What Was I Thinking? (Part 2)

OK, where were we? Oh yeah, near present day. It's early October, I'm sitting in the kitchen, basking once again in its hideousness and at the same time I was thinking about what to get my wife for her upcoming milestone-type (i.e. a multiple of five) birthday. I was wracking my brain to come up with something, anything, that did not involve jewelry. I don't recall the exact motivation behind it, but I thought what if I told her we could finally do the kitchen and try to pass that off as a gift. That way we can take care of something we'd have done anyway and I get out of having to buy her yet more jewelry. Yes, I know there's no logic in spending a five-figure-plus amount to avoid spending a small four-figure amount on a tiny, shiny stone. But we really needed to re-do the kitchen. Nobody in history has ever needed jewelry, despite what my wife and brother-in-law would try to have to believe.

Another mitigating factor was something I got in the mail from Citibank. They were offering five-times points on all purchases made with a particular credit card through the end of the year. So if we charged $20,000 we'd get 100,000 points, which would get us $1,000 in gift cards. Not a bad deal. (Skipping to the middle chapter of our story, spoiling it for those who prefer their narratives in chronological order, I'll end up disappointed that the contractor we ended up using doesn't take credit cards, thereby negating a significant part of our expected rebate and increasing the overall cost of the project. Fuck! And there's my first f-bomb of the blog. It won't be the last.)

What kind of a budget did I have in mind for this whole project? Well, we already have appliances, though we'd need to get a top-mounted microwave and we really needed to replace the dishwasher, but the fridge and range both work fine, so why replace them? You know what, I think I'll save the full financial aspect for a separate post. There's so much to cover, but let's just say that the price of our desires easily exceeded even my wildest estimations. Plus it seemed that each time we reviewed an item that needed to be done, it only pointed out something else we'd need to do that we also managed to overlook. So again.... Fuck! Ah, so cathartic.

Anyway, it took me a few days to figure out exactly how to propose this to Wife. Somehow one night, after the kids had gone to bed, I just blurted out "Honey, how about, if instead of a big birthday present and party and all that stuff we just finally dive in and re-do the kitchen?" Having steeled myself for major rejection and possible anger, her reaction was quite a surprise. She liked the idea. She even got excited. So I dodged a bullet only to find myself standing in front of a cannon...

I'll pick it up from here next time.