I'm so excited when each stage of our kitchen/dining room remodel is complete. It makes me anxious to share, but I know there's more "wow factor" coming.
I hate that saying "It is what it is" because it means we have to accept things as they are and, frankly, can't do a thing about it. Not that I'm a control freak or anything.
But last night was the do or die situation and I was thrilled with our first homerun putting my Twins up 1-0. But the final score was Houston 3, Minnesota 2. Damnation! A very tough "you're done with post-season" night so thus, no blog. Ugh!
Then this morning, God and Mother Nature teamed up to remind me there's so much more beyond baseball. I need a few days to process that and then I'm sure I'll believe it!
In the meantime, I'm taking Friday off – not to deal with post-season depression but our cabinet guys are coming in the next two days and I'm ultra excited for a new kitchen and dining room. Plus, I now have a massage scheduled for 8 a.m.
We can get through this!
We were thrilled today that our rock star painting squad got the kitchen and dining room walls painted in a single day. Hurray!
What a journey today from the beauty of Mother Nature to the beast of home improvement.
Only three appliances left. Everything else is gone! I cleaned up the remaining wallpaper shavings, etc. when I got home tonight. Then decided to take tomorrow off. I mean, we need a wedding card and I need to do my nails, etc.
Hopefully that ends up more beauty than beast!
After getting to work today and calculating what still needed to be done in the next 48 hours. I realized there weren't enough hours in the day. So I took the afternoon off and came home to resume sweating.
All the cupboards are officially out now. Kitchen sink included. And we're getting there with the wallpaper stripping. Who knew I'm not necessarily afraid of heights all the time? Still, I might have hubby finish that top part. I thought the warm water method was too slow and nonproductive so I went to Ace Hardward and got two spray things to help. I think they're working well. Just don't know if I have the energy to finish strong.
Unless I find a second wind here. It's only 8 p.m. I can do this!
It'll all be worth it in the end! I know this.
Hope y'all are having a relaxing week! Be careful out there – even if you're not on a tall ladder!
Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard to get her poor dog a bone...
But when she got there, the cupboard was filled with 40 tumblers...
And 3 dozen stadium cups... so there wasn't any room for a bone! And the poor dog got none. It's no wonder we don't have a dog!
Crazy what 20+ years of accumulation gets you. After putting the old cupboards up for sale and selling them in 5 minutes, it was time to get serious about emptying them. Spent most of Friday night and Saturday doing that while trying to get rid of stuff along the way. But we have to keep SOME things for sentimental reasons.
I mean the dishtowel drawer was a literal time capsule! I remember Carter wearing all these bibs! Yep, I definitely did cry!
Sunday afternoon was cabinet removal time. Thanks a million to Super Mike! Good to have a tall AND handy neighbor. We appreciated that so much.
With the cabinets gone, it was time to commence to wallpaper removal. There is a lot of wallpaper in our kitchen-dining room. And it is slow to remove because it was basically glued to drywall 3 decades ago so just when it seems the wallpaper is coming off easy, we realize the backing is still there. That requires warm water and scraping. And it is tedious.
Since our painter is coming Thursday, I took this afternoon off just to make some headway. Then Jim kept working on it while I was galavanting around, getting my previously scheduled after-work massage (perfect timing) and going to book club.
So I better put in another hour of labor before bedtime. Did I mention we have a wedding this weekend? Let's see how much we can squeeze into a 7-day period. Gah. I just hope the new cupboards won't be far behind. It took me 15 minutes to find my gum today!
Mother Hubbard over and out.
Pretty sure when we actually do become grandparents some years down the road we'll be pushovers. I mean when our grand-pup visit and she gives us this look, we'll give her anything!
Yup. Rey (Skywalker) is visiting us from Portland, Oregon. Oh, and she brought her human parents, too!
Just made us more excited for the wedding next weekend. And, of course, our ill-timed kitchen remodel. Hopefully things work around our need to be out of town.
And if I haven't mentioned the upgrade, it's only because we've been talking about it for 2 years and finally pulled the trigger and it's all hopefully coming together quickly. I even sold the "old" cabinets on Facebook in 5 minutes. And we haven't even taken them down yet. Guess I know how I'm spending the rest of the weekend!
Have a good one!
Today was our annual "work day" at my church. And a lot of Lutheran churches. We call it God's Work, Our Hands and we spend the morning doing service work at a few locations.
Today we had teams at two elementary schools doing indoor and outdoor improvements, doing yard work at an elderly member's home, painting and cleaning at The Family Center, and a team putting school kits and hygiene kits for Lutheran World Relief, along with some quilters boxing up their donations. Lots to do and lots of hard work. Proud to be a part of it – even though I was just the roving photographer.
Before I left church, I thought taking a picture of our Viking color-themed stained glass window would bring some luck to the season opener. That didn't work.
We probably jinxed it since we could actually watch it on TV because the Packers had the late game. And I couldn't stay awake the whole game. I know – it was a noon game! At halftime, I tipped back my recliner and put a blanket over my head to shut out the light and just like that, I was out like a light.
I woke up and it was the 4th quarter. So I can defend my team's outcome today since I'm not sure what all went wrong. I sure needed that nap, though!
After the game, I worked a few hours (still behind from being out of town a week), and shed my purple clothes for black.
We had some friends in town and we met them for dinner at Ida's at 5:30 p.m. Didn't realize that was such a popular hangout for Packers games. Ugh. Pretty loud in there with all that cheering. But we had a nice visit with Jim's former college roommate and his wife. And hopefully we'll connect with them again soon.
Home by dark (which comes way too early) and I may have to turn on my mattress pad. It's definitely football weather!
Had a much-needed distraction tonight in the form of a paint class with our Girls' Night Out crew. I had my friend Sara – or I should say my gnomie – come as my plus-one. Tonight's project was creating a gnome for the holidays.
Some white, gold and brown paint for background.
Add in phrase, nose, hat and feet.
Create the gnome. Mine's just a squishy little guy I want to hug!
Finish up the hat – including a pom-pom on top.
And ta-da! Our masterpieces are complete!
I love how everyone in our group had something a little different! That's art or you! No two alike.
I highly recommend trying this. Pretty sure I will again!
Grateful for friends and fun and creativity! #gratitudemonth
Whoever said "Beauty is in the eye of the ART-holder" was probably a mom. We definitely have that 100% biased opinion when it comes to our children's creative efforts. And there's no shame.
Day 10. Beautiful art.
I'll just bust into Mom Mode without hesitation. I always loved when Carter brought home "art" or made a special card. As with most kids, he made it with love and was bursting with pride. How can you not lavish praise in return. And of course, keep it forever. Or until it gets destroyed in a flooded basement or you downsize the art collection to fit into scrapbooks for safe keeping. I've had a little of both happen to me. And the boy's works.
Some I've just had in my office, which I didn't always get to look at until I started hanging out in here. 615 days ago. But who's counting?
A few frame-worthy ones...
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