When I should be doing homework . . .

We got notification that our cabinets will be delivered about March 9th, so suddenly we're in high gear to pick out our granite and to get started packing up the kitchen so we can do the demolition work. We're going to do it ourselves because the quote was astronomical; we will also be hiring our own drywall/sheetrock guy and our own electrician. We have a lot of work ahead of us (and a lot of mess). So Saturday we spent most of the day driving around looking at granite. I thought I knew what I wanted, but it's much harder when you are actually looking at stuff. I fell in love with this, called Greenpeace:

It was a lot more green than what I thought I wanted, but it was gorgeous. Until I found out it is $27 a square foot and the most expensive piece of granite in the place. Oh yeah, leave it to me.

After visits to a few other places I came back with these samples:



Okay, this is a lousy photo so it's hard to see the colors, but I will proceed. First, I found the really dark one, which is an extremely dark green called Ubatuba. I was pretty sure that was what I wanted. But Martin pointed out how dark the kitchen would be especially given how small it is. Good point.

Then I found the other two - the lightest one is a nice sage-y green called Typhoon, very pretty, but maybe too gray for me. I tend to like warmer colors. Then I found that medium green. It's a "golder" green, a nice medium tone, neither too light, nor too dark, called Katana Pearl. We thought we'd take them home and see how we felt about it. We'd been spending our time also thinking about the backsplash - tile? granite? if tile, then what kind? No clear picture. The salesmen showed us travertine, nice, but nothing really speaking to me. On our way out the door at the last place, I saw this display of slate:



It was perfect. I pulled out the sample of Katana Pearl, the middle toned green and knew these were my choices. I wish these photos did justice to the colors, but you'll just have to take my word for it - it's beautiful!

In other news: it was a long and stressful work week and I am behind in my school work. Last night we double-dated with Chelsea and Trenton for dinner and a movie. Sundays are busy days for Martin with his High Council calling and so I have little excuse for not getting my reading and writing done.

The weather has been gorgeous this past week, the hills are absolutely vivid in limes, emeralds, and hunter greens, and the sky is clear and blue. It is a great reminder of how breathtakingly beautiful this area of God's world is and I'm grateful to live here.

Time Flies

I realize it's been awhile since I've posted and now it seems pointless to try and play catch-up. But this much I will say: Christmas was terrific! We were fortunate that last minute changes allowed Skyler and Sarah to join us, and that meant a full house for the holidays. We had our usual big Christmas Eve dinner and the more intimate Christmas morning and when it was all done, we were tired but happy. New Year's Eve was a quiet evening with dinner and a movie and the first day of 2010 was spent taking Christmas down and just enjoying the day.

All too soon school started up again for me with a vengeance. I wish I could claim that the semesters are getting easier, but I find they are just more stress provoking. This semester should result in me producing my formal proposal for the capstone project which will consume the next year of my life. I have to take some type of elective over the summer, but the Fall and following Spring should be entirely devoted to the project. I try to remind myself there is light at the end of the tunnel. I would explain my proposed project to you, but it would probably bore any readers silly, so I won't. At least not at this post.

Martin and I decided that our Christmas gift to ourselves this year was to do a long wished for kitchen remodel. It's exciting but also anxiety producing, especially as the costs involved keep going up. It's always scary to do something like this without knowing for sure if you can trust the contractors, too. We've put money down on a new set of appliances - the GE Cafe line:



And the cabinets have been selected and kitchen designed by the Home Depot designer. We're keeping the same footprint of the kitchen since our floors were redone only about 4 years ago and since there really aren't a lot of options in our small kitchen anyway. The cabinets are from Kraft Maid. The wood is a rustic birch, color praline, and door design "Dillon":



Now that obviously isn't my kitchen, but it's a great photo of the cabinets. We won't be getting the five piece drawer faces though so my drawer style is a bit different that shown. I haven't picked out granite yet, but I'm thinking black with a lot of green in it or very, very dark green. Depends on what I can find. The backsplashes will be tiled and we will be adding under cabinet lights. I haven't quite pictured in my mind what kind of tile I want. I'm a "know it when I see it" kind of person anyway. The nice thing will be that the fridge we bought is cabinet depth and we will have end panels added to our kitchen so that the fridge will appear built in. We are also removing the soffit from the ceiling which will open up the room to make it feel a bit larger and allow for taller cabinets and some nice molding up around the top of the cabinets. Most of all, we are adding pull out shelves and things to help make the blind corner cabinets more accessible. I'm getting too old to keep having to get down on my knees and fish around in the cabinets to find things. Of course all of this is getting much pricier than we initially anticipated, especially when we saw the ridiculous estimate from the cabinet guys for some of the work. We're hoping to find someone who can do some of this work at a better rate.

Today I'm home from work babysitting for Andrew, which is such a pleasure. This will be the last trip out for Jamie and Andrew until the new baby is here. But they will be back out in May to spend the summer with us! Yeah! I hear Andrew stirring from his nap . . .

Andrew was sharing his cheese with Scooter: one for you and one for me, one for you and one for me: