����Forget that pre-marital counselling most churches now require before their minister will tie the knot between you and your spousal unit to be.

����You want to know if the intended marriage will last? Take it from me, you want to work on a home renovation project together.

����If there hasn't been a murder-suicide at the end of, say, wallpapering a room or putting down a new floor together, then go ahead and rent the church, you KNOW the marriage will work out.

����I'm speaking from experience here. I have been living in a construction zone for 22 years now. Not only have bits and pieces of the original log home not been finished (Mouldings? We don't need no stinking mouldings!) now parts of the house are old enough that it needs renovation.

����Did I mention that we're in Day Nine of the Porch Renovation From Hell?

����To say things are tense between the spousal unit and I is to somewhat understate the situation.

����Things are tense between Israel and Syria. Paul and I are way beyond that and well into the wonderful world of monosyllabic communication.

����Each of us is very careful to keep between the other and the drawer where the sharp knives are kept. It could get ugly.

����The problem is that nothing is going as it should. This project is Murphy's Law cast in bronze.

����The kiln dried pine flooring, which was supposed to be completely stable, decided after it came to our home that it was actually naturally curly pine. It warped into all sorts of interesting configurations which took some heavy duty prying to get in place and flat.

����The special fluffy labour saving urethane applicator is leaving tiny icky lumpy clumps of unidentifiable matter in each coat of the urethane.

����Thus, after each coat, your correspondent has to spend over an hour at careful hand sanding followed by meticulous vacuuming to remove each batch of tiny icky lumpy clumps and dried urethane dust.

���� (Tiny icky lumpy clumps is a technical building term, by the way, and feel free to throw it into construction-related conversations).

����Urethane coat number three went on bright and early this morning. Paul and I just went downstairs and checked the porch floor from another angle.

����He pointed out (in a somewhat rude manner, might I add) that I have a new improved batch of tiny icky lumpy clumps with which to deal after this coat of urethane dries.

����Snippy, the man can be surprisingly snippy when he wants to be.

����Oh well, tomorrow is the final coat of urethane. That I will put on with a brush even if it will take me a couple of hours. Screw the fancy pants applicator, I can't face any more tiny icky lumpy clumps.

����THEN we move on to patching, priming and painting the drywall in a colour about which my spousal unit also mutters very, very rude things under this breath.

����Snippy. Have I mentioned the man can be surprisingly snippy when he wants to be?