Ch-ch-ch-changes

I thought we had escaped from renovations when we moved here, but not quite! Here's the latest:

The concrete guys FINALLY came back and finished up our sidewalk. The sidewalk is stamped concrete, and they did most of it back in the fall, except for the last step -- sealing it. And then they disappeared. They'd be back in a week or two, they said, once the concrete dried. And then a month or three went by. And we nagged, and we nagged, and they promised, and they promised. At last they appeared again, so now we have a somewhat darker and shinier sidewalk. Also, we had an evening of chemical fumes as the sealant dried.

It's also yellow pollen season here (with the disturbing side effect of turning our car Michigan colors), so I hope they didn't seal too much pollen into the sidewalk. Talk about an allergy sufferer's nightmare!

And at work, they're in the midst of renovating my lab. When I first arrived, I didn't think the lab needed renovations. Sure, it was dated -- the orange bucket chairs screamed 1970's, and the "antique white" that's the official school paint color always looks a bit dingy -- but so was the rest of the building. It was perfectly servicable. (By the way, the enthusiasm for getting rid of the building is only growing on campus, which is definitely a good thing.) But my new colleagues renovated their labs, and it was amazing what a difference a coat of paint, some carpet, and modern furniture could make. So, here I go, keeping up with the Joneses.

I had to move a bunch of boxes out of the lab into my office so that they could do the work, and having them all stacked in here brings back vaguely unpleasant memories of packing and moving. Ugh.

Oh, yes, and Mike rearranged the guest room.

See, aren't you glad we have a blog so that you can read fascinating updates like these?