I woke up this morning hoping to sleep until about 8. No such luck - Baba was up and grunting for food at 630, and then he refused to go back to sleep, no matter how much *I* needed to rest. Add to that a throbbing migraine and a lot of things on the to-do list today and you have a very very grumpy me. So not pleasant. Pity poor Hubby who had to put up with me this morning.

Today I have to go down to the shore house, as there appears to be a leak in the back wall, and I’m sure that fixing it will require my writing several large numbers on a check. That said, we have been lucky in that the house hasn’t had many maintenance issues - at least, that’s what I’m telling myself so I’ll stop whining already.

Dear Coffee. Please enter bloodstream now. Thanks.

As for the kitchen, I’m still researching. And in doing so I’ve discovered the cure for baby constipation - not that Baba is ever constipated so far in his life. He poops like a champion. But on Sunday, in the most upscale kitchen ever designed as a sample, I took fifteen minutes to feed him, and BEHOLD. THE POOP OF DOOM.

Then, Monday, I went to a sample kitchen place near our house, and again - the minute he got a whiff of that new counter, new cabinet smell: BEHOLD. THE POOP OF DOOM.

It is kind of handy, though - pushy salespeople are repelled by the POOP OF DOOM and leave us alone so I can check out the samples in peace.

Today Hubby and I went shopping. OMG. I’m exhausted. I don’t as a rule love shopping in stores, which is sad because I live in Jersey and there’s nothing Jerseyans love so much as Big Box Stores. There’s one section of Rt. 46 that is literally every furniture store known to man, all adjacent to one another (why?!). There’s a Levitz next to a Raymour Flanigan, next to Futons R Us, then Nutin’ But Bedstands, We Gots Yer Rugs Right Here, and Bob’s Discount Furniture And Annoying Commercials. It’s weird. But there’s never any shortage of places to shop for crap in Jersey. And our sales tax is often lower than Manhattan so we get shopping commuters.

And that means just about everything is crowded, which I hate. HATE. I can’t imagine why I live in a metropolitan area of 14 million people when I love the company of masses of humanity so ever freaking much, but whaddayagonnado?

Anyway, we started off at Best Buy, where the stereos were all turned up so loud some of the refrigerators were vibrating - sort of an added bonus since I definitely felt up a bunch of them. We found all manner of different configurations for water dispensers inside French door bottom freezer models, the details of which I won’t bore you with, but I did grab Hubby’s phone so I could take a picture of this funkass contraption:

Check this out. This is a $3200 fridge with what looks like freaking disco lights inside. For $3200 it better make me dinner, clean up and load the dishwasher, AND play all the songs I like from the past 30 years including Crystal Gayle’s Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue. In HD.

We went to three different stores, including Home Depot, and looked at dishwashers (I love the drawer option but it’s not worth the money), cooktops, refrigerators, wall ovens and all kinds of other crap we don’t need and didn’t know existed, like wall-mounted cappuccino machines and personal dry cleaners.

I’m exhausted, and my feet hurt, but I’m glad we didn’t see the fridge from LG with the tv embedded in the door (WHY?!) because I would have had to talk Hubby out of putting it in the back of the Prius and driving it home today.

My Sister in Law, who is Made of Awesome™, is coming to baby sit for Freebird while we take Baba O’Riley, who at four weeks (today! Yay Baba!) is eminently portable, shopping for kitchen parts. I think this weekend we shall be looking at appliances, since kitchen cabinetry places usually require an appointment. So we shall be feeling up all the appliances. I plan on getting to second base with a refrigerator (bottom freezer with water filter/dispenser, please).

This is the second kitchen I’ve renovated in my life, but the first time we have chosen all the appliances and fixtures ourselves. The first time we did a kitchen, it was in our house in Jersey City, and we were on a supremely fixed budget, partly because we weren’t going to get a lot of return on our investment if we went high-end (so we didn’t) and partly because we were limited in our financial resources. It’s not like we crap $100 bills right now, but we’re in a little better position, being 5 years older and all.

But because we were operating on a budget, and because we’d never renovated a kitchen before, our crazy (and I mean CRAZY) contractor lady chose everything. The sink, the cabinets, the design of the space - everything. I know, I know. I don’t know what we were smoking either, except maybe the inexperience of youth wrapped up in a paper made of “whatever, just make it better than what we have now.”

Either way, we’re choosing everything. This is both liberating and utterly, completely, holy shit overwhelming.

But while I’m embarking on our first major shopping trip and trying to convince myself that I don’t need to pick out everything right now, I’ll answer your questions and comments.

I have a tape measure. I’m going to measure how high the microwave is from the floor.

I’m back. It’s 5’ 10” off the ground. I, for the record, am 5’3”, or 5’4” with shoes on. That means the microwave, the bottom of it, is SIX INCHES above my head. Who the hell thought that was a good idea?

In our Future Kitchen, the microwave will be at waist level, under the wall oven (I think. I’m awake enough to go measure the microwave but I’m tired now and am too lazy to go roll the rubber band off the plans and flip through them till I find the kitchen layout). This means that instead of waiting until Baba O’Riley and Freebird are 6’ tall and making THEM microwave all the things I want (Son! Son II! Go and microwave me some popcorn! Mama is tired and short!) I’ll be able to not only use the microwave on my own but also allow them to use it when they’re old enough to do so. Like next week, right? Right.

The microwave, however, is the one appliance that we’re keeping. It’s a microwave/convection oven (Not that I’ve ever learned how to use the convection part, because did I mention I’m a lazy ass?) and it’s new as of 7 years ago. And it works fine - unlike the dishwasher that refuses to wash dishes and the fridge that was new in 1981 and is almond on the outside and 1970’s brown on the inside. Seriously. I’m surprised the inside of my fridge doesn’t have paneling. Woodgrain paneling.

So here’s my question: I haven’t decided yet what style appliances to get when we go shopping for a new fridge, dishwasher and wall oven and cooktop. I can go for the big three: white, stainless, or black. The microwave oven is black, which doesn’t make a huge difference should the fridge and wall oven not match, but it would look good as a complete set since they’ll all be nearer to each other. On the other hand, I have a black stove at the beach house, and it is impossible to keep it clean-looking. Every smudge shows.

As for stainless, the fridge at the beach house is also a stainless (I love how the floor models that the flippers bought for that kitchen allow me to test-drive all the different styles of appliance - thanks flipper guys!) and while it’s nice, fingerprints and smudges also show, PLUS you can’t use magnets on it. And really, what’s the point of a fridge if there are no magnets?! And art?! And letters and numbers to amuse Freebird?!

I can go for black and smudgy or stainless steel and smudgy, or white and not matching the microwave (which we had in Jersey City). Or even bronze from Jenn-Air, which I’m not sure I like.

So what’s your appliance preference if you were buying new kitchen items? White? Stainless? Black? Bronze? Custom made with shiny red paint?