My friend Spring once said that the only people who think marriage is easy are engaged couples, and that this is some sort of defense mechanism that encourages those couples to go ahead and take the plunge and procreate and so forth. Well, I think the only people who think painting their house, re-staining all the wood in their home, and re-tiling their bathroom in one nice little weekend is going to be easy are people who haven't done it before. You know, people like my husband and me.

We really did get quite a lot accomplished. The living room is painted a lovely latte color, the wood accents on the fire place are gleaming, the bathroom is a perky shade of light blue, we actually hung up our first piece of art, the new tile looks great... except for the spots that aren't finished, that is. The rest of the house is pretty messy. Oh, and our washer and dryer stopped working. Apparently we can only have one working appliance in the house, and since we got a new dishwasher... you know.

If I sound exhausted and cynical, I really don't mean to. I'm just kind of exhausted. And cynical. I have paint in my hair, mind you. And on my elbows and toe nails. I guess I won't paint in my underwear next time, but I didn't want to ruin any clothes! But, if we knew how tiring our little condo improvement project was going to be, we'd never attempted it. And a year from now, it would've looked the same. So, a few more exhausting nights from now, I think it's going to look great.

Here's what we have left:

1. Paint the kitchen
2. Re-stain the dining room table
3. Finish tiling the bathroom
4. Fix the lawn area (I think I might have my mom convinced that I need her help on this one)
5. Fix the washer and dryer

When we finally get it all done, expect an invitation for cocktails and hors de oeuvres. We're going to need to show off all our hard work!