[day off]

Today is one of two days I had off this week (Tuesday was the other). I had to head down to school to finish up a couple things yesterday for a few hours. After that we had a “me night” as an early birthday celebration (my birthday is Saturday). I was in a yuck mood earlier in the day, so didn’t want to do much. Greg picked up some yummy Chinese food on his way home from work, and we ate that and settled in to watch a couple episodse of my favorite show (Hawaii 5-0, the new ones). After that, I decided I wanted to go somewhere, so we packed up the dog and headed out. First we went to a drive-through light display in our county. They close down this winding road that runs alongside the river and put up a huge amount of Christmas lights and decorations, over a four mile stretch. It’s lovely. I had gone once as a kid, but this was my first time as an adult. After that, we hit up Starbucks for some coffee and headed to this quaint downtown area to walk through a park. They had a lot of Christmas trees on display that were decorated by local families and businesses. We just took our time going through, laughing at the dog and talking. It was a nice, low-key evening. Then we drove around for a bit and looked at Christmas lights, then headed home (it was 11:00 by this point).

In about a month they will set up that same downtown park with ice sculptures, which is something I love to see whenever we can. They are very elaborate – one year there was a giant throne that you could sit in! I hope we are able to make it down there this time.

So we have a couple things going on currently. The first, which I am sooo excited about, is that we are in the beginning stages of remodeling our kitchen. We decided to go for it finally, and found a 20% off sale on cabinets at our local home improvement store. We picked them up and have them stored at my mom’s house until we are ready (they will be one of the last pieces to go in). We are going to be taking it slowly, saving up for one piece at a time. We bought the cabinets last month, and still need: water heater, washer and dryer, flooring, counters, sink, dishwasher. We will just buy things as we can.

The biggest obstacle is that currently our washer and dryer are in our kitchen, so part of the remodel is to get them out of there. There is a small “closet” like area in the kitchen that currently has our water heater in it. There is room for a washer/dryer set if we buy the front-loading type and stack them, and switch to a tankless water heater that mounts on the wall. Those will be the two biggest expenses, and the first things that have to be done. The water heater is about $1000, which we almost have enough to get. Then the washer and dryer will probably be $1200-1400. Once thos elements are in place, we can move on to the more exciting things like laying floors (hardwood), installing cabinets and counters, and adding a dishwasher (they are cheap). I am so excited. Our kitchen has some functional issues that we have just been living with for years (we bought the house eight years ago). There will be a couple small layout changes with cabinets which will make things much better.

One thing is that currently the washer and dryer are in one end, with two large windows above them. I lvoe the big windows, as they let in tons of light. Once the appliances are moved, our kitchen table will go under those windows. I think it will be lovely!

The other thing is we are saving up for a trip! We never had a honeymoon, and the trip we were hoping to take to the Bahamas a couple years ago didn’t happen because of money. But we started talking and are tentatively planning a trip to Hawaii in March 2014 (just a bit more than a year away). We are not 100% sure that is where we will go, but we both want to visit Hawaii so it is the likely spot. Our tenth wedding anniversary is that month, which is why we picked it. We figured that we should be able to save the money up by then – I have already started stashing some away!

So those are the two biggest things. Exciting!