It’s hard to run your life this way.

You know there are many reasons that the kitchen experience has been difficult.  First of all, this is really the biggest project that I’ve ever undertaken, with the possible exception of all of the wedding sewing I did for Cindy Lynn’s wedding.  But seriously, between sewing and sanding, sewing is like play and sanding is, well, hard work!

The hardest thing about the kitchen so far has been having to actually take the kitchen apart, have it covered in plastic and dust, and yet need to keep feeding our family!

 

I kept some basics in the kitchen on the table,

but everything else has to be located each time we need it.  It might be by the shoe bench,

in the school room (aka the dining room)

Or somewhere in the living room.

Can you see why this is making me crazy?!?

 

We can’t do anything to the just painted cabinet carcasses for several more days, because it takes 5 days for the paint to cure.  (Did you know that?  I didn’t.)  So tomorrow’s task to is continue cleaning up the mess and to put shelf lining in the top cabinets.  Then I can start putting the stuff away that goes on those shelves.

I would have started on that today—just because I want the mess gone.  But wise Russ told me that I couldn’t, and he was so right.  Instead I had a 3 hour nap (much needed) and I can start tomorrow refreshed from my Sabbath break. 

The end is in sight.  (sort of.)  Right???

It gets worse before it gets better…

With the kitchen so totally and completely out of control for the last 3 days we’ve been eating in…(wait for it)…the dining room!  Which would sound totally normal, except for the fact that our dining room is set up as a school room and not for eating.  And is partially filled with stuff from the kitchen right now.  But hey, hungry beggers can’t be choosers.  So this is where we’ve been eating.

After more sanding and more sanding and some spackling and more sanding and some priming and EVEN MORE SANDING and a quick escape to see Breaking Dawn with Clark, Amy, and Emmett, then I was back for the last sanding, wiping everything down, and the tedious hand painting.  (Inside edges of openings.)  Then it was time for the main event—the spraying.

At first it went HORRIBLY.  The paint sprayer really has a lot of pressure, and it was blowing my plastic all around and getting too much paint on the cabinets.  Fortunately after only doing one section Russ came down and when I told him I needed less pressure he obligingly told me that there was an adjustment and turned it down.  Hooray!  From that point things went quite a bit better, although I do think I got overspray on the floor near the oven.  But hey, I’ve pretty much decided we need to do a new floor too…

If you think it looks insane, well, it feels insane.  Which is why I’m still awake.  I can’t spray a second coat until 4 hours after the first coat, and IT MUST BE FINISHED TONIGHT!!!  Not that I feel strongly or anything…

 

Just in case my working on the kitchen wasn’t enough fun for the day, we had a couple of other things going on.  First, the guy who inspected our furnaces the other day found that something (part of the well system) was leaking in the crawl space.  So Russ went under there and shut off the water for a while so he could replace the defective piece.  Then our favorite electrician came over to help us out.  When we bought the house there was a cooktop in the island and a built in oven that was so small it wouldn’t fit a cookie sheet.  We quickly determined that I would burn the house down because I couldn’t keep the island clean, so we did a little remodel in the back corner of the kitchen.  We took out the cook top and built in oven and put a regular stove/oven combo.  Over the years we have noticed that we could only use 3 of the burners if we turned the oven on—otherwise it would trip the breaker.  Then lately it would trip the breaker with two burners and the oven!  I decided that we needed that fixed before Thanksgiving.  The electrician started working to put in a heaver duty wire/breaker.  All of a sudden he said “I hear water—do you hear water?”  He had taken out a screw that was holding the outlet that Russ had installed, and realized that 10 years ago Russ had put that screw through a water pipe!  So for 10 years that screw has been in that pipe, and when it came out it was a very big leak.  Russ ran back under the house and shut the water off again, then ran to Lowes for supplies to fix it.  It was an exciting couple of minutes.

 

It’s almost time to go spray again, so I’ll say goodnight.  And whine that my body hurts.  Russ says he can’t imagine why…

The project from you know where

Up until today I have done ok with the kitchen cabinet project.  I’ve been working steadily on it since October 24th.  Sure, there have been moments when I couldn’t face sanding one more door, but overall it’s been ok.  Yesterday was amazing—I started working at 4AM and then worked until 11:30, left for some appointments, had a 1 hour nap, and worked from 5 until I left for book club at 8.  I was energized and happy the whole day.

I had emptied the cabinets on Wednesday and sanded them all.

The first thing I did Thursday in the wee hours of the morning was to wipe everything down and cover all of the not-to-be-painted surfaces. 

I also covered the doorways because I knew when I sanded that primer it was going to make a mess.  When I sanded the primer on the doors and drawers I did it out on the driveway, and most of the time there was a nice breeze to blow all of that chalky powder away. 

Then I primed.  Everything.  Twice.  (But not Russ—he is prime already.  And primed.)

After my dentist appointment I came back and started sanding the primer.  I sanded, and sanded, and sanded.  I sanded till my sweats were stiff with powder, until the air was thick it, until my hands were caked white and I had ruined the velcro on the sander.  My face was even white.  It was everywhere.

That was where I left things last night when I hopped in the shower before I left for book club.   I assumed that today I would have just an incredible of a work day as yesterday.  I even arranged for a friend to take my kids so that I could do the spraying without worrying about them.

Instead, I spent HOURS wiping every surface (and the insides of all of the cabinets to get the primer dust up.  HOURS. 

Then I spent more HOURS putting paper/plastic inside of the cabinets so that when I spray it won’t all go in the cabinets.  I know that timewise it would have been so much smarter to just brush the cabinet and drawer fronts, but I am in love with the finish this sprayer makes—hard & glossy, no brush or roller marks show at all.  It will be worth it in the end, I know.  But boy was this a pain.  First I tried the paper—it seemed like that would work the best.  It was a total pain to work with.  Then I tried the thick plastic.  Even worse, since the tape wouldn’t stick well to it.  Then I finally tried the thin plastic, which I had been so sure would be way too unwieldy.  It worked great!  At that point I finally decided that I would survive masking the remaining cabinets—up until that point I had been wondering.

If you want to know what Russ spent his day doing, look up at the tops of the cabinets.  Yep, he installed crown molding on all of the cabinets (except for around the fridge because we’re still working on that cabinet) and it was no small task.  Especially over the stove where the cabinet sticks out more than the ones on either side.  I think the molding really dresses up the cabinets & am excited to see how that adds in the end.

I had hoped & planned to get the spraying done tonight but it just didn’t happen.  Everything took such a long time and then I hadn’t planned on the nail holes in the molding having to be filled with spackle & dry.  I finally decided that I’ll just have to spray tomorrow morning & evening, and call it good.  In between I’m going with Clark & Amy to see Breaking Dawn…it should be a good break!

Please tell me that today was the worst day and that it will get better from here!?!?!

I ♥ Book Club

[I feel a need to post again about something I love. Then later I will try to put up new pictures of my kitchen and the disaster it is today, I promise!]

Last night was book club. I missed book club last month because I felt pretty strongly that I shouldn’t abandon my poor husband for the entire night when he had just been laid off. But I missed it and the wonderful women who go, and last night you could not have kept me away.

First we had a great discussion of the book, which was “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” This was an interesting book for me to be reading after finding out that Russ had been laid off. It definitely gave me perspective on what it is to be truly poor. I always enjoy hearing all of the different and ideas and insights that everyone has while reading the same book. Then, after a decent amount of discussion we drift into talking about whatever we want to.

Last night someone pointed out something—that our book club discussions, which are always lively, have never been about gossip, or husband bashing, or things that we go away from feeling somehow worse off than we were before. We talk about anything and everything; funny stories, frustrations, parenting questions, struggles, and gospel topics. Every time I leave I feel enriched with my association with these fine women. I feel supported, I feel my burdens lightened from the laughter, and I feel like I want to be a better woman.

What a blessing this is in my life.

I’m With You…

I’ve always been a little traumatized by the story of Ruth and Naomi.  Naomi’s two sons marry, and then die.  Naomi tells her daughters-in-law that she is going back to Bethlehem, and that they should return to their families or remarry.  One does, but the other, Ruth, will not.  In what must be one of the most beautiful verses in scripture she says,

Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.   Ruth 1:16

I can’t remember what I thought of this story before I was married, but I know exactly what I thought about it after.  “She leaves her family and goes off with her mother-in-law???” would have been my exact thought.  My mother-in-law is a good woman.  She raised my husband, and I will be forever grateful to her for that.  Her children are, without a doubt, the nicest and hardest working people I know.  But she and I are not exactly…kindred spirits…  The thought of losing my husband and then leaving my family to follow her to another country has always seemed ridiculous.

 

Earlier this week I was in the car and had the Christian radio station on.  I’ve heard an advertisement several times now for a new collection of songs based on stories from the Old Testament.  Wouldn’t you know, the commercial plays a sample from the song about Ruth and Naomi.

The next day I was in the car again and the song was playing.  The chorus is catchy and played in my mind every now and then yesterday while I was emptying and sanding the cabinets.

You and me,
Me and you,
Where you go I'll go too,
I'm with you,
I'm with you.

 

I woke much too early this morning. After laying in bed for 45 minutes it was clear that there was too much on my mind for me to be able to go back to sleep.  I had already been worried about today—I’d like to be able to spray the cabinets tomorrow, but I have several things going on today and so I won’t be able to spend as much time as I’d like prepping, priming, and sanding.  I finally decided that I might as well get out of bed and get some work done, rather than continue to lay there and be frustrated. (The shock on Josh’s face when he got up at 5AM and found me downstairs working was pretty excellent too!)

As I was covering surfaces and putting down painters tape the lines of the song came into my mind again.  Once again I rehearsed my objections to the story—why on earth would she be willing to leave her family and follow her mother-in-law to a strange place?  This was especially puzzling to me today, not knowing when and especially where Russ is going to be able to find a new job.  The thought of needing to sell my house saddens me deeply, but the idea of leaving Durham is gut wrenching a deeper level.  It is one thing to say that I trust God’s plan, but I am finding that actually living that trust is a whole different matter.  How then could Ruth just leave everything she had known, both her family and her place, to follow Naomi?

 

And then it hit me.  Ruth wasn’t just following Naomi.  It never was just about a relationship with her mother-in-law.  Ruth was following God.  She must have known that she was following His plan for her, and that was enough reason for her to leave family and home.

 

I already know that Russ & I will follow God’s plan for us as we come to understand what it is.  That is who we are, as individuals, as a couple, and as a family.  My hope is that I can follow His plan with the same kind of dignity Ruth had. And in the end I won’t be singing to Naomi, but to Him.

You and me,
Me and you,
Where you go [send me] I'll go too,
I'm with you,
I'm with you.

Seriously, People?

I just ordered some glue on Amazon to try to fix a broken vase.  Much to my surprise this popped up when I was done:

First it was google awarding badges for reading news stories, now Amazon thinking I want/need to tweet everyone in the world to tell them I bought glue.  What is this world coming to???

(And how on earth will you ever keep Christmas presents a secret now?  Cuz don’t they all come from Amazon?)

 

And while I’m taking screenshots, here’s one of a piece of spam that managed to get through my filter.  I haven’t been able to bring myself to delete it though…that’s some promise! 

Kitchen Pictures

No, don’t get all excited.  The kitchen is NOT finished, and it will not be finished before Thanksgiving as I had hoped in the beginning.  My new hope is that everything will be back in cabinets/drawers by Thanksgiving…we’ll see if that happens.

Here are some pictures of my work in progress, mostly for my sisters who keep asking for them!

 

First, the kitchen as it was.

Next, the kitchen as it looks now.  I’m almost done taking stuff out of cabinets, but still need to take things off of the top of the cabinets.

Last, my row of primed drawers, and my uniform for the last two weeks.  I even went to the dentist this way, if you can believe it!  (I did brush my hair though.)

If Russ doesn’t find a job maybe I’ll go into business as a cabinet painter.  Now that I’ve figured out (the hard way) how to do it….