Life in a Construction Zone

The day finally arrived when Rob and I had to completely dismantle our kitchen and prepare to live like scavengers for a few weeks while our shiny new kitchen is built. It was not a fun way to end our vacation... We've spent hours going through everything we've ever put in our kitchen this weekend and figuring out how to safely stow it and/or move it to be used while the dust flies. Suffice it to say that I'm already not loving the microwave being a fixture in my living room.

A few lessons I've learned thus far:

1. It is possible to be too organized. I learned this when I came downstairs to make coffee yesterday morning at 6:30 a.m. We have a "brew station," which means no carafe with which to pour water into the tank of the coffee pot. Normally we use the sprayer from the sink. Clearly that's not an option in the living room, next to the fish bowl. No problem. I'll just use a pitcher. EXCEPT every pitcher or other fluid-holding device I own is neatly boxed up and stored in the dining room now. And of course, the boxes are practically hermetically sealed, lest my husband face one extra speck of dust whilst the house is renovated.

2. Starbucks thermal travel mugs are taller than your average coffee cup. The brew station is very convenient. No carafe to break (when you're not ticked off that you also don't have it for pouring.) No burnt coffee. You can just position your coffee mug right under the spout and within seconds have a freshly brewed cup-of-awakeness. EXCEPT when the two handy travel mugs you've kept out to use as your sole coffee drinking devices for approximately six weeks are about two inches too tall to fit under the spout. Again, no problem. I'll just use another mug or measuring cup to dispense my coffee. Wait. That's right. Those are packed away, too. (This is WAY annoying on a Sunday morning when you're up early with a child and can also smell the caffeinated goodness, but can't have any till you find a container for it.)

3. You can't dry your hair and brew coffee when the coffee pot is plugged into the dangerous outlet in the living room. (Do you notice that all of my crises thus far deal with coffee? Hmm. Perhaps I should reassess my New Year's resolution. Yeah, no.) I blew a circuit twice this morning while drying my hair. I dry my hair here every day. That doesn't normally happen. It's only happened when my sister is here and spends longer than usual drying her very long hair. My short hair is usually done in under three minutes. Not too much stress on the circuits. Apparently, though, it is stressful for those circuits to brew a measly six cups of coffee while I'm drying my hair. Note to self: get up even earlier now so that hair can be dried before Rob needs coffee. Or go buy Rob extra Dunkin' Donuts cards and send him on his way about six minutes earlier each morning.

4. The inconveniences of a major renovation are more interesting to a scrapbooker than to a fantasy football nut. See, my major hobby allows me to find the fun in all of this (when I'm properly caffeinated, that is) and snap dozens of photos of all of the mayhem that has become our home life. I can think of fun scrapbook pages to design (and kits to buy!) all based on the noise and dust that come with a new kitchen. If your hobby is fantasy football, you're hard pressed to find such a correlation and simply find all of this ridiculously stressful. See, Rob? Scrapbooking is good for my health.

And finally...

5. Soup is a great meal to keep on hand when you have nothing but a microwave and TV trays to support your dinner-eating habit. The trick is remembering that you will most likely need a bowl. And a spoon. Preferably NOT packed into the boxes in the dining room. And it's best if you figure this fact out before you've heated your dinner.