They say it's progress

There's a New York City utility that has the slogan, "Dig we must". It's one of those cute excuses for tearing up city streets and forcing inconvenient detours. We have plenty of those in Los Angeles too, but the utilities make no excuse--cute or otherwise. When we are confronted with constricted highways with lanes temporarily removed and the long, creeping traffic behind, we sarcastically remind each other that this is "progress".

Well now the same thing is happening to our house! No sleeping in around here. At precisely 8 this morning we were startled with what sounded like we were inside a snare drum that was being unmercifully beaten with rapid strokes. We asked for an extension on our tiny living room, and this is what we get. Things inevitably must get worse before they get better. Yesterday I saw them carrying away the pieces of my lovely back porch. When I said, "I changed my mind. Put it all back.", they only laughed at me as if I were kidding. It all looks so clean and neat on the architect's drawings. We were warned that soon we will have no back steps. I suppose some provision will be made to access the garage and back yard, at least something short of jumping three feet to the ground.

How long must we endure this noisy inconvenience? Let's see. The architect said they should be able to do it all in about 6 weeks. Wow, we were quite favorably impressed when we heard that. Then we talked to the contractor who laughed and said, "No, it will take 3 months. Something always happens." But there is already one delay that has been avoided, and that is for the approval of the architect's proposal. He was rather shocked himself when he was able to get approval within two weeks. He was able to recall a project that waited 14 months just for the final approval--before the work actually began!

So here too, we have to acknowledge our Heavenly Father, supervising the work for us.