I never realized how much our life revolves around our kitchen! It isn’t just meals either.

Our small house felt super tiny and cramped for about a month with everything put into the living room, stacks of boxes , a shelf I bought from Amazon and put together for my temporary kitchen near my front door with the microwave, a dorm refrigerator, our air fryer, toaster and Instant Pot. Decorative baskets housed bread and bagels, healthy chips and other snacks, condiments, etc. Our Berkey and Alexapure were nearby also filtering our water.

Less than a full month later, we have a REAL kitchen again!. YIPPEE SKIPPEE!!! That was surely an experience!

I thought I was somewhat of a minimalist, but found out we still had too much stuff. I’ve made several trips to drop off donations of extra items. The National KidneyFoundation came by and picked up some large items and Habitat for Humanity also picked up items.

I have nerve damage from a car accident 7 years ago. I broke my neck in several places an still to this day can’t feel a couple of my fingers. I decided to make life easier for myself. During our kitchen renovation I donated 99 percent of my Fiestaware Collection, and decided to use Correlle Dinnerware because it’s lightweight and fits easier in the new cabinets. I also donated our melamine dishes. I didn’t realize those were darling husbands favorites. He absolutely HATES the Correlle. I kept a set of fiestaware bowls that my teen boys use to eat often. They’re heavy and on the very top shelf, since my boys are all tall, even the 10 year old is my height (5’6), they unload the dishwasher and put those dishes on the top shelf. I accidentally broke most of our drinking glasses because they’re so heavy and just slipped out of my hands usually while I’m washing dishes. We’ve been using my heavy Rae Dunn coffee mugs, I haven’t dropped those but I have a handle to grasp. I would like to purchase a small set of lightweight pretty simple drinking glasses.

I want my kitchen to run smoothly, be easier for me to navigate and keep clean and still look beautiful.

I’ve made a list of what I need to make our normal meals. I realized I’m in a season where I cook basically the same things but switch it up slightly. I plan our meals out 2 weeks at a time but leave a bit of room to change my mind.

We’ve ALMOST returned to normal life. I babysat my sick grandson for a few days, he must be well for 24 hours before returning to his “preschool” so my children have been sick with a virus now for a week, taking turns being sick. We homeschool so I’ve made them read, but I’ve also allowed them to play Xbox, but they’ve mostly slept. I pray everyone is 💯 by Monday so we can return to our normal schedule.

Have a most excellent Friday!

I went to Aldi this morning after dropping off my son at work.

I love going Aldi shopping early in the morning when they first open, it’s kind of empty except for the workers and us early bird customers.

Today’s shopping trip was especially sweet. At checkout a sweet smiling delightful woman paid for her groceries, then hands the cashier associate a Snickers bar and said I hope you have a super sweet day!

She made the “alway delightful” associate smile even more. ( He exudes happiness and energy every single time I’ve seen him working). Her act of kindness also made my day. She gave us all an energy boost from her act of kindness.

I had company when I returned home. I have the honor of keeping grandson while his mommy and daddy knock out some special errands today.

Have a SUPER SWEET Thursday Everyone!

The electrician is currently replacing our outdated outlawed fuse box with and updated electric panel, so I decided to sit down for a moment and share my rambled thoughts.

We are still in the midst of our total kitchen renovation. We thought our kitchen floor issues were from a bad leak we had in the ceiling from a hailstorm. We initially had our former home owners insurance out to look at it and they said the roof was barely dented and the shingles looked fine to them. They dismissed us and our concerns only to drop our homeowners insurance a month or so later because they said our roof looks bad and couldn’t be covered under homeowners because we are not up keeping it. We paid for a brand new roof and repairs to our attic from the water damage. Those guys who replaced our roof said it could have been hail damage and had to to replace some of the attic flooring and insulation and treat the mildew and mold in the attic. They also replaced some of our fascia.

Our kitchen floor had some give to it and sunk in near the sink, I’m told it looked like a pipe leaked and went into the wood. We’ve had plumbers out first, then contractors to get bids about the floor and kitchen remodel. It took months to get everyone out and vetted and choose one. Then we wait to get fitted in their schedule. They do commercial and residential construction projects.

After the kitchen was demolished, they found an old drain that went from the ceiling through a major ibeam floor joist. It was cast iron, and had been disconnected when we replaced the sewer and water lines but because it was in the wall, it was capped and closed at the end it was cut. Little did we know it was rotting in its location. When we had hailstorm damage, I believe water got into that pipe from the hail damage to the roof. I’m not going to speculate much or play any blame games. I do wish we had a thorough inspection by the Insurance company when I had them out. They didn’t even go into the attic. I’m disappointed with insurance companies, especially that one in particular. But as I’ve said, my house so ultimately it’s my responsibility to get competent professional individuals out to help us decide what and where the problems are, so we can get them fixed before they cause major damage.

One of the demo guys did mostly excellent work with the demo and cleaning that mess up. Only one problem had, was he covered one of our a/c vents with the brand new subfloor. We still need it uncovered. He did not tell the guy who put down the lvp flooring about the vent.

We found surprises in the kitchen after the drywall was removed. Like old water pipes where maybe a washing machine used to be in the kitchen. Our laundry room is an addition to the house. We also noted many little things I’ve affectionately named “what the heck” did they do that for. Some things simply do not make sense.

This project has me curious, what else will we find under all of this mess!

I’m sitting in my dark bedroom watching my sick grandson sleep, typing on my iPad mini using data, listening to the 3 folks, an electrician and his apprentices work to install a brand new electric panel in my old home.

We are living in the midst of a full kitchen renovation.

I have planned for months how things would go. I figured it would be like camping in our living room. I thought about things a lot! I did some research, I asked questions from those who have done this before myself, and I thought I was well prepared and made my list. I planned most of my meals. I set up a temporary kitchen in my living room. I started decluttering my kitchen and got rid of anything I never use, I packed many of my things I want to keep. I kept out things I needed for day to day life until the Reno begins. Then I got a call that they can start right away. Oh boy!!! How exciting!!!

Sweet Hubby kindly dumps, I mean packs the rest of the kitchen in the boxes which I had collected just for our Reno and he proceeds to completely empty the kitchen. A crew came later that night and taped off our kitchen entrances with large sheets of plastic and black tape.

The very next day demo begins. They beat and ripped out the old cabinets, countertops, light fixtures. They ripped up old linoleum and flooring. We had some old water damage and the flooring was coming apart in layers. They cut out old drywall and tossed it. We got to see a huge mistake the original builder made. There was an old cast iron kitchen drain pipe going through our main floor joist. The original builder plumber had cut a hole in the main floor joist for a large drain pipe. OY VEY! Why? Our guys cut it out, replaced and reinforced the joist.

The following day they worked on the floor reinforcing all floor joist and laid a brand new subfloor.

So far we have new outlets, new lvp floors, painted walls, recessed lights and the cabinets are going in at this very moment.

We’ve be using our microwave/ convection oven combo, my cheap ($19.99) Walmart brand tiny coffeemaker which uses either ground coffee or any brand of coffee pods like k-cups and the like. Our crown Berkey for filtered water is awesome! My Instant Pot has been awesome also. I’ve made ground beef tacos, frying my beef on the sauté function, I’ve fried turkey bacon, scrambled eggs on saute, and grilled cheese on sauté function. I’ve absolutely fell in love with my Instant Pot during this reno and could probably do paid commercials for them, with all I’ve used my Instant Pot for and fell in love with my Inastant Pot or should I say I have a new found respect for all I can do with that thing.

We’ve have eaten pizza and a few meals we ordered and picked up at a restaurant or fast food. This gets too expensive especially for a large family of mostly boys! Breakfasts have been super simple, cheerios, eggs, fruit, organic breakfast bars, granola, yogurt or leftovers. Lunches have been simple also sandwiches, chips, salads, fruits ( we’ve had bananas, oranges, plums, blueberries, grapefruit and apples.) Dinners have been tacos, canned soups and grilled sandwiches, microwave burgers, microwaved veggies, Pizza establishments we’ve used are Little Caesars and Dominoes, We’ve also bought chick-fil-a and Bojangles. Mostly because they were local, not because they were healthy or anything.

I’ve pretty much went to the grocery store several days in a row. We have a medium sized dormitory refrigerator set up in our living room’s temporary kitchen and an ice maker ( which has been a lifesaver, with our hot southern September days).

My house is about 60 years old, so many updates we’ve done and are doing currently have been sorely needed. Especially the electrical upgrades! I could only use my hairdryer on one outlet in my house. Any other outlet would trip a breaker and turn of the power in half of our house. Frustrating and scary! Every appliance except for our refrigerator has been on power strips which I flip off at night.

That’s all I can remember at the moment. I’m sitting in a very noisy dusty house at the moment while hubby watches college football and the boys and the girl are “gaming”.

www.deconstructingconventional.com/post/18-reason-i-won-t-be-getting-a-covid-vaccine

I’m learning some things but haven’t figured it out enough to discuss it so I am posting links

I’ve seen this around and wondered if ANYONE knows ANYTHING about this.

People keep sharing the links. I’m too busy with everyday life, family health issues and homeschooling to look into it in depth.

https://www.welcometothefoundation.com/all-documents

https://tdaaccount.org/

http://dissolveyourdebt.net/