Renovation Update

It's official. I hate renovating.

I am just a tad overwhelmed at the chaos of it all.

Here is what we've (and by "we" I really mean my father-in-law and husband )accomplished in the last 12 days.

• Purchased cabinets
• Tore out pantry & pantry wall
• Tore out all cabinets
• Gyprocked the ceiling
• Mudded & Sanded the ceiling (x3)...this job took us a week.
• Patched a bunch of other drywall
• Assembled several cabinets
• Purchased vinyl flooring (that was done today)

Left to Do

• Rip up old floor
• Install new floor
• Get our "basement kitchen" organized so we can live a half-normal life during the reno
• Get the dishwasher & fridge hookups figured out
• Buy appliances
• Buy light fixtures
• Paint ceiling
• Paint walls
• Order countertop
• Order sink & tap
• Install Cabinets

I will be SO excited when it's completed!!

Menu Plan

With our kitchen renovations in full swing, I've had to adjust our meal planning a bit. I want to do minimal cooking, so we will have lots of leftovers, which none of us mind. Thankfully I still have use of our stove. We will be eating sandwiches for lunches. Here's the plan for this week:

Monday

Farmer's Sausage, Perogies, Peas

Tuesday

Turkey & Rice Casserole, Roasted Asparagus

Wednesday

Leftovers

Thursday

Sausage & Potato Soup

Friday

Homemade Pizza & Caesar Salad

Saturday

Leftovers

IKEA Kitchen Insanity!!

I don't know why blogger is being all wacky on me. Anyway, we've been BUSY!

Kitchen Before (with old dining table)

Here'a recap of last week:

Thursday: Call up interior designer.

Friday: Interior Designer comes over....SO worth the money ($60 bucks or so)! She was incredibly helpful. She comes up with a completely new layout for the kitchen (oh, and paint colours for the whole house, decided on a counter top, lighting suggestions, and other tidbits of information). We are inspired. Kitchen reno here we come! Or not...hmm...Nah...Let's just go for it! (We went back & forth on what to do)

Saturday: We plan our new IKEA kitchen, do a weather check & find out Sunday is the only non-rain/snow day for the week (HA! How wrong they were!), drop off Elianna at Grandpa and Grandmas, go back home, finish planning, do another weather check, and crash into bed around 2:30 a.m. for a grand total of 2 hours of sleep!

Sunday: Wake up at 4:30 a.m. Hit the road at 5 a.m. Get to IKEA. Find out there is a blizzard warning for the way back home. (WHAT??). We meet a zealous IKEA kitchen planner, print off our order list, head through the checkout. Hey, this is a piece of cake! Oh...just a minute. We had to wait 3 hours to get our order, while we're stressing about beating the blizzard for the way home. It takes 2 hours to load up our insane order (140 plus boxes). My amazing husband manages to figure out a way to load it all into the truck (He is the puzzle KING I tell ya!), tarp it up because of the looming blizzard. We hit the road and drive through 4 hours of near zero visibility and rain/snow mix. I text like a wild person getting road & weather updates as we debate whether to continue, stop, etc. In the end, we decide to keep on truckin' through. We get back home and pull into the driveway around 12:30 a.m. Monday morning. Hubby and in-laws unload the truck till 1:30 a.m. Crash.into.bed. after about 2 hours of sleep in 48 hours.

Are we CRAZY??? Why yes, yes we are.

Monday: We take the day off to recover and rest. Well, except for my husband who decides to stay up till 3 a.m. re-organizing the basement to get my kitchen stuff to fit. He's a night owl, who can live off of pretty much zero sleep.

Progress...

Tuesday: Pantry & Upper cupboards are cleaned out, pantry wall starts coming down.

Wednesday: We (and by we, I mean my husband and father-in-law) got down to business. ALL the upper cabinets were torn out and the pantry wall totally knocked out. Gyprock for the ceiling is purchased. Wow...we are motoring along.

Thursday: My Dad and Dad-in-Law come over (they are so awesome to help out!) to help my Hubby gyprock the ceiling. Hooray!

So far things are humming along WAY faster than I expected. And that is a good thing.

Neutropenia is GONE!!

We have EXCITING news!! Elianna's last blood test result confirmed her neutropenia is GONE! Praise the LORD!!

If you recall, we had her blood tested when she got sick about a month ago and were surprised when her results came back normal. We retested a couple weeks later when she was healthy and just recently found out that her neutropenia is, in fact, gone! "Elianna" means my God has answered. We are so thankful He answered our prayers with a "yes." How neat it is to think of her name and its meaning. We had no idea how much prayer would be a part of her young life when we chose her name.

We know there are hundreds of people who have prayed for her over the past year and a half. It was amazing to hear of how she was on the prayer chains of churches we never even knew of. We sincerely thank all of you who prayed for our daughter and family over the past year and a half. The first few weeks before and after her diagnosis were especially difficult, and we know it was only by the Lord's grace and the support of His people that we were able to stay sane. The week after her bone marrow test when we were told by the hematologist it was probably leukemia was definitely the hardest week I have ever lived through. It still boggles my mind that her marrow result (that her excess blast cells were not cancerous) was basically unexplainable.

Going through that definitely taught me to be more compassionate toward others going through difficulties of all kinds. I honestly cannot fathom how hard it is for those who actually have to see their child go through a serious illness like cancer or those who lose a child.

Thanks also for your understanding of her condition and our feelings about it. We appreciated so much when you would let us know of your colds, fevers, coughs, etc.

And to those of you out there who have never even met me or my family but took the time to pray for us, thank you!!

I'm Back

So sorry my blog disappeared for a couple weeks without warning. Something came up that had to be dealt with, and I just thought it would be wise to take my blog down for awhile.

Anyway, things are busy as usual here. We are seriously thinking about renovating our kitchen, which I have mixed feelings about. I'm sure the process will be "stressful", but the end result will be worth it.

I'm trying to start exercising again and am on Week 2 of the Couch to 5K program. Fitting in exercise is hard these days, but I still have about 20 pounds to drop. It seems to be harder to get the weight off this time around...

Nathanael has some very fussy days, and I am really trying to get him on a flexible schedule to bring some order to our days. It seems to be helping a bit.

We recently welcomed a new nephew to the family. SO exciting!

Well, time for me to get back to work. We have someone coming over today to help us with some renovation decisions.

Have a blessed day!