It's not a real basement 'till it smells like woodchips

My parents are coming in from Rochester tonight! Although there are still many projects around the house to do (including lighting the pilot on the ancient water heater and hoping it doesn't blow, and acquiring a refrigerator so the parents can eat food that needs to stay cold), at long last, the steel beam is set in the basement, all the sisters are holding up floor joists, and the bedroom floor no longer smells like Evil. Dumpster-man has come and taken away our very full dumpster, and the new toilet has been installed.

A word on toilets: Glacier-Bay, your instruction manual is the WORST. It is not just unclear or confusing, it is riddled with inconsistencies and bald-faced LIES. There are bits on the toilet that have been installed in one way when you buy the damn thing that you need to UNinstall and rearrange in order to follow the instructions. It is an instructional atrocity. I have half a mind to write all over the instructions in red pen and mail them back to the Glacier Bay company because they should know just have embarrassingly awful their literature is. But after a lot of patience and impatience and luck and a hacksaw and a pile of extra washers and a lot of gooey wax everywhere... three test flushes produced no leakage, so we're declaring toilet to be installed, in the face of Glacier Bay's best attempts to screw up the process. Damn you, Glacier Bay!

Nobody is going to mention the fact that my toilet is oblong instead of round, and looks a little silly in my tiny bathroom. Shh.

Here are some left over photos from the other day -- Jason and the linoleum floor. He looks bad-ass in his plaid headband and elbow gloves. What a rock 'n' rolla. Somebody give that man a drum set.