The reveal!

As of Thursday morning, the kitchen remodel is complete. At least I hope it is…I think it is…I hope I haven’t overlooked something.

We will begin the master bathroom tear-out within the next couple of weeks. The hall bath is finished except for the decor. We’re getting there.

Fortunately, I did take a few “before” photos.  Sit back, and enjoy!

Before:

After:

The answer: Yes.

The question: Are all those black surfaces difficult to keep shiny and clean?  The black quartz cleans easily, but that black glass oven surface is a bear to keep clean.  (We don’t have natural gas in our neighborhood, so electric was our only option.)  This is the third glass-top range we’ve owned.  The first was a speckled-gray surface – very easy to keep clean.  The second was white – the surface had to be polished after each use because the heat tinged the surface a bit.  The black shows every splatter and speck of dust and fingerprint.

How about that backsplash?  It’s tumbled travertine with a color-enriching sealer applied and installed with no grout.  I worked and worked in the tile store with the various shapes and sizes, trying to fit a workable pattern into the 14-inch space.  This is what I came up with:

The undercabinet lighting consists of strips of energy-saving LED strips.

The answer: Yes! You betcha!

The question: Am I enjoying my new kitchen?

Oh, and be sure to visit Jill’s for photos of her remodeling! I don’t know what I would have done without her encouragement as we went through all of this “together” (from a distance).  Her house is pretty much finished; we still have one more big project to go.

Rain and crazy thought patterns

Wow. We have been praying for rain. We didn’t ask to be deluged.

A “typical” Florida summer weather pattern consists of sunny hot days with rain showers or thunderstorms most afternoons. For the past several years, the weather pattern hasn’t been “typical.” We’ve had extremely dry summers which have brought us wildfires and water-rationing. We’ve been in a drought for the past three years that have aquifer levels extremely low and car-washing and lawn-watering have been banned.

This week, we’ve had a crazy weather pattern with lots of thunderstorms and rain!  In fact, Monday’s “official” measure was 4.65 inches of rainfall.  On Tuesday, it was 3.01 inches.  It has already been raining this morning and the forecast is a 90% chance of strong storms this afternoon and evening.  We’re also being told that we may have a typical summer weather pattern this year…yeehaw!

Nearly 8 inches of rain this week.  I’m not exactly sure how many feet above sea level we are (hope it’s feet and not inches!).  According to the flood maps, we are not in a flood zone…barely.

That got me to wondering about sea level.  How is it determined?  Is it figured at high tide or low tide or somewhere in between?  How many inches of rainfall – and how quickly – would it take to wash us away?  (I really shouldn’t be allowed to think in the wee hours of the morning just before the alarm goes off.)

I was going to pose the sea level question to Jill, our faithful and extremely knowledgeable research librarian, but I decided to google it and see what I could find.  Jill, feel free to elaborate on any of this if you’d like!

This question was posed in the pages of the Farmer’s Almanac.  The explanation:

Sea level is determined halfway between high tide and low tide, as measured by a tide gauge. It is a relative, rather than an absolute, measurement and varies from ocean to ocean. It even varies from coast to coast on the same ocean. Sediment deposits at the mouths of rivers, natural and manmade erosion, and engineering projects can affect relative local sea level. Continental drift and global warming also may be factors. Sea level is the standard used to determine local land elevations and geographic features. Mean sea level is the average height of all the oceans and is used to determine the relative height of geographic features worldwide. According to most estimates, mean sea level has risen about four to eight inches over the past hundred years.

Okay.  I still don’t know the answer to my question about how much rainfall over what period of time it would take to wash my house out into the Gulf, but Doc assures me that I shouldn’t worry about it.  For now.  Unless we have a hurricane bearing down on us with storm surge warnings for our area.    Sheesh.

Sounds to me like a great reason to visit Aiden.  Perhaps for an extended period of time. 

Just photos…

There hasn’t been much that’s blog-worthy going on here lately (except that I’m having to upload and edit my photos in a fairly unorthodox method because my regular software is on my still-dead computer), so I thought I’d just put up a few pictures taken over the past couple of days.

A sandhill crane family (one parent is missing from this photo):

We are finally getting the much-needed rain that we’ve been asking for.  This photo was taken during a short break in the action.

I didn’t get that same break this morning when I ran to the grocery store.

Another short break – the sun peeked out long enough to brighten the palms.

And, on my way to meet Doc for lunch, things began to look ominous again.

It has rained lots and lots for two days now, with much lightning and thunder.  A really big boom shook the house and tripped the GFCIs just before 4am this morning (that triggered an alarm).  It’s beginning to thunder again as I type this.

Much of Florida is in a three-year-drought and the aquifers are nearly depleted.  Lawn-watering and car-washing are strictly prohibited.  This rain will help a little, but we need a steady rain daily for weeks or months to get the water levels back up.  At least my car is getting a free wash today!

Bits and pieces

It’s bad enough that I don’t post as often as I should. Now, I have a really good reason why I “can’t” and I’m none too happy about it.

I can’t say I haven’t been warned.  My computer, which is almost 2-1/2 years old, has been giving me those dreaded “blue screen of death” warnings for months.  I’ve shared the news with the computer-savvy members of my family, but their time is short and looking at my computer isn’t high on anyone’s priority list…except mine, of course.

Well, during the night, it crashed.  For good.  It powers up, but nothing’s there.  All I can say is that I hope I haven’t lost anything important, like all those photos of family that we’ve been scanning that date from the late 1800s to the present and the four years of genealogy research that I’ve been doing.

So…I’ll just have to wait and see.  I won’t know anything until someone who knows what they’re doing can look at it.  Meanwhile, I’ll borrow a computer here and there, whenever possible.

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Today’s world news isn’t any better.  The headline that reads that North Korea is threatening to “…wipe out the aggressors [the U.S.] on the globe once and for all…” just does not leave me feeling very good.

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We are having a little reprieve in the weather today: so far, the heat index has not climbed above 100 degrees.  We had a terrific lightning storm last night with a little rain.  We need more rain and less lightning.

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I’m still waiting on the cabinet guy to find the time (I’m on his cancellation list) to come by and finish up the kitchen.  I’ve been waiting to post the “before and after” photos once he finishes.  Those may have to wait, however, since the “before” photos are on my dead computer.

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I haven’t baked a cake in years and years.  I guess the last one I ever made was for one of Ryan’s birthdays, but I can’t remember which one.  I’ve had a hankering to bake one for the past couple of weeks…finally did last night.  I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would.  I guess my tastes have changed.  Cake, anyone?

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Tonight is date night.  We still haven’t decided where to go or what to do yet.  There’s nothing like a spur-of-the-moment decision.

Hot and stormy

The weather this week has been stormy, with lots of thunder and lightning, but very little rain here along Florida’s west coast.  The clouds have been interesting.

The winds will blow, but they’re blowing the rain clouds inland.  We could certainly use a lot of rain.  We’re in a three-year drought, and even car-washing is banned (unless you want to pay a $200 fine just to drive a clean car that will be dusty three hours later).  I suppose if enough people washed their cars on the same day, someone would probably lose their home to a sinkhole.

The forecast for today is another hazy, hot, and humid day.  The headlines of this morning’s paper warn of a heat index possibly reaching 110 degrees.  This morning’s sunrise even looks hot.

Yeah, I’m going to try to stay indoors this weekend…at least as much as possible.