Holiday Update

It's the Thursday before Christmas ... and life has been hectic!

John's been on break from school, so he's been looking for projects to complete around the house.  Meanwhile, I'm still working and then I volunteered us to dog-sit over my vacation break, so I invited that family over for dinner tonight so that their dog can meet Honey and get used to us before actually being left here for several days.

So, John decided yesterday afternoon was the perfect time to rip out the pantry and re-do it.

I got home from work yesterday and the entire contents of my pantry were strewn all over my kitchen cabinets (John reassured me that we'd get a pizza so I didn't have to try and cook).  He'd torn out all the shelves in the pantry and did some dry-wall repair in there. 

Tip:  Did you know that Lowe's will cut your wood for you?  Seriously - John bought this long strip of wood to use for shelves in our new pantry, and Lowe's cut that long strip down to the exact sizes we needed for the shelves.  Normally it costs $0.25 per cut, but they didn't charge us for it.  So much easier than trying to do it outselves!

So ... last night we went to Lowes and wandered around a bit, then picked up our pizza.  After dinner, John started sanding the dry wall down and then painted the first coat of white in the pantry.  I started going through all the food from the pantry and getting rid of stuff that was either expired or I knew that we'd never use (most likely because we'd had it for over a year). 

Biggest surprise of the night?  Finding 10 cans of black beans - an ingredient I only use in 1 recipe that I make maybe 2-3 times a year.

Grossest surprise of the night?  Finding an unopened container of balsamic vinaigrette dressing that looked like things were growing in it.  Surprisingly, it was not past the expiration date.  We threw it out anyway.

So now John is painting a second coat in the pantry and trying to install the shelves before we have company tonight.  I'm making a lamb roast with steamed vegetables and rolls.  My guests are bringing dessert and a tiny dog that will probably get into a fight or something with Honey.

Yay!