Egads! A Kitchen! And Stuff.

We passed the one-month-in-our-new-home marker! 

 Everyone is feeling comfortable and finding new favorite spots in the new place. StarFox is fond of staring out the window and watching bikers pass our house on the Pinellas trail, Nemo prefers to cuddle up to anything that was recently laundered, and Dave has been reading/devouring an Orson Scott Card series my mom recommended.

As we fall deeper into a sense of settlement and routine after the move, I am feeling more and more eager to start a slew of new hobbies. That's just how I roll--things feeling normal? MUST. START. A. MILLION. NEW. PROJECTS.

Kitchen Pics

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As promised, I have so many pictures of the finished kitchen to show you. Let's look back at how the place looked when we moved in one month ago:

And here is our kitchen now:

I got this chandelier for $40 from the local Habitat for Humanity Restore. It had some frosted glass shades, but I nixed those and opted to go shadeless. That's just how Dave and I roll. The fixture over the sink was $5 from the same store. I still need to paint the ceiling where we took down the old florescent fixture, but it's not high on my priority list at the moment.

I worked at a lighting showroom store for a year while I was in college, and it was the most boring job I can imagine. I passed the time by vacuuming the store and writing haikus about the meaninglessness of it all (college--the emo years). But at that miserable, life-sucking retail job, I learned to hang light fixtures. There is always a skill you can pick up. Can the internet teach you that something much more effectively? Probably. But if you are in an employment situation that is less than ideal, learn what you can, wait for it to come in handy, and be thankful.

My lil' sis took the pictures above the sink in her darkroom photography class last year. The one on the far left features Pikachu. Yes, she really is that awesome.

For and instant party atmosphere, the LED lights above the cabinet also do crazy things, because we are classy like that:

PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY!

Construction of the Laboratory Continues

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Dave's Dad and I found a super cheap, too-big-but-yeah-that-will-be-great, discontinued window at Home Depot, so Dave and I got to work installing it in the shed. Neither of us had any idea how to do that, but the internet taught us the necessary skills as usual. I used an AC unit as practice, and after feeling confident enough to gouge an enormo hole in the wall of my future studio, we went to work.

Installing the window was actually easier than I expected. Since I fully recognize my failure at all things math-related, I measured everything several times, drew lots of diagrams, and consulted videos on YouTube to make sure I had thought through all the components before starting. It worked, and everything went perfectly the first time through. I'm not used to that. It was weird.

Framed

Gouged

Windowed

Dang, I should mow the lawn.

I am eager to get the shed completely transformed into my art studio. It has been way too long since I've painted. The graphics work is holding me over (and it has been plentiful), but I need to get back to painting or I will die.    Not really.    But sort of yes.

New Projects!

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BEE-SUIT UP!

While working on my studio, I am also learning about beekeeping from Dave's Dad's backyard neighbor Cheryl. My main interest in the subject is to collect beeswax to use for encaustics and to be fully engaged in the process of material creation. The idea of caring for bees while they diligently make wax, and that I can then create paintings from that wax, is so exciting. Backyard Beekeeping is officially added to my list of "new things at which to be awesome."

As we open the hives, search for the queen, and check on the variety of comb being capped in bee-city, Cheryl keeps reminding me that "in the end, it's still just humans trying to figure out the mind of a bee." I try to channel some Ender Wiggin and think like a bugger.