Post of all sorts

So the Partylite order is in.  I have a few people’s orders sitting in my living room.  If you haven’t heard from me yet, I’ll be contacting you soon.
The kitchen is waiting… on stone.  The contractor has done all that he can, the cabinets are up, the microwave is in, dishwasher is awaiting power and water, under-cabinet lighting is installed.  The electrician came yesterday and activated all of the outlets and the microwave and installed face plates and made everything pretty.  Now we wait until December 19th for the stone guys to come and install the counter and the sink that goes with.  Once that’s done, the contractor will hook up the dishwasher and test it out and we’ll be done, man.  Except, of course, for the  finish trim around the doors and windows, and the rebuilding of our arched doorway which no longer comes flush with the wall since we built the wall out a couple of inches 🙁 but that’s a whole different job with a different price tag.
I have to say that this is the best professional experience that we’ve had in regards to our home so far.   Mark is super-nice, accommodating, up-front, honest, and his work is damn near perfect.  We have one of the most warped floors that I’ve ever seen in my life (up to an inch and a half off in some places), and walls too, and our cabinets sit with a level on top of them like the floor is perfectly flat.  He doesn’t leave things half-done.  He cleans up after himself, daily.  He keeps me aware of the goings-on of the job.  I’m a very happy customer.
And 180 degrees in the other direction… it’s cookie time.  I have this strong desire to make and decorate cookies like nobody’s business.  I just grabbed a recipe for gingerbread cookies which I intend to make the dough for soon so that it’ll be ready when I am.  Of course, I’ll need sugar cookie dough too.  And I picked up some peanut butter chips, toffee chips, and white chocolate chips at the market recently just to have them on hand.  I’m also working on a Nutella cheesecake recipe.   I think that I’ll make that for one of the holiday parties that we’re attending this weekend.
My brother-in-law, Bob, is scheduled for surgery this Thursday morning.  He’s having some of his internal organs stuffed into a mesh bag so that they’ll stop strangling each other.   Merry Christmas to him, huh?  I’m sure that recovery from surgery will be better than the pain he was experiencing though.
J