He does give my opinion some consideration. After all, he does give me a heads-up. In the sense that he lets me know what has been cooking in his mind. Once he has completed one project it's on to another. I should have known. In 57 years of marriage that has been a constant.

It had taken him months to complete the new door he designed and executed for the powder room. Finally it was installed. Quite lovely, the brilliant glass and the underwater scene he designed beautiful. So, what next to do? Beats me. But not him, his febrile mind always on another prospect.

We could use a light, he said in the little hallway between the kitchen and laundry room. How about a bit of a drop-ceiling and a few pot-lights there? Really, do we really need light there? We've got on very well without one for over twenty years in this house.

So that settles it, we get a drop-ceiling and a few pot-lights. But we're not quite finished. He dislikes the way the powder room looks. Now that he's installed the new door with its exotic, colourful stained glass panel suitable for a watery atmosphere and matching the coloured porcelain tiles he had laid on the bathroom counter years ago in its original transformation, it could use an update. First, the foil wallpaper that I so admire gets stripped.

What?! The wallpaper! I like it, a lot! And the light fixture, it would be nice to replace it with something different, say two hanging fixtures side by side over the vanity? The light fixture with its oh-so-lovely glass shells? I love that fixture! This time I'm not going to roll over, I love the way the room looks, with its Victorian flair, the comfort and suitability of it. So forget it, think of something else, another kind of project, anything else.

Two days later, when I pass the powder room on my busy way through the house, doing the Monday house-cleaning I note that the powder room door is closed. He never closes that door. So I know what he's doing. And when next that door is opened there it is, that sound I heard was the wallpaper being stripped off the walls. And the light fixture has been taken down. Ditto that large beautifully silver-framed mirror. And he's measuring, planning to produce all manner of elegant woodwork to be installed in his new version of our powder room decor.

Bummer, eh?