We're floored

Evan spent all weekend putting in our new kitchen floor!

The floor project is not quite done -- a few more tiles to go. But in the main part of the kitchen, we no longer have to dance across grubby old uncleanable linoleum. It is...

... a laminate that looks like slate!

I'm not sure the photo does it justice -- but in real life, it's nice. There's a texture to it, and it fits in nicely with the rest of the kitchen style. So I am excited. Combined with the fact that we had plumbers here on Friday installing the dishwasher [cue angels singing from somewhere over the rainbow], I feel as if Christmas came early.

That feeling is perhaps doubly strong since we got six inches of snow in the past two days (I think it finally stopped tonight), making our corner of the world look like a winter wonderland....

Let it ... snow?

It's not quite Thanksgiving and we were hit with a snowstorm today.

This is highly unusual where we live. Sure, we get snow, but typically not before the leaves have fallen off the trees.

This picture doesn't do it justice, but every other photo that I took, in an effort to document this beautiful, strange weather anomaly, is just a blur of white. In the end, we got around five or six inches of floppy wet white stuff.

So, I checked out the garden. Mid-day, nearly everything was blanketed. I dug around under snow and cut what I expect will be the last of the spinach, and got a bunch of cilantro too. Nearby, peeking through, I spied some thyme:

I also pulled up the last of the turnips. The purple hue of the roots look particularly fresh against the white light of the day!

We'll probably roast them...

Counter-productive

Did you know that kids get sick, like, every 3.5 days? Because they do. And as a relatively new parent, I somehow wasn't aware of this fact. They pick up ailments like postmen pick up mail. It's like they have this mailbox for germs, only the flag is up at all times, saying, "Hey, germs! Stop here! I’ve got something for you!" And kids being kids, they're all like, "Cool! I've got a mailbox full of germs! Wait 'til I show dad!" And suddenly, everyone in the house is sick.

Yeah, it's been a fun week here at Casa de Illness: a screaming kid, a whining dad, and a mom who needs to deal with these two grumps while maintaining her sanity and guzzling Dextromethorphin. Oh, and we're still doing dishes in the bathroom sink.

But. BUT! There's been progress. I have pictures. Those pictures include a counter and a vent hood.

What the pictures don't show is how the vent hood is slightly crooked thanks to the slight slope in our ceiling. Ah, aren't old houses fun!? I'm sure if a professional did this, they would've actually leveled the ceiling. But me? Nah. Just put some sheetrock up and be done with it. And now we have a slightly crooked vent hood. Sigh. But it works and it hasn't fallen down yet, and friends, lemme tell you, that in and of itself is something to be thankful for. Needless to say, that sucker was a bitch to hang -- and I did it with a 102-degree fever.

Oh, and the pendant lights are at different levels for testing purposes; I'm not that off-kilter.

At this point I'm chasing after the plumber and the gas company to try and tie up those two loose ends so that we can actually get running water and a functioning cooktop. However, the plumber and the gas company seem to have consensually lost their hearing, ignoring as they are my repeated phone messages that, hey, we have a kitchen to finish over here! If I don't get a response this week, I'm looking elsewhere.

Side note to contractors: Why do you have such an aversion to calling and saying, "Hey, I can't do your job! I'm too busy! Sorry!" The I'm-simply-not-going-to-respond approach is so very, very high school, like ignoring that cute girl that's been giving you googely-eyes from the next lunch table. Seriously, don't leave me hanging, just tell me you CAN'T DO IT? Not so hard, right?