Sense of Accomplishment

Continued success for day 2. The floor in the kitchen and dining room has been pulled up and the plumbing is being re-routed to where the new sink will be.

We had Ray buy our hood vent for the new stove because we couldn't figure out what to buy. The new "Wonderfridge" and dish washer will be delivered Thursday along with the stove (2 separate trucks!)

I am using Dolores's stove now, so for dinner I made Angel Hair pasta with 95% lean ground beef, onion and some jarred pasta sauce with roasted garlic. I served it with some unbuttered bread. Thought I would just keep it simple tonight.

Tomorrow I have grandiose plans of making fish tacos. This will be a difficult process with no counters downstairs. I have a stove, a table for 2, 3 hung cabinets and a laundry room sink that I'm employing...but I am a stubborn woman! Throw the cutting board on the dryer and away we go.

It's actually rather fun learning how to live with limited resources again. We have to wash dishes every night, dry them and put them away. I don't think we've done that once in the past 6 years that we've been at this house. Aaron washes, I dry and put them away.

Our TV is not hooked up downstairs, so we've been reading together and spending time with the cats and just talking. It's refreshing to not hear the TV.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

I've learned some things over these past couple weeks as I've been packing and preparing for this new kitchen, dining room and living room remodel project.

I've learned that I have way too much "stuff." It took me 5 weeks to go through all of Dolores's things, my things and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. I had over 30 big black garbage bags that were picked up by the Cancer Federation over a span of 3 weeks. I brought many things to work for my co-workers to pick over. I garbaged many things that weren't worthy of anyone having. We've moved everything downstairs into the back bedroom and closed the door so the cats wouldn't get at it. I can't even go into the room because there are still so many boxes and bags of things all over the floor. It's actually quite overwhelming to think of all the stuff that I still have. Some of it has sentimental value - my grandmother's things, Dolores's things, Aaron's grandmother's things, etc. I know in my mind that it's all just stuff, but in my heart it's hard to let go. We don't have any children either, so who the heck am I going to give this stuff to?

I also learned that if we ever had to move (God forbid!), that I would have to hire people to help me pack. HA! Seriously, I think I would collapse if I had to do it all by myself.

Another thing that I've learned is it's ok to be distracted to not feel grief so much. I actually had a decent time going through Dolores's things. I'm glad that I waited 7 months before doing it. I couldn't have done it before without sobbing. I thank God that she lived with us and we didn't have to rush through it like some people have to do with their parents' items. Grief takes time and sometimes TIME is a four-letter word.

I feel such a sense of accomplishment and now that our project has begun and it's day 2 and the sky isn't falling and our cats are ok, I am ready to take a deep breath and remain calm and just let it happen. I'll stay on the side lines writing my poetry, reading my books, playing with our cats, talking to friends that I've inadvertently snubbed over the past couple months during my focused frenzy. (I know they forgive me...) Oh, I can come up for air now.

Perhaps I'll begin by looking at Mediterranean Diabetic recipes, Asian Diabetic recipes, and then I'll get some sleep.