"What do you call it when everything intersects?" "The Bermuda Triangle."*

You haven't heard much from me the last few days, because my life basically became crazy busy stressed. They say that everything has to do with timing. Each event on its own would have been easy to handle, but when all happen at the same time, you have a CT Mom who is stressed to the limit and living with a family who avoided me at all costs. There's something to be said for intuitively knowing when to clear the room.

So here's what's been going on:

Stressor #1: Bathroom renovation

We have one full and one half bath in our modest home. The half bath was renovated in 2005 when we did our kitchen renovation. The full bath got a cosmetic upgrade in 2002, but it was really showing its wear. After realizing that we might have a mold issue with the full bath, we decided to take some savings and do a full renovation (except for the tub and surround, which were done by BathFitters and didn't need replacing). We contracted the work back in March, but our contractor wasn't available until June 15, and he finished today. The results are wonderful (I will post pictures later) and well worth the inconvenience. But for 10 days, I couldn't use the upstairs where my office is, and each day would end with the question "So can I take a shower tomorrow?" because there were days when we could not be in the bathroom. Many are happy that I work from home.

The renovation would have been easier to handle, if I also wasn't dealing with:

Stressor #2 - Studying for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification

I avoided and procrastinated taking this certification exam for several years. I had all the classroom hours and professional experience to qualify, but I kept postponing actually applying and making that commitment to sit for the exam. Procrastination has its price - my company used to give out bonuses for professional certifications, which they quietly discontinued last year as part of the wave of cost cutting and decimating any real incentive to pursue these designations to begin with. But when I heard the exam was changing as of July 1, I knew I couldn't put it off any longer.

So while the contractor was ripping out drywall and laying tile, I'd spend my days learning about things like earned value management and integrated change control and nights taking online practice exams. Not being able to use my office, managing the kids before and after school with half the house basically unusable and trying to remember terms like scope planning got very old very quickly. I am pleased to say I did take my exam today and I passed.

It does seem ironic that both stressors started and ended on the same day. Luckily the girls were still in school, or I don't know what I would have done. They probably would have tried to find a different family to live with until their mother started acting more normal (a rather broad term).

Bathroom renovation done. Exam over. School's out. Now our summer can begin.

Whew.

*Thank you, Nora Ephron - Sleepless in Seattle