And the third little pig built a house made of brick

(This one taken from upstairs at my neighbor's house--thanks, M!)

I love my house. I do. I suspect I've written that before. It was built in 1882, with bricks that were fired on the property. The walls are thick, the ceilings are high, and since long before I lived here, people walking into the house felt a sense of ease. There's a front porch swing for summer and a wood stove for winter. In case of tornadoes, I have a deep cellar with a dirt floor (one worthy of The ghost with the one black eye, in fact!). The backyard is perfect for stories, though the living room will do in inclement weather.

Houses have their drawbacks. They need to be kept up. When we had heavy rain recently, I discovered a leak in the bathroom ceiling. Yes, it had happened before, but I thought I'd gotten it fixed. Turned out the fix wasn't the right one, and the roof was rotting through. Yikes! Last week I had it replaced (not the whole house, just the part over the bathroom). The roofer brought his nine-year-old twin boys, who helped him and also listened to a few stories.

This week I had the bathroom floor replaced. There was a slow leak from the toilet seal. Here's what it looked like yesterday at noon:

You don't expect to see the toilet sitting in the tub, do you? The handyman worked all day. By evening, here's what it looked like:

I bought the linoleum at Habitat ReStore for $13. The saleswoman and I joked about the faux tile look being similar to the water stain look, but really, it's quite attractive.

I feel much more secure now knowing that neither the ceiling (with skylight) nor the floor will fall through. An added bonus: the wolf won't get in this way!