(Just wanna whine for a minute)

(This post is in parenthesis because I just want to write down some frustrations to figure out why their bothering me so much. I want you to know about them, but I also DON'T want you to know about them because they're really not that bad and hardly worth complaining about.)

(Feel free to ignore the rest.)

(Our kitchen cabinets are going to be delivered next week. Yay, right? Well, sorta. I thought Home Depot would be kind enough to hold on to them for us, but it turns out they're getting delivered to MY HOUSE! A whole WEEK before the guys can even begin demolition! Where the heck am I going to put them?! I'm already emptying out my kitchen and half the guest room into the front room. What more do they want from me?!)

(Then demolition will take a week, starting 11 April. Three days of demo before I can even ask the flooring people to come measure. Then after the measure, it's 3 more business days for electrical, plumbing, and drywall to go in. That's a whole week to transform my kitchen from functional to a barren hole with four walls. Didn't think it would take that long to render the heart of my home useless.)

(Then nothing more can be done until the flooring is installed...which could take weeks to get the materials AFTER the measure (28 April?). Then at least a week to install the floor.)

(Then the cabinets go in (5 May?), but no counter tops or running water for another 3 WEEKS!! That's Memorial Day, folks. I sense an upcoming spike in our "eating out" budget.)

(I'm dying out here! But I have no room to complain because I'm paying them to do this really big transformation for me.)

(I guess it boils down to my preparation level. I kinda knew it would cost a lot of money, but I was ill prepared for the time and inconvenience costs. I should have done more homework before signing on.)

(Eureka!)

(And that's why I write these things out. My outrage has now tamed into watchful patience: it was my poor preparation, not the process itself, that has caused this frustration. Now I can deal with it.)

(Therefore, my priorities this weekend include prepping a space in the house to store all the new cabinets, then prepping another space in the house to act as our transitional, sink-free, stove-free, oven-free, counter-free kitchen space for the next 6-8 weeks.)

It's a butterfly. She got this at the school's "Academic Carnival" last night.

He told me to tell the face painter, "Surprise me!"

Our current "mudroom" area, crammed between three doorways. I even tidied it up for you :) This space will be transformed during the kitchen remodel to give us more space for putting on coats, shoes, backpacks, and such.