White Paint and Comfort Cooking

We are having our children's bathroom--which is also the guest bathroom--renovated right now.  A total renovation, right down to studs and insulation!  The tub has been set--a process that took *two days* and involved a lot of very loud noises, plus an access panel cut into Finn's closet wall.  Wow!  

This morning the bathroom looked like this (notice the care our contractor takes in protecting that brand-new tub: it's covered with a quilt and plywood!)

I took the children into the city for piano lessons and ballet class, along with a nice long walk with Finn on the pleasant urban trail that cuts through the city. And when I got home dinner was ready in the crockpot (Moroccan chicken and vegetables) and the bathroom was a nice, bright white. I picked "Chantilly Lace" by Benjamin Moore because it was the cleanest white I could find to coordinate with the beveled subway tile that is supposed to run halfway up the walls.

It felt good to come home to these cheery things because poor Mr. Polly is in the midst of a difficult work situation.  Please pray for him!  A Major Machine Breakdown has occurred and he's scrambling to get it completely resolved, but it's not yet.  One hundred people are not working because production isn't running.  One hundred people.  That's a lot of pressure.  He's the one they turn to fix anything and everything--just call him MacGyver.  His reputation is unparalleled! But this is an issue that involves waiting on parts to come...parts that are apparently not easily obtained at this time.  And while they wait, one hundred people cannot work.  He was supposed to go to Charleston with us on Sunday, but unless a real miracle occurs tomorrow morning (he's trying all sorts of substitute ideas), he's going to be working all weekend and through next week....until things can run again, and until those one hundred people can get paid. 

Tomorrow night I plan to provide comfort in the form of braised chicken with mushrooms, oven-baked polenta, and roasted brussels sprouts. I can't help fix the problem, but I can at least keep the senior manufacturing engineer well-fed.