Wednesday, May 13: Still in the Basement

You'll notice a gap of days. May 8 - 12 are missing from this blog, but rest assured they are all pretty much the same as what I'm about to describe.

The blog as well as everything else has gotten away from me, and I blame it 100% on the fact that we are still living in the basement. The feeling of being disorganized and displaced has only gotten worse as these months have worn on. And the project now feels like it's at a standstill as we await the countertops--a step that needs to be completed before additional, final (?) steps can take place.

Things have been appearing incrementally, and it is very hard to judge how they actually look when they are out of context with the rest of the kitchen. Every time I come home from work and see something new, something that looks out of scale and out of place in all the unfinishedness of the spaces around it, I decide I hate it and lament to Andrew that we've made a huge, huge mistake in choosing it, and Andrew tries to make me feel better by saying don't worry, we can always redo it later if we are really unhappy, at a cost of, oh, one million dollars, but what's money? And then the next day some molding will be added or an adjacent cabinet will appear and suddently it looks like it's supposed to, like we'd literally seen how it would be on the design, and all is once again okay. 

This is an exhausting project. We're also at the stage now where we keep adding requests for the contractor, the infamous Slippery Slope of Every Single Renovation. Andrew just texted him about getting two new screen doors, which are nowhere near the kitchen.

And we are still in the basement. It is very very cold and damp in the basement, and it just seems to get messier and messier. Last night I tried to make quesadillas--the most basic of all foods, the simplest thing of all to make in a basement kitchen--and, as the kids would say, "crashed out" when I had no counter space and couldn't find the right cutting board and etc etc and, TL/DR, mangled them in a no-longer-nonstick pan. 

In other news, Lucia did not qualify for WPIALs--16 runners qualified, and she was #17, off by one-tenth of a second. She was disappointed, but her coaches are excited for her upcoming XC season. Lots of good things are ahead. 

Was Andrew on a business trip during the past six days? I can't remember. He may have been, but I don't remember where.

Mother's Day--May 10, 2026--deserves a mention, of course. We had a lovely day in Connellsville. Mom made gnocchi and apple pie. Lucia got me a horse-head necklace; Greta made me two scrap monsters; Andrew and the kids got me some adorable chicken dishware and socks from Anthropologie. We had a nice afternoon.