Delight and Disappointment

It's hard to know where to start this morning. Mae and I had a lovely morning at the dahlia festival yesterday. I have quite a few flower pictures to show you. The news about the basement is where the disappointment lies. Here's what I'm thinking: I'll tell you about the flowers first, and save the basement woes for the end. If you're sick and tired of hearing about the basement (as am I), you can skip that part at the end. Deal? Deal. 

Okay, flowers first. Thanks to those of you who identified the flower in our bee garden as an Evening Primrose. You are right, of course. I knew someone would know. It must have come in the bag of wildflower seed I sowed last spring.

Mae and I met up at the parking lot at the Swan Island Dahlia Festival yesterday morning. It's early, and many of the dahlias have yet to bloom. Still, there was plenty to see. They have a gift shop and a hut with cut flowers. We were greeted by the pretty gardens and potted flowers growing near their gift shop.

I just love the Black-eyed Susans.

The next two photos are for my pig-loving friend, Sue.

Their garden art was fun. This cat might have come home with me, but he was a little too pricey for my pocketbook.

As for the dahlias, I'm just going to show the pictures of some of my favorites below. I've included the name of the flower in the photo. (The names were as much fun as the flowers!) If there is no name, it's because the flower was in their "test garden," and not yet available for sale. I have to choose just four for my own garden next year. Hard to decide, but I'm leaning toward Bee-Yond, Wannabee, Firefighter, and Checkers. Okay, get yourself a cuppa something, and enjoy:

Pretty, huh? It's so hard to decide. Mike really likes the one called Fuzzy Wuzzy, and since he worked so hard on getting their pad beside the greenhouse ready to go, I kind of figure I should add in his favorite. Mae accurately pointed out that bees are attracted to the ones with centers. Since I'm always doing my best to cater to the bees, I'm keeping that in mind as I make my selection. They won't arrive here until next April, and so there's no rush to decide.

Okay (cue the shark music), here's my disappointment rant. While we were eating breakfast yesterday, we got the bright idea to call Home Depot ourselves and find out if they were installing carpet at our place yesterday...or anytime, when you get right down to it. Surprisingly (actually, unsurprisingly), they had nothing scheduled, no carpet order, no knowledge of our project whatsoever, except that there were “payment issues” with the carpet, and so it hadn’t been ordered or paid for. Mike ended up talking to the installer, who said it takes about two weeks to get the carpet once it's been ordered, and then another two weeks to be move up on the schedule. The bottom line in this story is that our contractor knew all of this when they moved the furniture out of the basement. He also knew that if the job wasn't done, they'd have to come back and move the furniture back inside while we're gone. And so why, why, why did they go through that whole charade? It boggles the mind.

Here's what I think: He probably thinks he can run out the clock on moving the furniture back inside, and that we'll just be stuck with leaving it where it is. Fat chance. If we do that, we'll have squirrels and mice living in it before we get back. We simply cannot leave it where it is. I don't trust our contractor any farther than I can spit, and so I sent an email to Erik and Matthew this morning, putting them on notice that we might need their help with the heavy stuff. We can do most of it ourselves, but I doubt I can be of much help lifting things like couches and televisions. There's still time, but my faith in this guy following through is nil.

So Mike has confronted the contractor about his lies, demanded he send a crew to move the furniture back into the house. Contractor Man said he'd look at the schedule and call Mike before day's end to tell him when. Did he call? Oh...silly you. Of course not. So Mike will call him again this morning and threaten him with a complaint to his licensing board. Maybe that will help. If not, a complaint will be filed. Of course, that won't help with the present situation. And there's really no use in speculating about what might or might not happen. It is what it is, and it will be what it will be.

I'm having a hard time letting this go. I'm angry and frustrated and appalled at the lying. Also, sewing is my outlet, and I can't even do that. Today, I'm going to try to work off some of my anger by doing some housekeeping chores and some preliminary packing. Mike is spending the morning putting new tires on the truck. It occurs to me that I can always just work on my quilting since the sewing room isn't an option. I have everything I need to work on the pile of quilts that have been sandwiched for quilting. For now, it's too late to start on anything other than small quilts. Possibly, we can find my travel machine along with the other sewing stuff (in the garage), and I can even sew on some quilt bindings.

And now...I'm going to stop talking about this, and hopefully, stop thinking about it too. I'm determined to get my mind right about this, and so I'll start right now.