Me Hunt. And Renovate. Oog oog.

The writing is on the wall. The Significant Other is battening down the hatches. She knows that A Project is about to begin.

About every eighteen months, I feel an urge to start A Project. This is a natural hormonal surge that all males experience. The Significant Other is unfortunate in that the male she is married to sometimes succumbs to these biochemical spikes. This time around, the neurotransmitters in my brain (a.k.a. the voices in my head) are telling me that it is time to do up the house.

Not that there is anything wrong with our house as it stands today. As far as I can tell, it is unlikely to fall down around our ears. But it's been ages since I had to buy a new tool. I could really do with an excuse to buy a drill. A nice big heavy drill with a sombre Black & Decker logo running down the side. And about sixty-seven different kinds of attachments that could be interchangeably attached to the drill to make different kinds of holes.

(I really need to buy a drill. An orange drill. Don't ask me why it has to be orange. That's like asking why I paid an extra twenty dollars to get a red hard drive instead of a black one. Her name is Rowen, by the way. I haven't yet decided what to name the drill. If I had, that would be bad luck, wouldn't it?)

Not all the fun in A Project lies in buying new stuff; a lot of it is in getting rid of old stuff. I was quite pleased that once The Project had formally begun at about five this evening, within an hour I had gotten rid of my first piece of furniture. That's much better than how my last Project fared. That one had a rocky beginning. I tried to give away some of my stuff to the Salvation Army but they refused to take it! Apparently my furniture was not good enough to be given away for free to the underprivileged in Singapore, That really made me feel good about myself.

Coming back to the present, this time round things are looking good. I've gotten rid of my evil sofa. I have started planning all the holes that I am going to drill. And I have a bunch of holidays coming up in which I will alternate between pottering around the house with a measuring tape, and slobbering through the aisles of the nearest DIY store. All in all, The Project looks like heading to a glorious conclusion.

It must be said that the Significant Other is more cautious in her enthusiasm. So far she has deftly batted away hopeful suggestions such as "How about if we just put in a new kitchen in place of the old one?" or "Should we knock down a couple of walls?" Apparently these ideas do not fall within my mandate, which is to accomplish a minor makeover of the house while not doing anything that would be a permanent monument to my poor taste.

It promises to be an entertaining fortnight ahead.