Blessings Well Disguised

As much as it pains me to admit this, it was probably for the best that Saturday did not go as I wished.  We would have wanted to hurry up and get the new flooring installed asap, and this waiting has allowed for more drying time.  Tuesday Ryan had the time and energy to attack the floor once again.  I am impressed with how many floors we have in the kitchen.  On the upside, Ryan was able to get down far enough to find wood that wasn't disintegrating before he reached the crawl space.

 You can't see it well, but there is a black fan on the black floor below.  The black on the floor is either the back of those peel and stick tiles, or the adhesive left over from them.  Ryan scraped away at it in places to make sure the wood underneath was solid, and it was.  He scraped soft flooring from under the cabinets as far as he could reach with his tools.  I hope with that fan going 24/7 everything else will dry out.  The weather has been really nice and so our kitchen window has been open a lot.  The smell is getting better.  Elizabeth no longer covers her nose when she gets home from school.

 So, this space in front of the counter and sink is an ugly tripping hazard.  What's worse is that no matter what I have done, I don't feel like my house is clean.  I'm not a neat freak by any means, but I still like things to feel tidy enough and I haven't been able to feel that.  It's frustrating even though I know this is only temporary.

The dishwasher was supposed to arrive at Lowe's yesterday, and I am still waiting on that call.

It's peach season, and our bishop and his wife gave us 4 boxes of peaches last Saturday evening.  Four boxes.  Whew.  We've eaten a ton fresh and we've made a pretty good dent in them, but they are on the verge of all going bad.  I was putting off canning because 1. It's a long and lonely job alone, and 2. No dishwasher.  On the bright side, these peaches are free stone and they peel really easily even without blanching them.

So yesterday went like this.  Get out the canner and put on water to boil.  Gather jars, lids and rings.  Wash one batch worth of jars.  Put the water and sugar to simmer so my syrup is ready once I am.  Peel and cut.  Peel and cut.  Peel and cut, ad naseum.  Add Fruit Fresh powder.  Grab my jars and cram those peaches in.  That wasn't enough for 7 jars, so more peeling and cutting and dripping juice all over.  I had to put towels down because we are missing any type of covering to protect the floor.  Canning peaches is such a messy job.  Finally had enough peaches cut for this batch, so over to the stove I went, added syrup (oops, need more of that) and finally got the peaches in the water bath.  With the timer set, I grabbed another set of 7 jars, washed them and started the process all over again.  And again.

This is only some of my newly canned peaches.  We love canned peaches, so I know the effort is so worth it.  It's just a sticky mess!  Once the towels were picked up, there was no mopping needed.  Well, technically I can't wash this mess of a floor anyway, but that's beside the point.

As I was thinking about the whole kitchen situation yesterday while I was peeling peaches, I was thinking that the new flooring wait was really a blessing in disguise.  Very well, very frustratingly disguised.  I shouldn't be regarding this kitchen fiasco as an utter disaster of events because maybe there was actually a plan in place by my Creator.  This may be for our benefit.  So why do I complain and moan and feel dejected, instead of having faith and a perfect brightness of hope?  Maybe this experience is another one of those reminders from on high to work on some spirituality flaws.  Staying positive is definitely a point I need to work on.  It's an ongoing struggle.