Aaand we're back!

Yes, this is true.  It's been a couple of weeks since we've done anything on the house and yes, it's been because we have been exhausted.  In addition to Husband catching up on the work front (since he spent the majority of 6 weeks working on the house) and me decidedly choosing not to do any work on the house (because work has been picking up and I've been mentally exhausted, in addition to physically lazy exhausted), we've spent the last four weekends doing something.  We went down to Corpus Christi and slept on the beach one night (OMG. Epic.), surrounded by shooting stars, galaxy bars, and too many stars to count, then went to Texas State Aquarium the next day (an amazing rescue aquarium where i got to pet a baby alligator and a stingray!).  The next weekend we got to go to New Braunfels and stay in a vacation home all weekend, then spend Saturday and Sunday floating the Guadalupe River.  Fun times, but not exactly housework-time.
Last weekend we had a friend in town and we went down to Kemah and visited the boardwalk (yay rollercoaster), went to a concert, and Sunday we lazed about.  We did do four loads of laundry, which was an official housework accomplishment.

This week, I'm determined to get moving on the house.  I want to finish unpacking the kitchen tonight.  I'm definitely not tired of laying around (it's soo nice to just lay in bed, veg, and cuddle while watching Psych or one of our myriad other Netflix shows), but I am tired of dodging boxes every time we turn around.  I still have the same list I had two weeks ago (when we decided to go to Corpus instead):

• unpack the kitchen (so that one room in the house can be nearly complete...and we can actually eat on real plates)
• paint the two doors for the downstairs (so we can have actual doors that are complete that lead us to the bathroom, rather than doors that are haphazardly laid against the doorframe and falling apart)
• install aforementioned doors and put on handles (so we don't have to walk through the powder room to get to the bathroom, and can actually enjoy our new dual-sink-awesomeness)
• belt sand and paint the upstairs bedroom ceilings (so we can finally move the mattress upstairs and make a real semblance of a guest bedroom)
• paint the trim in the upstairs rooms
• move all the upstairs stuff upstairs
• Organize the bathroom stuff (right now we're using bathroom stuff out of plastic bags and boxes.  It's not that awesome)
• Organize the closet (again, because Husband had to remove everything to have the carpet put in and then forgot where everything went, so my work clothes are mixed with my going-out-on-the-town clothes)
• Clean
• Laundry

Item 1 (kitchen) is halfway done.  I got a good portion of the unpacking finished, but then I got tired of cleaning out the inside of the kitchen cabinets to remove layer upon layer of silica dust, then putting liner down, then cleaning the dishes by hand because the dishwasher is in use (and even when it's not, the dishes are still getting white stuff all over them.  Sigh.  Thoughts on why?)  But we've run out of the dishes I have unpacked, so I need to unpack the rest of it.  Now.  Here's a visual of what I've done:

Unpacked in all its glory

 Which you may find to be normal, until you see what it used to look like (and what the other side looks like):

The other side looks like an accomplishment now, right?  Right.

The pantry is possibly the worst part, because there's a lot of food to put in there, and not a lot of storage.  The top two shelves are pretty narrow, so you can't put much on them.  I think I'm going to need to enlist the help of Husband Helper to build me better shelves.  And move them farther apart, so there isn't a cavernous area of space not being used up top and below. 

And there's still a whole new box of stuff to unpack.

We also already put the mattress upstairs because our friends came into town and we didn't want them to sleep on the air mattress again.  Of course now I'll have to move it out into the hallway once I start working on the ceiling.  Le sigh. 

But despite how little work we've done on the house recently (and being hampered by monetary limitations to continue), it's still so nice to walk into our kitchen or our shower (or heck, even into our bedroom) and just see the improvements. 

So, more to come!