The kitchen renovation moves forward.  Yesterday brought a trip to the southside to look at the stone and determine where the cuts might be.  I still cannot believe how beautiful this stone is.  After much back and forth, I think we have the correct configuration.  They cut on Monday and then multiple teams return on Wednesday to finish the cabinet work left undone and install this beautiful granite/marble (there is some disagreement as to exactly what it is).

More painting yesterday and tempers are growing short as the days are long and we have two strong willed people managing the project.  OK, let’s acknowledge that I am not managing the project in any way and that doesn’t thrill me.  I prefer having much more control, much clearer paths to completion, and much clearer communication.  Hubby is a lone wolf – keeping all the details in his head and delegating out tasks without any detail as to where we’re going.  It works for him – he’s good at project management.  But being on the receiving end of this style of management is not for me.  Right now he is sawing away inside the house to start getting the bamboo floors down.  There will be excessive dust.

Grandson’s mother posted pics of 3 of my still unseen grandchildren online to Facebook yesterday.  I long for Ember to look up and let me see her eyes, but seeing her at all is a huge bonus.  Her mother revoked my “friend” status on Facebook because I didn’t ask to see the children in the right way when my son had some moments of sanity.  We are back at square one.  At some point I will tire of all this and simply go find them.  Guess we will see what happens when I do that.  But know this:  Ember, Rori, Tenzin – I love you all and would be a big part of your lives if your parents would allow it.  Some day you will be able to ask your older brother about Nana and hopefully what he says will carry some weight.  In the meantime, I wait.

Client is emailing us today about a delay in work product which cannot possibly be our fault – and add to that they have not paid for it.  This is not making me very happy, and I’m sure the team that is now tasked with work on Sunday is less than thrilled.

We are destroying our 1978 kitchen cabinets today.  As of this hour, we’ve carried an EDTV (extended definition TV – precursor to HDTV) and a monstrous round coffee table to Goodwill.  Our 1978 faux pecan cabinets are being cut and removed from the house by my husband any my hairdresser’s strong and reliable son.  Soon, more furniture will be relocated either permanently in the pool room, or temporarily in the garage.

Since I’ve been working the entire time this project has been underway, I now literally have no idea where anything is.  This is distressing to me because I am more than a little OCD.  Mild panic set in this morning when I could not find a spoon to stir my coffee.  I couldn’t find anything with which to stir my coffee.

Now the issue will be that coffee shall be found in the hall bathroom or at Starbucks until this is over.  I can live with that.

Pics to come.

Among my resolutions/commitments to 2015 is blogging again.  Obviously, it’s taken me a few days to get serious about this.  There are explanations for the delay – all of which involve work.  Still, I should do this.  I once had an online blog that I managed to keep very active for about 7 years.  Then part of my world came to an end and I changed.  Seems time that I find my voice again.

I’ve been thinking about how I think about my world.  How do I categorize events, thoughts, opinions, emotions – the things that make up my mental life?  Despite outward appearances, it is my inner mental life that consumes the vast majority of my time.  And trust me, I have a big outer life.

What do I know 2015 will bring?  Physical changes – aging, the need to address some health concerns, people coming and going by virtue of birth, death, relocation, choice.  Mental changes – a strange combination of both increased tolerance and intolerance, willingness to let go of some things I’ve not been able to let go of, acknowledgement of a slight slowing in my mental response times – and how I’ll fight to stop that.  Emotional changes – re-evaluating relationships, self-perception, my capacity to love and be loved, facing fears.  More stuff – but that’s a start.

Right now we’re in limbo about my brother in law who at 57 has spots showing on a CT scan of the liver and the lungs.  This could go south very, very quickly.  Sister survives cancer, only to lose her previously healthy-as-a-horse husband.

House is in limbo as the gutting of a 35 year old kitchen is in progress (pics to come).  If all goes well, we will have cabinets on the 15-16th, followed by new flooring, then appliances, and then countertops (hubby and I disagree on the order of the last two).  Once finished, that room will stand as a monument to the crossing over of mid-decade and will herald my husband’s 7th decade of life (when you turn 60, you enter your 7th decade of life – shocking, but true).

10 min of writing.  First update of 2015 done.  This works.