Hot Hot Hot

Ugh.

New York State is experiencing one of the worst heatwaves in a long time. This is Day 4 of 90+ degree temperatures, with today forecast to be the hottest of all. No real relief until Saturday, and then the heat is back for Monday.

WE’RE THE FROZEN CHOSEN! We don’t want any heatwaves!!! I don’t, anyway. I have been sweating so much that I look like a prune. I am going to need some of the best eye wrinkle cream to fix this…

Anyway, I’m obviously not doing a lot of cooking. Besides having no kitchen and dining room, the heat makes it impossible to do anything. Our temporary kitchen is in our attached garage, where it is blistering hot. So we may pop in there briefly to grab some coffee or ice cubes, but we’re not staying in for any length of time. I wish I had recipes to share. I can’t even *think* about food right now. Except a Coolata. Now that’s what I would like, a Coolata! (I recently discovered them at Dunkin Donuts. Mmmm the Vanilla Bean is SOOO good).

A Good Kitchen…

… is everything to a cook. Really. I have had some really, really bad kitchens. Most of my apartment kitchens either had no countertops, or had a tiny one of 3 feet long. I can’t believe I was living in an apartment with FOUR young children and using a kitchen with a 3-foot countertops and two cupboards. Wow, lol.

Well, we’re redoing our kitchen in our home, at last. And while it’s SO GREAT to be finally renovating the kitchen, it’s very hard to be living here without a kitchen while doing it. We have no kitchen sink. We have no storage space in the house (the basement floods and there is no attic in the house)… it’s surprisingly tough. I’m a pretty tough gal, I can take a lot, so I thought. But having no kitchen is really, really disruptive. And it’s not disruptive just for cooking– it’s hard emotionally on the family. Basic stuff like morning coffee or dinner together is totally turned on its head. Wow. I thought I was prepared for this, knowing how renovations can cause stress, but this is pretty wild! Even my blogging is severely affected– my posts are more terse, less humorous, less frequent.

Still, I’m so happy to finally be getting this done. All this demolition and construction work is quite the abs workout!! Once the plumbing is in and the electricity is in, and the first floor is insulated, all the hard stuff is done. All that will be left is the upstairs– the simple stuff like walls and floors. Whew. I can’t wait til it’s all over.

I Did Wonder…

… what my son was doing in the kitchen that was taking him so long… LOL

Is it just in this area, or are you finding fruits and vegetables to be horribly expensive lately? I cannot afford to buy fruit, the prices are terrible! One tiny little cantaloupe slightly larger than a softball is almost $3! Watermelons the size of a basketball are $8! A bag of oranges are almost $8! Yow. I have a garden, but it’s all vegetables. The kids love their fruit… I cannot keep it stocked.

I sure hope my little apple trees start producing mega fruit in the near future. I wanted to get another tree this year, but we’re doing a kitchen renovation and all my cash is tied up in buying drywall and stuff like a ceiling fan, etc. The kitchen is turning out to be GORGEOUS, by the way!! I can’t wait to actually cook in it! I’ll be posting a lot of new stuff here, believe me!

If you’re interested in knowing about our progress on the renovation, see my home blog, New York Renovator.com.