That Dysfuntional Kitchen

Sometimes I get this overwhelming urge to tear remove the cabinet doors off my cupboards. Other times I feel obnoxious adventurously diligent to scheme a way to take down the wall that slices our kitchen into tiny fragments of square footage. Other times I strive to be content by merely loading the dishwasher which results in a more open feeling since the 3' of counter space no longer is covered in dirty dishes.

These urges come when I sense myself being suffocated by the closed in feeling my kitchen boasts of. And pretty much anything would make it feel more open.

I've toyed with the idea of moving the fridge out. Seriously, count how many cultures you know of that don't have a fridge. They survive, right? Just think of the counter space I could create where the fridge sits now!

I've thought about using a hammer and hacking air holes into walls. But I knew my carpenter husband wouldn't like the unprofessional look that would give.

I've put off baking and doing any major cooking. The results usually produce tight quarters and insufficient food any way.I even accidentally removed the entire front glass from our stove. That gave me about two extra inches of knee space in the vicinity of the stove but it also eliminated the insulation feature on the front of the oven. I learned fast that burning your knee once is all you need to always take an 18" bypass of the stove every time you waltz through your kitchen.

I've dreamed of creating an outdoor kitchen. But that would cost more than removing that wall that makes my kitchen a tiny cracker box. And what would we do about the flies?

I've threatened to ban myself from the kitchen. You know, the whole "out of sight, out of mind" theory? That doesn't work when mealtime rolls around and everyone wants food from the kitchen.

I've resigned myself to experience my kitchen as a Shrine of Contentment. On the stove I daily sacrifice my unthankful spirit and offer up my 5'x8' kitchen as a piddly incense. I wear a smile to brighten up the dark corner of our house we call our kitchen in hopes of making up for the poor lighting. I've determined to forgive the manufacturer who created the homogeneous light that takes up half the ceiling but only gives off about 13watts of brightness. Seriously.

I inch around the kitchen like a sardine in it's tin can. Only using the bare minimum of space for the traffic I create from one side of the 5' wide room to the other side. I've realized I can basically rock from side to side in order to use the sink and stove at the same time. I've looked for ways to find convenience in my kitchen. But it ends up resulting in the same disappointment a convenience store gives - seriously, how convenient is it to spend $4 for a bag of popcorn you could get at the grocery store for 99 cents?

That's how my kitchen is. It's like a convenience-store-four-dollar-popcorn-bag disappointment.

I hear Scandinavian Open Shelving Kitchens are the in thing. Did you know that? I didn't but when I heard it, I knew it had to be true. I mentally calculated how I could bring Scandinavian hope to my Cave Man Kitchen. But the problem remained. That wall is just in the way.

See...


There's no place to put open shelves unless I remove the fridge and the stove. But what would a kitchen be without a fridge or stove? It would be a utility room. Or a wet pantry.

So, I sigh and remember the many cultures that don't even have a kitchen. And I wonder what they'd be able to do with a kitchen like mine. It dawns on me that really the only thing I lack in my kitchen, isn't space or counter top. Rather, it's a I-can-make-this-work attitude.

But man, how much better I can make this work if I didn't have that wall in the way...

When Life Changes, God Doesn't

It all started the day we... well, I'm not sure exactly which day that was, come to think of it. Hmm. It must've been a big day though because it sure started a lot of stuff.

Then again, maybe it wasn't a big day. Maybe it was just a normal day with nothing out of the ordinary happening. Funny thing how it is when you sit down and look back at life and remember an era filled with bumps and bangs and bruises but yet you realize you can never pin it back to a beginning. A turning point. Or even a period at the end of a sentence.

Life just changed. Just like that.

But then you remember back to events that took place. Events that turned out to be individual steps on a certain stairway in life. And as each event unfolded, a new step was created where you found your life at. Then suddenly, the stairway ends and just like that, an era has ended. Life goes on and you go with it.

I know I'm speaking pathetic poetic and mysterious but certainly, there has GOT to be a good reason why I haven't updated for a month or two, right?

On a side note, I have completely recovered from Mono, hosted company ever since my recovery, put in a garden, reorganized my house, planted flowers, worked on landscaping, took a 22 hour round trip, saw Lake Michigan and watched my husband turn another year older. Not to mention a few other activities.

It's been a good year but not unmixed with sorrow. Realities of religion and the grace of Christ have been two of our main focuses, the latter more than the former. God gently leads His dear children along and we have vividly seen His hand leading those He calls His own.

To summarize the happenings of the last two months, is hard to do in a nutshell. And hard (if not unwise) to do on the world wide web. It's kinda like ripping a scab off your skin and saying, "Okay everybody, have at it!"

A few of you have wondered what's happened with my blog and why I haven't updated for so long. I am open for any dialogue or discussion done privately as for the reasons I've been away for so long. My blog isn't about personal details though (besides Alex chasing the cat with forks, etc.).

Oh, and in case I didn't convey this right, there was never any intention on NOT blogging nor do I plan to quit blogging in the future. My mind was just too full of other things to be able to digest anything worth typing out on blogger.com. It would've read something like this: ";lkj iowop ijhen ipfld polk dpoks..." A pile of used kleenex probably would've sat on my desk next to the computer on one side and the shelf in front of my head would've had a head shaped indentation where my head had specifically been put a time or two (or three). A browser window for a Bible study reference site would've been tabbed to bloggers tab while I blogged and I would've copied and pasted most of the Bible into my blog (I would've left out the battle scenes in the Old Testament. And the genealogies.) Oh and coffee... there would've been tanks of coffee fueling me on. By the way, if anyone wonders what Bible site is the easiest to navigate when you're studying half the New Testament at once, www.biblegateway.com is worth your look. I've been at that site in the last few weeks more than I've been to my bed.

I am excited about life. About God. About the gospel. There is peace and calm in my life where that had been confusion and strife. I am hopeful about the future. For the first time in a long time, the future looks bright and certain.

And I've experienced the promise of John 10:10: "Jesus said, "the thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

Do YOU know Jesus meant that verse when He said it?