The BIG! Kitchen Renovation Reveal!!

The first time we toured the house with our realtor, we knew the house was going to be a huge renovation project. The previous homeowner's taste and ours were on opposite ends of the spectrum. Deeply opposite ends of the spectrum. It took us walking through the home multiple times before we could get past the cosmetic aspects which made the home appear very dark and depressing, and focus on the floor plan.

The popcorn ceilings in the home were painted a depressing shade of grey, while the walls were a dark golden color. The cabinets and trim work throughout the house had a shade of brown/green slopped all over them, with paint drips and globs of paint everywhere. The walls had a hand-troweled DIY texture applied, which was thick and stuck out so far from the wall, I sliced open my arm when I got too close to it as I rounded a corner.

As we walked through the home, we noticed the cabinet paint was peeling, revealing a blood red underlying color. We opened up the kitchen cabinet doors and jumped back as the blood red painted interior assaulted our vision. The brownish color paint on the outside and the blood red on the inside, made it appear as though you were looking at the inside of an animal that had been slaughtered.

The camera flash makes the kitchen appear brighter than it was in person

Yes, even with the lights turned on, the house was very dark

That red jumps out and grabs you

Say hello to the slaughterhouse red!

You can see the paint brush swirls and the peeling paint

With a budget of $2,500 - including appliances - my husband and I (after months of design disagreements) decided on a design. The ceilings were professionally scraped of the popcorn gray and redone with a knock-down texture and painted a bright ceiling white. 

We kept the existing cabinets because we didn't have the budget to replace them. The cabinets were stripped, and stripped, and stripped some more of the red paint (which never fully released from the wood), and then sanded, primed, and painted in a cheerful shade of white. We added an extension to the top of the cabinets, due to the kitchen's 9' high ceilings making the upper cabinets look short and squatty. Satin nickel cabinet hardware replaced what few pieces of cabinet hardware had been left on the cabinets.

A new neighbor was remodeling their home and gave us a section of upper cabinets (which matched ours) to hang above the long bar area. Because the cabinets our neighbors gifted us with were actually for an angled wall and we were going to be installing them on a long straight wall, my husband had to cut the cabinets in half. This allowed him to trim the angles from the cabinets so they could hang in a straight line. 

The kitchen walls were scraped of the odd DIY texture until our hands bled, and then re-textured with a softer appearing hand-troweled texture to smooth over the harsh lines of the previous wall texture. It took 23 paint samples before we found just the right shade of a grey-beige for the wall color.

The brick countertops were sledgehammered out, and granite tile countertops with a tumbled marble backsplash replaced them. A new deep heavy-gauge stainless steel sink and kitchen faucet replaced the worn out and leaking old one.

The utilitarian light over the sink was replaced with a fixture that was a bit modern and pleasing to the eye. A breakfast room chandelier was purchased and installed as well, since the previous homeowner took it with them. The photos below are the renovation as it unfolded.

The first pieces of brick are removed

My husband and I raced to see who could pull the brick off the backsplash first. I won.

This countertop was incredibly difficult to remove

We discovered our son loves demolition 

All of the brick is being ripped out, slowly but surely

Goodbye brick countertops

There comes a point when you just say to heck with it and rip the drywall out

That red paint....EEK!

Free child labor

The primer is on

I laid every single one of the granite tiles

In the midst of the renovation, I discovered the pantry space wasn't going to cut it with 2 growing kids. "We" (meaning me) decided to tear out the 3 stacked cabinets which served as the pantry, and I coerced my husband into extending the wall by another 2 feet. This created enough room for a walk-in pantry.

Say hello to my new pantry

The support strips are in place!

Oh shelving, how I love thee!

Time to fill it up!

After several years of back-breaking work and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (and a few design arguments thrown in there), here is the light and bright finished kitchen. The brick floors and the oven and microwave will be replaced somewhere down the road. 

We expanded the doorway to the formal dining room after we discover the refrigerator door couldn't open properly

The upper cabinets on the right are the ones we were gifted with by our new neighbor

Sooooo much brighter and cheerful!

The extension we added to the upper cabinets to give them the appearance of more height

I am in LOVE with my kitchen hardware

We are so happy the dark depressing colors, gray popcorn ceilings, oddly textured walls, and slaughterhouse cabinet paint scheme are all a thing of the past. It's time to move on to the next project in this house........ scraping more poorly hand-troweled texture off the walls. I should probably stock up on some band-aids first though.

Christie Bielss

The Fish That Got Away

When I was growing up, my parents and grandparents spun many a yarn about their lives. One of my all-time favorites was from a time when my maternal grandparents went deep sea fishing. Living near the coast, they would go fishing as often as they could.

My maternal grandparents

One day back in the 1950's, they decided to make their fishing trip a little more interesting by turning it into a friendly competition. The competition rules were: whoever "boated" the biggest fish that day, won. To "boat" the fish meant neither could help the other reel in, or bring on board, their catch. They had to do it all by themselves.

My grandfather stood about 6'1" tall, while my grandmother was a petite 5'4" tall. My grandfather's size gave him a bit of confidence with his ability to cast further, and reel fish in faster, than my grandmother.

The prize for this competition? Bragging rights. 

Little did they know how far, or for how many years, the bragging rights from this friendly competition would continue.

The fishing competition commenced with each of them using a cane fishing pole to catch bait fish. A cane pole is a piece of bamboo which was fashioned into a fishing pole. Once they caught a small fish on the cane pole, they would transfer that fish to their "good" fishing poles, in hopes of catching bigger fish.

All was going well when my grandmother's cane pole began to dance around. Thrilled she had caught a bait fish, my grandmother quickly grabbed the cane pole and began to bring it in.

The harder she pulled on that cane pole, the harder the fish fought back. Within minutes, she realized she had something larger than just a bait fish and started hollering for my grandfather.

"Help! Help me!" she cried.

When my grandfather turned toward my grandmother, he was greeted with a view of just her elbows and fanny, and both wiggling around frantically. The rest of her body was bent over the side of boat fighting against whatever was on the other end of her fishing pole.

A second later, she stood upright, causing her cane pole to bend nearly in half. The weight and fight of the fish on the other end of the pole pulled my grandmother so she was bent over the side of the boat. 

Back and forth she went as she fought to gain the upper-hand. Just as she would stand upright, the fish would fight back and cause her to be bent in half again.

Again she cried out "Help! Help me!".

Being that this was a friendly fishing competition between the two, and my grandmother was holding her own in this battle of fish vs. human, my grandfather took a moment and asked "Is this fish going to count?". 

"Yes!", she exclaimed.

He chuckled as he replied "Well, then no ma'am I won't help. You have to boat that fish yourself, if you want it to count.".

Her reply was lost as she was, yet again, bent in half when the big fish fought against being a trophy. My grandmother may have been petite, but she came from a lineage of strong women and was every bit as feisty as the ancestors before her. She dug in her heels and pulled, and tugged, and pulled some more. 

Back and forth she went with this fish for a good bit of time. Finally gaining the advantage, she pulled the fish in close to the boat and yelled for my grandfather to grab the fishing net to lift her prize into the boat.

Eagerly, my grandfather moved close to my grandmother as she brought the fish to the surface, ready to see what size fish had caused such an epic battle. Just as he leaned down, the fish surfaced, only it wasn't just any old fish. 

Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia Public Commons

It was a shark! 

Ok, so it wasn't the 20 foot great white shark pictured above, but when you're the one hanging over the side of a boat with their hands in the path of a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, it probably looked like Jaws. It was, however, a good four to five foot very displeased shark, to be more exact.

My grandfather shrieked and jumped back. After making sure all of his digits were still intact, he declared my grandmother the winner of their contest and made the wise decision she did not need to boat her catch. Grabbing a tool from his tackle box, he carefully cut the fishing line and set the shark free.

You may wonder what happened to the cane pole that stood strong throughout this competition. It was permanently bent in an arc from that legendary battle of wills and would be brought out of the storage closet whenever anyone asked to hear the story of how my grandmother caught a shark.

My grandparents had planned on keeping that fishing pole indefinitely, unfortunately, their home was burglarized a number of years later and the burglars made off with all of their fishing equipment, including the bent cane pole.

So, if you ever come across someone with a bent cane pole from ca. 1950's, it could very well be from an epic battle where my grandmother caught a fish "this big"......... but it got away.

Written by Christie Bielss

The Winningest Loser

As the clock strikes midnight at the start of a new year, I usually make a list of things I want to accomplish in the new year. Rarely does anything from that list come to fruition because I either: a) lose interest; b) am not committed enough; or c) I am too chicken.

This year I made a pact with myself that I was going to do at least one thing outside of my comfort zone. One thing which would not only make me cringe at the mere thought of doing it, but quite possibly make shake in my boots too.

Just after I made that pact, the gurus who select what you see on Facebook plopped an advertisement for a writing contest into my newsfeed. I clicked on the link and began reading the entry requirements....... and the butterflies started fluttering around in my tummy and the self-doubts crept in. 

The competition was for the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition. The doubts of "who am I to be writing anything for a competition named after one of the greatest humor writers of all time" and "Ha! You don't even know the difference between an adjective and a participle!".

With some encouragement from family and friends, I stuck to my plan and wrote an essay for the contest....... and even submitted it. Knowing that I never win anything, my expectations to win were pretty much non-existent, but, by having submitted the essay, I had already won. I had conquered one battle over my fear.

The results were announced a couple of weeks ago and, as usual, I won no awards or accolades for my essay; however, I feel like I won an Academy Award for having the gumption to have actually submitted it.

As part of the rest of that pact I made with myself, I am posting the essay I wrote. So here it is in all of its "must be less than 450 words" winningest loser glory: 

The Lawn Mower Man

It begins with a few wispy clouds scattered across a beautiful blue sky.  Within minutes, the sky is covered in dark, ominous storm clouds.  The bright flash of lightning and sharp crack of thunder permeate the stillness of the afternoon.

The sound of an approaching storm causes normal people to seek shelter, but my husband is not like “normal people”.  When thunder starts rolling, he steps outside, sniffing the wind like any good bloodhound trying to catch the scent of its target.  At the first whiff of dust settling in the air, he transforms into a superhero. His work clothes go sailing through the air as he dons his superhero costume. With a wife-beater tank top, cut-off shorts, and a towel as his cape, he becomes “The Lawnmower Man”!

Faster than a speeding bullet, he runs and grabs the weedeater out of the garage.  As the storm gets closer and the thunder grows louder, he deftly edges around the yard and levels the grass next to the flowerbed.  With lightning flying around like fireworks on Independence Day, The Lawnmower Man realizes the time is perfect to unleash “The Turfinator”.

The roar of the lawn mower challenges the god of thunder for supremacy.  Zeus hurls lightning bolts while our superhero raises his fist in defiance.  Other men may duck and run for cover, but The Lawnmower Man just snorts and continues to mow as though he’s on a leisurely stroll through a botanic garden.  Lightning blinds the average man, but The Lawnmower Man is able guide his mower through the blazing brightness in perfectly straight lines within his predetermined directional mowing plan.

As rain begins to fall, he summons the next weapon in his arsenal, the fertilizer spreader.  Sprinting back and forth across the yard faster than an Olympic gold medalist, he rushes to get the grass fed in the rain.  In a torrential downpour, The Lawnmower Man will wrap the top opening of the spreader with kitchen plastic wrap, like a prized Thanksgiving dinner leftover, to prevent the fertilizer from dissolving before he is able to spread it across the lawn.

If he finishes spreading the fertilizer before the thunderstorm ends, he steps up on the porch as though it were an Olympic platform, to receive the gold medal before an imagined stadium packed with cheering fans.  If the thunderstorm dies off before he finishes, he hangs his head and repeats the defeated athlete’s pledge to be in better shape and better prepared for the next match-up. As the storm clouds clear, The Lawnmower Man realizes the neighbors are watching closely, wondering if they should record his heroism ………or dial 911.

The Escalator Escapade

One day while shopping at the mall, I observed a very attractive and well dressed woman step onto the grooved platform of the store escalator. She carried herself with a regalness rarely seen outside of Buckingham Palace. As I made my store purchase, I watched as the escalator carried her up to the next floor.

She stood on the conveyor step and surveyed the harried shoppers much as a queen looks down upon the peasants in her kingdom.  As she neared the crest of the escalator mountain, she prepared to disembark. In the process of shifting her position on the steps, one of her expensive high heeled pumps became lodged in the grooves of the people moving contraption. This well coiffed and fashionably dressed woman tried, to no avail, to daintily wiggle her foot in order to dislodge the stuck shoe. 

She was lifted ever closer to the peak when the sound of the stair steps collapsing into the metallic jaws of death caused the fashionista to panic.  Abandoning all sense of propriety, she grabbed her shoe with both hands in an effort to pry it loose from the vise-like grip the escalator had on it.

My jaw fell open as I watched the drama unfold. The words in my mind must have spilled out of my mouth, causing the sales associate I was working with to turn and view the spectacle. Before the sales associate could react, a young male sales associate jumped into action. He quickly pressed a button, stopping the escalator's movement while rushing to assist her.

When the escalator finally stopped, the heel of the costly shoe was wedged into the metal teeth of the landing platform. The young man wiggled the shoe back and forth as he tried to free the stiletto heel. Putting a little more muscle into his efforts, the shoe finally popped free........... minus the stiletto heel. Horrified, he reached down and plucked the heel from between the step's grooves. 

As the young man handed the mangled shoe and heel to the beautiful woman, she looked sadly upon the damage which had been wrought and began to laugh. She thanked the associate profusely for his chivalry. After plopping the detached heel into her handbag, she put the mauled shoe upon her foot and attempted to walk away.

The three inch height disparity between the two shoes made walking with any semblance of dignity utterly impossible. With unmatched confidence and majesty, she kicked off both shoes, flung them over her shoulder like a pair of flip flops, and walked through the store barefoot, as though she were a queen walking on a private beach.

As the sales associate and I watched the woman disappear into the racks of clothing, the sales associate leaned over and said "I would much rather walk up ten flights of stairs than trust my good shoes to a contraption that is similar to what the recycling plant uses to crush beer cans.". And with that comment, I realized all of the grace and majesty had left the building and just us commoners remained.

What Parent Type Are You?

When I was growing up, there were only 2 parenting styles: strict and lenient.  It did not matter whether you were that parent's own child or someone else's. If you got into trouble or did something wrong, you received an immediate correction by whoever's parent was closest to the center of activity.

Growing up, my brothers and I learned the hard way never to misbehave in the car. We were sure that during childbirth, God gave our mother a second set of eyes which were located in the back of her head. When she napped, we would pick at her hair trying to find those eyes.

We knew they had to be hidden behind somewhere in that giant 1970's beehive of a hairdo, but we never could find them. No person, without a set of eyes in the back of their head, could see the way she could.  She always knew which child was instigating trouble. She could drive the car perfectly while backhanding any misbehaving kids in the backseat faster than Superman could change clothes in a phone booth.

Between our mother and the other mothers in the neighborhood, all the kids in the neighborhood were watched to see what we were doing. This scrutiny meant we learned right from wrong at a very early age.

Things have changed dramatically since I grew up.  One of the biggest changes has been the creation of so many different parenting labels. There are so many different labels used to describe how a mother chooses to rear her child(ren), it could confuse Dr. Spock.

Tiger, Helicopter, Free-Range, Elephant, Little-Emperor, and Lighthouse Moms are just to name a few. The labels all seem to have a defining characteristic: you are either an animal or a machine.

Personally, I don't want to be known as an Elephant Mom. The older I get, the more I battle ankle wrinkles. I've also heard as you age, your ears and nose never stop growing. Put these issues together and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus may send me an invitation to join the circus.

While I may be a redhead with a fiery temper, calling me a Tiger Mom might get you a close-up view of my retractable claws.

Since I grew up believing I was a princess, raising my child like a Little-Emperor would totally be a conflict of interest. I'm really not prepared to share my tiara.

When I hear people discussing the Free-Range label, I don't imagine kids playing outside on their own and growing through self-exploration. I see a bunch of hens pecking for feed around a chicken coup. It takes me back to the 1970's Saturday morning television shows featuring the Looney Tunes cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn, who is always playing pranks on the Barnyard Dawg, and is usually on the losing end of his own prank.

If parenting labels had more flair, I might be more inclined to associate my style with them.  There could be the Audrey Hepburn Mom - one who not only teaches their children to have a classic personal style and speak 5 different languages, but to be gracious and give of themselves to help others. I could definitely get into wearing chic sunglasses and big hats, but am thinking the mismatched hodgepodge clothing style of my son may exclude us from this label.

There is also the June Cleaver Mom. She not only keeps her house perfectly clean with two sons tracking heavens knows what into it, she would shoo her boys out of the house daily for exercise and sunshine.  Dinner was served promptly in the dining room where no electronic devices interrupted the dinner conversation, and she always wore pearls.

The children's homework would always be complete ahead of the due date and their rooms would be clean.  They may even get their children to shower daily without begging and pleading. Considering my children's penchant for waiting until the last minute to do 3 weeks worth of homework projects the night before they are due, and that the only way my kids' rooms will be clean is if the empty snack pouches are carried away by the Godzilla size dust bunnies, I'm thinking our admission application for this parenting label will be denied.

In reality, I probably fall into the Slacker Mom label. I don't create a schedule for my children's projects because I require them to do it. I am not very creative or inventive and never made sandwiches into animals or pancakes shaped like Disney characters. I slapped food on a paper plate, said "Mmmm.... Yum! Eat up!", and they ate....... usually.

My children aren't overscheduled. I sign them up for one sport at a time and I'm doing good to remember what days/times to get them to their activity. If I'm really on the ball, my kids will have finished eating dinner before we are in the car on the way to their sporting event.

I would love to be the mom who is ultra-organized and has everyone's schedule entered into the calendar on her phone, which is synced to her computer, laptop, and tablet. I admire the woman who sorts her children's daily school paperwork and immediately addresses each item, versus letting it pile up until it becomes a fire hazard.

When it comes down to it though, does it really matter what kind of parenting style you have, so long as you are actually involved and parenting your children? Do we really need one more label in this world?

Christie Bielss

The Legend of PrayerBear

You may be wondering what happened to this crazy redhead the past few months.  This summer my daughter underwent major surgery. It was an extraordinarily stressful time for my husband and I. Leading up to the surgery, my stress levels were so high, I could not think beyond how many days were left until surgery, much less think of writing a single word for the blog.

While we were confident our daughter had the very best surgeon and was in the best hospital to attend to her needs, the doubts and "what ifs" still somehow crept in. In the days leading up to the surgery, I could not fathom how I could possibly handle watching as the hospital staff wheeled my daughter away. I did the only thing I knew to do during this time:  I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. 

My little girl made me make a promise a few days prior to surgery. She made me promise I would not cry in front of her when they wheeled her off to surgery. I agreed, even though I wasn't sure I could keep that promise..... but I was determined to give it all I had. 

As she was wheeled back for surgery, her prayers were answered and I did not shed a tear. For the next nearly 7 hours, I prayed, and chatted with one of our church's ministers. And then I prayed, and walked to the hospital's chapel and prayed some more. As I walked back to my seat in the parents' surgical waiting area, the surgeon walked through the doors beaming from ear to ear. Our baby was on the road to recovery.

One day while she was still in the hospital recuperating, she had a particularly rough morning. The nurse gave her some medication to ease her symptoms, which also had the side benefit of helping her sleep. While she napped, I stepped out into a parent lounging area to update my parents on her condition.

I was on the phone with my parents and watched as hospital volunteers quietly dropped off a teddy bear to her room. They giggled as they came out of her room, thrilled a child would wake up to their surprise gift. I smiled and got a bit choked up at the delight these 2 women took in bringing cheer to sick and injured children.

A short time later my husband arrived with our son, so he could visit with his sister. As we walked in, our daughter was just rousing from her nap. She immediately laid eyes on a lovely creamy white teddy bear which had been placed on the bed tray in front of her.

She squealed with delight over waking up to this adorable stuffed creation and, upon lifting it up, discovered a book had come with the bear. I read aloud the name of the book "The Legend of PrayerBear" by Annie Miller. My daughter said immediately "That's my bear's name. PrayerBear", and then asked me to read the book to her.

I sat down and read this beautiful and touching story of a bear that just wanted someone to love and hug. I was doing a great job of holding my tears inside over this heartwarming tale until I got to the last page.

I barely made it through the first line on the page when all of the tears I had held so tightly inside started escaping the vise-like control I'd kept on them. I stopped reading for a moment and took a deep breath, trying to get hold of myself. 

The story had taken a twist when PrayerBear had been given to a young girl who was in the hospital and was sad because she wasn't well enough to be able to get up and about. This story was hitting so close to home, I was having no success controlling my emotions. When I got to the final 2 paragraphs of the story, the proverbial floodgates opened wide:

          "I thank you for my PrayerBear,
            And for the friend so dear
            Who cared enough to send it
            To remind me God is near.

            Every time I feel afraid
            I'll hug my PrayerBear tight
            For I have friends who care for me,
            And I will be all right."

Christie Bielss

The Standout Teacher

When I was in high school a long, long time ago, I had the honor of having a couple of teachers who stood out from the rest.  Yes, these teachers were getting paid to teach, but they had also made it their mission to make a difference in children’s lives. While I can pinpoint the contributions each of these teachers worked so tirelessly to make, there was one who was a force to be reckoned with. She was a hard taskmaster and she did not accept halfhearted attempts at homework.

Mrs. Betty Stapleton

She was known for prodding, pushing, and shoving you, kicking and screaming if need be, into digging deeper inside of yourself. She was the teacher that when you picked up your class schedule and you saw her name, you would groan at what was to come. When your friends saw whose class you had been placed in, they would pat you on the back while telling you everything would be okay.

She was Mrs. Betty Stapleton, an English teacher on a mission to educate above and beyond the norm. On the first day of class, your fears were realized. She threw down the gauntlet and challenged you before the class roll was ever called.

Her goal was to challenge you to think beyond the printed words on a page. If, in a piece of literature, there was a scent described, she wanted you to be able to smell it. If there was an emotion, she wanted you to feel it. And if there was a noise, you were to hear it.

To this day I can hear her reading Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” to our class. The way she read the poem made it come to life. It was no longer a required assignment with weird, old world language we were being forced fed. It became a fascinating piece of literature which drew us into its rhyming stanzas and dramatic prose.

Mrs. Stapleton not only drew us into the world of classical literature, she also taught us to reach deep within our souls when we wrote our own essays. It definitely was no easy task for her to try and get me, a guarded redhead, to dig deep and open up my soul for others to see.

Her words of encouragement were very uplifting, but she utterly flabbergasted me when she told me she enjoyed reading my written work. It was the first time a teacher had ever told me they enjoyed my work. I, an overly verbose redhead with a relatively poor grasp of grammar, was left speechless. Her class was one of the hardest I have ever taken, and yet the most rewarding.

The level of encouragement she provided saw me through my college years and sticks with me to this day. While looking for a way to contact her to thank her, I discovered she passed away in 2002. I did not even consider this possibility when I began my search and was surprised at how sad I felt when I made the discovery. I wish I could thank her personally for her tireless dedication and for making an imprint on my soul, but I waited too long.

Do you have a teacher who lit a spark within you? Someone who went above and beyond the norm? I would love to hear your stories! If you have ever felt the desire to let that special teacher know how big of a difference they made in your life, don't wait.  Let them know now.

Christie Bielss

If You Ask A Grandmother Her Age......

Clipart Courtesy of Clipartlord.com

Back in the 1990's, my husband and I were visiting with his grandmother discussing technology. As we were discussing the latest advancements like in-home Dolby surround sound, home computers, and cell phones, she began to tell us about her latest doctor's appointment.

"The nurse asked me how old I am and I told her 'I am old enough to be your grandmother.' The nurse laughed, wrote down something, and then put me in a room to wait on the doctor to arrive.

After a few minutes of waiting, the doctor came in and sat down and looked at my chart. He asked me how old I am. I don't understand why everyone at the doctor's office is always so interested in my age. I quit keeping up with how old I am when I hit 85.

I looked at the doctor and told him 'I was born in double-aught'. You figure it out.' He replied with a 'Wow! You must have experienced a lot over the course of your life.'

I told him I was born in a time when candles and kerosene lamps were used to light our homes. I grew up with an outhouse as a bathroom and watched as indoor plumbing and electricity were brought into our homes.

When I was young, we got around by either walking, riding on horseback, or via horse and carriage. As I got older, we marveled as cars took over the roads. If we needed to go far away, we took the train....... and we put on our best Sunday clothes for the trip. Now we have airplanes that will get us there in a fraction of the time and people look like they have on their pajamas.

When we cooked, we made everything from scratch. And by scratch I mean we either went to the butcher, or we slaughtered our own livestock or chickens, or we hunted for our wild game. Our milk was fresh, since we had to milk the cow every morning. We churned what we weren't going to drink to get our butter and cream, we couldn't buy it off a store shelf.

In my years, I have watched as hemlines inched up from touching the floor to barely covering the derriere'. I have listened to music grow from a one-man fiddler, to big bands, to songs being played on the radio.

I've experienced world wars and watched as men walked on the moon. Buildings went from being a few stories tall to skyscrapers."

As my husband and I reflect on this memory, it brings to mind all of the change and growth we have seen in our own lifetimes.  40+ years ago, we could have never imagined this world we live in, or the technological growth which happens almost daily.  This growth and change we have experienced makes us wonder what our children will have to look forward to and endure in their lifetimes.  I don’t believe I can imagine that world……… and I’m not sure I really want to either.

Christie Bielss

Who is the Better Driver?

Why is it every time we get in the car to drive anywhere, my husband and son start talking smack about how men are better drivers than women.  "You know, most NASCAR drivers are men.  In the movies, they use male stunt drivers..... even for scenes when females are driving.  Evel Knievel was a man and there has not been a She-vel Knievel", and on they go to ad nauseam.

I listen to this nonsense even though national statistics prove women are the safer drivers.  As proof of that data, I have only had one car wrecked since I have been driving.  Who totaled it?  My husband. And yet he is still convinced he is the better driver.

A number of years ago, I made the executive decision that I would do all of the driving in our household. Why?
A) Because my husband does not like to drive;
B) When he looks around while he is driving, his hands turn the steering wheel in whichever direction his eyes move.  Being in the car while he is driving is like being in a lifeboat in the middle of an apocalyptic, your-life-is-flashing-before-your-eyes hurricane.

The last time he drove on a long car trip was in 1999.  He had taken over driving after we stopped for a leg-stretching break at a rest stop.  We were about 20 minutes down the road, when he started looking around at the scenery. 

The car began to sway back and forth. First we went left, then we went right. Within a few minutes of this rollercoaster ride, I got motion sick.  After I made him pull off the highway (so I could get sick on the side of the road), I took over the driving......... and have not given him the opportunity to drive me anywhere since.  He contends it was not his driving but that I got ahold of some bad chocolate.  There is no such thing as "bad" chocolate.

Recently while we were in the grocery store, I discovered my husband drives the shopping cart the same way he drives a car.  This discovery was a rather rude eye-opener when he took out an endcap of potted meat while he was perusing the macaroni and cheese on the other side of the aisle.

After we put all of the cans back on the shelf and I was muttering under my breath about what "fantastic" drivers men are, we turned the corner onto the cereal aisle.  We hadn't taken 5 steps down the aisle when we encountered a husband pushing a shopping cart behind his wife.  As the man pointed to a box of Pop-Tarts to his right, he pushed the shopping cart left.  He took out an entire shelf of Fruit Loops.

In a show of solidarity, my husband called out to the man and told him it was a combination of the uneven floor and the shopping cart's propensity to make a hard left turn which caused the destruction.  I looked at my husband and asked if he had used his Spidey-vision to get the level of the floor.

This Spring, my dad began been teaching our son to play golf.  Because we have hit the dog days of summer, my parents decided to take our son to a golf superstore and let him practice putting in an air-conditioned environment.

After he and my dad were finished putting, my son took over pushing the shopping cart from my mom.  As my dad was showing him another teenager putting, my son ran the shopping cart into a bank of 50+ putters.  Much to their horror, the putters fell down one after another like a bunch of lined up dominoes.  He apparently got the driving gene from his father.

But men are better drivers than women..........

Christie Bielss

Three of the Scariest Words

There are three words which strike fear in the hearts and souls of men and women alike. Three words which know no boundaries and affect people from every walk of life.  It does not matter what language you speak or your socio-economic status, those three words stop mankind in his tracks.

What are the three words that cause such genuine fear?

 

"Some Assembly Required"

I am betting those words just caused an uncontrollable shiver of revulsion to run down your spine. Seeing those three words may have even triggered a flashback to pulling an all-nighter trying to assemble a special gift so it was ready when your child or loved one woke up the next morning.  Or maybe you have one of those nightmarish memories of trying to assemble a baby crib or other baby paraphernalia.

My flashback is from when I was a teenager. My parents decided I did not have enough storage and bought me a new wall bookcase unit.  It was one of those fancy all-in-one units that looked really neat in the store. 

The store's merchandiser had neatly organized the books on the bookshelves, the desk section had been equipped with the perfect desk set organizer, and precisely folded clothing was beautifully arrayed inside the drawers.  When my parents saw this behemoth, they swore they could hear the angels in heaven sing as they imagined all of my belongings neatly stored and displayed......... instead of being stacked or strewn across the floor of my bedroom.

This white six foot high and ten foot long laminated particle board wall unit was not sold fully assembly, but for an extra fee, the store delivery personnel could assemble the unit for us.  My dad puffed up and said he was not paying extra for something he was perfectly capable of handling.  He had all of the necessary tools at home, and after all, if he could fly jumbo jets around the world, he could certainly follow some simple directions on where to put a few nuts and bolts.

We brought the thirteen boxes of various parts home and carefully piled them up in my bedroom according to the number labelled on the outside of each box, which was printed right next to the label which stated "Some Assembly Required".  We opened box #1 and quickly dug around for the book of instructions.

My dad leafed through the booklet and discovered all of the instructions were written in a foreign language.  He and my brothers looked through the box together to see if there was another set of instructions.  There had to be another booklet! 

My mom quickly called the store. Nope.  There was only one booklet of instructions. They informed her to "just follow the pictures".

The realization of what my dad had gotten himself into hit full force.  He politely excused himself and went to the garage.  For several minutes we heard things being banged and slammed around in the garage.

My mom stood at the doorway to my room with one hand on her hip and an exasperated look on her face as she listened to the chaos in the garage.  After a few minutes she announced "Well, I think your dad may need a minute or two to himself.".

A little while later my dad came back inside. He was ready to get to work and had a hammer in one hand and a set of screwdrivers in the other.

As one of my brothers and I looked at the directions together, we discovered the main language was German.  He was in his second year of German and I was in my first, so we started reading the instructions together while my dad used the pictures to figure out the parts we could not translate.  This was the blind leading the helpless.

It took us 2 days to assemble that enormous wall unit with all of its drawers, doors, and the drop-down desk.  When the assembly was complete and we were all standing back admiring our work, my dad calmly announced "This unit will never be moved.  If we sell this house and move, it gets sold with the house.  Oh, and just so everyone knows:  no more "Some Assembly Required" furniture will ever cross the threshold into a house I own.  Ever.".

It was a nice announcement and it certainly held up for a number of years, until his first grandchild arrived.  Then he got tasked with assembling cribs, pack n' plays, baby bouncers and toys of all kinds.  But, as he has said each time since then, at least all of these directions have been in English.

Christie Bielss