At rest, finally

After my last post, I managed to relax a little more and then we got down to work on our kitchen.  We (meaning I) decided to repaint this year to freshen up our house.  It was the kitchen's turn and I always think that painting is such an easy task.  In theory it is.  You pick a colour, buy the paint and start painting.  I always forget about the prepping part.  I like to wash the walls, fill holes and dents, pull off trim etc.  Those things take time.  This time I also wanted to replace the old fluorescent light boxes with a new lighting option and fan.  I'd bought those things last summer and had them ready to go.  We were going to paint the ceiling at the same time.  It was supposed to take a day for the ceiling.  It took two.  When the light boxes came off, there was ceiling repair to do and when that mess was actually finished (I had to re-texture the space under the light boxes), the actual painting could begin.  What a mess!  Did I mention it was also 30 degrees?  The hottest days so far, and we were painting.  When the painting was finished the lights had to go up, and one of them could not physically attach on to the ceiling.  A job that was supposed to take a couple of days, took 5.  I'd hate to think what would have happened if we were actually doing any serious renos!  We got it done and it looks great, but it's a good thing I got Chris to agree to paint downstairs before we started.  He was not in a very good mood during this process.

Painting done, we had a day to take a breath and then it was time to pack and get ready for our trip to the Island.  My mom's 60th birthday was happening on the 21st.  We left on the 19th at 6am and arrived at 5pm at our final destination.  We drove for 14 hours on the first day (I had a secret wish to make the final ferry but we couldn't) stopping finally in Hope for the night.  It was a long day.  The following day, we got up after 8, grabbed some breakfast on the run and headed to the ferry.  The weather turned the closer to the coast we got and at one point the rain was pounding so hard, we had to almost yell at each other to converse.  This also made the trip a little scarier, as there was water everywhere and people following much too close.  We got to the ferry after 11am and hung out in the village waiting for the 12:50 sailing.  We had to stop off in Nanaimo for a couple of things, including some Taco Bell, and made it to Mom and Dad's for around 5.  We fell into bed that night exhausted and then sometime in the night, I woke up worrying about stupid little things and didn't really get any good sleep after that.  The next day was tough.

My brother and sister-in-law came up before lunch to help out, thank goodness, as by afternoon I was barely holding it together.  We cooked, decorated and got everything together by 6.  People came, ate, laughed and left by 10pm.  It was a good thing, as I was so tired I nearly fell over a couple of times!
Fun was had by all, but most importantly, Mom.