The contractor pushed hard this past weekend and finished the kitchen. Now I need to determine what I'm going to hang on the walls and where I shall place things. I lived with what decor I'd put up for quite some time and only one piece is going back right where it was all those months. The rest I will figure out as I go and try to determine if they even fit the direction I have been slowly trying to go in for the past year or so.
The kitchen does look lovely, and I promise you all pictures. I just got things put back into place (not decor, just furniture and counter appliances) this morning. And frankly I am tired. Partly due to a tough night for unknown reasons and that I worked very hard indeed this morning. But I'm ahead of myself...
Saturday, I spent the day reading a book. John bought me a lovely vintage copy of April Gold by Grace Livingston Hill a couple of Christmases ago and I thought I'd like to at least honor the month by getting that read once. It's really a nice story overall and just the sort of thing I needed to read. I made pizza at lunch time, and Travis sat and ate lunch with us. He ate very well indeed which always makes me feel happy, lol. No truly, I do love feeding people and seeing them enjoy the food I make.
He left fairly early that afternoon and we had the remainder of the day to ourselves. Sam ran in and brought some Japanese Curry for us. I haven't tried it yet, but it smelled rather nice when he opened the lid. I expect that will be supper tomorrow night.
Sunday, we went to church and then over to Katie's after. I told John we'd stop and take sandwich stuff over and we did. I would have been better off to buy chicken though. It was NOT cheaper to pick up luncheon meat (and not from the deli!) and bread and chips. And I was much amused when Caleb said to us, while his mom was making sandwiches for the three kids, "Next time I want fried chicken, green beans and macaroni and cheese."
I don't typically take lunch because honestly because it gets very expensive, but we often won't eat at all while we're there and not getting lunch until 3:30 or 4pm when we leave is just a bit late for me. I wouldn't mind half so much if John would consider that late lunch/early supper, but no, he won't. He expects something else to eat when we get home. But anyway, sandwiches were on the menu yesterday and I'm glad we took it and had lunch because it was far more pleasant to come home having already eaten than to wolf down food in a moving car too late in the afternoon! I'm trying to find a way around a pattern that doesn't suit me in the least.
I enjoyed my time with the children. For some reason yesterday, Henry had an especial interest to his siblings who were all drawn to come sit next to me and beg to hold him, so I got very little of his time or attention yesterday. I do love how when Taylor walks up and drawls a long "Hi" out to Henry, he immediately mimics her and returns the greeting.
Katie sent me home with tomato plants, parsley and dill...I'll be having a garden I guess and that's quite all right with me. Maybe I shall just go ahead and plant some green beans and carrots as well. Why not?!
When we got home, the kitchen needed last touches but was pretty much finished. I expect Travis might have been done a good deal earlier if John hadn't settled in a chair near the doorway and proceeded to talk the man's ears off. Mind you, Travis holds his own in conversation as well. They talked and talked and talked and talked some more. Finally, all was finished and Travis started packing up his stuff to go out the door. John went out to help him. An hour and a half later they were still chatting away, and I was just thinking it was time to tell John to let him go home, when Lori called worried about Travis not having yet returned home. I went to the door and said, "Go home!!" Travis and John laughed but John had good grace to say goodbye and let the man finish loading up his tools.
It's nice they like each other so well. Indeed, I like the man myself, he's very pleasant and he 'fits' when he's here, never obtrusive or awkward. But he's also very busy and I know he'd spent the whole weekend working with little time off. He'll be back sometime in the next few days to do the last jobs and then we won't see him for a long while. However, I can say honestly that having him here has been pleasant and we will truly miss him.
It was late, nearly 7:30 by then and I was worn out. I dozed off and took a brief nap, then John and I watched a vlogger we save to watch on Sunday and the next to last episode of season two in "Unforgiven" and then I went to bed and right to sleep.
Which brings us back around to not sleeping well last night. I woke about 12:30 or so and was in pain, the weather aches sort of pain, not agony but just general misery. I finally was able to get comfortable once more and went back to sleep but I feel the broken sleep I had last night.
Despite this, I was determined today to tackle the layer of dust in our bedroom. I cleaned up the master bath and then I went into the bedroom determined that the furniture, fans, walls, etc. would get dusted and the room deeply vacuumed. It took over an hour to get it all done properly but it was worthwhile. And then I cleaned off the dining table and set the kitchen back in order. All in all, I had a good four hours work under my feet by the time I sat down to lunch.
And now it is time to sort out supper. I have Chicken Pot pie filling in the fridge that I thawed yesterday. I'm going to make that for supper tonight. I think I'm going to top the pie with puff pastry, simply because I've got it in the freezer and I may as well use it.
One other thing...Did you ever wonder where all this 'simple living' thinking came from? Do you, as I, think this is a product of our hectic modern times? For as long as I can remember people have been looking around saying, "I want a simpler life," but it's not a recent idea. In the 1970's one of Daddy's favorite magazines and one he and I both devoured from cover to cover was called "Mother Earth News". Therein each month was article after article of people who had changed corporate jobs for acreage and returned to milking cows and gardening, canning and preserving and living the 'simple' life. So yes, I've been hearing about simple living now for more than fifty years. And I did truly think it was a product of our modern times.
However, today I took a brief moment to read a small book of Laura Ingalls Wilders earlier writings and discovered that she was writing about 'simple living' and returning to the 'old ways of simpler times' long before Mother Earth News publishers were a twinkling in the eye of a mother or father. She was writing about this in the very early 1900's!
I don't think simple living is a product of modernism. I think it just must be a heartfelt longing for a time in life when we ourselves hadn't so much information, intelligence, knowledge, stuff crammed at us. Simple times really denote a longing to return to a carefree (relatively speaking) childhood of simply accepting that each day is a brand-new day.
Adulthood brings with it a lot more than responsibility, doesn't it? It's not going away, no matter how much we wish it! Life will never again be as simple as it was when we were children. We can however choose to make each day as peaceful, calm and chaos free as we can humanly manage. We can choose not to add stress to ourselves or others. We can choose to approach every single day as a brand-new day and be grateful at both the beginning and the end of it.
I hope you've had a lovely day!
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