Kitchen Odyssey Continues

So, we went to the Ikea yesterday to buy the kitchen. What we thought would be about a two hour trip over the bridge turned into a five hour nightmare odyssey.

Sam and I took Joey with us because he needs some time away from his siblings. Put him in the Smaland to play. We went upstairs and finished tweaking our plans. Done.

Sam stays upstairs to have the girl key in the order. She's very abrasive and I left to go get Joey. I should've had a clue that with abrasive girl things were not going to go well after that.

I get Joe and head back upstairs. Sam tells me after she keys in the order (without doors for the cabinets, mind you, because they don't carry them in stock. I'll have to go pick them up at the warehouse in a week or pay $159 for delivery.) that it'll take them about an hour to "pick" the order so we can take it home.

Sam and I wander around the store for about 1/2 hour - 45 minutes. Then we sat down to wait. And wait and wait and wait and wait. All in all...we waited for them to pick the order for THREE hours. They then said that most of our order was picked but they were still looking for a couple of other pieces. Sam and I took the list with us and checked everything off as we loaded it in the truck. We were missing a few things and they packed something wrong as well. Back in the store we tell the chick Bianca of the wrong and missing parts. This is where I start to lose it.

Bianca then takes our list and tells us she had to go through the items to make sure we didn't miss anything. Well, I was greatly offended and put out. EVERYTHING is loaded. How the heck is she going to see what's missing in there???? After she goes around and around my vehicle I just left and went to find the manager.

Now, that's another story. I find him on the floor and say, "They tell me you're the manager". He turns around and looks so haggard and worn out. I continue with, "doesn't look like you want to be the manager today." He agrees and asks me what the problem is. I explain. Unfortunately the haggard manager didn't really care so much for my plight. Seems like he tried to move things on a bit but really, that didn't work either. They finally come out with a couple of other parts and break the news that they don't have three of the pieces we need but they'll UPS them to us from the warehouse.

Again, I did raise my voice a wee bit and explain that if I didn't DESPERATELY need a kitchen I'd have them unload it all and I'd find myself another kitchen. They didn't really care. They were haggard also.

While Sam was giving Bianca our name and address for the UPS shipment, she told him to please call the main store manager and complain. She said that the employees complain all the time about the lack of staffing but they're not heard. Boy oh boy! What a day.

We did get home, unloaded the old nasty kitchen from the Ronald House out of the kitchen with the help of Jen's boyfriend Brandon. He's a nice young man. That was helpful.

Today Sam starts to build the new new kitchen. Let's hope it goes well.

Happy Independence Day!!! We'll be heading off to the Phillies game later this afternoon. It's one of our new family traditions. Since last year, that is.

I'm still hoping for a kitchen sink this weekend.

Yesterday

I had a nice day yesterday. Nothing spectacular happened it was just a nice day.

We've been trying to install a new kitchen. The story goes... The Ronald McDonald House is one of Sam's clients. A couple of weeks ago Sam was over there and found out that they were getting a new kitchen and that their old kitchen was up for grabs. So, we put our name on as many cabinets as we could get our hands on. The cabinets were not all in good shape but we figured we'd be able to piece them together to make one good kitchen for our house.

Last Saturday we spent the day gutting the old nasty kitchen. Those of y'all who have been in my house know that the kitchen was nasty. I've hated it forever but have done the best I could with what I had. So, knowing we'd have to pick the "new" kitchen up on Monday, we got rid of the old one on Saturday. Rested Sunday.

Monday morning Sam and I went out looking for flooring. We were so not prepared for this adventure. Not even a little bit. Found the flooring at Lumber Liquidators. It's a nice floor. I'm very happy with it. I finished painting the kitchen with "help" from the children. Sam and Jen made THREE trips to the Ronald House in Camden to get the cabinets. Once we got them to the house we realized how incredibly dirty and disgusting they were. The kids and I did our best to scrape and scrub the grime off of them. So nasty!

Long story short. Sam was moving around some of the cabinet pieces yesterday morning trying to figure out how best to use them and lay a design of sorts so we could get a counter made because I still don't have a kitchen sink. I was downstairs at my computer when Sam came down with a very sour look and said "talk me off of the ledge". I smiled and even giggled a little. We talked about the cabinets and how nasty they were. I told him that I would make the best of the situation. He said he didn't want to give me a nasty kitchen. So sweet!

We talked about it a little longer and then decided that we would go to Ikea and see if they had a kitchen that we could afford. We stuck the kids in the play place and started to lay out a new kitchen. To our utter delight and surprise a new kitchen wasn't going to cost as much as we thought. Especially since we were going to have to replace doors and buy a sink cabinet for the Ronald House cabinets anyway.

It was as if a major burden had been lifted. We both recognized that the Ronald House cabinets were a blessing in disguise. We've needed a new kitchen for forever but the thought of the effort and the cost just turned us off and we were never prepared to pull the trigger. Having a deadline to get the Ronald cabinets made us pull the trigger. We painted and put in the new floor before we realized that they weren't going to work. But, all in all, it's working out and I'm happy and excited to have a new kitchen.

After we left Ikea, I drove Sam to work and then took the kids on a little field trip to the Betsy Ross House in Philly. It was a nice little jaunt. Only took us about 45 minutes. With the kids along, they're not into museums and historical sites just yet but we've been learning about Betsy and the American Revolution. They had a storyteller there and the kids really enjoyed her a lot. If you're in Philly and have a few minutes, the BR House is just a couple blocks east of the US mint on Arch Street. I recommend it. Nothing spectacular but just a nice filler. They have a little courtyard set up where you can sit and rest in the shade of the trees and get a little something to eat. The tour is self guided because the house is so very small. It's only $3 for adults and $2 for children.

I enjoyed be a little spontaneous with the kids. They wanted to stay in Philly and do other things but I needed to get back home with holiday rush hour looming.

I just enjoyed yesterday. Today we're supposed to go pick up the cabinets at Ikea and spend forever putting them together and hanging them. YAY!!! But it's been a very long adventure so far. I'm hoping to have a kitchen sink in the next couple of days. That's my hope at least. We did order a new dishwasher to go UNDER the counter. YAY!!! That'll be here on Wednesday.

Random Ramblings

I need to blog. I just don't think I have much to say lately. Life is just in autopilot right now. That's certainly not a bad thing.

Robbie finished his baseball season finally. With so much rain, the games had to be postponed and postponed. He's playing in the All Star Game tonight. I hope they give him a good chance to play. He also got to go to baseball camp last week. That was a good thing for him. I think it helped to realize he can always get better.

We're busy trying to put in a new kitchen. We got the old kitchen from the Ronald McDonald House in Camden. The cabinets are pretty nasty from really never being cleaned for 11 years. Hundreds of people have used that kitchen and it shows. We've been busy scrubbing and washing trying to make them look like we actually want them in the house.

I painted the kitchen a really pretty green. I think the name of the paint is Winter Hedge or something. It's a hunter green color. We got new flooring from Lumber Liquidators. It's a "hand shaved" look dark teak patterned snap together floor. It's very pretty so far. The white cabinets should look nice in it.

We really weren't prepared to redo the kitchen even though we knew when we'd have to pick them up from RM House. Thermafoil coating on the face of the doors is pulling away from the wood on the doors so we'll have to get new doors. This may not be a bad thing cuz I'll be able to get the style I actually like. We just don't have a sink. I can manage without countertops and even cabinets but not having a sink is starting to get on my nerves.

We've been eating out a lot. That starts to wear thin after a while.

The best part of the new kitchen is that I will have an UNDER THE COUNTER dishwasher. I haven't had that luxury in about 11 years. I am so excited!!! More excited than all of the new storage space I'll have. YAY!!!!

I'll post pictures of the progress and final product once I have a final product.

easter 2009

Joey loses a tooth!

My boy lost his first tooth today.  It really doesn't seem possible that he's that old.  I want my little boy back!!!

This is right before he lost it.  He looks happy but he was so nervous.  That tooth was barely hanging there by a breath.  I reached in with a tissue and before he knew it, I pulled it right out without any resistance.  I'm sure that poor boy thought he was going to have a baby with all the worry that was on his face.  

The process is complete.  One little boy with one little tooth.  They other tooth is about a 1/4 of the way up.  I'm sure there will be many more to come.

I want my little boy back!!!

Opening Day!

Robbie started baseball again.  Opening Day was on April 4, 2009.  He's playing on the Astros this year.  Orange, Black and White are the colors.  I think they look rather smart.  All the other teams are a single color and white.  We get three colors.  

They played the Yankees for their first game.  Robbie was actually on the Yankees last year.  

He started off the day playing third base.  I think he did a pretty good job.

He's a cute little thing, isn't he?

He struggled a little bit with batting but that's ok.  This was just the first game of the season.  Robbie's a good ball player.  He needs to improve his batting but he has an ability to be very aware of what is going on around him during the game.  
This picture was of him jumping out the way of a wild pitch.  Of course, nearly every pitch in Little League is a wild pitch.
Robbie did get himself on base. (He walked)  He was able to steal second and then his teammate Dalton hit a double which got Robbie home.

I like this picture too.  He just looks happy to be playing ball.

Robbie got to try his hand at pitching as the closer.  He did a pretty dang good job.  In fact, he made the winning play of the game along with the first base player.  I was just so proud of him.  He was aware of his surroundings and did what needed to be done.  I was also happy to see his skill level rising to meet the challenge.
This is a picture of Robbie's team lining up to shake hands with the LOSERS!!!  I'm a great mom huh?  Don't judge.

Pasta pasta pasta....and God

Most everyone who reads this knows that I'm quite obsessed with food storage and home production skills.  If you didn't know, you'll for sure know after this post. :)

I have six children and a husband.  That's eight people to feed on a regular basis.  One of the things I've noticed is that the older they get, the more they eat.  HA! So, I am having to adjust my food storage accordingly.  We eat at least three pounds of spaghetti noodles when having spaghetti.  We'll eat usually two pounds of other types of noodles.  This will very little leftovers.

Pasta has become increasingly more expensive over the years.  But, usually I have been able to get Barilla pasta for about .09/box with coupons.  This only happens about once every two years or so.  The last time I got pasta was about 1 1/2 years ago.  I got over 100 boxes of pasta for .09/box using coupons. I still actually have a couple boxes of orzo and pastina from that pasta run.

But, for the last few months I've been having to buy pasta like everyone else...full price or a minimal sale.  

I realized about a week ago that in order to have a three month's supply of pasta I would need to have at minimum 36 boxes of pasta.  That really isn't enough but it would get us through if I were careful.  So, I decided that I needed to go ahead and just bite the bullet and start buying pasta a little at a time to work up to the 36 boxes.  I had a few at home but not like the 100 boxes from earlier.

In this process, I said a little prayer asking the Lord to please bless me with good sales on pasta.  I checked the sales circulars with hope and faith (really), but nothing.  No worries, maybe next week.

Upon opening the coupon inserts this last weekend, I found a coupon for .50/1 Barilla pasta.  Do you know what that means here in NJ?  That means that with double coupons that coupon would double to $1/1 box of Barilla pasta.  Oh my.  It was if the flood gates opened on me.

I've never really had a hard time finding coupons online in the past.  But, this time seemed to be a bit more challenging.  I had to work with my limited amount of patience, but yesterday it all paid off.  

I found a coupon clipping "business" and ordered 30 of these coupons (max order) and 10 of the inserts in which these coupons were found plus an extra coupon off the whole wheat kind of pasta.  That's 50 coupons total.

Yesterday these coupons arrived.  I went over to Pathmark and found that they had a sale on it for 4/$5.  Making each box after coupon .25.  Not bad.  I can only use 4 like coupons at a time at the Pathmark.  

I needed to run to ACME for some other stuff.  Once there I picked up their sales flyer and just about peed myself.  I had forgotten that they had Barilla pasta 10/$10.  Do you know that that means?  I got 46 boxes of pasta for FREE.  

For the day, I got $262 worth of groceries for $35.  Oh my goodness.

I am overwhelmed and quite unable to express my awe at God.  Most will say that it was just coincidence that this all happened.  That's fine.  But, I KNOW, that our loving Father did it.  He knew that I would work hard to find the coupons and to go every day if need be to gather those boxes of pasta.  He trusted me.  And I trusted Him.  I knew He would bless me with the sales I needed to add to my food storage.  That really doesn't express my true feelings.  I don't even know how to do it justice.  I was willing to pay for the pasta and only asked for decent sales.  But, He went beyond that and gave me more than what I asked for.  I am so thankful.

BTW, I got a raincheck for 20 more boxes of FREE pasta.  I have 76 more coupons headed my direction as well.  Within the next week or so, I'll have a year's supply of pasta.  How great is that?