Fixer Upper-itis

We have a modular home, meaning it was built somewhere else and then hauled here in two halves on big semi trucks and put together.  Our wood basement was custom built (thank you, Scott Berg Construction), but customizing the main floor wasn’t an option, which was fine when we ordered it because...hey...our house had burned to the ground at Christmastime, and we wanted something fast so we could get back home.  From the time we ordered the house in January to the time it was delivered was just over 8 weeks.  Add on time to put it together and finish the drywalling, etc., inside, and we were back home by Easter.  

We have updated some things since we moved in.  Captain completely repainted the entire main floor the winter before Young Man graduated, and we replaced the living room carpet with laminate hardwood.  Other than that, we haven’t done much to it.  Who needs to in a new house, right?

Still, every so often, I get the craze to remodel our kitchen.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the spaciousness of my kitchen now, but sometimes I get irritated by the little things.  Like the stupid lazy susans in the corner cabinets that are complete wastes of space in my mind.  

So then I log on to my Houzz account (www.houzz.com) and end up in information overload with fried brain circuits.  Everything you ever wanted to know, see, or find out about home design including yards, pools, and garages can be found at Houzz.  

The problem with Houzz is that it is the creme de la creme of renovation and out of orbit as far as my budget goes.  But the pictures are so pretty, I can’t stop looking!  There are granite counter tops, hardwood floors, oak or cherry custom cabinets, and stainless steel appliances.  All top of the line and more than what I need or want.  

It’s like watching House Hunters or any of the renovation shows on HGTV.  All of these people have a “must have” list that would break the bank of a small third world country so they can have all those bells and whistles that, yes, are very nice, but aren’t really “needs.”  They are wants, my friends.  

What ticks me off is they say they “must” have, for example, a master en suite which will require major demo and renovation...and then they bitch because their budget is blown.  HELLO?!?!  Maybe opt for vinyl flooring instead of Italian marble, people!!

I always said I would like to see a House Hunters couple who says, “We want a 20 x 30 one-bedroom shack in the woods with vinyl flooring, laminate counter tops, and prefab cabinets.  Electricity optional.”  Who’s with me?!  Apparently someone is because there was a spin off House Hunters for Tiny Houses...some with indoor plumbing optional!  

My parents remodeled their kitchen when I was between fifth and sixth grade.  I don’t remember it being a project of epic proportion where the homeowners (or the contractor) end up on antidepressants.  The only glitch I really remember is that after they framed in the new addition, my dad got a bee in his bonnet and wanted the front door and the front picture window flip-flopped.  I remember a lot of heated discussions about that, but Dad ended up with what he wanted.

So anyway, I spent a portion of the last weekend watching Fixer Upper episodes on Netflix.  It brought on the kitchen remodel urge again.  I whiffle waffled in my head about how to do things.  I think I finally have a workable plan in my head that I could probably get put on paper if I put my mind to it.  There are a few tweaks I am not going to be able to decide on without consulting an expert, though.  Such as, would it work to move my stove into the corner where I now have those awful lazy susan shelves?  It might be too close to the sink, and that would kabosh that plan because the sink can’t be moved.  And hey...while we are at it, can we take the window out of the dining room, put french doors or sliding doors in and have a deck off the east side of the dining room.  Our west deck gets so darn hot in the afternoons it’s unbearable to sit out there.

This brings about a recurrent argument between me and Captain about how to address THAT issue.  I vote covered porch, and he says pergola.  I’ve never seen the utility of a pergola because (a) they are expensive and (b) the hot sun and wet rain still get through so what’s the damn point??

The other problem I run into is, well hell, I’m already tearing the house apart, so while we’re at it we might as well update the furnace that has been trying to die for three years now AND finally--FINALLY--install central air.  The problem??  That will add close to five digits onto my bottom line of an already-five-digit number.  That’s edging toward Scary Loan Land.

If I really put my mind to it, and put my love of travel on hold for a year or two, I could probably save the money to pay for one or the other, but not both.  Besides, I’m not quite willing--yet--to give up my little mini vacations here and there for two or three days at a time.  

Someday I will remodel my kitchen, and I will probably change my mind about something halfway through the process and end up being “one of those people.”  But until then, I will continue to overload my poor little brain with images and ideas from Houzz as well as Fixer Upper, HGTV, and Rehab Addict.  

Crops and clothes

Well, despite threats of rain daily, crop season 2016 is marching right along around here.  Actually, it’s kind of a limping shuffle.

Captain has been dealing with breakdowns and repairs on the digger and the planter.  I haven’t had to run for parts yet, but it’s coming I’m sure!

Last night, as I was getting ready to go to bowling, Captain called me to come and “help me for a minute.”  My first question--being cleaned up and ready to go-- was “am I going to get dirty?”  No, just sit in the seat and drive the tractor and planter forward while I watch to see what’s not turning.

Joy and rapture.  Put me in the driver’s seat of a set of equipment worth more than my annual salary.  Not smart, dude, but whatever.  So I threw a jacket over my bowling shirt and walked down to the field.  

I got the usual instructions of where the clutch and brakes were at, he put it in gear and then walked around to the back of the planter and gave me the “go ahead” signal.  Luckily, he had put it in the lowest gear possible at the slowest RPM, so I was basically creeping along.

He walked along behind all 12 rows of the planter looking, had me stop and start a few times, and must not have seen anything wrong.  So then--THEN--he comes around to the front of the planter, gets down on his hands and knees, and gives me the “go ahead” signal.

Are you freaking crazy?!  You are a 160-pound twig in front of a ton of equipment with sharp things that will hurt you or flatten you like Stanley if my foot missed the clutch and brake!!  I get more frantic go ahead signals, so off I go.  He crab-walked along in the dirt in front of the planter a couple of yards before he tells me to stop.  Good gravy, that was a tense few seconds in my world!

He fiddled with something and gave the go ahead signal again.  That lasted all of 10 feet when I had to stop before he told me to.  He’s glaring at me and giving me the WTF look.  

Dude, I have run out of field, the tractor is in the middle of your mom’s yard, and there is nowhere to go!  Fine, he sent me on my way, and off I went to bowling.  Apparently he figured out the problem after I left because halfway through bowling, I got a text:  going to Fleet Farm.  I was going to suggest he buy some new T-shirts while he was there, but just then my teammate bowled a personal best of 209 and I got distracted.

What is it with men and their sentimental attachment to clothing?  I know I am not the only woman who has dealt with this conundrum.  Captain has clothes that no self-respecting homeless person would wear, but he won’t give them up.  No lie, he has a favorite T-shirt that the kids gave him YEARS ago that said “McStud” across the front.  Not only can you no longer see the printing on it, if you hold the shirt up to the light, you can see through it to objects on the other side!  

Another case in point is his union suit.  Do you SEE that large hold in the shoulder seam?  That wouldn’t be warm or comfortable to wear, in my mind, but he puts it on every time it comes out of the dryer.  No longer, though, because I shoved it in the trash on Sunday.  Seriously, it was begging to be put out of its misery.

When I suggest it is time to give any article of clothing a decent burial, his answer is no.  I get that it makes no sense to go to any department store and buy brand new shirts just to wear in the dirt and grease, but Savers or Goodwill or garage sales are a reasonable alternative here!  I don’t get it.

Well, I kind of get it.  I have a Disney fleece pullover that someone gave us after the house fire.  It’s comfortable, it looks halfway decent on me, and it has held up like iron.  It’s been over 13 years since I got it, it’s been washed several thousand times, and is starting to look a little worse for wear, but I refuse to give it up.  Why, you might ask?  Because I haven’t found anything comparable to replace it yet.  When I do, I’ll bid my fond farewells to it and move on.  

However, T-shirts for farm wear are a dime a dozen at any secondhand store or garage sale.  It’s not like we can’t afford new(er) clothing.  The plain fact is that Captain gets sentimentally attached to his clothing.  He even says “They’re my friends.”

Pal of mine, there is a self-help group somewhere just waiting for you to join.  

Young Man was always another one who would wear clothing until it literally would just fall apart while he was wearing it.  The funny thing is, Captain would lecture him about not going out in public “looking like a ragamuffin,” which is sort of a pot and kettle situation.  

Maybe it’s a guy thing.  Maybe it’s a farmer thing.  Mostly I think it is a Captain thing that I will never truly understand.  It’s one of the little quirks that make him lovable!

Man's Best Friend

I hate to admit this because it is so petty, but I used to be jealous of Captain’s dog.  This goofy, slobbering, carcass-dragging mutt seemed to get all the unconditional love and affection that I felt, as his wife, should have been mine.

The first time I came smack up against the deep emotion Captain had for his dog was shortly after we were married—which, I might add, occurred before we got the dog.  Captain had to drive several miles to work, and the dog always rode in the bed of the pickup, back paws on the floor and front paws on the wheel well with her nose into the wind and ears laid back.

One rainy morning, as Captain was speeding down the highway, the dog lost her footing and went tail-over-teakettle out of the pickup.  When Captain realized she’d fallen out, he stopped quickly enough to lay rubber on the highway and backed up to where the dog lay in the road.   After confirming there were no broken bones, he loaded the dog in the cab and went on to work.  When he called me to tell me about it, there was a degree of hysteria in his voice I’d never heard before as he asked me if he should put antibiotic ointment on her nose where she scraped the skin off.

A touching story, really, except when compared with the time I was undergoing tests with my physician for some suspicious lesions.  In order to determine what the lesions were, I had to undergo a biopsy complete with stitches.  When Captain heard about the biopsy and stitches, his immediate concern was not the state of my health—or even if I needed some antibiotic ointment—or the possibly negative results of the biopsy.  Rather, he was thoroughly disgruntled about the disruption in our romantic interludes due to the location of the stitches.  Maybe if I had scraped some hide off my nose I would have gotten more sympathy from him.  Isn’t he precious?

Not too many months after the dog’s nose-scraping incident, she decided that a poisoned rat would be a tasty appetizer.  The resulting frenzy of a panicked search found the dog lying near death behind the barn.  Hysteria once again gripped Captain, and we made a mad dash to the vet’s office for a consult.  The vet advised to leave her in the kennel over the weekend so they could do some blood work and monitor her.  

It was I who visited the dog I didn’t like over the weekend only to be told by the vet that she likely wouldn’t live until Monday.  I wanted to put her out of her misery (and mine), but Captain would have no part of it.  By the time we went to pick her up on Monday, the bill was $450.  To me, no dog is worth that kind of money unless she has an endorsement contract for Tuffy’s dog food.  But looking into those puppy-dog eyes—Captain’s, not the dog’s—was more than I could resist, and I paid the bill.  

Captain also was attentive to the dog’s needs.  In her later years, she developed arthritis and couldn’t jump into the back of the pickup without a boost.  After watching Captain gently lift her into the pickup bed, I remarked that he hadn’t been that attentive to me when I would try and climb into his pickup when I was 8-1/2 months pregnant and quite ungainly.  He gave me a bland look and said, “You weren’t riding in the back, either.”

The question I always had was: what had the dog ever done to deserve this preferential treatment?  By careful observation over the years, I found my answer.  The dog faithfully followed Captain during his daily tasks, was always willing to listen to any complaints without judging, was always ready to love without condition, and was always present with a wag of her tail to encourage.  I watched them romp together after a long day, walk together to inspect the cattle in the pasture, and saw the dog bound with joy when it was time to get in the pickup and head for the day’s work.

Comparing this to the rushed and often tense times of our busy household filled with requests for odd jobs to be done and precious few “quality” moments between Captain and me, I could see why the dog was way ahead of me in the battle for Captain’s affection.  I took her lessons to heart and tried to mimic her tactics.  Not that I slobbered kisses or barked.

With the passage of time, she ending up worming her way into my heart as well, almost without my knowledge, and firmly rooted herself in the fabric of our lives, and I cried just as hard as anyone when we lost her.  Today, so many years after she left us, I see why she was Captain’s best friend and one of my favorites too.

Memory Lane

This past weekend was sort of a stroll down memory lane for me.  

I know I snarked not that long ago about farm auctions, but over the weekend I had occasion to go with Captain to one, mainly because it happened to be Mama Bear’s folks having the auction.

I went for moral support, socialization, and Cubby time.  Captain went for all of those reasons as well, but he was also looking for a bulk bin for calf feed.  There were three very nice ones on this auction, so he was hoping to get one.  

No such luck.

When the auctioneer got to these three lots, the bidding went from $400 to $950 in two blinks of an eye.  Captain didn’t even have a chance to get his bidding number out of his coat pocket!  Plus, the winning bidder took all three bins instead of just one or two.  Darn!

The other objective Captain had was to maybe bid on some hay for a friend who couldn’t attend the auction.  He looked over the hay when we first got there, then we did some socializing, and then I lost track of him while I was holding Cubby...who really didn’t want anything to do with me anyway.  Cubby went back to Mama Bear, and I wandered around trying to spot Captain’s brown Carhartt jacket and gimme elevator cap.  

The problem?

There were hundreds of farmers there, all wearing brown winter jackets and gimme elevator hats!  Oh well, I stopped to do some more socializing while they were selling the hay.  After they’d moved on from the hay, I looked around harder for Captain and still couldn’t find him.  Oh well, he’s a big boy and can take care of himself.  I wandered back toward the porta potties...and there he was.  Wouldn’t you know it, the two guys he was with were in brown coats and gimme hats.  

I sort of lost track of the auction progress for awhile but clued back in when they got to the last three lots of the auction.  These were classic cars that Mama Bear’s folks have owned for years and kept in pristine condition.  

There was a lot of talk about how cars aren’t made like those muscle cars of days gone by.  I heard people bat around model names like Cyclone, Cougar, GTO, Charger, and Barricuda.  Those names don’t mean anything to me, except the Charger.  I know that’s the General Lee.  I’m just not a car person.  

But, all the talk about classic cars made me think of Ford Mustangs, which is my dream car.  If I ever have large pots of disposable income (excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing), I will buy myself a 1966 Mustang with a cherry red exterior and white leather interior.  

Why the Mustang, you might wonder?  Well, it’s not because I really know anything about them other than they are cute.  It’s because they bring back memories of my youth.  Kinda cliche, right?

My fascination with the Mustang began back in my much younger days when there was a show on TV called Barnaby Jones.  Barnaby was played by Buddy….not Holly, that was the singer.  Not Hackett, that was the guy in The Love Bug.

Buddy...Buddy...Buddy...Ebsen.  That’s it!  The same guy who played Jed Clampett in the Beverly Hillbillies.  Anyway, Barnaby was a private investigator, and the junior investigator was, to my junior-high mind, oh so handsome!  In the show, he drove a dark green Mustang, and since I was drooling over the guy, I drooled over the car as well.  

I didn’t have any up close and personal experience with a Mustang until I was in high school when one of my best friends had one.  I’m not sure of the year, but it was a red exterior and white interior, and I thought it was the coolest car I’d ever seen.  Hence, the color scheme of my dream car.

My friend and I were nearly inseparable our junior year, and I have many good memories of riding shotgun in her Mustang.  We talked about our hopes, dreams, and heartaches.  We talked religion, faith, and science in that car.  Even though we drifted apart--as people do after high school--to this day, when I see a classic Mustang, I think of my friend fondly.  I always wonder if she thinks of me when she sees cows!  That sounds bad now that I said it outloud...

The trip down memory lane continued on Sunday when Captain and I went to Nelson, Wisconsin, to the cheese factory there.  Young Man had his first ice cream cone at the Nelson Cheese Factory in the summer of 1992 when he was just over a year old.  It was probably the hottest day of that summer, and Young Man’s cone melted so fast that it splatted on the pavement as we were walking back to the car.  Can we say disappointed little boy?!  I offered to share my cone with him, but apparently mint chocolate chip wasn’t what he wanted.  Whenever I am in or around Nelson, I can’t help but remember our niece, Sloane, and the day our families spent together just before she died.  Gotta say, that one always hurts.  

We ended our rambles yesterday at Oxbow Zoo, where we can’t escape the memories of all the times we took the kids there, whether just to the zoo; to have a picnic and visit the zoo; or to camp and visit the zoo.  I can see the kids hanging over the Prairie Dog silo just amazed at those little guys racing around here and there.  I can hear them laughing over the antics of the otters in the pond.  I can see them racing across the grass toward the buffalo and elk exhibits.  Yesterday we sat on the bench that is in memory of Captain’s best friend, whom we lost two years ago.  The tree that we donated to the park in his friend’s memory shades the bench.  It was a nice spot to reminisce.

Sometimes memories are comforting, and sometimes memories are painful.  That just means that we have lived and loved, which is really all anyone can ask for.