Happy Friday

Happy Friday, everyone. Hopefully Friday has meaning for most if not all of us. It has extra meaning for me this week. Starting this month my company has changed it’s hybrid work requirements. Where it used to be that we had to be in the office for 20% of each pay period (basically one day each week), as of March 1st we have to be in the office for 40% of each pay period (basically twice per week). Today is my first, second day of a week. None of us our happy with this, but it’s a whole ton better than being back 80%, which is what we had prior to the pandemic shut down. Oh well. I’ll deal with it. I am still coming in every Wednesday. My group has Wednesdays as a mandate and the second day each week is at everyone’s personal discretion. I am sort of planning on making Mondays my regular second day, just to get it over with, but that didn’t work this week due to the contractors working in the kitchen. Friday was the only day that worked for me. Fortunately there was zero traffic today. I made the 40 mile drive to the office in 45 minutes. If only it were like that every morning.

In other news, the kids are on the ground. Bellana’s flight landed in Georgia (the US state, not the European country) before I went to sleep last night. Harry’s first flight landed in London well after I nodded off for the night, and his connecting flight landed in Scotland before I woke up this morning. All is well on both of those fronts. Here’s hoping they both have a great time on their trips.

I am taking advantage of the fact that I am 40 miles from home right now to make my way to IKEA after work. IKEA is about 60 miles from home, but only 20 miles from work. I will head down there as soon as I am free and go to the returns department and bring back a great big pile of stuff that IKEA included in our kitchen redesign blue print that we didn’t end up needing. There is a lot of stuff to return. A lot of stuff. If I get it all done tonight then we don’t have to worry about it, and with the money we get back maybe I’ll be able to afford a hair cut this weekend because damn, do I need a hair cut!

Anyway, here’s today’s photo-a-day picture. I took it before I did my workout this morning at about 5:40am. It’s only 9:14am now but it’s already felt like a long day.

Installation: Complete

They are finished installing our new IKEA kitchen. I am thrilled and amazed. I love it!

The walls will be patched and tiled tomorrow and the plumber will finish the sink and dishwasher installation on Monday.

Wow!

Kitchen Demolition Starts Tomorrow

Our kitchen cabinets are going to get nuked into oblivion starting tomorrow morning. The plan is for the new installation to start on Saturday. They told us it would only take a day. I will believe it when I see it, but I am also really hoping that prediction is accurate.

I still have a few things to move out of the kitchen before they come tomorrow but I figured I’d take some pictures for posterity’s sake.

The appliances (except for the microwave) are staying, though one is moving to a new location, but the cabinets and the counter tops and the shelves are all coming down and being replaced. While I am at this, let me also post pictures of the piles of boxes that IKEA delivered to us over the last few days. Again, just for posterity’s sake, but also sort of just for shits and giggles.

I’ll post a follow up to this after they leave tomorrow so we can see the changes.

I am both ready for this project to get started and ready for it to be over. Please let it end quickly. I want my kitchen back.

Avalanche

Ikea Avalanche…

Ikeavalanche…

Ikevalanche…

I think I like that last one. Ikevalanche. That describes what happened to our house. Ikea exploded and it caused an avalanche in our living and dining rooms. Ikevalanche, babie.

The cats are oblivious.

Bill of Lading

Lily is laying on top of a pair of multi-page Bills of Ladings.

IKEA delivery complete. 170-something boxes. One item shipped incorrectly and one item missing. Neither of them are mission critical. I have to pick up a few more things from IKEA tomorrow after work. Other than that, we’re good to go.

Stressing Out

I’m trying not to lose my shit today. The stress level is very high.

IKEA has not delivered yet. When they do they are going to drop off almost 200 boxes worth of kitchen cabinets and related stuff. Those nearly 200 boxes are likely going to fill up every single spec of empty space in our house. When it gets here we need to catalog the whole batch to make sure nothing is missing. Yeah, I am freaking out.

On top of that, someone important to me tested positive for Covid-19 today. Fuck-a-doodle-do.

Robin is completely unphased by any of this and I am freakin’ jealous.

Upcoming Stuff

The IKEA kitchen deliveries are happening on Monday and Tuesday. A few boxes on Monday and almost 200 on Tuesday. The plumber is coming to disconnect everything on Monday. Demolition of the current kitchen is Friday and installation of the new kitchen is Saturday. They are telling us they only need one day to install but that seems crazy to me. The plumbing hookups, electrical work, and the addition of the backsplash all happen at some point after the install. When? We don’t know yet.

Both of my step kids are going on trips over spring break. They are coming home the week after the kitchen install. I have to take a day off to drive them both to the airport. We have Harry’s flight information already but not Bellana’s. Not yet at least. The following week we’ll pick them back up at the airport but as of now it doesn’t look like I’ll need to take time off from work for that.

I also have five days to finish the RPM Challenge. I have three songs finished, six ready to mix, six ready for lead guitars, and five waiting for vocals. Two of those five have lyrics and a melody written. I did those earlier today. I am hoping to get to the other three before I sleep tonight so I can get them all recorded tomorrow morning. If I can’t get through it all tomorrow I’ll have to finish up before work on Monday. Then I just have a ton of lead guitars to record and multiple tons of mixing to do. I can get to it all, but it’s going to be tough. I have some late nights and early mornings in my near future.

There are so many things to do in the coming weeks. So very, very many things. It’s going to be pretty crazy around these parts. I’ll post lots of pictures as things progress.

Productive Evening

I punched out of work tonight at a little after 5:30pm and started my long weekend! I took Monday off because I am going to max out my accrued vacation time next month if I don’t take two days off this month. Monday is the first of the two which means I have a long weekend.

I plan to get shit done. Get. Shit. Done.

I started tonight by writing lyrics to three RPM Challenge songs. Also, Jen and I did some work to plan for the upcoming kitchen remodeling project. When I say Jen and I, I mean Jen did planning stuff and I watched and threw out occasional comments. However it happened, I think we got some stuff done and that is good.

Car vocals tomorrow? I hope so. Run some errands? Sure thing. Play some guitar? I hope so. Repeat the whole thing on both Sunday and Monday? You betcha!

The best part about the now current three day weekend? Next weekend is a three day weekend too! My second February day off is next Friday. One week from today. I am going to Kick. RPM’s. Ass*, babie.

*Dictionary.com defines “bravado” thusly:

bravado

[ bruh–vah-doh ]

noun,plural bra·va·does, bra·va·dos.

a pretentious, swaggering display of courage.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bravado

Kid’s Room Redesign

When Harry moved into his own apartment he took almost all of his bedroom furniture with him. Slowly but surely we’re putting it back together. We now have a day bed and a rug. Ignore the heavy things holding down the corners of said rug.