ava square the face, namely the eyeball. She grabbed at her eye and I pried her hands away to find a HUGE hunk of white plaster tucked nastily underneath her eyelids right on the front of her eyeball. This is when I wished I could go-go-gadget some sort of drywall magnet that would whiz it magically off her little eyeball! Of course, a two-year-old just wants to rub it out. Bad idea. After unsuccessfully trying to flush it out, I drove a drenched Ava to Primary Children's where she got to have a full IV bag of fluid flushed through her eyesocket (a suction cup thing with a water hose connected to it is put INSIDE her eye, under both eyelids so she just had that hose sticking out and the fluid dribbling down the side of her face - freakish and horrible). Please, don't any of you ever have to go through this with one of your kids. It takes agonizingly long to get through a whole IV bag, while she, with the nurse practically sitting on her and me whispering hopefully-comforting words in her ear, kicked and screamed. Now she has to have twice-daily doses of vaseline-like ointment in her eye to heal the abrasion. She walks around looking like she's doing an impersonation of a pirate, with one eye clenched shut, the good eye open, and her head cocked a little to one side. Ahoy.

thankfully, the patch was only for the first night

Since one brush with disaster wasn't enough, I have enlisted the help of my child laborers and have done my part to protect their little baby lungs from dusty tile debris.

Hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some good after pictures - and newly cleaned upstairs carpet which I hope will have the decency to recover from the dust shower that we'll be living in for the next bit. Can you get lung cancer from remodeling?