Homecoming

We did indeed survive our cross-country funfest yesterday, which included a really wretched two-hour drive home from the airport in pitch black and pouring rain. Yay! We got home around 7:45 p.m., and Cubby went straight into his crib. Could he form coherent words, I'm sure he would have been saying something along the lines of, "THANK GOD. What took you so long?" Or maybe not, since he was asleep before he hit the mattress. Poor kid. He's a trooper.

The MiL had the woodstove going and dinner all ready for us, bless her heart. She also had the kitchen all torn up and every item from it in the dining room because she and three of her siblings--brave souls all--have started the absolutely staggering task of painting and papering the kitchen.

SURPRISE!

Considering this was last done in the 1960s, you can imagine the amount of work involved. The cleaning alone took days. Our kitchen was really, really yucky. Kind of inevitable, since to call it a heavily used kitchen is a drastic understatement. But still. Gross.

So they're mostly done with the cleaning and have moved on to the sanding and priming and prepping. This means that all of the dishes from the kitchen are on the dining room table and the various foodstuffs from the cabinets are in boxes all over the place. Cooking will be a challenge for awhile.

We're supposed to host Thanksgiving this year, which I suppose gives us a goal for completion. Or maybe we'll just have to make everyone eat in the parlor this year. Stay tuned!