This is Nuts!

A month ago Brent and I decided to put in granite counter tops (yea!) and the earliest they could get them installed was going to be August 6th. During that time they came out for estimates and then to measure and the counters had to be completely bare so we tossed everything onto the dining room table and leave it all there figuring it would have to get moved again anyway. August 6th is approaching and Premiere Countertops (the company installing our much anticipated counter tops) calls and says they are running behind and could they reschedule for the 7th? Ya, sure a betcha, no problem. Mom will be visiting, won't that be fun to show her...until they call the week of and tell me they are still running behind and could they reschedule for Monday afternoon. Grrr, I guess Mom will have to wait. Monday afternoon arrives my counter tops are bare, cabinets empty, drawers pulled out and I'm herding Sage away from what she believes to be the best kitchen playset ever made available when they call Brent in North Carolina (why they called him I'm not sure) and guess what...that's right, can you believe they are still behind? At this point Brent rails into them about the inconvenience they have been (go get 'em tiger!) and how dare they do this to a woman who is at home with a toddler and a baby while her husband is deployed (at-a-boy!). So when they call me with their tails tucked between their legs, we decide on Wednesday at 9am.

Here's is how today went and I'm not kidding you, this all really happened:

8:00am--two kind gentlemen (whom I will now refer to as tall guy and short guy) show up an hour before we had agreed upon but because my girls are still faithfully getting up at the crack of dawn, I'm properly dressed and I've finished nursing. Whew! Then I realized that the kitchen drawers need to get pulled out which after I tell them it will take me a minute, they had the audacity to give me an annoyed look! But because I had been through the drill a number of times before, I was able to finish the task in a new Olympic record time of 56.021 seconds and before they came back in with all their equipment. MmHmm...that's right, you can just put that annoyed look right back into your tool box.

9:11am--Old counter tops are out, and in preservation in the garage to be transferred to the duck shack next fall. New ones coming in. Yippee!

9:34am--Call plumber to firm up a time for them to come and hook up the faucet and garbage disposal. I get connected with Lisa in plumbing and enjoy a friendly business chat with her. She must sense my giddiness over the excitement of the day.

9:43am--Get a shout from tall guy, "Hey miss, can I show you something?" That's never a good question. Go upstairs and outside with them where short guy is standing with a sorry look on his face and I may be wrong but possibly some fear too. They show me that when they were taking the clamps off a piece of granite the size of a marble chipped off. There are four counter top pieces total and which one do you think got chipped...of course the one with the sink. Here's the stinker, we do not have shut off valves for the faucet and therefore the entire water supply to the house had to be shut off. They tell me they can get a new slab cut and in by tomorrow but in my head I'm seeing a picture of a two year old and a sixth month old and all I can think is, "no water...No Water....NO WATER!!!"

9:52am--Sage appears from coloring (much to the amusement of tall guy and short guy) with a green mustache and arms that Rainbow Bright would have been proud of. Thankfully they are washable and I use a container of wipes to clean her up.

9:58am--Call the plumbing people and once again get Lisa to whom I blabber on and on about no water to and bless her, she somehow understands what I'm trying to convey to her and arranges the plumber to come to our house to install shut off valves instead.

10:40am--Tall guy and short guy finish the slabs that haven't broke and short guy, still looking quite sorry, blubbers something about being afraid of what the owner will say.

11:30am--Of course, the one time Sage would ask for water with her lunch would be today.

11:56am--Dishwasher topples forward and narrowly misses Sage due to not being attached to a counter.

1:18pm--Countertop owner calls and says they have dropped everything to get our slab cut and installed today. Good grief Brent, what did you say to them?

1:21pm--Call the plumber people, talk to my new best friend Lisa and tell her to put a halt to the plans and arrange to have them come at 4:30pm to install the faucet and garbage disposal.

1:48pm--Sage woke up from her nap and had a huge accident, completely soaking her favorite blanket and sheets. Deep breaths...it's okay, I'll wash them tonight before she goes to bed.

2:22pm--For once I'm happy this house has four bathrooms.

3:45pm--Tall guy and short guy are back with the new counter top and get installed in less than an hour. Yea!

4:19pm--Sage is asking for water again. I also just found what I thought was an abnormal skin tag on Clare's face but then realized it was just caked on baby cereal.

5:10pm--Plumber guy shows up and as we walk over to the sink he says "Oh, they didn't tell me I was hooking up a faucet and disposal. I just thought I was fixing a garbage disposal." Lisa, WE'RE THROUGH! At this point his sources for getting the parts he needs are closed so he ends up installing shut off valves. We go over the estimate for the hook ups and it's clear that if I go buy some parts myself, we can save a good deal of money. So we agree for him to come over in the morning to set it up.

6:10pm--After supper and enjoying the wonderful feeling of getting to wipe my kids faces clean, we head to Menards. Great, there's an accident, I'm stuck in traffic. I'm not kidding you there were two police cars, three ambulances and one fire truck at the scene.

7:00pm--Get back from Menards and start getting the kids ready for bed upon which I realize Sage's blanket and sheets have not been washed. I quickly put different sheets on her bed and when I tucked her in I put a different blanket on her and shoved her gross blanket to the end of the bed. Thankfully she didn't catch on.

7:49pm--Countertop owner guy calls to make sure I'm pleased with how they went out of their way to get the counter installed today. Seriously?!

I documented the progress today. No, there isn't a backsplash right now but I'm working on it.


I know this is a grainy picture but I was getting too much reflection with a flash. This is what they finished.




This is what wasn't finished




Semi-finished.




Can you tell what's missing?