The Red Wall--Continued

 

So the red wall in the kitchen/dining room is painted. We've started to organize the kitchen and dining room, but our sorely short on cabinets and storage space for our kitchen items. (Yes, even though we were not so fond of our previous living arrangements, at least we could shove all our crap into the cabinets.) We're planning to use pewter accents on this wall, with the thought (although we haven't decided yet--hence why it isn't done yet) of hanging the pan rack (the big thing on the buffet) on the wall here. Then we could put our wine glasses (and other various drinking ware) on the shelf, and hang stuff from the rack (this is the iffy part). We haven't decided if the glass shelf on the left is staying put--it's more out of necessity that it is there for now. (Notice how nice the KitchenAid red stand mixer looks though!)

On another front, when we had the inspection done, the inspector thought the furnace was broken. Mark had monkeyed with it, but we never felt any warm heat coming from the vents, so we've been freezing these past few weeks. Last night, though, we had a bit of luck, as Mark was able to get the furnace working! Hurray! No new furnace costs or maintenace guy costs! Hurray for heat!

Our Inalienable Rights

OK, I need to weigh in on this health care debate. This morning Mark and I heard a report on NPR about a family who is self-employed and have to purchase their own health care policies. Mark pointed out that right now there is a medical scarcity problem for certain groups of people, and the family in this report exemplified this. There are two sons in the family, and the mother said that they don't skimp on medical services for their sons, but that she and her husband self-select out of some services (like regular check-ups, mammograms, etc.), because of the expense (they have a high deductible of $5200). So even though these certain services are available in general, they are limited to only those who can afford them. To top it off, then the mother also pointed out that if she or someone in her family gets very sick, the insurance company could always cancel their policy, and this was a real concern for her.

A lot of people may not like the proposed health care reform (just look at Senator Inhofe's flat dismissal), or don't like the term "socialism," but the crux of the problem for the family in the NPR story is that health care companies are out to make money. Even though we all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, there is no government regulation to ensure that everyone has a healthy life. Everyone should have the right to receive medical treatment. There should be no argument about that fact, and the only focus should be how to best get results.

A *Minor* Setback

 

We've had a small setback. *Someone* got a little demolition happy two weekends ago, when we were working on shingling on the backside of the house, over the kitchen. We got a lot done, but we weren't able to shingle everything that was cleared off. We did our best to cover with tarps, etc., as it was supposed to rain that night, but we unfortunately had a leak in the ceiling in the kitchen. Mark has meticulously removed the wet drywall and insulation, which has left a nice-sized hole in the kitchen ceiling.


This has been an unfortunate stumbling block (it doesn't help that Octavius tried to jump into the attic space from the refrigerator), but there are a couple of silver linings:

1. I hated that ceiling anyway (the texture is UGLY), so we might be able to at least get the kitchen to have a nice, smooth ceiling.
2. The lighting in the kitchen is a problem. It's pretty dim, so this give us a chance to work on the wiring and add some new (we're thinking about some pocket lighting).
3. We can get a pretty good view of the attic space over the kitchen, which right now is sealed off from the house and not usable. I've already been talking about a renovation idea to open up that space to make a walk-in closet for the upstairs master bedroom, and then enlarging the upstairs bathroom. Since we can see that space now, we can see that this idea is feasible, and we can even take measurements, etc., before we replace the ceiling so we can make my idea a reality. The only thing, is that project will have to wait until after the property tax assessor comes in January--we don't want the value of the house to increase before s/he comes! :)