Reading between the snowballs and some bonus home-repair fun.

So, how are the kids adjusting to having a new step dad? I'd say pretty well. I came home from work last week to find this on my doorstep:

A heart-shaped snowball.

Etched with M+M (Mom + Mark).

Ignore the door in bad need of a paint job, will you? With the direction to fix peeling paint, the sellers did a shoddy patch job and we just haven't had the time to paint it properly.

I've been promising pictures of the new/old casa for some time and would you believe it, this is the best I can do?

Blurry, I know.

It's a 196o's Colonial with 5 bedrooms and 2 and a half baths. Coming from a cramped townhouse, it feels like a mansion. The moment we stepped inside during an open house, Mark and I knew we were home.

The house needs some work, but I wouldn't classify it as a fixer-upper. The kitchen and bathrooms are definitely dated, but everything works and can be lived with for a while.

Obsessed by DIY shows or house porn, as a friend calls them, we decided to tackle a smallish project first: the half bath.

Behold: Stark walls, faux red brick floors and tiled vanity.

The counter top is something you'd find in a high school locker room.

No matter how hard I scrub, that grout will not come clean. It's beyond gross.

So Mark started in a few weekends ago. He tore out the vanity, ripped up the floor and removed a hideous nautical-themed medicine cabinet. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Wrong.

When disconnecting the water, the valves broke off in his hand. Then, when installing a GFI switch to get the wiring up to code, he had to tear into the wall to install a larger switch box. Despite these obstacles, he's never gotten mad. He just sips his coffee, scratches his head and gives a thoughtful, "Hmmm."

Once he sent me a text that read: It's a good thing we bought a house close to Menard's.

While I'd love to be in there helping him, my role has been limited to that of gopher. There's just no room in there for the two of us. We'd be working back to back in close quarters and no matter how much I'd love to be in there, I value my marriage too much.

So I watch him work and help when I can. To date, the room is gutted, rewired, patched and painted -- all completed on weekends and a few weeknights. And I think the trip tally to the home-improvement store is around six.

Remind me to buy stock in Menard's.