Little Kitchen Goddess

 

This was my mother's small statue. Mother had a fondness for her, and frankly, so do I. It's the sweetest face I've ever seen in porcelaine.

Teapots! Ravelympics sock..

 

Hi Sandy, I have finally taken a piccie! This is most of the teapots. We are still looking for some in storage in a box in the garage. I know there are more little ones, and some other patterns.

The sock is finished, film at 11. :)

For Sandy

 

These are a few of my favorite things...

Knobs and Pulls

 

I am happy with these even though they are not the acorns and oak leaf design I expected, they are the same overall look. Sometimes things go south when you aren't looking, and go extinct. My acorns are extinct.

Edit!!! They are the same.. I just don't know what is happening to my brain. This may be my last post until I get the transplant.

I'm so glad that we can unpack the kitchen this weekend. DH is sure that he will have to set up a camp kitchen outside somewhere now. He just doesn't want to give up that great feeling he gets from foraging for utensils and other kitchen equipage in an unstable, stacked set of drawers from the old cabinets.

New Towels for a new kitchen

 

Aren't these sweet? A dear friend sent them as a kitchenwarming gift, and they got the DH seal of approval yesterday as he used one to take a casserole out of the microwave. He looked at the design she had embroidered and said, "These are beautiful. Do you mean she made these?"

Thank you S!

Acorns for the knobs and pulls have not arrived as of yet, so we are still, "camping out". DH said that he is getting used to it, in fact, he kind of likes it.

Kitchen at 99%

 

 

 

 

99 % finished. All that is needed is the hardware, which consists of little acorn shaped pulls for the doors, and a hand pull of a cup like form with acorn and oak leaf patterns over the outside curve,for the drawers.

Top Picture: The sink wall, with the granite top.

Next down is the whole of the galley kitchen, with the cabinet on the end where a plywood shelf and little flea market table for the coffee maker used to be.

#3: the range side with the new hood, the lowered bamboo butcher blocks for me to make my bakery and candy making spaces, as well as a little prep for cooking.

#4: the last is a close look at the bamboo butcher block. Who knew it could be so beautiful. The back splash is travertine, sealed very well, and zero grout lined.

The kitchen has a jewel like quality to it. Everywhere I look there is a wood grain, a component of the granite, which actually does have tiny garnet inclusions, or a pattern in the travertine that is so beautiful that it takes my breath away. Everyone worked very hard to get this kitchen completed and have it be so lovely. The crew and the contractor have been supurb. They worked right through the 110 degree weather. I don't know how they did that but they did.

Upper Cabinet Door Design

 

The cabinet makers put their hearts and souls into their work. These guys are great! The cabinets are hickory, which is a very hard wood and it gives me the feeling of being in tune with at least some of my ancestors, those from the hardwood hills of Virginia.

I promise this is the last picture before the "after" ones. These glassed in doors will have teapots gleaming out, and there will be little glass chickens peering out the windows, too. At last, they have a proper and relatively dust free home.

New Blog list feature and kitchen blurb.

Hello hello.. I'm trying out a new blog list feature from blogger. I hope that this makes things easier to follow IF you actually do follow links from here. Anyway, it's fun.

EDIT: Now that I've actually seen the above, it is so out of here..... Doesn't suit me at all...

The kitchen cabinet doors are being installed on Monday, and the granite counter tops are in and ready for the sink to go in on Monday, too. I really want to see what the bamboo butcher blocks are going to look like, having never seen that before. The workmanship on these cabinets is *kisses finger tips* wonderful. Having waited 20 to 25 years for this to occur, I'm thrilled by the luxury of it all. I hope the kids like my style as they will surely inherit it!

I will do a MEME from Sarah-Hope's blog, as promised, as soon as my brain returns from sabbatical. And there is the ABC along for H, which I am having a lot of trouble with. Hell seems to be the word that is most significant in my life, since the word Home is not. This is not my home, which is not to say that I'm not grateful, but Home is where the Heart is. It ain't here. I want to be with the rest of the progressive sign carrying anti nukes in Santa Cruz, thank you.

There will be a Saturday sky shot, as today was a beautiful partly cloudy, edge of a tropical storm sort of day, sunny, warm and humid. Edgar Cayce was right. California is getting more tropical every year. tata til later.. Hugs and Kisses! More Chocolate! More Beer, even, if you like that best!

T'other Way.....

 

And, until they are completely finished, this will be the last you will suffer through.

At silver class I finally "glued" the back onto the pendant. I've got some pictures to make a sort of tiny lesson, not of the actual soldering-that would be like watching someone's green paint drying- but of the process. Some people may not have actually seen this process, one or two I'm sure. That's the sort of boring life a rock grinding, blow torch loving maniac lives and it must be documented! Now back to my book with my Little Brave Heart in my lap.

There's another fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It's appalling. If it was a firebug, I'll gladly kill it myself. We can smell smoke here. This is the last down.

The old bones are gone, and the new bones are in

Yesterday

 

Today

 

Today was a very strange day, up and down up and down. But, heck, that's what life is all about, beginnings and endings, change forever from the time the first little ray of God's glorious light strikes your retina. I am very happy about the new kitchen, it's going to be beautiful. Everyone worked very hard today to get this and the end wall cabinets in place and wired for light. There is going to be so much light in this new kitchen that my sore old eyes will be rejoicing.

The down part is that Jazzie's heart is very enlarged since six months ago, but THEN, the up part is that his lungs are still pretty clear. This means that with good care and making his life worth living, we can keep him for awhile longer. He will be twelve on the 27th of this month. I don't know how to celebrate it, but we'll think of something special. If EVER an angel inhabited a dog's body, this is one of them. I am thankful, oh so thankful that he came to live with us 11.95 years ago.

I just started reading Annie Proulx book, Accordion Crimes. If I could find rest for my mind in knitting, I would be doing that. Knitting anything (even complicated LACE!)leaves me just too much time to think about the two "Dicks" in the White House, Cheney and Bush. Oh yes, dieting will do strange things to one's tolerance of political criminals and brigands, and leave one with very little patience with with the idiots elected to oust them. They should have been impeached. No two people have deserved it more.

Everything! Freaking Everything!

Small Sand storm.. It is advised that you stay indoors and not read this blog.

There is going to be a four day wait for the kitchen cabinets but I am not unhappy about it. It's so that the finish can be given a chance to cure properly, and who can argue with that. This gives me a chance to go to metalcraft. I've missed it the last two weeks, last week for a doctor's appointment that was made months ago before the time slot of the metalcraft class was carved out of the day, so to speak, and week before in order to be here to pick out paint, countertop materials, wood, and various other details that I couldn't entrust to DH who is not able to see the full spectrum of colors. Tan, green and yellow all look the same to him.

I'm still trying to bring myself to smash the remaining green ware. Some of it is so darned cute that I don't want to give up on it. If all the pieces were to turn into stuffed toys overnight, my dilemma would be over.

I've not been knitting at all. To add some snap to that otherwise obsessional activity, I ordered yarns from a solar dyeing maven in the Northern Realms. She has been trying to mentor me through doing this down here as well, but her yarns just are so delicious looking that they are irresistible. Of course this breaks the yarn diet! *Rolls Eyes* Diets are made to be broken.

I really try to be all nicey nicey on this blog and not mention the real world. But we live in it. In fact we are mired in it. I am grumpy because I can only have malt balls on Sunday, a self imposed draconian regulation that has me with no one to blame. I'm also grumpy because I wanted a woman candidate running for president, and I wanted Bush and Cheney impeached, and I didn't want Corporations to have the rights of individuals under the law, and I want the damn Writ back and the Constitution, and I didn't want our country going through another war for that black and sticky stuff that doesn't even taste good much less smell good. It's not called crude for no reason.

Just watch all the hedge funds buy up the world's farm lands and the grain elevators and the fertilizer companies and drive small farmers completely off the planet. BUT!! We can fight back by supporting local farmers, and all their products. We have to do this for our children and ourselves. We just have to.

Happy Birthday L. We lub u. You are not part of the title. I don't freak when I think of you. I smile.

Remembering the good times of Ryzom, and you This is sort of a birthday cake, lights up and multi colored.

Doctors, Bird life, kitchen update, and the weekly Spam Report

Well, the doctor that I'll never see again (long story) but who was once head of Rheumatology, says that my knees look like they will go the distance. This means, that for me, the treatments are working, and my medicines are good to go, and I can hopefully avoid knee joint replacements forever or until I die, which ever comes first. And, if I am careful and cut back on my food, I can even lose some weight. That means one malt ball instead of three for a treat, and a half bagel in the morning. There is practically no fat to cut out of the diet since we eat so little meat, and absolutely no dairy. Lol. So, of course, the first thing I did was come home, weigh myself, eat three malt balls and read all the food blogs! Yes, their scale was right. Dammit!

We will have the second coat of paint going on tomorrow. THAT is when I will take pictures of the "new green". The cabinets are ready on Monday, the granite top is done, and the contractor is rushing off his feet, juggling several jobs. He is not twins but I bet he wishes he was sometimes. He said his wife thought the granite was for their kitchen. I'm thinking that I remember being the child of a contractor. It was a little like being the proverbial child of a cobbler. teehee. Since I was raised in the same house as a busy, admittedly nut case contractor unlike, in any way, this one, I am inclined to be kind and patient. Also, I haven't got four children running around trying to eat everything that is not nailed down, either. I would just have to farm them out to relatives if they were here. Not really. We'd just go camping!

The baby Scrub Jays are growing up well, and learning new songs. They will start making a noise that sounds like an adult jay, and it declines into a long bubbly sound that is almost like one a warbler makes. One of the babies is a lot younger than his nest mates so that Jay is still screaming to be fed while the others are out grubbing up stuff on their own. They all take baths and drink from a portable "bird bath" made up from an old table in the patio. It sinks in the middle so I filled it up with water once I saw they were drinking some rather nasty looking water that had accumulated from the plants being watered there. Ick ick ick.

Spam season! Mrs. Rosemary King wants to be my Dearest Friend. Somehow I just do not trust that woman. And Dr. Christian C.Ibe wants to take me into his confidence. Oh, I so need a confidential letter from someone who thinks I'm worth a lot of money. If he only knew that I've actually decided that it was time to try to suck money off of Blackwater's big government tabs and use it for things I like instead.

Almost all gone.. Tomorrow the base coat

 

Next week the new cabinets. This is the only way to remodel a kitchen when you are well past your prime. We just push things around and out of the way, and this beautiful other thing happens. It's so easy! Bless the sorcerers who are doing this magic in this particular kitchen. May they always have work and happy hearts.

Ok, I'm punch.. I am going to go to bed and sleep til NOON!!!

aloha, bonna notte, buenos noches!

Other side

 

This is a view, from the dining room side, of the roughed in phase of the archway. The guys are doing beautiful mud work.

Hey, Presto!

 

 

 

 

From bare wall to archway. This is such a beautiful passage and just what I've envisioned for years and years. It matches the arch that will be on the top cabinet doors. We are on our way!