Sorry about the long delay- been distracted by a few things.
We finally turned a corner with the townhouse this past weekend, thanks in large part to the help of my parents and my mother-in-law. I was beginning to despair of ever getting that kitchen finished, but now it’s in striking distance. Shelly and I owe a big debt of gratitude to the three of them for all their hard work.
The weekend before last, Scott came down, and over the course of a long three days, the two of us put down tile in the kitchen, foyer, and the three bathrooms. It looks very nice, and once the painting and touch-ups are done in the kitchen, that room is going to look great!
Our move, which had originally been scheduled for last weekend, is happening this coming weekend instead. It WILL happen this time, because our apartment lease runs out on Saturday. I have a feeling, if given the chance, I could go another month working on stuff over there and still not be quite ready to move in, but the clock’s run out. We’ll have to settle on the kitchen being finished and take it from there. I can see many weekends sacrificed to the slavering monster that is my townhouse- it certainly devoured the last three, which barely seemed to whet its appetite. Everyone seems especially joyful as they tell me that home improvements ‘never end’.
In other news, the following weekend (unless something’s changed), Jen and Tim will be down to visit. I still need to plan out some kind of itinerary for them- or I supposed I could put them to work while they’re here?? The living room does still need to be painted!
I honestly don’t have that much else to say- most of my free time has been spent packing or doing home renovations (I’m seriously thinking of blocking the HGTV channel- it’s filled Shelly’s head with all kinds of ideas!). Erika did come over with Charlotte last night, who is almost walking now, and we had a nice steak dinner. Erika also informed me that I had an “awful mind”; that does it! She’s NEVER coming over to our Farrington Lake apartment again!
In waterfowl related news (I occasionally slip down to see them), seven of those ducklings survived. They’re almost full grown now; maybe tomorrow I’ll get a picture of them. Over at the new lake, the eighteen goslings are going strong- the five oldest ones are getting their adult colors now.
Alright, I'm actually 'borrowing' a little work time to post this, so I'm going now. Hope everyone's well.

Closing Time

This is just going to be a quick update. Shelly and I did our final walk-through of the house yesterday morning, and then drove over to the lawyer's office to do the closing. It went extraordinarily fast- we were in and out of there in 45 minutes, largely due to the simplicity of the credit union loan paperwork. When Ken Embree, the lawyer who did the closing, stood up and said we were finished, Jim (our realitor) was astounded and joked "I kept waiting for you to say 'And now here's the real stack of paperwork!'"
Jim really went above and beyond the call of duty for us, and he even gave us a gift certificate to Home Goods. We'll definitely use him again when we move, if at all possible.
Well, the rest of yesterday saw the beginnings of the kitchen remodel. After a trip to Loews, where we picked up everything we'd need, we headed back to our new home and began the project.
Almost immediately, we got a surprise. The previous owners had, at one point, painted over an old set of wall paper and put new wall paper over top of it! The top layer of wall paper is coming up easily enough, but that painted over set is proving a tougher nut to crack. At least it was only done that way on one of the kitchen walls.
Shelly tackled that project, while I set myself busy removing the cabinet doors in preparation of painting them. And, really, that's about as far as we've gotten, and I need to get back over there and get to work.
I still need to update everyone (those who weren't there, at least) on last weekend, but for now, the kitchen awaits!