Shiny Distraction

The cabinets will be delivered tomorrow, the 13th!  Why no, I’m not ready, but thank you for asking.  But the arrival, in and of itself, just means I have a storage problem, not a new kitchen.  Once they get here, Home Depot schedules a time to come out to my house and “check in” the cabinets.  Basically, they open every thing up, make sure everything I ordered arrived, and check for dents and scratches.  Then we schedule the install.

A few things need to happen before the install.  The main thing is that I need to create a wall out of my back door.  We are creating a wall where the back door is, and installing French doors out of the window beside it.  This let’s us expand the kitchen and gives us more counter space.  As a note, we are installing about 95 sq. feet of counter space.  Lot’s of room to set stuff on.  Ironically, my wife is working so that nothing will sit on the countertops.  It will all be stored in the cabinets.

Regardless, Mr. Pleasents is coming today to install the French doors and make a wall out of the back door.  In addition, the hardwood floor people are coming to finish up the boarders around the newly laid floor.  I need to buy recessed lighting and finish scraping the popcorn off the ceiling.  Then I need to make it smooth by applying a ting layer of spackling to the ceiling.

We also need to schedule the cabinet install.  Obviously, a day before the install I will have to remove the current kitchen.  After the cabinets go in, we can schedule the counter top guy to come in and measure for a new countertop.  You can’t measure for a countertop till the cabinets are in place.  Once the cabines are in place, we will also install the tile floor.  The range is scheduled to ship on the 28th so before then we will need to run a gas line to it.  I am exchanging an electrice range for a gas one.

We decided to hold off on the backsplash for a few months.  If for no other reason than we were tired of making decisions.  We will figure out colors and what not after we live with what we have for a bit.

Needless to say, it’s a bit hectic and busy around here these days.  I just can’t wait till we remove the kitchen and we have to either eat out or use my mother-in-laws kitchen down the street.

Perhaps this is a little embarrassing to admit, but for as long as I can remember I have wanted an AGA. It’s a large hunk of iron that sits in your kitchen, always on, ready to cook your food, dry your pants, or comfort you on a cold winter day. They don’t have any knobs. You install them, turn them on, and walk away. Over the course of the day they heat up then sit idle, ready to feed the masses. It has two burners on top (with covers). One of them is a boiling burner and one of them is a simmer burner. You move your pots around on the burners depending on how much heat you need. It has many different ovens in it, all at different temperatures. It also comes in 16 different colors. I think that was the selling point. Julia used one, and the two fat ladies used one. I’m sure Justin Wilson would have used one but he was in Louisiana and they have a whole different, but wonderful, style of cooking that didn’t leverage the unique qualities of radiant heat.

Alas, I live in the south. The practicalities of having a large hunk of cast iron in your house, much less your kitchen that is always on is simply stupid. Your house would be a little over warm in the winter and insufferable in the summer. AGA makes other ovens but I decided to look elsewhere.

After a few late night google searches I found the Bluestar. What a wonderful, simple, plain, cooking machine. It can come configured with six burners, a convection oven, they have a local dealer, and it comes in 190 different colors! Two of the burners put out 22K BTU making them perfect for wok stir frying and searing the crap out of just about anything. For a point of reference, the hottest think you can get at Home Depot goes up to around 15 – 16K BTU’s. I was sold.

My wife and I visited the local dealer to buy one of these little gems. We spoke with John, a really nice sales guy who was eager to help. This was going to be his first Bluestar sale. (While we were in the showroom we also saw a TurboChef, but that’s a different blog post) Did I mention the Bluestar comes in 190 different colors? Well, that turned out to be a bit of a problem. They had a blue one on the showroom floor. That’s the one we saw, that’s the one we wanted. Unfortunately, they didn’t know exactly what color blue that was.

The have a list of all the colors on the Bluestar website but honestly, it’s not like you can match a color that way. This kicked off a few phone conversations between John and me.

*ring*
me: Hi John, found those paint chips yet?
John: Um, no, I’m waiting for people to call me back…why don’t you just pick a color from the website?
me: That won’t work. Heck, even the web site says the colors are simply representivive of the actual colors of the oven.
John: Well, I’m having a real hard time, I think color RAL 5008 is what you are looking for.
(This is where I decide to wind him up. I don’t think he’s working hard enough)
me: Actually John, Kim and I were talking last night, we have changed our minds.
John: WHAT!? What do you mean?
me: Oh we still want the Bluestar, but we want flames on the front instead.
John: (pause) flames? …are you sure
me: yep - it’s right on the web site. You can get flames, your favorite pro football team, or the the nativity scene.
John: (pause) nativity scene?
me: yep. We really liked that one. When you turn on the oven light the little baby Jesus glows but it’s really too seasonal. After all, what if we tried to sell the house in the summer?
John: um…you say this is on the website?
me: yep, it’s under the alternative design link off the colors page. We want the orange flames not the blue ones. Call me back when you figure out how much extra it costs…*click*

ten minutes pass - ring

me: Hi John, what’s the damage.
John: I don’t think they offer anything other that solid colors. I didn’t see it on the website and when I called the Bluestar rep. he laughed at me.
me: oh, my bad. I must have run across that on a discussion board about things people would like to see. I’m sorry. BTW - did the rep. mention anything about getting you those paint chips?
John: I should have them tomorrow.
me: That’s great! Thanks! Drop me an email and we will swing by, pick out a color, and sign the paperwork.
John: OK - I will see you tomorrow.

Sales people love me.

Yesterday was fun.  It was tiring, but fun.  We went to Home Depot and bought a goodly portion of a kitchen.  We bought the parts you store stuff in and the parts you set things on - the cabinets and counter tops.  We have been playing around with this idea for several months so it’s nice to actually spend some money.

We started in October of last year.  I drew up the floor plan of the kitchen and took it to Eileen, the kitchen designer at Home Depot.  She took my design and laid out three different floor plans for us.  One was good, the other two we just didn’t like.  She asked us if we were in a hurry and we said, “no, we aren’t going to do anything till 2008.  She said she would make a few more designs.

We went back one more time in November or December and she presented a fourth design which we loved!  Then we stopped.  It seems that Home Depot puts  their cabinets on sale about twice a year and the take 10% off.  So we waited.  Sure enough, Eileen called us last week to tell us they were on sale.  We scheduled for someone to come out and measure our kitchen and waited, again.

Rodney arrived at our house 9 am Tuesday morning with Eileen.  Measuring a kitchen involves Rodney looking at Eileen’s plans while mumbling a lot. It sounds like:

mumblemumblemumble B34…B24 28 + 36 + 28 (punching calculator) mumblemumblemumble “I need a 1 1/2 inch spacer here”

Basically, Rondey has been doing this for around 11 years and he has memorized the cabinet numbers and their dimensions.  He can stand in a kitchen and tell you if something will work or not.  It’s like watching Rainman at a blackjack table.  After a lot of mumbling, measuring, grunts, and snorts - he pronounced our new kitchen design and old room dimensions man and wife.  The next day, we went to Home Depot and bought the cabinets and the countertop at 10% off.  I love a deal.  The more you spend the more you save!

So now we do more waiting.  The cabinets will take 6 - 8 weeks to get here and they will be delivered to out house.  The Rodney and or Eileen will come out, open all the boxes and inspect the cabinets to make sure they are correct, all there, and are not damaged.  At that point, we will schedule the actual install.

I suppose i will have a new kitchen soon…

As I type this, a goodly portion of the family is around the dining room table beading - the act of making jewelry with wire and beads. Only A_, who is four, doesn’t quite see it that way. As far as he’s concerned everyone is beetleing.

No beetles needed.

My wife and I had a date night this weekend. This means we dropped the kids off at a neighbors house, ordered take out and watched a movie on the couch. It was a very pleasant evening.

The movie we watched was Common Wealth It was a clever film and I would recommend to anyone looking to see something different. Although, it was in Spanish with english subtitles and a touch more violent than we usually watch, but they can’t be all romantic comedies now can they.

Regardless, after the movie was over we went ahead and slipped it back into the NetFlix envelope:

wife: This will keep the kids from finding it and watching it.
me: yep, and it’s that much sooner till we get the next movie in the queue.
wife: What *is* the next movie?
me: The Simpsons movie.
wife: oh joy.
me: oh, don’t worry, everyone i talk to tells me it great!
wife: nice try. But I’ve seen your everyone….

So much for wisdom of the crowds.

I got a new MP3 player yesterday and I must say it was just in time. I was wearing it at the gym this morning and I noticed they were playing an ABBA song on the music video screen. The audio for the music video stuff is pumped through the gym because music sounds better than sweaty people grunting in a bad way.

I couldn’t pick out the song as my brain was being melted by Fat Boy Slim, but from the images on the screen it looks like “Attack of the Sweater People from the Planet Knitted Apparel Hell”.

Was that a big Abba hit?

As I have mentioned before, my in-laws run a used car lot. If you have ever seen American Chopper on Discovery Channel, it’s disturbing similar. Regardless, our kids sometimes hang out down there, cleaning up, and washing cars. They think it’s fun. My nephew, A., who is 4, was down there this past Friday wandering around and having a grand old time. All of a sudden, he had a burning desire to talk to grandmums:

A: grandmums, I need to show you something!
g: (who is with a customer) Not now A, I’m with a customer.
A: grandmums, I need to show you something!
g: In a minute dear.
A: grandmums, I need to show you something!
.
.
.
g: (finally finished with customer) OK A., what do you want to show me?
A: you have to find it.
g: Um…Can you give me a hint?
A: (waves in general corner of showroom) Over there.

Carol is a bit curious by this point so she wanders over and sees it. It’s big. It’s hairy. It has a tail. It’s a RAT!!!

Carol is a little taken aback at this point, after all, nobody likes rats but the only thing she can say is “A. get up on the desk!” He does. In fact, he is really liking this game.

Well, the rat is in front of the door that leads to the back of the shop where her son is working on a car. As this door is now guarded by a huge, ferocious, Uzi toteing, rat, she can’t sneak to the back to get him. So she tries to call him on his cell phone.

ring ring ring “Hello…hello…hellllllo?”
She looks over, A., who is on the desk, has the phone. oops, looks like her son doesn’t have his phone with him.

Fine, she will call Lloyd Sr., her husband.

ring, ring, ring, hello?
g: Lloyd, where are you?
Lloyd: I’m at DMV, downtown.
g: crap, ok, you are no good to me, *click*

As this is a used car lot, there are *always* people just hanging around. I think it’s a law. Regardless, Carol leans out the front door and says:

“GO TELL LLOYD JR. TO GET UP HERE WITH A SHOVEL NOW!”

Unfortunately, you don’t get any kind of warranty with the people who hang out at the car lot so the message was delivered something like this:

“Um..Hey Lloyd..like, you mom wants something. Oh, and she said bring a shovel.”

Naturally, Lloyd Jr.’s first response was “What?, what are you talking about”

After a few shoulder shrugs from the messenger, Lloyd Jr. picks up a shovel and heads for the showroom. He stops at the door and takes in the scene. A. is up on the desk, playing with his cell phone and Carol is gesturing madly.

Jr. What?…A. why are you on the desk, is that my phone?
Carol Waving arms, trying to talk….
Jr. What are you trying to tell me…A. I told you to get off the desk.

You see, Jr. couldn’t see the rat by his feet because when he looked down, the head of the shovel obstructed his view.
Finally, Carol got it out:

“THERE IS A RAT BY YOUR FOOT!”

Lloyd raises his shovel like a spear and Carol shouts out:

Carol: STOP!!!!!
Jr.: WHAT?!
Carol: DON’T SPEAR IT!
Jr.: WHY NOT?
Carol: YOU WILL MAKE A MESS!
Jr.: oh…good point.

So he simply whacked it on the head, scooped it up, and carried it out.

Problem solved!

Last night at dinner I tried to tell Carol that where there is one rat, there is bound to be more. She didn’t seem pleased. I think she may call Lloyds sister on the phone and borrow her gun

*sigh*, so it’s been a few weeks since my last post and I apologize. While I would love to be able to tell you that I’ve been terribly busy saving the world and all that it wouldn’t be true. (unlike the rest of the stuff on this blog, which is the gospel) No, I have been lured away by the siren song of twitter.

Twitter is a lot of fun. It’s a lot like blog posting but without all the messy test. It’s a way for me to sum up in 140 characters what I am doing, thinking, or obsessing over at that particular second. If we were in an office, I would be yelling it across the room. With twitter, I am typing it into a box.

If you are so inclined, go to twitter, sign up for a free account, download a free client, and look me up under the name “chestnutt”. Although, as we have just gotten through Christmas with the family, I have a few more stories to tell. I should be blogging again shortly.

Most every year my wife’s aunt comes down from Virginia and joins us for Thanksgiving. This year, she was unable to come down. We were missing her Thursday morning so we called her on the phone. It was a pleasant conversation and we were happy to hear she has started walking. In fact, she is up to several miles a day. Although, I must admit, we were a little taken aback when we found out she strapped on a pistol for her walks.

It seems that here husband is a little nervous about her walking in the hill around Blacksburg by herself. So he makes her carry a gun. So if you are driving in the hills around Blacksburg VA and you see a pleasant older lady taking a stroll, tip your hat and say nice things.

She might shoot you.

On the subject of guns, a gentleman came into the car lot yesterday with a derringer on his belt buckle. My mother-in-law, always the curious one, asked him if it was real.

M-I-L : Is that a real gun?
Man: yep
M-I-L : do you need any kind of special permit to carry that?
Man : Well, actually, I need a concealed handgun permit for it.
M-I-L: Really, why is that?
Man: Because of beer.
M-I-L: I’m sorry, did you say it’s because of beer? What does that have to do with anything?
Man: Well, the gun disappears when I sit down.

My mother-in-law smiled politely and promptly found a car that needed washing.

We are all over at my mother-in-laws house this weekend for dinner. It’s a little rambunctious as there are my wife and I, our two kids, the inlaws, and Damanda’s three kids. Damanda and her husband went out to see a movie and she had dropped off her kids to spend the night.

So something came up about birth order. My mother-in-law was talking to Damanda’s youngest who is 5:

M-I-L - I’m the youngest of my family
M_ - ok
M-I-L - Your mommy is the youngest of all your Aunts and Uncles.
M_ - ok
M-I-L - You are the youngest of your family.
M_ - no I’m not.

*sigh*. I was sitting in the living room and this conversation was taking place behind me in the kitchen. I could not see my mother-in-law so I was watching my wife who was sitting in the couch across from me, looking into the kitchen. As I watched my wife watch the events unfold in the kitchen, I coul’nt help but think that I was watching someone who was watching a train wreck in slow motion and they knew they were powerless to stop it. My wife, sat there on the couch, chewing on a fingernail, watching her mom..

M-I-L - yes dear, you are younger than your brother which makes you the baby.
M_ - nope, the baby in mommies tummy is the youngest.

(this is where you hear the pin drop, time slows down, it really is a long pause)

As I sit there, I can actually hear my mother-in-law look up, spy that my wife is watching her. She then mouthes the words “Is this really true?”

My wife nods.

“This is really a joke, right?”

My wife shakes her head.

Then I hear a chair being pulled out from the table and my mother-in-law fairly collapse into it. My wife walks over and the fierce whispering begins.

Kim and I have know about the baby for a few months. In fact, we strongly urged Damanda to wait as long as she could to break the news. Instead, Damanda told her kids knowing they would spill the beans. Then she dropped them off at grandma’s house and went to the movie. The plan was brilliant and worked like a charm.