the pre-holiday weekend

I have something to admit: We haven't done any holiday preparation. In fact, we've only really thought about Christmas shopping; very little has been purchased. We have no tree, and only a decoration here or there.

This weekend was going to remedy that. I was going to bake Christmas cookies, and get a tree and put up lights. We were going to take control of our Christmas lists. None of that has happened.

Instead, we worked on our kitchen.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. We started renovating it almost 2 years ago, and though we've come a long way, we still had a lot still to do. Here is what it looked like when we moved in:We replaced the cabinets and tore out the soffit as soon as we could. The rest of the work- tiling, replacing the appliances and painting- has taken longer. You may remember that my father tiled one side of the kitchen a few months back.

Here is what we did this weekend:

Christopher sanded. I primed the area across from the fridge with special magnetic paint. 3 coats.Christopher primed the areas where the soffit had been.I tiled the other side of the kitchen (above the sink) & Christopher painted the kitchen. (there aren't any action shots of me tiling; you'll just have to notice that this is now tile where there was not.)He's actually still painting it, but I'm done with the tiling (for now, it still needs grout). I should move on to writing Christmas cards. Or to reading a play that I've just agreed to work on. But I'm up for a break, and I'd still like to make those cookies...