Standard Contractor’s Nightmare

Well, I’ve turned out to be just like everyone else. Just like I’ve always been. Just like I’ll always be. With  my quirks and specialities. With my endearments and sense of humor. And what makes me annoying.

And my back-and-forth and back-and-forth  trying to decide what I want for my kitchen. At first I was calling myself a contractor’s worst nightmare. Then I realized I’m probably just your run-of-the-mill standard nightmare.

There are no new pictures. But I’ve rejected about 7 hours worth of tile shopping for the floor. We’re going with hardwood – red oak. We’re going with granite counter tops as they run the same as Corian anyway and yet they are a real and natural substance. Besides, I found a gorgeous granite.

The backsplash? A slam dunk. And I am getting my copper green purple glass, etc. interspersed cut-outs.

We’re about 6 weeks out from having the project finished. We’re holding off on starting work until all the materials are in hand. More pictures when there is something to show!

3 Weeks Later

We’re now three weeks into the project. We’ve been to multiple stores multiple times and had multiple workmen here multiple times. The stove still lives in the dining room:

and we still can’t decide on tile:

but the gas line has been put in:

and we’ve cleared the counters so we can start taping up photocopies of that copper backsplash I want to see where we want it on the wall:

Tomorrow! Off to the granite shop for counters, which is a converted roller skating rink. After all this I have been informed that the counter top is the first thing you choose in a kitchen if you want everything to match and btw black granite is all the rage. NOT. Let me assure you I have no issue with Corian. I am holding on to that damned copper back splash with my very being. It is much cooler than the photo of the photocopies make it look above.

I’m rather proud of my meal planning abilities during all this. Over the past three weeks we have eaten out only once. The crock pot gets used about twice a week. We have a microwave for now (it will have to come out during construction. Of course, everything will be out then so I suppose it won’t matter) and there’s always the grill. If the temperature nears freezing I’m out there on the deck  cooking for a couple nights worth of meals.  Grilled steak salad chilled with crumbled cheese and viniagrette? To die for.

Family Secrets

It’s been a while since I posted on genealogy finds. Recent, the library where I work acquired the Detroit Free Press Online Archive from 1831-1922. I found a lot, good and sad about my family, in this archive. I found secrets.

The below is from the Detroit Free Press, Aug 1, 1900.

Francis B. Egan, my second great-grandfather and former Deputy Secretary of State,  formed a secret club of which he was elected president. They called it the Washington Club. He said members were tired of the “namby-pamby methods of the Michigan club.”  As a politician, the club was of interest to the papers. He said club members  intended to expand their organization in “every ward and precinct” of Detroit.

The paper reported: “There is to be another meeting of the club next Friday night for the adoption of a constitution and by-laws. Mr. Egan, however, refused to say where the meeting will be held as he stated it was to be a secret gathering.”

It reminds me of the political version of the secret feminist groups I started in college, only these are Republican politics when Republican meant pro-labor. I can’t help but smile.

Plum Copper Glass Backsplash Cutouts

After we moved the stove into the dining room and the fridge to the other side of the kitchen we found major water damage.

Our insurance company came, took pictures, we got two quotes, and they are picking up the cost.

Remember how last post I was all “whatever” about tile? OK, forget that part. Ceramic tile … stone  … slate. It all rocks the planet. We’re definitely having it.

We are now experiencing what can be defined as “scope creep.” I mean… as long as we’re installing new tile why not paint while all the appliances are pulled out of the kitchen? As long as the floor is coming up why not install gas as we’ll want the next stove to be gas (and you have to cut through whatever floor is there to install it)? As long as we’re doing all that why not replace the 25 year old countertops? And if we’re replacing the countertops we’ll need to do the backsplash. First choice: Plum Copper Glass. It’s a plum heue. It’s copper. It’s embedded in glass. It is so hot. Unfortunately, it also costs a fortune so I’ll be having “cutouts” where they sneak in little  bits here and there.

Our tile installers pointed us to a showroom in Grand Rapids. We’ve been there once and plan to go again on Saturday. Exciting? yes. Terrifying? yes. I actually found the floor I wanted on trip one, then I realized it was bumpy slate and would be incredibly uncomfortable to walk on, much less to spend 8 hours baking holiday cookies on.

My planned kitchen color theme: burnt red with earthy plum accents.

Tiling Slam Dunk

OK, I haven’t wanted to jinx it  but I think it’s time to air the latest family triumph.

See, when we moved into the house there were loose tiles in the kitchen and bathroom. No tiles were missing, but some were not adhered to the floor and others just kinda moved around in their spaces.

Now, the blue tile floor in the kitchen is a down-right selling point of the house (apparently). I didn’t actually notice the kitchen floor when we toured the house 3 1/2 years ago. The real estate agent commented on it right away and we’ve received  many compliments on it since then. Also, at some point I realized that tile is highly prized over linoleum. I’ve never had anything but linoleum but apparently it “sucks.” Good to know.

In any case, now I  have tile, and tile gets loose. Hubby said that was easy to fix. I studiously ignored that for 3 1/2 years, as I do all household fix-it work.

But, about a month ago, Hubby said we should fix the tile that weekend. I said OK. And then we did it. I mean, we took the loose tiles, boiled them until the adhesive came off, sanded the floor, re-applied adhesive, let it dry, grouted it, and did the after-grout sealing thingy. And I did at least 50% of all that. It took about a week all told.

Look! The ones we re-did have the fancy white grout:

A few weeks after that we decided to get a little more adventuresome! We’d move the fridge and stove to get at the loose tiles there, some were starting to come up in front of the appliances.  I mean, this was easy, right? We did this ourselves, right? This was no big deal, right?

Oh ladies and gentlemen, tiling is the reason monks invented beer. More to follow…

5 Words

Root canal failed.

Oral. Surgeon.

RIP: She Baked Good Cookies

My holiday baking for this year is almost done. Wow, this is the third year I’m reporting on baking on this blog. And before this blog there was another blog that lasted for over a year (it’s taken down now).  It chronicled library school and a cross-country trip. I like keeping a blog. I fancy myself a bit of a word teaser and this gives me a good outlet for that.

Holiday of Baking 2007

Holiday of Baking 2008

This Year:

• Soft Peanut Butter cookies (3 batches). Last month Scott asked for soft peanut butter cookies. I’m all, “That’s impossible. Peanut Butter cookies are hard and they break all over the place when you try to eat them.” Then I went online and looked up “soft peanut butter cookies.” And found them. Wow. They are SO GOOD.
• Oatmeal No-bakes (2 batches). Again, my own recipe. Yet improved from last year.
• Magic bars with toffee chips (2 9 X 13 pans)
• Chocolate-dipped macaroons. This year I realized that my chocolate-dipped macaroons are fancy Mounds bars. This totally bummed me out. I’ve been feeling a little blue but this ripped up my little universe: that MY “World Famous Chocolate Dipped Macaroons” were just inflated Mounds bars and if I put an almond in the middle they’d be Almond Joy Bars. But onward.
• Chocolate dipped Oreos. I’ve done two packages of cookies plus one bag of the minis for kids. I have one bag left to go and then those are done. I bought dark chocolate, white chocolate and then white chocolate dyed pink and some dyed purple. Gotta get those colors out and do some serious damage to the traditional concept of chocolate dipped Oreos. Breaking open the galaxy I am. Oh sweet Power.
• Brownies (double batch). I didn’t put quite enough chocolate chips in. They’re good but they’re not Classic.
• Tingalings
• Swedish wedding cookies. This year I tried to finally make enough and I made too much.
• Chocolate chip cookies. Lots and lots and lots and lots of chocolate chip cookies.

Yet to go I have one 9X13 of lemon bars and one more bag of Oreos. The Oreos go into treat bags and the cookies into tins. I’ve got 14 tins done and so far 11 treat bags.  I have another 8-10 tins ready to go on the counter. I’ll feed 15 people with the treat bags I have so far and then the tins, and then I take cookies to work (each person in my department gets a treat bag and then I bring a platter to the holiday party), and then to Christmas and Christmas eve dinners.

If you don’t have anything nice to say…

So, I haven’t been writing much lately. Honestly, I don’t have that many good things to say. Normally I can just push past that and come up with something interesting on a fairly regular basis, but not recently, not really.

I know it’s Thanksgiving and a good time to reflect on our personal and familial relationships, our relationships with our communities, our relationships with however we define forces greater than ourselves. And I am appreciative for those things. I know those things. I am grateful for my family and my friends. I am grateful simply for the hysterical game of Scrabble my family played last night and the 4 cut throat games of now-I-can’t-remember-the-name but it was super-fun.

But I’m also weary.  I’m not feeling transcendant.

New Gene News

My mother’s father’s oldest son by his first wife’s grandson’s third wife just wrote to tell me George has accidentally burned himself in a fire. Bad news, but wow, what I’ve learned in just a year of genealogy connecting.

Lord Byron

Education is one of the few things a person is willing to pay for and not get. ~William Lowe Bryan