Comforts, Chaos, and Serendipity in a Can

The mania of remodeling, renewing, and refurbishing continues on the Suburban Plot, holidays notwithstanding. The stack of dramatic before-and-afters piles higher with every day and, still, the To Do List remains chocked full of fun for the whole family.

There was a fair bit of good fortune involved in this weekend's tasks. You see, more than six months ago, even before our wedding, the husband and I chose a medley of colors for the kitchen-dining-living wing of our little house. Each room bleeds into the next, so we were particularly mindful of the visual harmony of all three paints. For half a year those paint chips have remained taped to our dining room wall, never forgotten but financially out of reach, for paint seems an absolute luxury when one is budgeting for sufficient groceries.

Then a miracle occurred. A genuine miracle of interior design. An intervention of divine decoration! When mixed in proper proportions, two spare cans of paint, one left over from hubby's workplace, another the bare remainders of our hallway work last fall, these two colors blended to a nearly perfect match of our little golden kitchen paint chip! And thus, Kitchen Phase 2 was begun.

I swear, if we get much luckier, I might collapse. The To Do List has become our holy book, its happy little ticky-marks our mitzvahs and commandments done well, its unchecked items our sins and transgressions. Oh yes...we know when we're licked. We are resigned to two more weeks of slavish work and keep only the hopeful results of home inspection and the promised month of break from any home improvement as our beacons of salvation off in the distance.

Amidst the plaster dust and paint fumes, a girl sometimes finds herself in need of the comforts of quieter times gone by, and the City Mouse had a serious hankering for a big, steamy bowl of Chicken and Dumplins. That gooey southern dish just can't be beat for full-on innards-warming grub that lands in the tummy like a load of bricks.

I've struggled, since my immigration, with duplicating the chemical goodness of the Bisquick dumpling and came a step closer, Saturday night, with a baking soda biscuit recipe, homemade chicken stock, and some boneless thigh meat. I still need to find a way to make the dumplings a little less dense and a smidge more breaddy. Experimentation will win out!

But for now, this home renovator must obey her paint can masters and return to the brush for another day of first and second coats, and yet another "after shot" for the stack. I apologize for the delay between posts but, as you can tell, time is a precious commodity these days. Soon, your daily updates will return!