The further I get into the renovations on the house, the more I've learned that realistic expectations are a key to success. And I don't mean, settle for mediocre design or construction. I never mean that! I'm really just talking about timelines -- be realistic or be disappointed.

Last weekend Errek and I came to the realization that our "condemned" kitchen is, while a blight on the back of our house, going to remain there for at least another year (maybe two). It's a matter of money and time, a the lack of both.

We'd been limping along with a folding table littered with a hot plate and toaster oven in lieu of a countertop, and book cases in lieu of a pantry. Well, we finally broke under the pressure and decided that for about $800 we could make our temporary kitchen 84% better, so we did. We bought pre-fab cabinets and countertops and started installing them, retiring the folding table and book cases, and giving our house a little bit more comfort. Also, the piece-de-resistance. We've decided that between an oven and a dishwasher, we'll take the dishwasher please. I mean, our toaster over can fit a whole pizza in it, so why would we possibly need an oven? But a dishwasher, that's happiness with a rinse cycle right there. So we've traded in our squatter-style kitchen for the cheap-but-good-enough-for-now model. Someday our kitchen will be breath-taking. It will rock. Oh yes, it will rock, and the $800 it cost us to make our current digs a little more user-friendly is not going to delay our dream kitchen by all that much.

Hence, my new lesson, sometimes you just have to reason with yourself and realize that the timeline in your head doesn't always match the timeline your wallet had in mind, and there is no need to torture yourself with an uncomfortable wait, right?