Progress can feel like perfection

The heat hasn't exactly broken, but temperatures have dropped from the mid-90s to the mid-80s. Even more important, we finally figured out a more effective arrangement of our various fans. So now instead of blowing in warm air from the rather stuffy little courtyard below our bedroom, the fan that sings us to sleep each night is pulling in cool air from the front of the house and making our room noticeably more comfy.

Today was temperate enough for me to throw open the windows even though the sun was shining and take a few photos of our kitchen, which is now complete in all its major parts.

New since my last report: butcher-block counter and green backsplash, finally installed.

The backsplash was chosen to match our dining-room table, which is topped with green...linoleum, I think. I suspect it might have been a lab table earlier in its career.

The oregano on the windowsill is clinging to life, just barely.

The kitchen remains far from complete. We need to get the electrician in to install all the under-cabinet lighting. Danny needs to install the various rails and hooks on which I want to display our various kitchen tools. None of the problems that bothered us when the kitchen first went in have been solved.

Nonetheless, I'm pleased every time I go in there, because it's all so new and functional and unspoiled, and so beautifully spare. You know how you look at the pictures in an Ikea catalog and say, "No one has so few things in their house and all of them so ridiculously tasteful"? Well, guess that? That's what at least some of my cabinets and drawers look like.

Glasses from Ikea, dishes from Pam. I get a thrill every time I open the door.

All Ikea except for the knives, which we brought from California last time.

How luxurious is all that simplicity and just plain emptiness? Soon, inevitably, we will crap this up by adding all the additional things we need, or think we need. But right now we are living the dream, people!