It's been a long hiatus since my last post.  I'm not sure why...  Work has been slow since the first of December.  But I've been doing a lot of cleaning around the house, organizing.  When life is so busy, so many tasks get pushed aside, and pretty soon, your corners haven't been cleaned in 2 years!!  I still have lots to do - I want to get all the blinds cleaned and curtains washed, but I'm kind of holding off because I have some "messy stuff" to get done that will likely dirty things back up.  I'm hoping to get the ceiling fixed in the bedroom...there was some water damage after a wind storm a few years ago, then that period when we could afford to have it fixed, and of course, then life just got in the way for a long time.  I've got Jeff lined up to come fix it - he said this week... we'll see.  Once that's done, I'll call my blind cleaning lady (which sounds funny if you don't put the emphasis in the right place... not blind CLEANING LADY, but BLIND-cleaning lady) and she'll come take all my mini blinds and make them sparkle.  They're all so damn dusty right now - YUCK.  I usually have them cleaned twice a year, but it's probably been well over a year since the last time, so they are NASTY.  (OMG, I just looked and it's been over TWO years!! No wonder they're so bad!!)

We're also getting porcelain tile laid in the kitchen in the next week.  They'll start on that tomorrow...  So that will be a little messy, too, I'm sure.  I can't wait to get it done, though.  Our old linoleum still looks ok, but it's time is past.  And when I got it, I wasn't thinking very clearly, apparently, because it's basically white with some teal.  White - DUMB!  When you have a dog that tracks in dirt and debris and sometimes mud and snow from outside, white is the WORST thing to have!  Here's what the old linoleum looks like:

Our new tile will be brown and a mottled pattern, so it should hide a lot of the yuck she tracks in.  And it should be fairly low maintenance, since I won't have to use a special cleaner to keep it shiny (it's matte...)  I'll post photos as the work progresses...

After the floor is done and we've recovered from that (financially), we'll move to new counter tops.  Probably quartz or granite.  At that time, we'll replace the sink base and the sink, too.  Then we'll do backsplash in glass tile.  Here's the tile I picked out...

I'm anxious to get it done, but I know I can't afford to do it all at once, so I'm guessing it'll be 6 months to a year before it's all done...