It took us all of four seconds after the artificial tree debacle to pendulum swing all the way back to wanting a real tree. E said she knew of a tree lot near our house, so last night we packed up the car and headed over there.

Last weekend began our quest for a Christmas tree. E and I have both used real trees for quite some time now, including the last few years while we’ve been together. This year, for the sake of everyone’s allergies, we decided to purchase the first fake (excuse me, “artificial”) tree either of us have had since the 1980s.

It’s been a little over a month since I’ve last posted, and with good reason, everything’s gotten hectic.

As I said, from this point on, we finished the rest of the kitchen in less than 48 hours. I was able to fit the door casings, do the rest of the cabinets and countertops, wire the range vent hood, and lay the thresholds at the edge of the door frames.

It’s been a whirlwind weekend, with my mother visiting for L’s first birthday party, and finishing the entirety of the kitchen in roughly two days. I haven’t been this tired or poorly rested since L was two months old.

Tuesday evening we pulled an almost-all-nighter to install the sink side cabinets. We booked an appointment with the plumber for Wednesday morning to hook up the sink, disposal, dishwasher, and ice maker, so we needed to have everything ready.

E and I put L to bed and spent Saturday night carrying out Operation Bunny Gray. We let it dry and saw that it was still way too dark for a kitchen that will have black cabinets. We went back to the drawing board (and Lowe’s) and picked up two gallons of Iced Cube Silver.

Between work, life, kiddo, and Bella, progress on the kitchen has been a bit slower than we’d hoped.

We decided to take L to Lowe’s to look at countertops for the kitchen cabinets. He had different ideas about what he’d like to look at, and ran around the aisles a bit.

I started the flooring installation on Sunday afternoon, and after doing the living room we barely had enough to complete the kitchen installation.