Busy day

Today is a very busy day - especially for a weekday! I had a comp day today for working this weekend, and so everything got scheduled....

We had new picture windows put in the front (thanks to Barb for helping to get us going on that). We now get a beautiful view of our neighborhood. And our neighbors get a great view of us. :)

Our new couch was finally delivered!!!!



















A few more doors put on in the kitchen....

And I went to the MN State Fair to volunteer for the Minnesota Physical Therapy Association. We are conducting balance testing in the KARE 11 Health Building. Stop on by to get screened!

Speaking of the Fair... My aunt won 1st place for her counted cross-stitch sampler she made for our wedding. Gorgeous!!!

Household frustrations

A few fun things have occurred lately...

We had a fun flying visitor last night - a bat that Becky got up and rescued out of its pattern of flying in circles around our bedroom at 4a. I'm assuming it climbed in through one of the many tiny holes that we still have in our roof - and that are attached to our bedroom via the closet that will have trapdoor access to the kitchen attic at some point (now open).

Countertop was purchased from Menards (our favorite store) a week ago, and we called our contractor to install it. He came, he looked, and determined he couldn't do it without a miter box. Well, we went to our favorite store today, and the guys there strongly recommended that we did not try to cut or laminate countertop into the needed sections - that we should custom order it. Well, that will mean another 2+ weeks without countertop and without a sink and dishwasher. A call is out to the contractor to see if this is what he needs us to do (if so, it was not clearly communicated last week).

We picked up 2 missing doors from our Ikea kitchen order - only one more to go!

Here's the current kitchen progress:

Kitchen Progress!!!

Our Ikea cabinets arrived, flat packed and in 73 boxes last week. John brought them all in and started sorting them into the appropriate piles to be assembled. Yesterday was my first real day of being able to think of putting things together, and this is how far I got:
















Those on the left are our overhead cabinets for the west wall (the one with the skink and fridge). Ikea's system is really sweet - you mount a metal track to the studs, slide fasteners into the track, and hook your cabinet to the fasteners. This way, they're all level, but easy to slide together to complete the mounting. Once I get John's help to lift them on, it should be a piece of cake!

Assembling the cabinets isn't too bad once you get the steps down. All of the directions are pictorials - since they are an international company - and so it's kind of like following Lego assembly instructions. Sometimes you need to stare at the picture for a minute to figure out what the orientation of the pieces needs to be. Luckily, all of the cabinets have the same basic structure, so it's like clockwork now. :-)

We rescued a neighbor that has been having horrible migranes from two of her children (ages 2 and 4) for a few hours. We ran an errand (after stealing a carseat from their van), played with playdough and ate Mac & Cheese (from the box - didn't have time to make it from scratch). Just was we were getting desert from Barbara next door, their Mom woke up feeling much better. Hopefully the head will cooperate today....

John had a poker party last night - 10 were scheduled to come, but 4 showed. They seemed to be having fun while I was working on the kitchen.

Wednesday night is John's last night at Widmer's!!! Of course, he has been asked if he can work one more day since his boss is out of town until Thursday night. What part of "last day" do you not understand?

Reclaiming the bedroom

As many of you know, our bedroom as served as a storage space since we moved in on October 23rd last year. John and I loaded our boxes of stuff into our downstairs bedroom, and quickly went upstairs to sleep in our temporary bedroom up there. Therefore, most of the boxes in our bedroom haven't been touched in 9+ months.

In the last week or so, we got the electric range plug installed (the only forward movement in the kitchen since the last posting), and so we decided that it was finally time to move the range and dishwasher out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. This opened up a huge amount of space in our bedroom, and also revealed all of the dust bunnies that had multiplied. Yuck.

This weekend, John traveled to Kansas City with his brothers to watch the Twins crush the Royals and inch closer to the Wild Card spot. And I had a three day weekend alone to unpack, organize, and clean. And that I did almost exclusively for about 2 days - ending with steak dinner with the in-laws and sister-in-law-to-be. A good time was had by all, and I feel great that I have been so productive. Our bookshelves are full, many boxes have been broken down, and we have a sizeable pile of things for a garage sale/to be sold on Borders.com or Ebay. We might even be able to hang pictures on the wall soon! Yippie!

With all of this reclaimed space in the bedroom, I have been dreaming of how to re-arrange and remodel the space. John and I have been talking about taking out the window just off the back porch (John's worried about the security risk), but since I don't want to loose the light source, add in a short height, wide window near the ceiling. (Our neighbor works for a window company and dropped off a perfect example of what I was envisioning...) I am excited about the prospect of what the bedroom will be, but am debating if we should do the construction yet this fall, or wait until next year.


Here's some fun dates coming up:
1. Kitchen cabinets arriving - any day now!
2. John's last day at Widmer's - Aug 16th
3. Installation of new picture windows in the front! - Aug 24th
4. Trip to San Francisco - Labor Day weekend
5. John's first year of full time teaching starting - Sept 5th
6. Open house/1 year of homeownership party - Sept 16th or 30th