To the Mainland and Back Again.

     A week off this rock. Really? Just a week? Felt like a month - and a blink of an eye.
Robert went to his 50th high school reunion in Los Angeles and so I met him in Santa Rosa a few days later. It was so great to see Kaylen and John. It was fun to see friends and neighbors. We got a lot done in the repairs and maintenance department, tying up a lot of loose ends. Truly, the week went by in a whirlwind and the social side of the visit took a serious back seat to the work side. Still, things got done, objectives achieved and besides a nasty cold and some serious allergies,  I returned to Maui no worse the wear. Robert comes home today and it will be great to begin to settle in again.
     So what is there to blog about, other than simply documenting a trip for future reference? It's the reflection that comes from returning home and then returning home again. Sounds conflicted doesn't it? Well, it is. See, Santa Rosa is my home. Or was my home. For 37 of my 57 years, Santa Rosa was home. But when I go "home" now, it's somehow...not. It's familiar, evokes wonderful memories and those I love still live there. Yet, I don't feel like I belong. I hit my stride driving the roads of Sonoma County, I know the Calistoga Rd. Safeway like the back of my hand, meeting parents and students on every aisle. I have a favorite parking spot. But I don't ground. I'm not really part of this anymore. My heartstrings pull and long for what was.
     I miss my Maui home. I miss Santa Rosa. I miss Futura Way and I'm stunned to find that I can't seem to bend this house to be mine anymore. It's like the lifeless corpse of a loved one passed on. It looks kind of like my home, but there's no spirit there that animates it into what made it my home.
I feel a little like a person with a foot on the boat and a foot on the dock. Being in both places just doesn't work.
     So it's the letting go, the mourning for loss that I am reconciling now. What I miss most is gone. The days of getting kids to Seminary on time, rushing to games, concerts, pick-ups and deliveries. The work days of reading to children, troubleshooting (successfully) computer issues and recommending the perfect book. Planting a tomato plant that I know will produce the best tomato in the world. Picking a delicious peach from the tree. With the exception of the tomatoes and peaches, these things are done. Not gone, for they will ALWAYS be part of me. And thankfully, only the sweetest part of the memories linger.
     I guess there's a part of me who hoped that "going home" would put all of the things I miss back in place. Interestingly, quite the opposite was true. It underscored the fact that things have changed. The days of Home in Santa Rosa on Futura Way are done and will not come back.
     What to do? Accept it, rejoice thankfully that I have these wonderful memories and look forward to all the new ones I'm making. Enjoy my adult children who are truly the miracles in my life. Be grateful for my new island home and the beauty of the aina here.
     My life is blessed and I refuse to tarnish the blessing of my present and future by mourning the loss of the past any longer than what is necessary to find peace.
      Thanks, Santa Rosa. It was really, really good.

P.S. The new Maui kitchen IS really great.

The Remodel (da da daaaa)

     I had to go back into my pictures to see how long this kitchen remodel has been going on. We started March 6, 2015. I put in the year because it feels like it's been years, so I had to check. Two months. TWO MONTHS! I guess that's really not too shocking considering many remodels that are done by contractors often last 2 -3 months. This has been a DIY labor of love. Well, ok, not love...in fact, I'm beginning to move toward the other "strongly dislike" emotion. The only reason I can stomach another day working on the kitchen is that we've had an inordinate amount of rain recently and the beach hasn't been appealing.
      It began as a simple idea...our kitchen and living room space was divided by a solid wall that extended to the peak of our 11' ceiling. It gave the area a chopped feeling, blocked air flow from the trade winds that cool the house and isolated the person working in the kitchen (that would be me). The solution we came upon was to take the wall down 2/3 of the way so it would create an open concept living space (I've watched a lot of HGTV lately and it's infiltrated my vocabulary). One rainy day, Robert said, "let's cut down the wall today and see what it looks like." Oh boy....

This seemed like a good idea at the time.

Oh look...we're still smiling.
 

If only I'd known.

     Well, that's how it started. Now the next part is to rebuild a couple of cabinets. Just the ones that need it. Surprise! They ALL needed it. With every cabinet we removed, the next one would crumble away.

     So what do you do when you need new cabinets? If you're my husband, you build them, from scratch, out of hardwood plywood. One at a time. And if you're his wife, you decide that it will be a piece of cake to refinish the faces of the old ones to "keep the charm of the house". Charming.

Actually, I did think the old faces were charming - I just liked the light wood on the right, rather than the red stain. Came out pretty, didn't they?

   With each new corner came new cabinet to build, a decision to make. To say that we were making this up as we went would NOT be an exaggeration. As we tore apart and put together, we designed and redesigned. Many elements went into design. For instance, after some detective work, we located the original shop that made our cabinets 30 years ago. We needed 3 new doors to cover some of the newly made cabinets. When he came back with a bid of almost $1k, we made the decision to eliminate a cabinet, put the doors from that one on one of the new ones and fill the space with a dishwasher. Voila! (I hadn't had a dishwasher until now. Well, except for Bob who does all the dishes.) Thanks, buddy, for the pricey bid. You got me a dishwasher and saved me over $500 in the process!

    

        And then there came the countertop decision...

I'm probably the only person on the face of the planet who doesn't like granite or quartz. Why? I don't know..it's super hard, it's super cold and the swirly, sparkly stuff just isn't for me. Since laminate is trying to look like granite or quartz that was out. We opted for solid surface called Staron made by Samsung. It's like Corian. I'll let you know how I like it when it's in. But that brought us to another decision. Backsplash. Sigh....after lots of soul-searching, we decide on eliminating all the tile backsplash and putting up solid surface. Tile. As in, take out the tile. And the grout.  Ew.

Looks like we're going to need a little drywall here....

     In the meantime, we have these modular countertops made out of the old tile countertop that we move around the kitchen as needed.

Looks fun, huh?

 

This is what retirement looks like.

Please pass the salt. And the wood glue.

This is the madness.

This is my crazy life right now. The next blog entry will be how wonderful my new kitchen is and how it was all worth it. Yeah. Sure.