Home Improvement Woes

Several months ago I was in the bathroom while Eric was showering and noticed a steady stream of water trickling down the outside of the shower door and down onto the floor. This part of our bathroom has carpet (another long rant for another time....) and so as soon as he got out of the shower, I began to investigate.... oh crap... we had water damage and a bit of dry rot under the carpet. So, we pulled the carpet and pad back and Eric started digging... he found more water damage than we expected. So, we "panicked" thinking that the damage might extend far under the shower and maybe even have started damaging the ceiling in the living room below. I called a good friend of ours who does Home Inspections and asked him if he could stop by when he was free to look at it for me. He was such a sweetheart - (he lives practically across the street) - he dropped what he was doing and came right over. Thankfully, the damage wasn't extensive and could be repaired very easily and would NOT involve taking the shower out (this was the "doomsday" senario that Eric was invisioning!) So, we plugged the hole with a towel, put the carpet back over and repaired the shower door while we figured out our plan for a long term solution. This is the interesting senario our bathroom presents - part is tile, part is carpet:

We called around and couldn't find anyone that sold the tile to "match" what we already have. So, we finally decided to pull out the existing tile and redo the whole thing in a tile of our choosing. So we went shopping for the tile and found some that we really love. Everyone told us that the area of tile we were removing wouldn't be difficult (about 10 sq feet). So, we started the project on Saturday... maybe these people have never removed tile before.... what a nightmare this has turned into.... it's grueling... and exhausting... and slow.... and words can't express how much we're both hating this job! Eric has spent Monday and Tuesday evenings chipping away at the mortar (it's what's under the tile that's difficult to remove). Last night we tried some "remover" paste, but seriously, that stuff isn't really helping. Good old elbow grease is what's working the best. So, if we can't get the remaining tile out of our bathroom by the end of tonight, our "schedule" will be pushed back enough that we wont' have enough time to install the new tile on Saturday... which means a full week to 10 days without the toilet in my master bedroom. Ughh... So, I'm biting the bullet and I've been chipping away at it all morning.... it's such a mindless, frustrating job that I decided to break out my old mp3 player that still has Twilight (in audio book format) on it and listen to that. It's the only thing that's keeping me going today.... as I sit here and type right now I'm waiting for the battery to recharge just enough to get me through another hour or so of work..... it had the nerve to die on me when I stopped to grab some food and re-fuel! I've decided that Twilight ranks right up there in my book favorites with Harry Potter... I can read (or listen to) it over and over again and not get tired of it at all! Many thanks to Stephenie Meyer for keeping me sane today!