Cold Feet

It's the chairs.

See, we've have these two wing chairs with a table in between them.


For 14 years now, we've sat in these chairs while all sorts of stuff went on in the kitchen. I read the Sunday paper in those chairs. I nursed my babies in those chairs. They've been spilled on, spit up on, and abused in every way.

Well, yesterday one of Chuck's friends came over and took one of the chairs away. He may take the other one for his lake house. The act of this chair being removed from the kitchen has made the changes a reality for our family.

Everyone is sad to see the chairs go. They say that they will miss them. Russell asked me where he would sit in the morning, like he does now, and stare out the window - slowly waking up to the world. That's what did it. The answer to that question was that he would sit at the new bar or in the living room, or he could sit at the dining room table. But, they all seemed like a poor substitution for the current nook.

The panic set in immediately. Am I doing the right thing? Will I forever regret changing the kitchen to this new layout? Of course there will be adjustments. Heck, we still sometimes go for the coffee mugs in the cabinet that we had them in for 1 year before moving them (btw, they are going back across to where they were in this renovation!), but will we long for the view out the sliders?

I tried to picture Russell making his bagel in the morning and how he will now have to go across the kitchen and on to the other side in order to sit at the bar. It felt more inconvenient than I ever thought before.

I've had very few moments of panic during this process. I'm sure I will have more, I just hope that, when this is over, the moments of panic become a simple shake of the head and chuckle.