2019 On the Fourth Day of Christmas...

...the theme I gave my post: FOUR Instagram Accounts

First Day of Christmas Posts: ONE Ambitious Idea
Second Day of Christmas Posts: Sea TURTLE Vacation
Third Day of Christmas Posts: THREE in One God

Everyone has their social media of choice. With new options appearing regularly, I don't bother trying to keep up with the "it" app. Truth is, everyone taps out at some point. Here is what I currently monitor:

• Personal Twitter: @WordNerd80 -Feel free to follow but I don't do much but follow other accounts.
• Professional Twitter: @EduCroupe -I love connecting and sharing on this account. It is all focused on education. Feel free to follow.
• Team Twitter: @RISDiTeam -This account focuses on best instructional practices especially when using technology and highlights the cool stuff happening in the district where I work. Our whole team monitors this one together.
• Personal Facebook: I only have a personal one of these. I made a decision to keep this from also being professional. I'm pretty particular about who gets to friend me on this one, and most of my posts come from Instagram. 

Then there is Instagram. As of today, I have four accounts through Instagram:

• Personal @WordNerd80 -This is set to private since most of my posts involve my kids and family. I am very particular about who follows the account. If I cannot figure out who a person is by their profile picture or username, I delete the request quick, fast, and in a hurry.
• Professional @EduCroupe -Not a lot happens here actually. I post a lot during conferences. Most of my professional posts happen on Twitter. However, it is public so feel free to follow.
• William's @will.croupe -NO ONE UNDER THE AGE 13 SHOULD HAVE AN UNMONITORED SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT. Seriously, read all the Terms of Service for various social media apps, and you'll see the rules. Some are even set to 18 years of age. This is all tied to data mining and such. It is a legit rule by the Federal Trade Commission: Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). However, I want to help my sons understand best practices for social media. I opened an Insta account for my oldest. I monitor it and help him post to it. There has not been a lot of activity, and I am okay with that for now. Feel free to follow him, but the same rules apply that I use for anyone requesting to follow me.

And as of today, I have a Bookstagram account! I debated creating one for a while. There are many reasons why people create Bookstagrams. I desire more accountability with reading. I love to read. I used to read a lot. Then life started happening and reading fell to the wayside. My goal with a Bookstagram is to create a record of my reading to reflect on as well as build a "support" group to encourage me to read more. If I know people are interested in what I read next, then I will feel more inspired to read rather than binge watch television or movies. We shall see. 

Feel free to follow me: @BiblioLydia and I am always looking for fave Bookstagrams to follow.

2019 On the Third Day of Christmas...

...the theme I gave my post: THREE in one God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

First Day of Christmas Post: ONE Ambitious Idea
Second Day of Christmas Post: Sea TURTLE Vacation

I love God. I love Christ. I love my faith. I love being Catholic. This is a truth about me that I have not always been comfortable sharing.

Unfortunately, society seems insistent on boxing people into black and white categories refusing to acknowledge how multidimensional people really are. For example, exclaiming I love being Catholic does not mean I believe Catholicism is perfect. It also does not mean I am unable to be open-minded and accepting of other points-of-view. If anything, learning about other belief structures helps me better understand my own. It encourages me to learn more about why I choose to believe the way I do.

I grew up Catholic in a protestant heavy area. Many times I was condemned to hell by peers simply because I was Catholic. I will never forget the day someone told me I wasn't Christian because I was Catholic. It sucked. The worst part was that I did not understand my own faith enough to speak up and explain why the misconceptions these people had about me were wrong.

For many years I struggled with various aspects of my faith. Sometimes it dealt with my feelings of unworthiness. Sometimes it was a joke someone told involving my faith that left me feeling awkward. Sometimes it was a person spewing incorrect and poorly informed "facts" about my faith at me and not being able to address them. I did not want my children feeling stuck the same way. I promised myself to be better for them.

Over the past few years I tried learning my faith better. Of course this proved difficult because I'm human. Then during Advent 2018, I received a cool gift from my Faith Formation co-teacher: Every Sacred Sunday Mass Journal. It is a book with all the weekly Mass readings. There is room for notes, reflection, and goal setting in terms of my faith. I accepted the gifted and worried if I'd keep up with it every week.

See, I'm really crap with daily devotional stuff, but it turned out I did just fine with once a week. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED USING MY EVERY SACRED SUNDAY BOOK. Every Sunday I took notes on the Homily, thought of things to be thankful for, jotted down things to pray for, and set a faith goal for the week. It drew me closer to my faith. It gave me a little more confidence in understanding the Scripture each week. I wanted to do more, so I started listening to daily Scripture readings with Gus Lloyd on the Catholic Channel on Sirius XM (he also shares on FB). THEN I wanted to learn more. I turned to books, podcasts, and Twitter (obviously). It turns out there are a lot of Catholics out there just like me. We love our faith but struggle. I was not alone!

In particular Girl, Arise! by Claire Swinarski left me in tears. Swinarski is known as the Catholic Feminist which caught my attention. Her book spoke to me on so many levels. I still struggle with some of the topics she addresses, but I am okay with that. The Catholic Hipster Handbook by Tommy Tighe introduced me to Catholic Twitter which introduced me to more Catholics I now follow. Two podcasts I added to my library: The Catholic Feminist (as mentioned above) and Jesuitical.

Things you need to know about me and my deepening understanding of my Catholic Faith:

• I will not judge or condemn others who are different from me (I know how that feels, and it's the pits.) Keeping an open mind is something I take very seriously. I want people to be comfortable being their authentic selves around me. 
• I will always struggle with aspects of my faith, so please don't assume I blindly follow and believe everything ever dictated by Catholicism. Simply ask me how I feel about it.
• I will be offended by an inappropriate joke and/or snide remark about my faith. This does not mean I don't have a sense of humor. I am allowed not to find it amusing. 
• I will make mistakes. I am human. My poor choices or screw ups don't negate the goodness of my faith.
• I will do my best to inform others about my faith. The best way to shut down ignorance is to provide knowledge.    

It all boils down to this: God is love (1 John 4: 8), and the two greatest commandments are loving God with all my heart and soul and my neighbor as myself (Matthew 22: 37-39). As long as love inspires the decisions and actions I take, I am doing the right thing. 

2019 On the Second Day of Christmas...

...the theme I gave my post: Sea TURTLE Vacation.

Still a day behind on my 12 Posts of Christmas goal, but I am determined. Check out the first post here.

My youngest regularly mentioned going to the beach. He never saw the ocean. He wanted to build a sand castle. Etc. It. Was. Constant. For a while the concern involved his inability to swim. My oldest learned at the YMCA, but we did not stay as diligent with my younger son.

Interestingly enough, he taught himself how to swim. That kid jumped right into our pool and started moving. My MIL decided it was time. She offered to treat us to a trip to the beach. This past summer we packed our bags and headed to South Padre.

Let me take a brief moment and readdress my anxiety. As mentioned in First Day of Christmas post, my stress levels remain a constant 11 on a scale 1-10. Here are all the reasons I had no desire to take my family to the beach:

1. Flight issues 
2. Flying with children (you never really know how that will end up)
3. Pressure issues for me since my ears are messed up
4. Loss of luggage
5. Bad weather
6. Getting lost trying to find the condo
7. Sand-I don't like sand 
8. The boys liking the idea of the beach more than the actual beach
9. Sunburn/heat exhaustion
10. Crowded beaches
11. Undertow drowning one of us
12. Sharks-they are getting bolder you know
13. Jellyfish
14. Salt water stinging my freshly shaven legs (seriously, that hurts yo)
15. Losing my children at some point (airport, restaurants, beach, wherever we've never been before)
16. Children being kidnapped

Basically, I dwelled constantly on the one million ways we were never going to survive this trip.

Unless of course this guy showed up. Then everything would be fine.

(TBH-I'm like this every time we have to take a family trip.)

We stayed on the beach in an Airbnb. We are definitely Airbnbelievers (new word). The place was a cute condo with two bedrooms and kitchen. We loaded up on snacks and breakfast foods. What I really love about Airbnbs is the ability to wash all our clothes before packing to return home.

The first afternoon we arrived and headed straight for the beach. We couldn't contain our excitement for Benji's reaction now that a five minute walk is all it took to get to the ocean. Wait for iiiittttt...

He was not having it.

He refused to go into the water. He refused to come out from under the beach umbrella. He was irritated with the sand (duh). We could not believe it. All his begging to get there, and he was ready to go home.

Well, it only lasted for that day. Fortunately, the next morning brought a different attitude. Benji dived into the ocean with all the gumption he uses in our pool at home. He fell completely in love with the beach. Ha ha ha. I guess he needed a bit of time to adjust. The ocean is rather large after all.

In the end, the trip provided amazing memories. The boys are natural swimmers and wanted to live in the water. We ate at interesting places, attended Mass as the beautiful local parish-Our Lady, Star of the Sea , went on a dolphin spotting tour, and spent time at Sea Turtle Inc. The absolutely coolest thing we witnessed was a baby sea turtle release. We happened to be visiting during hatching season. Every morning I would check their FB page to see if any sea turtles were ready to return to the ocean, and the morning before we left we hit the jackpot!

For the record, only 3 of the 16 things I worried about happened. I'm calling that a win! If you didn't see the pics as I posted them on Insta and FB, here are some of my faves:

  

2019 On the First Day of Christmas...

...the theme I gave my post: ONE ambitious idea for the next twelve days.

Okay, so it is technically the second day. Yesterday exhausted me, so writing a blog post did not happen. However, I set a goal to write one blog post for each day of Christmas. Trust me, I have enough to write about. Let's see if I can make it happen.

Christmas 2019 brought laughter, excitement, lots of love, and stress/anxiety/migraines. I realize most of the stress is self induced. Keeping lists of gifts, sending cards, decorating, and shaking my fists at people who don't see eye to eye with me on the whole "Christmas decorating begins the day after Thanksgiving and goes to the Epiphany." Why do I worry about these things? I have no idea. I'm convinced anxiety and stress are part of my DNA. Some would say it is due to my Enneagram Type 1 (wing 2) personality. Imagine me shrugging my shoulders since I really couldn't say. Then imagine me slowly lowering those shoulders because the tension is making it difficult to move my neck.

As always, we rocked our Advent wreath leading up to Christmas. The kids and hubs expertly ornamented the tree. Car radios tuned to three prominent Christmas only music stations. With our new and open kitchen, I expanded the Christmas decorations. We also attended Midnight Mass as usual. There was nothing to stress about. I just simply stress about everything.

Christmas day arrived and filled our day with so much joy that my anxiety disappeared faster than it took my kids to open all their presents. Ha ha ha.

Having family over to share in the joy of Christmas reminded me that in the end it doesn't matter that my new cookie recipe was too soft to use the cookie cutters or that my oldest wore his tennis shoes instead of "church" shoes to Midnight Mass. As the visiting priest pointed out on the last Sunday of Advent, Christmas is a time for families to be together. Unlike Dickens' Scrooge who wrapped himself in loneliness before encountering the ghosts of Christmas, Jesus came to be with everyone. I enjoyed being with my family so much, I barely took any pics. As self-appointed family historian, this is unusual for me. However, the memories we made acted as a great cure for my stress (and relentless migraine) without having to capture them on my phone.

I will say, one of my children asked for "one of those old fashioned cameras that pops the picture out." Perhaps the mantel of family historian is ready to be handed down?

 

Dated Updates

I've started writing this post a million times and became distracted. Instead of starting again, I'm just going to keep going from the last time I stopped...

On this last day of July, I returned to work. Therefore, it is time for a check in!

As you know, I survived blowing myself up. (I can joke about it now because I'm far enough away from the whole ordeal.) My ankles/heels peeled and itched and healed. The amount of aloe, vitamin E, lavender, and tea tree oils I used was insane. CVS also saw me pretty regularly every time I need more bandage wraps and gauze pads. There is also this Tagaderm stuff by 3M that I used when I went swimming. It is a clear skin-like film that covered my whole heel really well. (Tip: order it on Amazon. You can get a bunch for a great price.) For future reference, I saved this website that shares different oils to mix with aloe vera for treating burns.

UPDATE: The kitchen IS done.
Post to come later.

Our kitchen is so close to done I can taste it (see what I did there?). The cabinets arrived Monday and are being installed tomorrow. Then just countertops and tile! Goodness, to be able to prepare a meal again. We've done enough eating out. All my clothes are unsurprisingly tight. Currently, I think we'll have to save the big reveal for Labor Day weekend. I don't believe it will be that long before the whole thing is finished. I will need some time to get settled in...and buy new flatware and dinnerware. Yup, I threw out all the old stuff.

If I've learned nothing else it is how much patience a remodel requires. So many things are out of my control. Lots and lots and lots of patience. I want to say that after the kitchen I will be content to leave things alone. You never really know.

The most heartbreaking moment of the summer was saying good-bye to our sweet Freddie Jane. Chris and I adopted her shortly after moving into our house. She was loving and brilliant. She definitely set the standard for the kind of dog a family needs. Towards the end, her hips were not kind. Chris carried her up and downstairs daily. Then one day we started finding puddles around the house. It was time. William couldn't watch and cried into Chris's back. Ben processed it differently in the moment, and we noticed some interesting behavior throughout the week as he worked through it. We'll miss her so much.

During July, the fam traveled to South Padre so the boys could see the beach for the first time. I plan to dedicate a whole post to that. 

I will share the coolest thing we did: the Monday before leaving, Sea Turtle Inc. held a public release of newly hatched sea turtles. We excitedly watched all those little flippers work their way into the ocean. 

My boys start school on Monday. I suppose this means summer is officially over. However, the Texas Heat Index will keep things pretty warm around here till mid October. Let's hope life is kind and I'm able to post a blog before then. Ha ha ha.

Lydia of House Croupe, The First of Her Name, The Semi-Burnt, Queen of Her House, Khaleesi of a Very Small Part of East Dallas, Maker of Beds and Mother of Boys

But it can burn the crap out of one's ankles.

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone for their kind words and concern. I think part of helping me through all the feelings was sharing it on social media. Crazy right? What an odd world to live in. 

I decided this was a story worth telling. Let's go all the way back to yesterday at 2:00 PM* four hours before fire time.

The boys and I were running errands to Home Depot. Currently, we are remodeling the kitchen and needed to purchase a few things. One of these things was a new set of fire detectors. It turns out that right next to the detectors are fire extinguishers for the house. Truth time: I have never had a fire extinguisher in my house before. I am sure there is a law out there I was breaking, and I have a cousin who would be mortified to know this. However, I thought it was kinda overkill. I mean, c'mon! When is the last time I had a fire in my kitchen?! I have only ever lived in electrical homes. I thought fires only happened if your kitchen was gas. For some reason, I thought, "I am about to have a new kitchen. I don't want it to burn down!" The problem was that there are more options than I thought there would be for fire extinguishers. 

The solution was to message my AWESOME brother-in-law because he is a firefighter. He asked me a question or two. It turns out all of these pictured are fine. I decided to go with the red ones because fire extinguishers should be red right? Besides they came in a two pack.

4:50 PM, 1 hour and 10 minutes before fire time, I took the boys to Tae Kwon Do. On Tuesdays, they go for two classes 5-7 PM, and Chris picks them up on his way home.

5:00 PM, 1 hour before fire time, I took a nap.

Shortly before 6 PM, I wandered to the grill to turn it on and get it ready to start dinner. I have done this enough times before. I opened the tank, and then ignited the grill. This time it seemed to take a bit for the flames to get going. I thought that was odd, but then they slowly appeared starting from the left side of the grill. By the time the right one was supposed to come on, it made a moderate poof and slightly more moderate flame burst forth. This is what initially singed my hairline. I blamed myself and checked to make sure I didn't have any of the knobs up too high. That was clearly what the problem had to be.

Because I'm a vane creature, I thought I would pop into the bathroom and see how bad the hair damage was while the grill warmed up. That's when it happened.

1. It was no where near that cool! 
2. Being that close to an explosion, even the small one from a propane tank is TERRIFYING. 
3. All those ladies would not be that calm once they smelled the back of their hair frying to a crisp. That is something you don't forget, and they are definitely close enough to those huge flames for one of their heads to ignite.

Initially, I screamed and dropped my phone. I remember just saying "Oh my God! Oh my God!" over and over as I turned around and saw flames on top of the propane tank. I knew I had to turn the grill off but couldn't get close enough. At this point, I still was unaware of just how hard the blast had hit me. I DID remember the fire extinguishers purchased only hours before. I ran and grabbed one. 

I put the flames out and turned off the grill. Then I stepped back to take a breath. A little proud of myself that I had kept pretty cool during the whole thing (pun intended), I went back inside the house to call the hubs. I just wanted to let him know what happened and why dinner would not be ready when he got home.

I know you are probably wondering why calling my husband and not the fire department was the first thing on my mind. Well, I had put the fire out. I thought I was fine. I had yet to feel the biting sting from the burns on my ankles/heels or see my skirt burnt up. Unfortunately, once the adrenaline goes and the event actually hits you, it hits you pretty hard. The moment Chris answered the phone I completely lost it. I was crying so hard. You know the kind where you snot and heave and blubber. He couldn't understand me at all. The more I tried to talk to him, the more I realized I should have called 911. What if I didn't turn everything off properly? What if there was another explosion on the way? Panic started to set in pretty well at that point. 

After hanging up with my hubs, I did call 911. Of course, I didn't want to waste resources or anyone's time, so I prefaced it with "I'm not sure this is an emergency but..." That poor operator. She was so patient trying to understand me. She said she thought it was a good idea to send someone out even though the fire was no more. I'm glad she did. The firefighters made sure the tank was completely off and said it looked like my lines had a leak which caused the explosion. They took a quick look at my ankles/heels and decided I was right. It was just like a really bad sunburn. I would be fine. I got a reassuring hug and thanked them.

I get just how blessed I was. I prayed so many thanks to God because it could have been a lot worse. My kids could have been outside playing when it happened if they'd been home. The first poof could have burned my face. The main explosion could have knocked me out, and it would have been a while before anyone found me. My burns could have been deeper and scarier. The outside patio could have caught fire. So many things! 

Once I had collected myself and thanked God, I needed to find a way to tell this story. Many of you saw the pic and sent your well wishes. It does make me feel better😊.  

Things I am taking away from this:

• Always check your tank and lines if you have a gas grill.
• Keep more than one fire extinguisher handy around your house.
• If you have a mini-explosion (poof), shut it all off!
• Call 911 first even if you think you got it under control. 

I'm sure I will muster up the courage to grill again someday. For now, I will stick to the microwave until our kitchen is finished. 

*I thought it was the morning, but after checking my phone messages it turns out it was the afternoon.

'Cause We Are Living in a Digital World and I am a Digital Girl

Parenting doesn't come with a manual. Sure, there are a TON of books trying to tell you what is the "right" way to parent. Many of them full on contradict each other.

No matter what method a person chooses, parenting is hard. Like really, really, really hard. What is even harder than hard is having to figure out how to parent a child who has never known a world without a smartphone.

Before anyone raises their luddite pitchforks and lights their analog torches, this will not be a post about the evils of technology. If you know what I do for a living, you know that I actually support digital learning and how to help kids understand exactly what they are being handed when it comes to devices.

This post is to share some ways that I have decided to help my sons exist in a connected world. These ideas may not be what your family needs, and I completely respect that. Just keep in mind that technology isn't going anywhere, and if you are not teaching your children about these devices, someone else will. 

Let's start with the access being handed to my kids every time they pick up their iPad or grab my phone. I could be handing them the whole wide world. All of it. Good and Bad. If I left it at that, it would be similar to me handing car keys to them and saying, "Good luck!" We train kids on functioning in life, why aren't we also training them to function digitally?

No parent is alone in this. Even better, we are almost TWO DECADES into the 21st century. Society has had a while to start figuring it out. A great place to start is simply monitoring and filtering devices as necessary. My 7-year-old does have an iPad that I have connected through Family Sharing with Apple. The only apps on there are the ones I allow. I can even set time limits for him to be in certain apps. On top of that, I only let him spend so much time on the iPad before making him do something else.

We got my 10-year-old a smartphone this year. Trust me when I say it can do two things: call me or message me. I have that thing so locked down. (If he didn't have to ride a bus to school, he wouldn't even have it. Ha ha ha.) I have Sprint Safe & Found installed, so the moment he turns it on I get an alert. Like when he snuck it to Perot Camp last week.

Sometimes I see parents afraid to be this involved in monitoring their children's devices. I'm not sure why. I am pretty positive the parents are paying the bill. I'm not advocating a 24/7 scroll through a kid's business, but I also believe sometimes for their own safety I need to get a scrollin'. You know? 

Anyway, back to the phone at camp. The moment my son turned it on, my watch pinged as I was walking back to my car. It took everything in me not to turn around and march back into the museum to rip him a new one for the deceit. Then I stopped. As angry as I was, I knew embarrassing him was not the way to go. Don't get me wrong. That boy is still grounded from his Switch, but I realized there was more to this. I asked him why he felt he had to take it. He told me that all the other kids were watching Harry Potter related videos on YouTube (Wizarding World was the theme of the camp), and he wanted to watch them on his phone. 

How innocent right? My kid is still 10. He doesn't know what kind of horrors could be lying in wait out there? I mean, all he usually does is watch Minecraft videos. He is in a world where a room full of 5th and 6th graders means a room full of smartphones. Even though the legal age for kids to be on social media is 13*,  I don't want to just throw him at Snapchat on his 13th birthday just like I don't plan to throw him in a car at 16 and hope for the best. Instead we made a deal. For the past week and a half, I have done mini-lessons and watched videos with him. The lessons focus on his online presence, and the videos are about using Instagram positively. Once he completed the lessons, I promised to open a MONITORED Instagram account for him. When he turns 13, it will become 100% his. I have three years to guide him when it comes to being online.  

How did I do it?

MAGIC OF COURSE!

Just kidding. There are so many tools out there. Common Sense Media has an entire section for families including ways to teach your kids how to be online. Their curriculum is so strong that many school districts actually use it.

I went with Google's Be Internet Awesome. I actually have the educator's edition, but they do have one made for families. There are scenarios/lessons that they have gamified to help kids navigate the internet. I decided to pair it with a favorite book of mine, a fantastic read that actually impacted my own social media presence, Light, Bright, and Polite by Josh Ochs. His website (SmartSocial) is also full of resources for families growing internet savvy kids. 

My son was so proud of the certificate he received for completion of Be Internet Awesome. As promised, I opened him an Instagram account. We walked through settings and some basic ways to post. As a matter of fact, you are welcome to follow him. I cannot promise the most engaging content, he is still learning after all. You will need to be approved, and he and I discussed what to do if we cannot recognize a user requesting permission to follow him. 

@will.croupe

Now the day will come when he makes a mistake. He is human. He is about to enter pre-teendom. I cannot shield him from it. I will say that I would rather be here to guide him through the learning experience.

I cannot promise anyone this is the best way to do any of this. It could epically fail. In the end, I will take this risk in hopes that my son comes out better for it.

*Yes, that is true. If your kid is younger than that and on those apps without your permission they are breaking the law.

Death of a Kitchen

After 14 years in our house, we are finally getting a new kitchen! It couldn't have come at a better time either. It is like our kitchen knew it was time to go. To be fair, it probably should have gone shortly after we moved in. If you knew us when we bought the house and saw the kitchen, you know exactly what I mean. I really blame the improperly cut, mustard yellow laminate counter tops. What could possibly match that? Nothing. That's what. However, that didn't stop the previous home owner from painting the walls mint green and all the cabinets white with doo doo brown paint to make it look like wood. Yeah, it was bad y'all. That's okay. I was watching A LOT of Trading Spaces (remember that one) at the time and knew I could make our kitchen look amazing in only two days!

I was wrong.

It took longer than two days. We ended up hiring some guys. Really, I just kinda made a bad situation less bad. (My most excellent grandma made me some valances to help.) It was livable, so we lived with it for 14 years.

Then last year I just couldn't take it any more. It was either a new kitchen or a new house. Guess which one is cheaper?

Like I said, the kitchen knew.

I'd like to say it understood, but I think a small part of it was hurt that it wasn't good enough any more. It quite literally fell apart. It started with the cabinet doors.
Then the oven stopped heating all the way as it separated itself from the wall.

The final revolt was when the refrigerator quit on us three days before the remodel began. That's right. That fridge wasn't going to hold out a few more weeks. No sir. It heard it was getting replaced and gave us the big, middle finger.

Currently, we are two weeks in. I only had one anxiety attack while shopping for appliances. Our interior designer only had to redo everything once to keep her sister from needing a padded room. Cabinets have been the hardest to nail down (pun intended). We received five bids. The lowest was $6000, and the highest bid came in at $35, 000. Huh?! Yeah, we have learned a lot already. 

By the end of the July, I will either have a fabulous summer bash to show off the kitchen or be heavily medicated to deal with the fact we are still without a kitchen. Either way I promise to check back in with progress.

For reference, here is was it started as: