Operation Kitchen

Everybody who knows me knows that I hate our kitchen. Caleb and I love to cook, and I mean, love to cook. We're what you might call "foodies." Unfortunately, our kitchen is not a foodie's kitchen. It's more like a "college student who lives off of ramen noodles" kitchen.

The counters and cabinets are all made of matching off-white melamine, which Jenny just informed me is the poisonous substance in Chinese kitty food.

The counter space is minimal, at best, and made worse by the fact that there is a long window in the middle of it that means one counter only comes up to a tall person's knees.

The sink is one bowl, and it has this crazy trash trap in it that harbors all kinds of liquid and bacteria and begins to stink if not cleaned regularly.

And there's more, but I won't bore you with the details.

I love the rest of the house, but the kitchen drives me crazy, and for the next few years (at least), a remodel is not anywhere near our budget. So in an effort to make our kitchen more livable, we're slowly taking on little projects.

For a Christmas gift this year, both sets of our parents donated towards our kitchen project, so this week, we tore out some of our old cabinets and installed open shelves. Besides being ugly, these cabinets were located in a deep corner, and it was nearly impossible to access 90% of the space in them. Because they were so hard to reach, they had turned into a nasty catch-all where we threw dishes in whichever spot we could reach at the time.

Here is a picture of our cabinets in a different corner. You can see how ugly and sterile the doors are.

Here is a picture of the cabinets we tore out. Caleb had already removed the doors, but you can see how mish-mash the clutter was in them.

And here is a picture of our new open shelves. They are organized and lovely. Hopefully, they will stay that way.

Belated Christmas and Vacation Post

Okay, I'm super lax about posting, but here are some Christmas pictures--nearly a month too late. We had a great Christmas. Caleb and I both had a month off, and it was wonderful to be able to give Reed plenty of undivided attention. This was the first Christmas we've ever spent in our own house, and it was really fun to come down in the morning and see that "Santa" had come. Reed was super excited. Later in the day, we went to Caleb's grandma's house and enjoyed lots of food, family, and more present opening. The next day, we celebrated Christmas with Caleb's parents. We really missed my parents this year, but we look forward to spending next Christmas with them. Here are some photos of Reed with his presents, grandparents, and cousins.

We also went to Pittsburgh for a weekend. For my birthday, my friend Kelly launched a fundraising drive and got us a hotel room for the night of my birthday, but since my birthday is on Christmas and we were all tired, we decided to save the room for a night that we could really enjoy. We stayed at the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. It is the oldest and nicest hotel in Pittsburgh. We had a great time. We went to this Pittsburgh Landmark called the Church Brew Works. It's a brew pub located in an old Catholic church. It was pretty fun, and the food was decent, but I think Caleb's homebrewed beer is better.

We also went to the Andy Warhol museum on a Friday night, which made me feel like an adult again.

The next day we went to Trader Joes and H & M, my two favorite stores, and we had dinner with our friends Andy and Carrie that night. It was a great weekend, and I think we deserved it! This past semester was a bear, and I'm pretty sure the next will be worse. Thank you to all of our friends and family who contributed to this wonderful gift and made it possible. Also, thanks to Kenny, Diana, Miranda, and Shale who watched Reed.

Okay, so that's my acceptance speech for the day.