I haven't posted for a few days and that's because I'm so optimistic. (See how I did that? How I turned a fault (laziness) into a virtue (a sunny outlook on life) Pretty slick, eh?)

Here's the deal: On Tuesday morning, a rep from the company we hired (last spring) to pave our driveway suddenly called and said the crew was ready to get started right away. In fact, if we were amenable, the guys would get going on it that very morning.

Were we ever amenable.
We were amenable with bells on, baby!

We'd pretty well resigned ourselves to a second winter of parking the car down by the road. Which is really no fun. Not only is it a long slog up to the house with groceries and such in hand, but the passing snowplows always manage to create a "Find the buried car" treasure hunt for us. So we were very excited that the job was finally going to get done.

When the crew arrived, I asked one of them how long it would take.
"All day today and maybe a bit tomorrow morning", I was told.
"Amazing!" I thought. And here's where we get to the crazy optimism part: I quickly took several "before" photos and planned to take "after" photos on Wednesday afternoon. Then I'd write a blogpost about the progress on our home renovation project and post the photos as well.

This was my plan-maybe not an exciting one to you, but it was mine.

The crew brought in a backhoe and steamroller and fussed around all day Tuesday, scraping gravel here, adding more there, then smooshing it all down with the steamroller. The house shook from cellar to attic all day long.

On Wednesday morning, I had my camera ready, waiting to see a truck full of asphalt pull up. Instead, at about 11am, the guys gave the house a final shake with the steamroller, packed up their stuff and came to say "au revoir".

That means "goodbye"", as in "we're leaving right now and you will never see us again, ever".


It turns out that these guys were just the preparation crew. They were merely the scrapers and smooshers of driveway gravel. The actual paving team is a whole different group of guys...a bunch of people too busy, I guessed, to come to my house anytime soon.

I sighed and asked when I could hope to hear from the second team.
"Soon," said the crew chief as he started to climb into his Peugot truck.

Maybe he saw the glitter of tears in my eyes or maybe his heart had been softened by the nice cup of coffee JP had brought out to him the day before, but he stepped back down to reassure me:
"Really soon. They don't like to leave too much of a lag time between the preparation and the actual paving."
"But how soon exactly?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Like this" he said, holding out his right thumb and index to indicate a space about two inches long.

Hmm.... I know France uses the metric system, but centimeters don't measure time, do they? Or did I miss something? I wondered as he climbed into the white truck and drove off.

So, here I am, my driveway blocked off by a rope so nobody tries to drive up it and spoil all the hard work of the prep crew. I have no idea when this will be finished. And there's still the carport and a whole freaking room to build...


In all the "excitement" of Tuesday, I forgot to post my usual cake pics. I was reminded of this today as I searched the internet for cake ideas for tomorrow. I want to make a cake for a friend and, though I usually use my own designs, I felt the need of a bit of inspiration this time.

In my search, I came across a site that promises to show "cakes you can bake" and features pictures submitted by proud bakers.
I'd venture to say that just about anybody could make this cake:

I just don't know if you'd want to.

Another proud amateur cake decorator has a whole site of her own where she is showing off her efforts, including this "joke" cake for her boss. :

Is making people vomit considered a joke, really?

The baker even shares this helpful hint: if you slightly warm the Tootsie Roll candies, you can more easily stretch them into more realistic, poo-like forms.

Needless to say, I've given up my internet search for cake ideas today(too scary!) and will just go ahead like usual and design my own...