This is what the kitchen looked like on Sunday morning. Try to concentrate on the beautiful slate-colored tiles and the brand-new door and window, while ignoring the unpainted purple wallboard that will be covered by cabinets, and the two-by-fours that the cabinets will sit on, and the hanging wires and the empty electrical boxes, and the little white tile spacers that I will remove sometime today.

There's still no grout yet, but there will be later in the week. Tonight, however, Tom will start spray-finishing the cabinet interiors, and I will continue packing and lugging, taking a break now and then to actually do some paying work, and to spend time with my kid, and to make sure we have meals and such.

Yesterday I finished ploughing through a giant three-novel Le Carre compendium that I can now return to the library. I think, for the moment, I've read all the Le Carre I need to read; and the only books that remain unpacked are a stack of New Yorkers, Austen's Mansfield Park, Levine's Breath, and a bio of Queen Victoria that my mom just gave me for Christmas. So I guess my parameters are set.