kitchen in Japan<\/a> was much more primitive and difficult to work in. Keeping with family tradition, JQS came over on Friday to share leftovers and make the fruitcakes. I introduced him to Guitar Hero and we never got around to making the fruitcakes together. I made them on Saturday and baked them on Sunday.<\/p>\n\nWorking in the new kitchen is such a pleasure! I can’t decide what I like the best. All four burners of the stove work and I love that the grill over the burners covers the entire surface and that they don’t wobble when you put a pan full of liquid on them. The vent is fantastic…I even turn it on when chopping onions and don’t tear up as usual. The new lighting enables us to have the prep area next to the stove and that is also very convenient. This means that (when we get the refrigerator) we’ll be able to move the table into the center of the kitchen and use the butcher block cart as our bar. I can’t even imagine how wonderful it will be when we finally have a refrigerator in the same room, counters, the real sink, and a dishwasher. I’ll never want to leave the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Do It Yourself<\/h4>\n
I’ve been thinking a lot about a comment that a friend made. She was amazed that we did things on our own like cut into our roof. I don’t feel that it’s amazing partly because I feel that I have no choice. It’s got to be done and if we don’t do it, who will? I do call a specialist when I have to…but I find it more difficult to find, hire, and communicate with a third party than just doing it. We tend to feel our way along and design and innovate as we need to. I make a lot of non-traditional choices based on what is practical for how we work and use the kitchen. I don’t care if it doesn’t look like a standard American kitchen. I’m not at all concerned about resale value. I’ve built this kitchen for me and if the new owners down the line don’t like it, they can do their own remodel.<\/p>\n
\nSo part of my reluctance to trust the job to third parties is persnicketiness. And part of it is that I enjoy the design and problem-solving. But the biggest part of it, is that I was raised to do it myself–and it never occurs to me that I could get someone else to do it for me.<\/p>\n
\nAnd so on this Thanksgiving, I’d like to thank both my mom and dad. Some of my earliest memories in our house on Shady Lane at Clark AFB was of my mom sewing while my Dad built model airplanes on the screened porch. From sewing our own clothes, dolls, and toys, making bread, painting water-color “stained glass” holiday decorations, constructing a real gingerbread house, making and flying model airplanes, building a color TV and electric organ, learning how to change a tire or clean off the terminals of the car battery to coax it to start, remodelling a bathroom, painting a mural, laying a brick patio, or building a deck–my parents showed me by their example that I could do it myself. And that it was fun. And that doing it myself allowed me to improvise and make something uniquely mine. Construction is construction whether you’re making a dress, a pie, or a kitchen.<\/p>\n
\nWe have a family saying, well, more like a family joke. Whenever we’re out shopping and one of us stops to look at something, we finger it, turn over the price tag, shake our head, and say, “I could make that!” Yep. No one in my family is going to spend good money on something we could make ourselves, and better.<\/p>\n
Thanks, Mom and Dad.
\nLove you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was raised to do it myself–and it never occurs to me that I could get someone else to do it for me.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n