A full and satisfying day

We spent much of the day running errands and doing chores, but I feel satisfied with all we accomplished.

This morning, we went to Great Neck to clean things out of my grandmother's apartment and wrap other items up for shipment to relatives. My grandmother passed away in February, and I'm the executor of the estate. So I get to coordinate all of this fun and more. Marc, Jeff, my brother, Charlie, and his wife, Trisha, joined us to help with the tasks. Charlie and Trisha also brought their one year old son, Owen (a very cute nephew, if you ask me!), and Rudy, their Jack Russell terrier. Owen and Rudy were less help than the others, but they did add fun to the event.

We got a lot done this morning. Then Marc, Jeff and I headed to Chili's to get lunch. Marc and I were able to get diet-friendly items there, so we were happy. Our plan was to go see Fahrenheit 9/11 after that, but we thought better of it. Not that we don't want to see it, because we do (along with seeing the departure of W from the White House). No, instead we decided that we could get better things done today.

So we went to Fortunoff's in Westbury, so Marc could check out some grills to give out as contest prizes where he works. Then we decided to go to the Blackman Plumbing showroom in Hicksville to pick out more fixtures for our house remodeling. (By the way, I'm thinking of starting a petition drive to get Blackman to change their name. It's the 21st century. The least they can do is change to "Blackperson Plumbing", right?)

So we filled in more of the holes in our list of needs for the new house. It's all going to cost a fortune, but the house is going to be fabulous when it's done! As our contractor said yesterday, "the way you're gutting it, it's going to be like you have a new house." Actually, that would be a new house with great fixtures, features, etc.

We're going to gut the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms, gut the kitchen, move walls upstairs to make more bedroom space, install central air, replace the entire heating system, insulate (and heat/cool) the enclosed patio to make it year-round, etc., etc., etc. All of this, together with the landscaping we've done, and the house (which already was bigger than our current one--and on a bigger piece of land), and we're going to have a great place to live when everything's done.

In today's outing, I found the six foot soaking tub I want for the master bathroom. We also found a great set of shower fixtures, with a large overhead "rain" shower head, an adjustable, removable (to be hand-held) second head that goes on the wall, plus multiple body sprays to be installed in the wall. I may never leave the master bath!

Together with so many other things (like the granite counters in the kitchen, the double oven, the six high-output burners of the cooktop), I'm worried about the cost and excited about the possibilities.

Anyhow, as I said before, I think we'll have a wonderful home when we're done (not that the current one is terrible, but this will be better!). Of course, we'll have to have lots of our fabulous friends come over when it's done! :)

So now we're back home. We made steaks for dinner (great filet mignon from Stew Leonard's), and now Marc is putting the finishing touches on home-made low-carb ice cream. I know, low-carb ice cream?? Yup. It's very low-carb, and it's fabulous. Of course, with Marc making it, it's likely to be fabulous. The boy can cook!