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We got the tub, the toilet, toilet seat, and heater/vent last night. Also I bought the drain fixture for the tub because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to provide that or not. Luckily, we managed to find everything at one store, which saved some time. However, they only had one right-hand Americast tub -- that's this new substance that feels like cast iron but is light enough for Georg and I to carry -- and the box was already opened. They looked at it and told me there was nothing wrong with it, but I left a note for the contractor to check and let me know if that was true.

Back at the house, we were kind of amazed by the extent of it. I had thought they were just going to rip out one wall and part of another. But they completely gutted the bathroom. It's an empty shell. I guess it's better for them to remove everything and start over, than to try and rebuild over all the layers of previous bathroom. I saw scraps of linoleum under there that I had never seen before. They must have put the linoleum we saw on top of old stuff. Which explains why it had been a little lumpy.

We also noticed that, under our nasty wood medicine cabinet which sat on the wall, there had been a hole in the wall for a smaller, set-in medicine cabinet. I guess that might have been the original cabinet, and when they gave the room a face-lift they just bought a bigger one and covered up the hole.

You can really see the deterioration too. The beam on the corner of the wall, at the end of the tub, was rotting totally away. I hope that beam didn't support anything! Good thing we got them in when we did. I wonder what would have happened if we'd let this leak get any worse.

I took lots of photos of the hole where our bathroom used to be, and the pile of junk in the backyard that used to be the bathroom -- tub, toilet, sink, sheetrock, and pipes. But unfortunately, I left the cable for the camera at home, so I don't have any way to download the photos just yet.

OK, so we made good time I thought, but what with going to Lowe's, buying all that stuff, taking it home, a quick dinner, and the hour drive to Pittsboro, we didn't get out to Pete and Judith's place until about 10 pm. It looked like all the lights were out, so we didn't even both knocking on the door, we just headed for the guest house. It's a cute little house! Two rooms, a full kitchen, a decent bathroom and a huge shower. They lived there for over a year while they were building their house.

A few minutes after we got there, Judith knocked on the door. Turns out they weren't asleep, at least she wasn't. She showed us where everything was and took us up to the house to show us around a bit. We oohed and aahed over the main bathroom and the kitchen, but since Pete was already asleep and we were exhausted we didn't stay too long.

We did take a walk down to the barn so Judith could get some lighting catalogs out for me and we could meet her horses Winston and Gossip. Gossip seems a bit diffident about new people, but Winston liked having his neck rubbed. At first I thought he was really into us, but then I found out that he was waiting expectantly for some alfalfa hay!

I only managed to read the lighting catalogs for about ten minutes before I had to turn out the light and go to sleep. I'm not sure that I'll be able to order anything from the catalogs because of the time frame -- the electrician is coming Monday and I'll be out of town Friday through Sunday. But at least I can get ideas from it. The lights sold as "bathroom lighting" in Lowe's and Home Depot are hideous, but they have some nice wall sconces. Maybe we could use them instead.

I was surprised by how quiet it was overnight. They are truly out in the country and I didn't hear a single car on their road all night. Too bad it was overcast so we couldn't look at the stars. We woke up early this morning -- early for us at least -- and got ready quickly. When you have nothing with you but a change of clothes, there isn't really much to do except get dressed and get going!

We caused Pete and Judith's cats much consternation this morning. I guess they noticed that someone was in the guest house because they kept pawing at the door to be let in. But when they saw us at the door, they would start and run away! Lucky for us that Pete and Judith had had the foresight to shut the cat door before we got there. Otherwise the cats might have discovered strangers in the guest house by climbing into bed with us. Wouldn't that have been fun!

Oh, one more thing about Pete and Judith's place. I forgot to mention the bull. Apparently, yesterday during the day a 2,000 pound red bull wandered onto their lawn. He came right up to the paddock gate and stood there. Judith called animal control, but it took them a while to connect her with the right person. (I can only imagine the conversation... "There's a bull in my yard." "Ma'am? A what?") When she talked to the right people, they came right away. But by then, the bull was gone. Only later did it occur to Judith that she could have closed the horses off in another area and coaxed the bull into the paddock. But at the time she didn't think of it. Oh well, I'm sure they'll find him.

Ok, that's the update of last night. I'm sure you're as tired of reading this right now as I am of writing it. So I'll write later about the saga of the shower valves.

In the meantime, here's some actual news about the deck. Georg just informed me that for the first time ever, our sales rank on Amazon UK is better than on Amazon.com. We've been hovering around 13,000 on American Amazon, but on Amazon UK we're at about 6,500 right now!

I don't know what that means in terms of actual sales, but I have deduced that we are selling about a copy a day on Amazon.com. Because two days ago they said "Only 4 copies in stock! More on the way," then yesterday it was "Only 3 copies in stock!" and today it says 2 copies. So I am guessing that a sales rank of 12,000-14,000 means selling a copy a day.