The Year without a Christmas

It’s been forever since I’ve jumped on here to post. It’s not because I fell off the face of the earth. Rather, I dove deep into the bowels of the kitchen renovation. I’m pleased to report that I’ve (mostly) come out the other side. (The mental image is quite appropriate.) Where is my renovation at the moment? Pretty much all demolition is done. The cabinets are all in. The island is in. The lights are in most of the kitchen. The doors are almost done. The trim is done. Almost everything is painted. The sink is in.

Probably it’s better to ask at this point, what isn’t done? The floor is the big thing. We have it, but it’s not in yet. We also need to finish off the sunroom completely. (Ceiling, walls, trim, electric, and window seats.) The door to the bathroom needs to be put in. (And then the bathroom and mudroom need to be done, but that’ll wait until February or March.)

This hasn’t really been a kitchen “remodel.” This has been the construction of a new kitchen. Most of the walls are rebuilt completely. The electric is totally new, as is the plumbing. We move the location of every major appliance. It’s been a loooong process. And I’ve taken many days of vacation time to help move it along more quickly. On top of that, I’ve usually worked 8-2 or 4pm during the day, and then added on another four hours or so of work at night.

We’ve emptied the dumpster in our driveway four times. It’s not a small dumpster.

The biggest casualty of all of this (other than my back) has been our Christmas season. We have almost no decorations up. We haven’t even had time to buy a tree, let alone decorate it. I did manage to get Christmas shopping done, though I haven’t wrapped anything, and some of it will be coming after Christmas.

For a person who loves to recharge his mental and physical batteries each December, this has been a Not Great Christmas. It’s even worse that it’ll be Tomas’s last Christmas at home. I’m pretty bummed about the whole thing, to say the least. That’s probably another reason I haven’t posted. I just haven’t wanted to think about what this month has been like.

I’ve completely given up on my goals. I haven’t written all month. Haven’t finished a book. Haven’t weighed myself in days. As you’ve noticed, I haven’t blogged. Other than necessities like work, I’ve done almost nothing else other than spend a bit of time with the family each night watching a Cutthroat Kitchen. (When I haven’t roped family members into continuing to work on the kitchen with me.)

The good news(?) is that as I said, we’re through most of it. Denisa is going to get a tree with Tomas in a few hours, and we’ll try to decorate some before the actual holiday hits. Our contractor is coming to work on the house with me tomorrow, and then he’s taking a well-deserved break until the new year. I’ll take the same thing.

I don’t know. It’s been rough, and I’m probably underselling it if anything. The kitchen will look gorgeous, and it’s enormous compared to what it was. They’re coming to measure for the countertops tomorrow, and we’ll get them (theoretically) by mid-February. We’re going to be using plywood and leftover doors as counters until then. I keep thinking that I’ll be looking back at all of this a few months from now and be happy we did it all.

I just wish the timing had ended up being better. It’s not like we planned for it to happen now. It is what it is.

In any case, don’t really plan on seeing me much around here until next year. I’ll be taking what vacation I can scrounge. I hope things are going well for you. Catch you on the flip side.

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