Last night, we threw the switch on our new lights—well, both switches. This marks the first working three-way switch in the entire house. We also have eight working outlets to choose from, instead of one. Halleleujah!

Unfortunately, our sleuthing uncovered more asstacular wiring in the basement. My electrician says the strange arrangement of cable runs and junction boxes points to lazy work by contractors of questionable pedigree—they used scrap wire rolling around in the back of the truck instead of using new runs. So our bill will get larger as he replaces the fire-hazards, but I’ll sleep better at night knowing the house won’t burn down when I plug a lamp in the odd socket in the dining room.

I had to build a new partition wall for the bathroom two nights ago so that he could install outlets and switches, something that I haven’t done in a long time. All of my measuring and re-measuring worked out perfectly, though: the walls are square and true with each other, thank god.