Woo Hoo -- Kitchen Granite Installs Tomorrow!

Look how busy my sweetie has been!  The new sheet rock is up and ready for the backsplash tile, light rail molding has been installed on the bottoms of the existing cabinetry, and the back of the kitchen island has a coat of the elusive Burnt Umber stain that the builder used on the original cabinetry.  It still needs brown glaze and a satin finish oil-based varnish or polyurethane, but I'm very pleased with how well the new carpentry blends in with the old.  As much as this remodeling project has spiraled out of control, at least we were able to keep the existing cabinetry!  Well, mostly we kept the existing cabinetry...

After ordering the new wine fridge (and 50+ bottles of wine to fill it up with), we discovered that the base cabinetry in the butler's pantry was only 20" deep rather than the standard 24" depth that our wine fridge was designed for.  So Bernie spent the better part of a day ripping out the old cabinet, removing the door casing, and building this new 24" deep cabinet that will accommodate the wine fridge on the left, and the copper bar sink on the right.  I need to order a new drawer front and pair of cabinet doors in the same profile as the existing cabinetry, but we don't need to have those before the granite can install.  Tile Collection graciously sent a guy back out to redo the template for this area.  I'm lucky they hadn't cut the stone yet!  Bernie and I were both saying we should have known better.  I think our subconscious wino selves knew the cabinet wasn't deep enough, but suppressed that knowledge in order to get the wine fridge anyway.  I know all about that psychology stuff because I used to watch Frasier before it was cancelled. 

There it is, all stained up with the wine fridge installed.  Bernie had to run water over to this area for the sink as well as for my plumbed espresso machine (the filter is for my espresso machine, too), and I finally convinced him to move an outlet and a light switch so I wouldn't have to reach behind the coffee machines to turn on the undercabinet lighting, and so the machine cords will be as inconspicuous as possible, plugging in directly behind where the machines will sit.  So this "how about we put the coffee machines in the butler's pantry" idea ended up being pretty involved.

Oh, and one more thing: Up until a few days ago, this ugly plastic utility sink lived in my laundry room.  My husband liked to use it for cleaning paint brushes, muddy boots, watering cans, etc.  I never knew what might be splattered in this sink, so I never dared to use it for soaking stains out of the laundry -- this sink probably would have done more harm than good because it was always dirtier than the laundry I wanted to soak in it.  Bernie should really have a work sink out in his garage, and I should have a clean, attractive sink in the laundry room that can safely be used for laundry.  This laundry room is off the kitchen and the door is usually opened, and it has wall cabinets above the machines that match the kitchen cabinetry.  There's no reason the laundry room can't be an attractive extension of the kitchen, especially since there's enough leftover CD Volcano granite from our slabs to do this little countertop in the laundry room, and the not-so-old existing Venetian Bronze kitchen faucet can be reinstalled for the new laundry sink, too.  We're even going to be able to reuse one of the drawer fronts and cabinet doors that came off the dismantled former butler's pantry cabinet.  The only thing I needed to buy was a sink...

Didn't Bernie build me a beautiful laundry cabinet?  Now they can template for the counter top, but the new sink probably won't be here for several weeks because I had to custom order a RED ONE!  :-)

The granite installers are supposed to be here first thing in the morning, and we're finally ready for them!  By this time tomorrow, all of the Baltic Barf countertops will be gone and the CD Volcano will be in its place, hopefully looking as amazing as I have envisioned.  I can't wait!

As the Homework Ceases, the Mommywork Begins!

Over the last month of the school year, the boys' homework tapered off considerably and finally stopped altogether towards the middle of last week.  Disgusting, isn't it?  Miss one lousy school day due to a snow "storm" (that means anything that sticks to the ground for more than 5 minutes here in Charlotte), and they slap you with a makeup day because each day of instruction is supposedly so crucial to the kids' intellectual development.  Meanwhile, the last 10 days of school are pretty much a waste. 

So this year, I decided to fight back -- with the invention of Mommywork!  As we were driving home from school on Thursday, 9-year-old Lars gleefully informed me that he would not have any more homework for the rest of the year. 

Me: "When we get home, I want you to put your shoes away and go straight to the kitchen table to do your homework."

Lars: "I don't have any homework!  Homework is over for the rest of the year!"

Anders: "I don't have any homework, either."

Me: "Good!  Because I picked out some Mommywork pages for each of you out of your workbooks!"

Boys in unison: "Whaaaat?!!!"

Lars: "But that's not fair!  Everyone knows the best thing about summer vacation is no homework!"

Me: "Wrong.  The best thing about summer vacation is no school.  And anyways, it's not homework; homework is assigned by your teacher.  This is Mommywork, which is totally different.  If you guys want me to keep buying books all summer long, you'll do a couple of quick Mommywork assignments every day.  All those books are expensive!  Remember those Ranger's Apprentice books I just ordered from Amazon?  They'll be here tomorrow, and I'm only going to give them to you if you do your Mommywork.  Deal?"

[Boys grumble in reluctant acquiescence.]

Meanwhile, I'm inwardly chortling with glee -- I have just convinced two little boys to do extra homework all summer long in exchange for the privilege of reading.  I must savor this moment.

So, what exactly is Mommywork going to be?  Well, the boys are both well above grade level in just about everything, so my objective here is not for them to catch up or necessarily even get farther ahead by doing extra work over the summer.  It's just that it took the whole first month of school to get the homework routine established.  Their ADHD meds wear off about an hour or so after they get home from school, so if they don't go straight to the kitchen table and crack open their books the instant they walk in the door, they are doomed.  If they still have homework to do at 5 PM, then keeping them on task to complete a simple assignment becomes an excruciating saga of tears, threats, desperation, and misery for the entire family.  So Mommywork is more about keeping up the routine of homework and the habit of sitting down to do homework as soon as they get home from their half day of summer camp.

However, I don't want to waste their time with boring busywork, either.  So I went to Barnes & Noble and got an assortment of colorful basic skills workbooks that would reinforce what they've been doing in school.  I like the Flash Kids series Gifted & Talented: Reading, Writing & Math by grade level (you can find this series here at Amazon) , but the reading and writing exercises in the fourth grade book are nowhere near challenging for Lars, so I also got him a Basic/Not Boring Language Skills: Writing workbook written for grades 6-8+. 

You can find that one here.  The first time Lars saw the book, he was intimidated by the grade level and I had to put the book away.  But today I tore the page out ahead of time so he wouldn't know which workbook it came from, and gave him one page of identifying passive voice sentences and rewriting them in active voice, and one page of using personification to create strong visual images.  He did great on both.  Some of my favorites of his personification sentences:

"The sun glared down on Bedullin (?) tribesmen in the desert."

"The numbers marched across my math test."

"Our porch light winked repeatedly as we slowly unplugged it."

"The fog swam through the neighborhood."

I'm liking this Mommywork concept more and more every day!

Here's one parting photo for today, Lars and Anders hanging out on a bench at the grocery store while the cashier was ringing up our groceries.  They have little brain teaser activity books that they asked us to buy from the magazine rack in the checkout lane.  Don't they remind you of young Nils and Frasier?  I hope I don't end up with a Maris and a Lilith as daughters-in-law someday...