If you are celebrating the holiday, I wish you a very Merry Christmas! I hope Santa brings you everything you wished for!
~Dawn
November is National Blog Posting Month or NaBloPoMo for short. During this month the goal is to blog everyday, including weekends, to help set the habit of blogging. Needless to say I 've gotten out of the habit a bit, but I'm participating in NaBloPoMo again this year to get back in the habit. If you are a blogger, consider joining in. Marathon blogging is a very good excercise and it can be quite fun! Feel free to leave a comment with a link to your blog if you do.
I'm stepping away from the internets for a minute to give my thoughts some space. In the meantime, check out the great blogs listed in my links list.
Hello blogosphere! It's been awhile. I'm back and here's what's been going on with me:
My last day at my job of eight plus years is two weeks from today. This has been a long time coming for me. I have been somewhere between unhappy and miserable there for several years. I have decided to listen to the wisdom of good friends lost and follow in the footsteps of several brave friends and shine my own light in this world. It's both wonderful and scary which surprisingly is a great feeling mix. Altria/Philip Morris is laying off employees in their R&D division for the first time in like ever. I'm getting a sweet deal with a decent severance package that will allow me to do my own thing for a little while. But I do know the real work begins now.
The kitchen is still not done. I know, I know...it was only supposed to be a 3 week project. I have to give mad kudos to my friend Matt. He rocked the contruction and stayed on top of everything and really did get the project done on time. I've been the hold up with getting someone in to paint. Once the painting is done, only the light installation needs to happen and it will be all finished. I'm scheduling the painter today, so finished kitchen pictures soon, I promise! We have been using the kitchen since the third week in September and it's great to have enough space for more than one person to work at a time. And how excited am I that I can bake multiple pans of things in my oven at the same time?!
Last Monday, I had the pleasure of going to the first Richmond Craft Mafia gallery exhibit opening at This Century Gallery in Williamsburg, VA. The RCM was invited to do a jewelry exhibit by the gallery and I was included! I'm both honored and humbled that my stuff is right up their beside the real jewelers in the group. The opening was...shall we say..interesting. There is still MUCH work to be done to close the gap between traditional art and craft and indie art and craft. The exhibit looked great thanks to Tasha's hard work setting it up and it was well received by the patrons of the gallery. Hopefully it will translate into good sales!
It was all running so smoothly and on schedule. But week 3 has brought delays to the project. The entire thing will now run into a 5th week. Le sigh...one day I'll have my kitchen back...
Week 2 went well. All the IKEA Akurum cabinet frames are together, the wall cabinets are completely finished with the Adel door fronts, the flooring guys are scheduled and appliance delivery is scheduled. On Friday, the counter top guy came out to template. Low and behold my initial measurement was short an entire 16 square feet! So the good deal I got on the quartz remnant from them is gone. The piece I had purchased is too small. The lowest price I could get from them has switched me to granite countertops and the total is now double what I initially thought.
Week 1 of the kitchen remodel went very smoothly and we are on track to get it all done in 3 weeks.
The sub-floor turned out not to be a problem. Matt realized all of it had to come up anyway to allow for an even surface for the new hardwood going in. Come to find out that the existing hardwood floor in our house doesn't sit on sub-flooring...
Day 2 of the kitchen remodel in photos.
