The Darkest Depths of Mortar

We had quite a busy weekend here at chez Brady. We spent all day Saturday and Sunday working on the kitchen. Saturday was "get all the little crap done day", so we adjusted cabinets, attached the remaining pulls, assembled and hung the extra cabinet we bought last weekend and got the countertop bases secured down. Jeff was a master at building the counter bases and they all fit perfectly. We also cut and attached the cement backerboard Saturday night so we could start tiling first thing Sunday. We ended up running errands Sunday morning and didn't really start working until noon but we were still able to finish all the tile work by 6pm. That's a record for us!
We decided to actually cut and dry fit all the tiles before we mortared anything, which would seem like the logical thing to do anyway but we aren't logical, which all in all made the laying of the tiles go very, very smoothly. We made a few bad cuts due to my inability to read a ruler properly so we're going to have to order another box of tiles before we can do the bar. That sucks but realistically it will probably take 2 weeks to get the bar base constructed. Yeesh. I'm getting home improvement burnout at this point but we are SO CLOSE to being done. The counters turned out great, by the way. I think we were both nervous because we ended up using a porcelain floor tile, which isn't exactly conventional for a counter, but it looks like I wanted it to look. Well, almost. We both thought the tiles were much darker than they turned out to be but I have to chalk that up to the crappy lighting at Expo Design Center. The countertop was probably the hardest thing we had to decide upon. We had a teeny tiny budget so most solid surfaces or anything cool like glass or metal were out and I HATE granite so that was out, too. That left laminate (icky) or tile. I had originally planned to use Carrerra marble but every time I mentioned it to a tile person I got a lecture on how I shouldn't use it because it stains and scratches and blah, blah, blah, so I chucked that idea as well. I'll post a picture when we get it grouted. Now I just have to figure out my backsplash pattern................

Still no word on the adoption. I know it's WAY too early but I'm anxious and I want to know right now. I was daydreaming about cribs the other day on the internet. I found one I like on some modern baby stuff site and it was about $1500. WTF?! Can I not have modern design at an affordable price? Who am I kidding, of course not unless it's IKEA and I wasn't impressed with their cribs (although their bedding is quite cute). I must resist the urge to look until I know something.

I finally mustered up the courage to call the book guy. He was really nice and put me in touch with the author, and I spoke to her this afternoon. They're both interested to see what I can do (as am I since this is scaring the caca out of me). They seem to want a style that I can do, so that's a plus but I'm not saying any more about it until I meet with them this Friday. It'll make me too nervous and I don't want to go all mental.

P.S. - That's a Lord of the Rings/ Led Zeppelin reference in the title. NERD ALERT!