What's that sound?

Silence!

It's stunningly lovely to the ears! Yes my friends, after two months of racket, the contractors are finally out of here. They came by this morning at a very respectable 10:30 AM to put the finishing touches on the walls and now they're gone. We still have carpet to install down there, but the dirty and noisy work is done.

Relief...at last!

They did give a bid on a kitchen renovation, but we won't even consider starting a project like this until the weather breaks. It's also something we may do instead of a big 25th wedding anniversary trip. I think that's fair. Italy will have to wait. Our kitchen is so tiny and I think I'd love a bit of space, not to mention a little room to cook.

I have time to dream, so here it goes...

• A Viking professional stove with six burners and a grill.
• A big-ass exhaust hood that stands alone like a piece of jewelry hovering above the alter-like stove.
• A separate convection oven.
• An appliance garage for my Kitchen Aid Mixer. It's so heavy to lift and I think a house of its own would be nice.
• A food pantry
• A spice pantry
• Radiant heat in the floor
• That floor? Cork, I think, or maybe Brazilian cherry hardwood.
• A lighter colored granite on the counters
• A boat load of cabinet space
• Task lighting under the cabinets
• Built in recycling cabinets
• French doors leading to the now miniature yard (can't expand without losing outdoor space) and an herb garden on the new deck. Ooh...that yard is disappearing fast in my dream!
• A new Le Creuset cookware set
• A state of the art espresso machine
• A professional chef who can both work the espresso machine AND make fabulous bon-bons in the wink of an eye. Hey! What? It's my dream!

I'm only getting warmed up here, but for some reason, I think my imagination may be a bit bigger than my budget.

If I do something like this, what do I need besides winning the lottery? What am I missing?

It's all over when you care not one whit about appearance.

Just when I think I've seen the last of the contractors for a bit, a whole slew of them seem to have moved in with us. Oh, sure, they're only here from 8 am until 4 pm, but they're still here waking us up early, taking up space, playing their music, creating an awful smelling home, pounding any thoughts of restorative sleep away and creating dust storms on the day the house was just cleaned. It's like living with 10 Pigpens. Today though, I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel. This morning with all of us deep in slumber, Leo aroused the house with his horrific alert that barbarians were at the gate. Looking completely insane with hair raised and makeup smeared under my eyes like a raccoon because I was too tired to remove it before I collapsed from exhaustion went to bed, I greeted the painters.

Yes! Finish work on the basement family room has begun, but more importantly, I'm starting to believe, really believe, that it's the beginning of the end of this parade of contractors that began with a little water in the basement. We evening shift workers can all go back to sleeping in until the ungodly hour of 9 AM and generally feeling more rested. Yes! Yes and Yes!

And then, over just my first cup of coffee, my husband utters the following: "they're going to give us a bid on expanding the kitchen."

Maybe I still have mascara caked in my eyes obscuring my view, but suddenly the kitchen doesn't look so small after all.

More notes to self because apparently, I'm a slow learner

"It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent. " ~ Dave Barry

Or in my case, if you leave the sunroof ajar, rain will seek out every crevice, cup well and seat in which to accumulate in your car. Doh!

Home Alone

I'm feeling rather hungover today. Since no alcohol was consumed yesterday, I think it was the combination of cooking all day in the kitchen and then starting a 12 hour on call work schedule. Working a midnight shift does that to me, but I'm required to work one holiday a year and Thanksgiving seems to work out best. Last year I got no calls, and this year I got only one call for all 12 hours. I did have to go out, but I was back home in no time at all. I waited another couple of hours to see if my hospice phone would ring again and finally threw in the towel and went to bed. I tossed and turned all night because I think, worried I'd miss a page, I slept with one eye and one ear open.

I'd briefly considered going to either Target or Kohls at 1AM, but simply could not muster the desire to feed the Black Friday Machine. I felt even less compelled when my alarm awakened me at 7:30AM to send report. Rather, I spent the day as I imagine a sloth would. I'm so glad I did.

The reports of violence at 9 different Walmart stores is really disturbing and I can't help but think the frenzied ads leading up to BF feed this insanity. There were reports of fist fights, and fights over towels that cost $1.88. There was one armed robbery with a shooting, and no surprise here, the stereotypical trampling of another human being in the rush to feed the greed machine. Oddly, there was only one account of a woman who pepper sprayed people to get to the items she wanted first. You'd think more people would have thought of that one!

Instead of surrounding myself in lunacy, I stayed home in my jammies all day long. Oh, I mustered enough energy to watch a little college football, eat some leftovers (more than 1 trip to the fridge), read a bit of the Yarn Harlot's book, and of course, knit. I also gave Pepe le Pew Leo a bath.

It's almost time to call it a day and go back to bed. I'm betting the retail workers of America are as relieved as me.

Things that keep me awake at night

Somehow when I got my new iphone, my digits were likely sold and now I get calls from all over the country. Utah, Washington, New York, Maine...You name it, the calls are coming in and I don't answer them. The callers, likely machines, don't leave a message, either. As irritating as these calls are, they can't compare to what I encountered yesterday. Last night, I sat in an ICU taking care of a patient for four very long hours. Every two minutes, the unit's phone rang and the caller on the other end was a fax machine. Talk about disruptive! It's not like a busy neuro ICU staff has anything better to do, right? Since I was the only one sitting at the desk for a bit, I took to answering the phone line and hanging up on the computerized fax machine. I have to apologize to the cat scan department though because after the 90th call from the phantom fax machine, I hung up on them once, too.

Why don't Stub Hub and Art Fire get the message that I've unsubscribed to their daily emails more than once? They're still emailing me every day. I abhor junk email. I used to have a wowway email, but got so annoyed by junk--and by junk I mean viagra ads--that I started using gmail to escape, but that's become an issue, too. Yesterday I went into that long ignored wowway account and deleted 891 junk mails. My mac.com email doesn't ever get junk, but then I don't give that email address out to anyone but family and friends. I used to have to pay for the mobile me (mac) account, but realized that they weren't billing me anymore and sometime over the last year, mobile me became a free service. Even though it's free, I still don't get junk. Thanks, Steve!

Can holiday advertising be any more frantic? Talk about annoying! The Target and Kohls commercials are beyond obnoxious. And another thing, I think it's shameful that these stores are opening at midnight, and some even 10PM on Thursday night. I feel sorry for their employees who can't even enjoy the holiday before they descend into retail hell on Friday. I recall the days when you got what you needed before a big holiday because everyone was at home celebrating and spending time with their families. If you forgot an ingredient, you were out of luck. You couldn't even get gasoline on a holiday (or even a Sunday). Now it seems every single store or big chain is open. Nothing is sacred. Even the local CVS is open 7AM to 10 PM Thursday. I think that's sad. What's even sadder is the amount of people who've been camping outside some stores since Saturday. Really? Maybe we can see a picture of them in the dictionary under the definition of insanity. I hope they enjoyed the nearly 2 inches of rain we got yesterday.

Why so bitchy, Nurse Rudee? After all, it's warm(er) today and the sun is shining in the glorious blue sky. I think I must be missing Mr. Larger Than Life and his drama this holiday and it all feels weird. It'll be our first peaceful holiday without the stick in the mud spoiling the day him. To commemorate the occasion, I bought two lovely bottles of pinot noir and even got the wine glasses out so the wine doesn't have to be served in disguise. There will be no fight over the television and Rachel can watch Winnie the Pooh to her heart's delight. What's to miss? To make me feel more myself at this holiday, my son is insisting on buying a ham. And day old vegetable trays. I hope he doesn't expect me to fawn over his offerings.

That is all. Perhaps I should open the wine early.

It's all good

Or it will be. Just as soon as these contractors get out of my house.

Wurm, modeled by my friend Judi.

Wurm in closeup. It took awhile to knit (and purl), but I think mainly because my paws needed frequent breaks. I'm all healed now and it's knitting like a maniac as usual. Hey, Christmas is only a few weeks away!

Today there are electricians here to hang our new fixtures. When they opened the box for the chandelier, the special order fixture was in a dozen different pieces. Of course it was. It's Monday. The Monday before a big holiday. It would be bizarre if it all went smoothly--what was I thinking? I called the store and they gave us their fixture off the ceiling. Back at the ranch with the new fixture, and the electrician discovered a screw is missing. The screw that holds the support brackets for the heavy chandelier. Oy.

Can you believe this scarf practically crocheted itself in 20 minutes? The yarn, the star of this attraction, does all the work. It's Rowan's Kidsilk Creation, and while kind of costly, being able to create a last minute gift during the holidays is something I consider priceless.

The hideous living room fixture is gone, but the new one needed to be rigged so the fixture lined up straight. The electrician kept telling me it wouldn't work, but when I handed him the bracket for the old fixture and asked if that would work, I could see the light slowly dawning for him. Ugh.

The kitchen fixture is fine, but while trying to put the bulbs in, the electrician dropped one. There were shards of glass everywhere and when they're gone, I'll have to vacuum to be sure there aren't any bits that could snag Leo's paws.

Speaking of paws, I'm knitting Bella's Mittens for a colleague who is hooked on those Twilight books and movies. She's also a hockey mom who spends hours and hours in cold arenas. She should like these. While these don't exactly knit themselves, they are a really fast knit.

It's only 11 AM. The sparkys aren't done yet and come noon, we're expecting the carpenters to come and start repairing the parts of the basement that were destroyed when the drain tiles were placed. The electricians, two of them, are perplexed over how to put my chandelier together. It doesn't look that hard to me, and would probably be a snap if one of these two would look at the instructions that came with the fixture. Oh wait, how foolish to think of that. Real men don't need directions.

I am so tired of contractors.

Oh...and now it's after noon, I start work at 4 and of course the carpenters aren't here yet.

Post op day 1

The patient is doing quite well today, but after several calls to the house and being told by her caregivers that she's still sleeping, I had to go and see for myself. I blew into the house like a know it all nurse, dragged her out of bed, got her to eat a bowl of pasta and mashed bananas and drink a giant glass of soda. Then I washed her mouth for her and left the patient sitting up watching a little television. So much for a slow night for the staff. I think the codeine was a little more than she could manage and so all she did was sleep. Tonight she'll get the codeine before bed, but tomorrow it needs to stop. I wish all my patients were so sensitive to opiates.

Her smile is beautiful!

Mumma is relieved.