Sage, Naomi – Author at Plaster & Disaster

In January we shared with you some of our 2018 goals, and now that we’re creeping up on the mid-year mark (eek!) we figured the time was right to update you on how they’ve been going. We like to write about goals here (even those that aren’t DIY-related) because it’s both a great accountability mechanism for us, and it’s a way for us to share some more about our lives outside of decorating our houses.

Sage

This year, I set the following goals:

Take care of my mental and physical health
- Rehab right leg — Physical Therapy, stretching
- Exercise 4+ days per week, with at least as much strength-training as cardio
- Weekly therapy
- Meditate once per week
- No more than 40 hours of work per week, no email on nights and weekends
Make a difference in the world
- Remember that helping kids go to college is meaningful
- Pick my cause to engage in deeply
- Show up for other causes once per month
Waste less time doing mindless things
- No facebook for 1 month +
- Play more games
- Read 10 books
Improve the house
- Figure out longer term layout/room use plan
- Year #2 of outside projects

So how has it been going so far?

Here are the things I’ve been making progress on:

I completed another round of physical therapy in January for my leg, though it still bothers me from time to time so I’m not convinced it’s really healed (I’m not running at all, so if I did I think it would flare up again)
I’ve continued to go to therapy.
I’ve gotten a better handle on my work hours, though a stressful spring at work has meant some evening and weekend work.
I quit facebook in January and haven’t been back since. It’s awesome and I don’t miss it at all, though sometimes I’m a little late seeing photos or learning updates from friends and family since it’s still a main communication channel for so many folks.
I’ve read 4 books so far this year: The Trespasser (a crime thriller from Tana French, who I really enjoy), Before We Were Yours (a story based on a terrible real-life adoption scandal perpetrated across the country from the 1920s through 50s), The Flight Attendant (another crime thriller, this one by Chris Bohjalian who is a Vermont writer I love), and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (a true crime story about the Golden State Killer, a serial rapist and killer based in California in the 1970s and 80s). Yes, I have strange taste in books….
I’ve figured out how we’re going to shift around rooms in our house to make it more family-friendly, and started some of the work involved like rearranging our bedroom, designing a new closet for it, and buying the bi-fold doors we’ll use for it.
Doing some outdoor projects, like filling our large deck planter and starting to grow some groundcover.

That said, I’ve had some health/medical things come up since January that have taken most of my energy and attention, and I haven’t done a lot of what I’d planned this year as a result. I haven’t been exercising regularly (sometimes due to doctor’s orders, sometimes due to exhaustion), and you may have also noticed that the pace of my home improvement projects has slowed too for the same reasons. I’ve also been so consumed by my own stuff that I have been terrible with staying engaged in the horrendous things going on in the world. I work hard and believe that my job makes a difference, but it feels like a drop in the bucket when children are being taken from their parents at the border, unarmed black men and boys are killed by police, and mass shootings continue unabated…to name just a few disturbing things in the news at the current moment.

I haven’t felt ready to share about the health stuff on the internet yet, but I promise I will at some point this summer. I’m totally fine, but I just haven’t had the physical or emotional energy to do a lot of the things I set out to do this year. As a person who is always busy and active, it’s been hard to accept that I just don’t have it in me to maintain that same level of activity right now — but one of my big goals this year has been physical and mental health, and it’s been important for me to accept that I’m doing the best thing for myself by not pushing as hard as I usually do. I know that sounds dramatic, and I don’t mean to be — there are just some things I’m not yet ready to talk about in detail online yet, but I did want to share a bit about why this year is looking different than expected.

Naomi

My mid-year goal progress is a mixed bag. While it hasn’t been a particularly dramatic year for me, a really intense workload and period of time at work has taken a lot out of me. I’ve gotten a lot done but I definitely have some catching up to do. Here’s how I’m doing:

My top goal was to finish my novel draft and revise it. I said I would:

Finish the first draft in April
Do major revisions by the summer
Share with a few trusted readers
Make more revisions based on reader feedback by December

Let me just say…. HAHAHA. I did not finish the first draft in April, not even close:

I’ve had a really bad stretch of writing, essentially since late February, and haven’t gotten much done. I blame a busy work schedule and also hitting a tough spot that I am stuck on. However, I am looking at a summer with more down time and will be able to devote time an energy to it again. I’ve also been maintaining my writing group, which keeps me thinking about writing and my story and revising, even if those efforts aren’t reflected in the numbers.

I think a realistic revised goal is to finish the draft this year and start revisions before 2019. I can do it!

My goal to be engaged has been more successful, however. By this I meant engaged in a lot of ways, like paying attention in the world and spending more time with friends and family. I’ve been able to say “yes” to incrementally more things lately, specifically with Brad, my parents, and friends… sometimes at the expense of writing time. I do still feel guilty that I’m not doing enough with folks but given how many other goals I have I think this might be a good balance.

My goal to keep a journal has been a complete bust. Why do I need a journal if I have a blog?!

Finally, I feel great about where I am on my house progress goals. I finished the closet makeover quicker than I expected and am really proud of it, and also finally put in a hallway rug (with your help).

I’ve also been making slow but steady progress on the kitchen, and remember the goal was to at least start the project this year, not necessarily finish it!

No year ever goes as planned, but this pattern of goal setting and checking in is really helpful to focus and also to adjust as things change. Here’s to a great end of 2018!

How’s your year going? What goals have you set/made/missed?

Our kitchen progress has stalled a bit since our difficult but ultimately victorious demo day. I’ve never pretended to be a quick decorator! A lot of this delay was caused by me, and in particular my full absorption in a particularly busy time at work, which isn’t interesting to talk about on a DIY blog.

What is hopefully at least a little interesting to talk about is the other source of delay: our difficulty coming together on a choice of new kitchen appliances.

Remember that this is where we’re starting from:

So there is really no where to go but up. However, we had really different visions of which “up” we wanted to go, so we began…

The Great Appliance Stalemate of 2018

Admittedly, I was the cause of this issue. We had long planned on upgrading appliances to stainless steel, and even already purchased a stainless steel dishwasher when ours broke a little while ago.

This seemed like a good plan, until I was looking through my kitchen inspiration pinterest board and came to a realization: there weren’t any fridges in it! Almost every beautiful photo that I had pinned either had the refrigerator cropped out of it or featured one of those very expensive paneled ones.

Fridges are UGLY, and the location of ours puts it right in the middle of our kitchen and pretty much right in the middle of our whole house.

I knew that a paneled fridge was too expensive, but I got it in my head that a white fridge would look nice and blend in well with the wall of white cabinets we plan to surround it with.

This didn’t please Brad. He thought it would look weird, and he had already extensively researched appliances in stainless steel and thought the issue was closed.

We opened it back up.

After an adjustment period, he kindly considered all of my proposed options of high-end white appliances (I only wanted ones without the orange-peel texture). I was hopeful, but we learned a discouraging fact: fancy looking white appliances are overpriced for what they deliver, and have some of the worst energy efficiency ratings out there, making them a non-starter for Brad.

We proceeded to ignore the issue for a couple of weeks until I decided that I didn’t want to hold up the whole project until new appliance lines came out and gave in for stainless steel.

Thus, we delayed for about a month with no reason.

Our Appliance Selections & Deals

Once we got past that detour, we settled on Frigidaire to go with our dishwasher (which is this one) and decided that this was an area of the kitchen renovation that we were willing to spend a little extra for good quality. Fortunately, Brad was able to shop around for good deals so it wasn’t too bad!

For the stove, I had few requirements except that it not be horribly ugly, so Brad got to pick. We ended up with this model, with an induction range and convection oven. We bought it open box and with a dent in the side (which you can’t see when it is installed) from Best Buy for about $600. The only complications were that it came without the user manual and oven light… small price to pay!

It came quickly and without issue (and with removal of our old oven), so here it is now!

It is SUCH an upgrade.

On the fridge I had stronger opinions (as you can tell from our stalemate above). If we were going stainless steel, I wanted one that was counter depth, french door, and had no water dispenser on the front. We ended up with this model.

Brad found a dinged unit from Sears for about $1800 all in. (There was a significant discount, but we then had to pay to have it shipped, which brought the price back up to only a small discount off of retail which costs more but often has free local delivery.)

It is coming all the way from Texas so it is still on it’s way!

A Bonus Appliance Update

While we were at it, we also took the opportunity to upgrade our toaster oven. You can see the old one in the after photo of the stove above. This intrepid fellow has been with me for 10 years, ever since I bought it for my first apartment for about $20. And it has been horribly ugly since year 1 when my roommate left a plastic bag on top of it and turned it on.

For my birthday this past weekend, my parents got me this:

Fancy, right? In addition to looking awesome, it’s a combo toaster oven and air fryer, which I am pumped to try out.

If you haven’t heard of an air fryer, the promise is that it uses circulating hot air to get a crispy “fry” on things with very little oil. The main complaint I’ve seen is that you need a whole additional appliance for it, so taking this opportunity to upgrade the toaster and add this cool new function seemed like a good plan! I’ll let you know how I like it!

Next Steps

The appliances were holding up the kitchen renovation because our next project will be to build the wall of new cabinets around the fridge… and as you can imagine that will be a lot easier once the fridge is in place. It should be arriving within the next few weeks and then progress will resume!