Okay, so I am sitting here at the computer feeling a bit guilty because Josh is getting the girls ready for bed all by himself and they are NOT happy about it. And since I’m sitting here, he is doing it all by himself. I’m sure I’ll be able to get over my guilt at some point or another. He’s a big boy and he didn’t ask for my help after all…

So here goes part two of my Thanksgiving week. If you didn’t read the first part, scroll down and read that first and this one will make a whole lot more sense. Or don’t. Whatever.

I left off saying that my dad bought me the cabinets and the counter top….So, my dad and I get home from Ikea and unload all the goodies. Before we can start, we have to do some electrical work. You see, the blank wall where we were adding the cabinets didn’t have any outlets. There was only one outlet on that side and in order to use it I had to have extension cords to reach it. So while we’re doing the construction, we might as well add some outlets, right? Easy enough. Well, we figured out for one, why that particular wall was blank before. Basically it was a sheet of drywall covering the back of the fireplace. So we had to drill straight into brick in order to hang the cabinet. And in order to put in outlets, we had to build the wall out a bit to make room. So we re-framed out the wall and my dad hooks up the wires and gets it all ready to thread the wires down through the floor and connect them to the power under the house. He drilled 2 holes in my floor (which of course is going to be covered up by the cabinets, but still…it was hard to watch) and hit solid concrete. Oh dear. Dad and Josh went under the house and realized that the fireplace is sitting on a solid foundation of concrete. So plan A didn’t work. Because the outlets were important to me, we re-routed the wires to go up instead of down and it ended up working out. Crisis averted. That’s about as far as we got the first night. Oh yeah, we hung the upper cabinet too during half time of the Blazer game which dad and Josh were watching.

Saturday. My dad came over early and started work. We worked all day and by the end of the day it was time to do some demo on our old counter top. That was my favorite part. Have I mentioned that I HATE the tile counter top that is in my kitchen. I smashed it with a hammer with glee. We got the base cabinet finished and installed and put on the counter top. (it’s still not glued on yet, but I can at least use it).

Sunday. We didn’t go to church because the girls were all snotty (what else is new?) so we stayed home and worked on getting more of the kitchen done. I started painting. I painted the bottom cabinet to match my bottom cabinets and the top to match the top. And I filled holes and painted the new drywall to match my walls. On Sunday night my in laws stopped by and John offered to come the next day and fix the corner for me. (Josh and I have really good dad’s)

Monday. John came over and fixed my corner and a couple other flaws in the drywall and as a bonus, he fixed an area that has been sitting there exposed for a year that has made me crazy! Yea!

Somewhere along the lines of these days we realized something unfortunate…The microwave that we’ve had sitting in storage for a year waiting to be used, the microwave that started this whole project, was too big to fit inside the microwave cabinet that we bought. B.u.m.m.e.r. Currently I’m in the process of trying to sell the microwave on craigslist so that I can buy one that will fit…so I still after all this don’t have a new microwave. Does anyone need a really nice over the range black microwave? I’ll sell it cheap…

Tuesday. I had to wait overnight for the drywall mud that John used to dry. I then was able to sand and re-paint. This was also the day that I missed the trip to Ikea with Leah, Heidi and Christine. I opted out of the trip because I was stressed that in 2 days my family was coming over to have Thanksgiving and my kitchen was under construction. Not to mention that I’d been so busy and pre-occupied with kitchen projects that the entire rest of the house was being neglected. It’s astounding what happens in my house when things are neglected…even for a day or two. So, even though I didn’t get as much done as I wanted to, by Tuesday night at least I could say that there was nothing more I could do on the kitchen. Except clean.

Wednesday. I don’t really remember Wednesday. I think I probably just cleaned all day. Oh yeah, and I made a blackberry pie and a carrot cake.

Thursday. The Big Day. Thankfully Josh had this day completely off and he was able to help me a lot in getting everything company clean. By the time people showed up, I felt ready and not stressed. Yea for that. I was in charge of cooking the turkey and it turned out well, I think. I added some cayenne pepper to the other seasonings that I usually use and it had a little kick. So dinner went well. Very laid back and nice.

Friday. (What? You thought I was going to stop at Thursday? There’s way more) Even though I didn’t have plans when I went to bed Thursday night, I ended up waking up and going early for the sale at Fred Meyer. I know. It’s an addiction. An addiction to 50% off socks and buy one get one free games. I’m in therapy for it right now.

Saturday. Most of my day was spent cleaning and baking. What was I baking? Why snickers cheesecake and lemon tarts of course for our Thanksgiving #2 with the McKenney’s. Can I just say…yum.

Sunday. Church in the morning, then back home to clean and get ready for Thanksgiving #2. The McKenney’s came late afternoon and didn’t stay nearly long enough for my taste! It seems so wrong that we all live within 10 minutes of each other and hardly ever get together. There’s something very wrong with that picture. But it was a good time. For your viewing enjoyment, here’s a picture of my Thanksgiving dining table.