Everyday adventures

In Progress

May 15, 2026


A quick update today: kitchen remodeling is underway! The good news: the kitchen will not take (knock wood) as long as the bathroom to complete. The bad news: it’s really hard to feed yourself without a kitchen sink, dishwasher, and counters. Food prep is tough, and washing dishes in the laundry tub is, shall we say, problematic. We do have use of our stove and oven, which helps. We can cook the food, but cleaning up after is a pain.

Lots of waiting around for contractors to arrive, noise, disruption, mess, and chaos—the animals are handling it better than the humans, probably because their meals aren’t affected.

This project has been hanging over my head for months—I’m excited to see it in progress, and it will be a huge relief to have it finished. We’ve been thrilled with our bathroom renovation, and I think we’re going to be just as happy with our kitchen. We’re not moving plumbing or changing the configuration, but the cabinetry will go almost to the ceiling and there will be corner cabinets instead of dead space. I’m hoping this will solve some of our storage problems—and we’ll be able to unpack the last couple of boxes in the garage!

A tiny sneak peek:


This has been my adventure for the week—what was yours? 

August

August Progress

August 21, 2020


August.

Or, as I like to call it, “Ugh-ist.”

Never my favorite month. Except for the birthdays of some loved ones (hi, guys!), August is a month I just try to survive, and I have a long history of complaining about it every year here on Catching Happiness.  See “August Monday Musings,” “Feeling the Heat,” or “In Which I Compare Myself to a Horse.” 

But 2020 has been such a strange year, and while this August is…weird to say the least, for me personally, it’s better than the past few years. Last summer, Tank had a serious hoof condition and was lame, and my husband’s truck engine blew. The year before that I was stressed out about moving Tank to a new barn and our son had been forced to move home temporarily.  And the year before that, Tank had an abscessed tooth that required twice-a-day doctoring. This month, fingers crossed, I’m just dealing with ordinary, day-to-day stuff. For which I am very, very grateful.

Despite my typical lack of energy in August, I have been participating in some challenges this month: the KonMari 8-Week Tidy Challenge and Susannah Conway’s #augustbreak2020 Instagram challenge. I’m doing them both imperfectly, and that’s OK. I’ve probably missed more days than I’ve posted on Instagram, but I’m allowing myself to take it easy. (See my posts here.) I’m a bit bogged down with tidying my books (is anyone surprised?), but I’m making progress. Slow, languid, August progress, but progress nonetheless.

In progress...

Tidied

I feel like that’s a lesson I can learn this year: keep trying. Do it imperfectly, but don’t give up. Soften. 

I hope that you have been able to enjoy some of summer’s simple pleasures, and that you’re experiencing August progress. Tell me about what you’ve been up to in the comments!