Tuesday, February 1, 2011

No, I'm not dead

My kitchen used to look like this.

It was the happiest, busiest place in my house—the locale of homework, violin practice, conversation, cocktails, and dinner preparation. Coming home to start dinner was one of my favorite parts of the day.

Then it looked like this, which wasn't the absolute worst thing in the world because activities like California mission model building could still take place, and Sophie and I could chat with Husband through the plastic as he ripped apart wallboard (see him back there—the guy in the plaid?).

Now it is an empty echoing shell of a room as it waits to be painted. My camera is on the fritz, so you will have to imagine the top picture without the accouterments of daily life much less cabinet doors or drawers. There are new windows (fancy double-paned ones!), but they're not much to look at just yet without their trim.

All this has, of course, put me in quite a state, resulting in
radio silence on the blog
difficulty reading anyone else's blog if they talk about food
excessive crabbiness
general malaise bordering on an outright funk
Most people would either (a) move out of their house or (b) eat take-out food. But NO. We are not most people. We have less brains and less money than most people who take on this kind of work. We have simply done a little rearranging:


But before you think "oh, this might work," consider the three miles I walk to prepare nearly every dinner. I'm at the stove, I need butter. I walk out the garage door, through the front gate, under the tarps, and over the sandbags—what sandbags??

These ones!

The ones we have had across the front of our house since this clown, my husband, decided that while we were at it we might as well replace the ENTIRE FOUNDATION across the front of the kitchen (it had some problems).

So back to dinner preparation: I traipse through this mess, retrieve the butter from the refrigerator WHICH IS NOT VERY CONVENIENTLY LOCATED IN THE LIVING ROOM, and return to the stove, which you'll recall is IN THE GARAGE. Then I realize I need a spatula, which is IN THE DINING ROOM, which is where most but not all the contents of my kitchen are in boxes (some of this stuff is in the office, one of the bedrooms, or the hallway). So BACK OUT UNDER THE TARP AND THROUGH THE SANDBAGS. At this point, take-out burritos sound like a good idea. Thank goodness the car is still located in the front of the house so I can DRIVE AWAY.

The good news in all this? I have been driving way. A lot! In selfless support of my daughter's ski racing career, I have spent numerous weekends in the mountains with her, while Husband toils feverishly at home. This has so far resulted in the following ski day count:
Me: 18
Husband: 11
Sophie: 21
Not bad for the beginning of February, no? Especially for folks like us who live down the hill. So maybe I should stop my bitching. Nah. It's what I do best.


7 comments:

Kim said...

So glad to "see" you...I was doing a little blog housekeeping and noticed you hadn't posted in awhile. My kitchen was only out of use for about two weeks and I thought that was awful. My deepest sympathies.

Trevor Sis Boom said...

Oh girl I hope it is worth it! That much time out of the kitchen would drive me nuts.

Brianne said...

I was out of my kitchen for 9 days during our renovation and that was about enough to drive me nuts, I don't want to think about what you're going through. Fortunately, we were doing 90% of the work ourselves so I was too tired to want to cook. Going to subway was just fine by me at that point. Hang in there Cindy!

Cid said...

Wow, I'll stop complaining about my house right now. But I'm with you on the life of a ski parent, just posted about it as a matter of fact.

Rachella said...

I can relate. I was living in one room of the house for a year while everything else was torn apart - no kitchen, no bathroom, nowhere to put anything. I was heating water in an electric kettle and bathing in a giant bucket.

Trish said...

Hang in there! And I like how you attempted to normalize things by hanging the calendar on the framing.

Can't wait to see the after pictures....

Do Mi said...

LOL. While our kitchen was being redone, we ate out of a cooler in the laundry room. I admire you for cooking at all!