Our work with Item 4 yesterday took longer than we thought it would, but isn’t that always the way? Don rented a pickup truck, drove to the place that carries the gravel, had it dumped in the truck, drove home and then proceeded to shovel it out into a small wheelbarrow that we have (which is now ruined for garden work, of course). Then I dumped the gravel, while Don shoveled some more. My job was to spread it and carve out some sort of path from the driveway to the kitchen. We have some left over, which is being stored in said wheelbarrow under a tarp. If we need more to fill in here and there, we know we have some on hand.

Anyway. It took a long time. I was tuckered out. Don, who had to take the truck to a car wash and power wash it before he returned it, was even more tired. I’m glad we did it, though.

So no updates on the green mini tree.

This morning we spent an hour researching slow cookers – Don has been wanting to get one. Now, this is the thing about our kitchen: it may look spacious, but we have very little cupboard space. Hardly any. So, while Don was gung ho on a larger cooker, I, being the practical one (and often the downer because of that) kept insisting that we had to make sure we had a place to store it. And that meant we had to have the dimensions of the cooker. I balked at storing it on top of the refrigerator. I don’t like seeing too many small appliances out on the counters. In our case, we have to have the microwave and the stand mixer on the counter. But more? Nope. I drew a line in the sand. Since our kitchen and living room are essentially one big room, I’m very careful about it not looking too kitchen-y, something we could get away with if it was a separate room.

Would it fit in our dishwasher that we use for storage? No. And all the other cupboards were at capacity.

Finally, I thought of the china cabinet that we have in the kitchen. It will take some rearranging but we can do it – ONLY if we buy the 4 quart version and not the 6 quart. Besides, we don’t have kids, it’s just the two of us, so we don’t really need a big old 6 quart slow cooker.

Cleaning out the cabinet will involve getting rid of the juicer, another one of Don’s big passions that hasn’t been used for years. In fact, he forgot we still had it. I hope we’re more successful with the slow cooker. Don does most of the cooking and he wants to vary our menus a bit more and I’m all for that.

Riveting, right?

Maybe, maybe, after I’m done rearranging that cabinet, I’ll get to work on my mini Christmas tree.

Wish me luck!

Happy Tuesday.