what i did today

Picture proof. Lexi finally made it onto a boat with a life jacket.   The purple life jacket to the rescue!

I’d say she enjoyed it.  She was relaxed enough to almost fall asleep.

Emma, was of course ecstatic to get back on.

With of course a snack.  Have I mentioned how much she is eating these days?!

We also got to visit this sandbar and let the kids swim.

My parents decided to invite themselves (glad you did!) since they hadn’t been out on a boat in forever. 

The couple in the foreground (below) were our hosts.  He is 92 and they have been married 70 years. 

SEVENTY. 

SEVEN. ZERO.

Can you imagine celebrating your 70th wedding anniversary?  And actually now that I think about it, my parents have been married over 30 years so that’s over 100 years of marriage in that picture.  Crazy.

But they are one of the sweetest set of people I’ve ever met.  They like to treat Scott like a son and I’d say Scott is quite ok with that.

The kids also tested out their fishing rods.  And…they hated it.  Lexi was trying to catch a small fish and a catfish came out of nowhere, grabbed her line which pulled her forward a bit.  It scared Lexi to death and she literally went running for the hills.  Then of course Emma wouldn’t touch her rod.  And honestly, I took over the rod and it scared me to death when a catfish grabbed my line.  And no, I don’t think I’ve ever fished myself.  I’m sure my parents my argue but it was definitely not a thing we did growing up.  After Saturday, I’m guessing it’s not a family past time the girls want to take up.

They did, however, enjoy casting their line (is that what you say?!) with no hook or bait (again, right?) just to see how far it would go.

Scott redeemed the Bennett’s fishing prowess and caught a few fish for us.  This picture is like a Where’s Waldo?  The fish is hanging on the line..see if you can find it!

Definitely a great day.  The only downside is it almost convinced Scott and I to go buy a boat one of these days.  Someone stop us!

See the rest of the pics on my Facebook.

It’s one of those days I need a brain dump that basically turned into a weekend plans post.

• Melissa recommended me as a model for a photo shoot for a photographer’s portfolio when she couldn’t make it.  I use the term model loosely.  Very. loosely.  But it is going to be at a restaurant in downtown Charlotte and there is a makeup artist and other people to interact with.  I’m pretty excited about that.  I’ll be paid in digital pictures to do whatever I want with which is totally cool with me.  Maybe I can use them for a comp card.  Whatever works.  I’m taking the afternoon off from work to do that.  He said it’d just be an hour or two.
• Tonight and tomorrow morning I’m attending the Beth Moore simulcast with Dani.  I’m all kinds of excited about that.  I love listening to Beth. Watching her live with thousands of women across the country should be fun.  Plus, it seems that Dani and I hardly see each other so it will fun.  Did I mention Dani’s expecting again?!
• Tomorrow afternoon I think we’re going on the boat with that couple from our church.  The kids are both so excited.  I hope the weather lets us.
• And best of all, I’m so looking forward to church on Sunday.  Counting down until Sunday is not something I’ve done in a while and I have to say I like it!

Ta-da!  The new stove is just lovely and we didn’t manage to blow anything up!  Here’s the before from yesterday: 

Next step is hardware.

I can’t help but post this picture.  There is so much in that one picture that is so US.  Lexi took it.  She was waiting for me to get shoes on today so we could go pick Emma up from school.  I love that it’s from her perspective.  You can see the key fob thing on the red chain for work.  My iPhone is ever close.  The banana that Lexi half-ate.  My Chick-fil-A cup from lunch.  I’m posting something to a blog on my computer.  Google Reader sits in the background.  And of course Lexi’s little pink toes on the bottom left.  All very much real life there.

And in other randomness, Scott just read the previous post and says "Why didn’t you take a picture of my desk?”  He refused to get an action shot but there ya go.

Actually I guess those two pictures are related after all.  The top desk is very me (read: messy) and this one is very him (read: clean).

*shrugs*

What can I say?

OK, fine, just a few more days of daily kitchen pictures and we should be done.  Well.  Until we do the lighting.  But we’ll all get a break.  Today Scott took out our old microwave and installed the above the stove one.  I was really hesitant to put it up to be honest.  We covered up a good 5” of the tile and it makes me sad.  But I really, really like the microwave.  I like the empty space in the corner and once we get the new stove in, it’s really no more tile I’ve lost.  I really think it was a blessing in disguise.  EXCEPT. Let me just say I thought we were getting a great deal on our microwave at this out of the way appliance store this weekend but when we went to Lowe’s tonight (also a daily occurrence lately) it was the EXACT same price.

In addition to the microwave, we bought the stainless steel socket covers.  A small change but I think it makes a big difference.

The doors haven’t been put up yet but I think you get a good idea.  In case you happened to forget what it looked like before…

It’s better right?

In other news, Scott got off early last night at 12:30am.  For some ODD reason he decided that he needed a desk in my office.  STAT. I heard the banging around but was too tired to actually see what he was doing.   He takes my desk and moves it to the front corner of the room and puts a board on two sawhorses and calls it a desk for me.

I certainly can’t leave the room like that.  Why does this feel like a can of worms in the making? 

Are you tired of pictures of my kitchen yet?  Cause I’m kind of tired of posting them.   But you know that can o worms I referred to?  Well, the worms?  They do multiply. 

See the plan was to go Saturday to buy that gas stove from the appliance store we found via Craigslist.  But then Saturday morning the digital panel of our microwave conveniently messed up.  If you know the time, you can see parts of the line and understand it but just to look at it, you can’t tell what it says.  The microwave still works.  You just have to really pay attention to what you’re doing.  Well, when we got to the appliance store we also realized that we should buy a stainless steel hood AND they had some over the stove microwaves. Why not kill two birds with one stone and go ahead and buy a microwave while there was a good deal and also eliminate the need for a hood.  Go us.  Here is the lovely set sitting in our garage.

But then.  We get it home to find out if we installed it under our cabinet, it would be all of about 5” from the top of our new lovely stove.  So now our worms are multiplying and after much discussion, we decide that Scott needs to cut our cabinets in half, as marked by the blue tape.  This sounds kind of easy but when you actually do it, you have to cut the cabinet, reinstall the bottom shelf, and remanufacture the doors so they are smaller.

Also not mentioned is he needs to run the gas for the stove and create another piece of cabinet at the back of the stove where there will be a 3” gap. 

So yeah, something that could have been as easy as sliding out the new stove and sliding in the new one has sort of become complicated. 

You can call the backsplash DONE.  And GORGEOUS.  If you’re in or near the Carolinas and need tile work done, please call Luke Clonts at 1-843-408-5429 or email him at lukeclonts AT gmail.com. He was meticulous in his work and did a fabulous job.  And yes, I post his information with full permission (encouragement, actually) from him.

(please ignore the spices on the toaster oven, whoops!)

The thing about renovations is once you crack it open, you usually have a can of worms on your hands.  We are at a point that the only thing left planned to do was the lighting.   However, both of us are ready to upgrade the stove and hood to stainless steel.  It’s 16 years old, the burners are uneven, the oven light doesn’t work and the timer on the stove is broken.  I don’t think we’re jumping the gun too much (and yes, I’m trying to rationalize this unplanned purchase). 

I really want a slide-in but they are expensive.  We went to Sears and realized they were easily twice the price.  But Craigslist to the rescue!  An appliance store about 45 minutes from here posted about a discontinued one, brand new with a warranty for the same price we were going to pay for a free standing one.  Plus, this one is gas.  I’m so excited!  We’re planning to go tomorrow to pick it up.

Also, I’m pretty sure I want to go with stainless steel handles now.

As for the bathroom, Scott finished measuring for the outlet/light holes on the mirror and took it to the glass place today.  We’re supposed to have that back first of next week.

So whew.   I see a light at the end of the tunnel on all this and really all that will be left ironically is lighting.  Always lighting.  I don’t know why it’s so hard for me!

Holy cow, look at my kitchen.  It’s not even grouted yet and I’m ecstatic.  Apparently it’s very hard to take a good picture of glass tile but I did what I could.  I can’t believe the difference.

In other not nearly as exciting news, Scott caulked our bathroom and wired the lighting.  I think he’s going to measure the mirrors and get them cut tomorrow.

So do you think it would work if I relocated my desk into my kitchen?