So recently the Super A-List Blogger of All Time remodeled her bathroom and blogged about it. Usually I’m not a fan. Without kids, I have limited interest in mommy bloggers. Especially a mommy blogger who earns a six figure income from blogging, has a house husband available 24/7 to help with all things, one kid in pre-school half the day, but still keeps throwing up posts about how she’s just barely holding on by a thread. The mommies I know either have jobs, or multiple kids, husbands that work long hours full time, a fraction of her income and still manage to do, as the Red Queen said, “six impossible things before breakfast.”

So here’s the new Dooce bathroom. You call that decorating? There’s not a Kachina or cow skull in sight.
But recently I skipped over to her site and stayed to read about the remodel. Ha! Remodel Smeemodel. As far as I can tell, they took out the old vanity, tiled about a 2 foot by 4 foot bit of floor, slapped in an Ikea vanity and got a new rug. You wanna see a remodel? You’ve got to see an Andy remodel. Start with a San Francisco Victorian that has been through more than a 100 years of earthquakes, so nothing is square, plumb or sound. Then turn Andy loose to slam through a wall with a sledgehammer on a whim because he’s decided he’d like to build a recreation of an English Pub or a wine celler or a media room. Then be aware that these incidents usually take place two weeks before visitors arrive or you have to leave for a trip. In the twenty years we’ve lived here, we’ve probably rebuilt every corner of this house three times over. Now we live in a place so eccentric, we call it Winchester Mystery House North. And we’re trying to do it all again on a grander scale in Sonoma. With bobcats, coyotes and Mountain Lions.
So back to Dooce. Her little bathroom facelift post got more than 400 impassioned comments. FOUR HUNDRED! And that was before she closed comments. Seems the Interwebs care deeply, deeply I tell you, about what Dooce and Jon do to their bathroom. The passion. The debates. The online world, apparently, is divided into two and only two groups: those who LOOOOOOOVE the remodel and those who don’t (and are roundly screamed down as “Haters” by the Dooce-Groupies.)

Let’s see Dooce blog with a Mountain Lion breathing down her neck? I do it.
Am I jealous? Hell, yeah! Where are my comments? I’m serving up mouse-tinged winemaking, Rube Goldberg wine processing systems, adventures in the wacky world of almost biodynamic farming, cowboy decorating. Then there is the great artisan team, wonderful eccentric characters like Pasha the Mad Ukranian and John the Baptist. And I get a half a dozen comments at best? Where are my Haters?
C’mon. Bring it on. Tell me I’m doing it all wrong. Divide yourself into two armed camps and shout at each other in my comments fields. Show some passion. Gotta life? Well, lose it and get all involved at Left Coast Cowboys. I’m not asking for much. I’m not looking for Dooce-like blog revenue. But I would like my Google Adsense money to keep me in coffee. Currently I can’t cover the occasional mocha. Even with the 5¢ discount for bringing my own cup.
What do I have to do here? Is it the kid? Okay, I’ll get a kid. My God Daughter, who is currently The Most Beautiful Baby in the World, appears here with some regularity. I’ll bring her front and center stage if that’s what it takes. I’m shameless that way.
Here it is, a completely gratuitous shot of an adorable kid. (Photograph courtesy of her mom.)

Ten gallon hat on a one gallon head.
lol…ok here’s a comment but I can’t say anything bad with little A peering out at me
Do try not to be so timid when writing posts 😉
300 comments before closing comments. That’s insane. There is nothing remarkable about the remodel so far as I can see with my untrained eye. OK so maybe I’m jealous, too 😀
If only your Eastern Bloc visitors would leave some comments every now and then – gosh! You’d be rivaling Dooce!
I’m absolutely convinced I’m bigger than Dooce in Albania. Three Albanian visitors popped by just this morning.
Hysterical. And here I thought I was the only one who wasn’t a big fan! Maybe I’m too old for this crap, but honestly, she whinges SO much. Somehow, I can’t see the drama.
Perhaps raising four kids and moving 14 times, across 4 countries and 10 states, has just made me jaded and tired and unable to appreciate the tragicomic theatre that is Utah. I don’t know. Is it me?
Love your post. Adorable baby pic! (And I don’t even like babies that much!)
I really don’t think that counts as a remodel.
If it can be done in one trip to Ikea, it is more of a make over.
If you get into six figures by posting pictures of the light of the universe, then good for you! I’ll be trying the same thing.
As for Dooce… I’ll raise my arms and ‘join a camp’ about that.
Can you hear me laughing down here in Bakersfield. My husband must be like your Andy. He is continually remodeling something. This has gone on for so long that years ago, my mother-in-law called our house Winchester South! Riot.
Oooh. We’re all over the mountain lions – very cool! But remodeling? I some how doubt that anyone would want to hear about us turning our ‘fixer-upper’ into some million dollar retreat – mostly because we hire someone who does the work for us, and we hide in the bedroom while he and his crew works. Do-it-yourself-ers, we are NOT. (And not so interested in reading about people who are All Into It. Just shoot me…)
I’m not sure this counts as a remodel, but I’ve got a post percolating on the two tiered green composting system and the three tiered manure composting systems we built with our own fair hands. Let Dooce do that! Dr. Liz, you can just abstain from reading that post, unless a Mountain Lion wanders by. Then I’ll include those exciting details.
Yeah. I read that post, and I’m happy to hear that even bloggers with six-figure incomes and (semi) handy husbands who help out still make totally stupid design decisions and shop at IKEA.
Blame it on hormones.
And, by the way? The photos were all WAY overexposed.
Ooooh, I’m getting some Dooce Hate here. But what about my Haters? I want people duking it out in my comments section either roundly condemning or unconditionally cheering what we do. Then fighting each other over their opinions. C’mon, take the gloves off.
Ok. I’m not much of a fighter, but here’s my take on Dooce. I’ve followed her for quite awhile trying to figure out why she’s so popular. She lucked out with her daughter. Leta is quite the character. But, what I think readers must go for has to be Dooce’s slight potty mouth. Dooce herself calls it ‘edgy.’ I call it something that would get my comment thrown out. So I say that you need to put more potty words and phrases in your blog to drive up your readership. Forget about intelligent, witty, or adventurous writing. Go for a potty mouth. Throw in over exposed photos of your bathroom (pictures of a potty help) for good measure. You might even want to write about the potty training of your God daughter if you run out of ideas. Either that, or get a dog that eats poop. Good luck!
Sandybee
I bet you are bigger than Dooce in Grand Rapids too! I read all of your posts and have never heard of Dooce (and don’t think I will read her after this heart felt introduction). Coyotes and goats and rodeos and Ten Gallon Hats are more than enough for me. Keep writing (and taking picture).
Poop, you say? (Although we prefer the British “poo”.) This is the place that has regularly shown you Coyote Poo, Mountain Lion Poo and lots of Fox Poo — all identified from “The Bumper Book of Poo” (also known as Peterson’s Field Guide to Western Wildlife.)
And we’ve got the poo eating dog. He also finds rotting animal carcasses and eats them. Then poos. Yeah, we got the poo thing covered.
I don’t get hate either…or not to my blog face…
I could say that I hate you..but that would require energy and a reason other than jealousy for your mountain lion poo or something like that.
I guess I could get more readers if exaggerated my battles with racoons or my freaky neighbours or something.
I don’t read dooce….I just frankly don’t get it apart from her being one of the first to have a big story around her blogging.
any sort of adoration is sort of creepy
Nothing is going to pry me from the D-list, though I note with some perverse pride that the bathroom tile in my 1940s house was identical to the tile in the last remaining Beverly’s, home of Chicken in the Rough (est. 1921), which was a mile or so from my house and was displaced by, of all things, a Talbots.
The amount of adoration I expect for this revelation is somewhere on the wrong side of the square root of minus 1.
If you ever figure out the comment secret, PLEASE, PLEASE, let the rest of us know. I too face what seem to be the same troubles you have, people feeling free to say things on FB, etc, but loathe to leave a comment on the BLOG for christsakes! The traffic is there, but the comments are MIA! What is the deal people!?!? Type in a “You Rock!” or “You Suck!” We can take it!!!!
BTW, You Rock!!! Haters beware! 🙂
good info.
that was a nice read
That was a nice read
good info.thanks!
great article. thanks!
I have to say I stumbled on you doing a search and you had me spitting out coffee at my desk.
Great post!
We’ll take the side of “We love you!” Now what about some pics of your bathroom eh? Actually, nevermind.
~RM2
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the great work Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
After finding Andy on FB, through another old school friend I have been avidly reading through your new & old blog’s. Have to laugh at most of them, specially as my wife Pm has the same problems with her Brit (me) as you do with Andy..
We are up here on the coast in Southern Oregon, mayhap’s we will have a little road trip down south one of these day’s an come visiting…
Love the blogs, keep them coming..
Yes, people ask if I ever run out of things to write about. I answer: not as long as I’m married to a Brit.
I don’t get the whole Dooce thing. I tried, because honestly…there must be something intrigueing about her if so many people need to chime in regarding bathroom decor. It’s like the “50 Shades” thing; hugely popular and yet it fails to move me. I therefore suspect I am either not-quite-female enough to ‘get’ it (inferior genetic makeup) or I am far more intelligent than the average person and therefore realize it’s utter crap (superior genetic makeup). Being unable to decide whether I am inferior/superior keeps me humble. Then again, it could simply be a matter of preference and I am over-thinking it. I find Dooce incredibly boring. Her website is a neat tidy stack of archives and “lookie over here” type of pictures and nice fonts and such, but I have no desire to ever go back and read anything from her again. And Jon’s infamous vagueposts smack of late 20’s-something grad student scribbling poetry after a pot-smoking session. Blah and ugh.
This excdellent website really has all the information I needed concerning this subject and didn’t know who to ask.