see the difference?

Can you see the difference in the two photos below...?
 

See it?  Well, obviously my walls are painted -- that happened several months ago.  But the nasty old yucky yellowed and rusted VENT-A-HOOD has FINALLY been replaced!  We bought a new one about two weeks before Christopher was born, found out it was the wrong size when he was about 2 months old, exchanged it, and I was finally able to get it up this weekend!  I had about decided to take it back ($150 just sitting around my house!) but my wonderful dad and brother came over and hooked it up for me this weekend.  I love those guys SO much and if Stephen and I ever have to move I am SOOO gonna miss having them close by as my "handymen."  (This is why I'm trying to make myself a Jane of all Trades.  See post below.) 

You might be asking yourself why my husband didn't put up the vent-a-hood with my dad and brother - well, I think he would have been standing by learning how, but he was actually outside cleaning up a mess I had  made that morning.  You see, I was trying to put up a curtain rod in our laundry room.  Unsuccessfully.  I was getting frustrated, and our extremely-annoying, non-stop-yapping, stupid neighbor's dog wouldn't stop barking at me.  While I was in my own house.  Just because he didn't like being able to see me through the window.  I may have banged a little too hard out of my frustration while screaming telling him to shut up be quiet. I knew I had really crappy windows in the laundry room, but apparently they were a little bit worse in quality than I thought, and I knocked it out. Or maybe I'm just Superwoman.  Poor little Christopher got SO upset when I started screaming/throwing a fit over the curtain rod/the dog/the window.  He was not liking his momma crying and screaming!  SO anyway, Stevo got to spend the next three and a half hours cleaning up the glass from outside (because we still hadn't raked up the fall leaves OR the lounge cushion Bella had torn up out there) and nailing plastic up around out window.  I tried taking a picture of it, but it's hard to photograph broken glass with a point-and-shoot.

You might also be asking yourself why I have a stainless steel vent-a-hood over an off-white [ugly, old]stove.  Weeeelll.  My fridge is stainless steel.  And if that stove ever goes out while Stephen and I are living here (or if I ever just throw it out because it burns EVERYTHING and I get really peeved!) we'll replace it with a stainless steel stove.  K? Good.

Okay - I must stop procrastinating and start making a list of everthing I need to pack tomorrow.

S