Sorry ... Again.

So sorry I haven't posted in a gazillion years. I really don't have any excuse except laziness ... and I think I've been going a little crazy with all the remodeling going on. I'm getting desperate to have a normal "house."

Don't get me wrong, I feel blessed bigtime that at least we can make these much needed improvements, but I would love to have everything in it's place again, and not have to deal with a ton of projects.

Enough depressing junk ... on to the fun stuff--like our new kitchen. I like it so much I could spend all day baking and cooking in it :)

Here's a general idea of what it looks like: (loving our new stainless steel fridge--it's really nice to have rich relatives, lol!) By the way, that hole where the fan is is for a dishwasher :)

This is a close-up of the sink area. I like to do dishes here. It even has a soap dispenser so the countertop can look neat. I especially enjoy looking out the window as I'm preparing dinner and seeing Carlos play with the neighbor :)

This is a close-up of our countertop. I sooo feel like I'm rich every time I see it. It doesn't seem really possible that it's my kitchen!

This is just another view of the stove area.

And I have started a mini-album of Ashley. The title will be: Ashley at 12. Isn't that original, lol?! I just wanted to record snapshots of her life at twelve so one day she can look back and see how adorable she was as a twelve year old. And let's just be real--I'm also making it so I can look back at how adorable she was ;)

I've only almost finished two pages, so here's a sneak peek: And I'm showing you the sneak peek because this is the first serious paper scrapping I've done in a l-o-n-g time, so I'm over-excited. But it's not like riding a bike--I keep second-guessing myself and ruminating for several minutes over the tiniest decisions. Oh well.

What else is going on at the Lustre household, you ask?

• We're getting central heat and air installed. Good-bye wall unit! They'll be finished tomorrow.
• We're going to get lighting in the kitchen (I think this weekend--yeah!)
• I am cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the first time in probably a decade--pray for me and the people who will be subjected to my food--I am sooo out of practice! I think I'll be watching A LOT of Food Network over the next several days.
• Tomorrow I'll be at a training for the class I teach on Wednesday nights at church. Just between you and me, the main reason I'm going is to hang out with the other ladies at our church that are going--see how spiritual I am ;)
• This is how amazing my husband is: he came home early on Tuesday so I could go to the Coffee Bean to meet with a group of ladies (we meet twice a month and we're doing a study on Stormie Omartian's book The Power of a Praying Wife). He came home very early today so I could go to Bunco, and normally he would make up the hours tomorrow, but I have this training to go to. When I asked him if I could go, he immediately said "yes." I know very few women whose husbands would do that. So I'm feeling seriously blessed right now. He'll probably end up making up some hours on Sunday evening.

I think that about covers it. Oh, one more thing: I'm seriously stoked because when I went to Bunco today, I found out that one of the women and I have a lot in common--we both have SLR's, we are into scrapbooking, we quilt, and we both have blogs! So you can actually thank her, because she was the inspiration for me finally posting again. I couldn't wait to get home and post :)

And she's inspired me to get back to quilting Ashley's quilt again. So that put a smile on Ashley's face before bedtime :)