The Kitchen (dum, dum, dummmmm...)

You may be wondering why I have been so much better about taking photos and may have noticed that they are not all grainy and gray (i.e. taken from my phone).  That is because Ray got me a new miniature camera for my birthday!  Hooray!  My old camera is broken and Ray's professional gear is just too much for me to carry around and whip out on a whim.  This new camera is smaller than my phone (!) and purple-ish.  *grin*  And this is how I know that Ray loves me extra much: I am being a ridiculous pain about not spending any money right now because all of our pennies need to go into the house and moving expenses.  So, he sold car parts to buy me the camera for "free."  *swoon*  That man is a CATCH.

Birthday dinner:

So, we started on our kitchen reno last weekend with the unglamorous first bits.  You know, like packing stuff away and hardware store runs.  Ray was also doing electrical work.  When I asked what exactly he was doing he said "running two new branch circuits from the load center."  Ummm, O.K.  What I can tell you is that he added new piping and then pulled wires through it from our panel in the basement to the kitchen and added two new electrical box things so that we can add an exhaust fan, a dishwasher and a garbage disposal.  I cannot even tell you how torn I am that we are adding a dishwasher right before we move.  That is almost enough to make me want to stay.  Almost.    

I did remember to take a "Before" picture this time (well, before demo - I had already started packing):

There comes a point in any project that I look around and think: "what the *%#^ were we thinking?"  This is that moment:

Or maybe this:

The bottom half of the left wall is now torn out because they had that weird bump out thing that they never finished and Ray is fixing it.  Our base cabinets are in the basement and ready for installation next weekend.  We only have three more weekend days scheduled for the kitchen reno, so we are not wasting any time.

Roscoe is becoming more mobile and crafty by the day.  Case in point, I leave him to roll around on his play mat near sorted laundry and within a minute he has pulled out dirty clothes and is chewing on them.  Yummo.