Lots 'o' dust

This is the best I can do for a before and current-after of our kitchen. I was too busy, then too sick, this weekend to think to take real photos. I took this photo of our cabinets in place to send to my dad and see what he thought about it since he's an architect and good at kitchen layouts in general. But behind the cabinets you can see our open doorway (leads to guest bedroom/office). Then the photo with Aiden in it shows the doorway closed off, taped and floated and the most recent update is the texture on the kitchen side.

Let me tell you right now that texture is not meant to be done in a closed house. Open ALL windows and doors BEFORE you do spray texture. Then a couple fans after it's applied couldn't hurt. Ugh. I was all the way back in our bedroom when the acrid chemical fumes made it's way back to me. I immediately threw all the windows open, including those in Aiden's bedroom (he was asleep). I imagine that's what standing in a bottle of acetone would smell like.

Travis still needs to do the texture on the bedroom side. It's a different type, so I don't know if that's another smelly one. Hopefully not. Then we are going to paint the entire wall on the kitchen side a clay red-orange. The rest of the kitchen is a mustard yellow, so hopefully it will look okay. I didn't want to try to match the existing paint and not get it perfect. That would bother me and I'm sure that's all I would see when I walked into the kitchen thereafter.

Describing those wall colors makes me think about what a hamburger wrapper looks like after scarfing a McDonald's Big Mac, but I promise, it's much nicer than that.

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To celebrate our 11 years, Travis and I left Aiden with Auntie Ariel and Uncle Robert last night and went out for sushi happy hour at a restaurant in downtown Galveston. We used to go there almost every Wednesday when we lived right down the street, for what we dubbed 'Wasabi Wednesdays'. Those were the days...

It was nice to get a break for just Travis and I. Aiden has been so unbelievably cranky lately with what I think is a combination of teething and a verbally-challenged, and therefore frustrated, toddler. Robert is always so great with Aiden, so it sounds like he did a lot better after we left. When we walked out the door, Aiden was crying after us. Ugh.

It was great to get some quality uninterrupted adult conversation in. We didn't have to stand at a stove to make our dinner, clean dishes, or attend to Aiden for the night. Usually, by the end of all that on a normal night, we are just ready to veg out on the couch or in bed for the remaining two hours of wake time. We were able to just talk and it was awesome.

After dinner, we headed across the street to a swanky bar called 21. I enjoyed a glass of wine, and Travis his beer, before we went back to Ariel and Robert's. We sat at their house and chatted for an hour since Ariel has been home in Illinois for several weeks. I didn't collapse into bed until nearly midnight. Needless to say, I'm a wee bit sleepy this morning...