Integrity

Well, folks, we've hit the proverbial renovation speed bump, and it.is.a.doozy. Prior owners of and contractor for our lovely home, if you're reading this, you should be ashamed.

But I bet you aren't. Which leads me to today's theme which is...INTEGRITY.

In this day and age of a toxic, lying, cheating, abusive, devoid-of-moral-fiber "presidential" administration, one of the MOST conspicuously absent traits is integrity.

To pull a completely overused and somewhat contrived stunt on y'all, but also to ensure that you learn if you don't already know, Merriam-Webster, the dictionary, defines integrity as:

• firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; incorruptibility.

For further review, incorruptibility is defined as: 

• not subject to decay or dissolution, and/or
• incapable of being bribed or morally corrupted

 Adherence to a moral code, incapable of being morally corrupted via influence or bribe, anti decay...Interesting.

Trump, our "president," fails every one of those standards as does every one of his current advisors, cabinet members, and employees -past and present- that I can name or easily recall. Although it's fun to stab at the ignorant, destructive, hair-challenged Yam, he's merely a symbol of the decay in the general public. Us. The voters.

It's probably exceedingly obvious that I did NOT vote for the noxious turd. But I did mostly trust and place good faith in the folks from whom we bought our home. They'd dealt with the termites, they'd renovated beautifully, they'd had an inspection and shared the results. Their agent and ours were absolutely lovely. We knew we'd ultimately redo the kitchen which was both growing old and not to our liking in either style or function, and at some point, even the best roof and HVAC units need replacing.

This was their "forever home" -before the dream job they moved for- and so we trusted that things had been done correctly. As per integrity. And, might I add, being financially comfortable enough to not cut corners unless stingy.

Alas. Integrity, and generosity in its spirit, are in such short order these days. Let's consider the FEMA director who promised 3 million meals to Puerto Rico but delivered just 50,000. To American citizens. Who were and remain without electricity and water and sustenance. Thank you, instead, José Andrés. 

Let's consider just how many employees Trump has stiffed over the years. Just how many thousands upon thousands of unpaid bills he's ignored. How many students he's stiffed. How many potential tenants he and his father discriminated against based on the color of their skin. Let's think about how he assaults women and continues to keep known abusers employed. Let's think about his desecration of truth and the media. 

But I'm trying to go micro here, so let's talk about my house. And how my plumbing permit was unexpectedly denied yesterday because the previous owners chose to install more plumbed fixtures than are allotted on the current pipe coming off the main into our house and did not bother to disclose that tidbit. 

Keep in mind that our kitchen looks like this:

And that my house currently looks like swiss cheese because of the myriad exploratory holes bored to figure out the plumbing discrepancies and also to bring everything up to code. And that now everything is delayed because...

Our only options are to:

• cut and remove all evidence of ALL hoses and additional fixtures (a sink, say) on our property (great expense; what would I do if I couldn't work in my yard and had to watch it all die?; also, removing all evidence essentially means removing most walls)

OR

• pay the exorbitant fees required to upgrade the line from the main to our house; install a new meter IN our home which means demolishing a wall of our basement and building some bizarre "home" for the meter which is too large to fit behind a wall; apply and wait for all the permits needed to do this; pay the overages for extra fixtures we did not install but bought on good faith; AND pay for all the additional plumbing needed to fix all of the above. 

Could you, in good faith, sell your home to someone knowing they could never renovate or change even one plumbed item without forking out roughly a car's worth of money and not tell them? Could you, in good faith, agree to let your renovation go through knowing you were lying? Would you?

If you have integrity, the answer to all is a resounding NO. If you sold your house without a word and, by the way, left it dirty with, for example, pee residue on the main floor toilet, to a young family, you suck. You are greedy and stingy and you lack integrity.

So, please, people. Do better. Be better. Especially if you have means. We screw the poor in this country left and right. Sometimes corners have to be cut to survive (and if you're rolling your eyes, you're A) probably not actually poor and buy into that welfare queen nonsense and/or B) need to go do some reading. Read Evicted, for example. It is excruciatingly hard and expensive to be poor in this country).

We're going to fix everything correctly. At great expense. At sacrifice of other things we'd budgeted for this year. Because it's the right thing to do, and because there is zero chance my mental health can handle a dead yard. 

If you don't need to cut corners, don't. Have integrity and "be a man." Seriously. This greedy, selfish bullshit is for the birds. Worse, it's a toxic virus that spreads like wildfire. It's ugly and it deforms. We need to do better. Be better. It starts with each of us.

Kitchen renovation one week in

Today was in many ways annoying, y'all. For one, although I love the Olympics, I just cannot abide by curling and, to a lesser degree of irritation, the biathlon. Thank goodness two friends sent me this hilarious video of cat curling, aka purrling. Now that's a sport!

Also thank goodness I had lunch with one of my favorite people in the world. And thank goodness that I have wonderful neighbors because in addition to dealing with 983 workmen in the house today, various hiccups, and more rain, I needed to make the King Cakes I promised the boys. Every year I send one into each of their classes, and it's a tradition we all love. However, without an oven, baking King Cakes is hard.

Hence my gratitude for neighbors. One gave me her key for today and in her oven I baked up these beauties which I'd made in my basement kitchen and kneaded and rolled on the boys' craft table. I have not located my stash of plastic Jesus babies, so the cakes will be without this year, but alas. 

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

We are entering the realm of extreme holeage. Not pictured here are the new holes in the basement, garage, and exterior of our home. Progress!

Demolition is one of the most fun parts of a kitchen renovation

This week has given me a better understanding of why my boys love demolition so much. Or, there is just something incredibly therapeutic for stress, especially of the politics-induced variety, in ripping things down to their bare bones. Maybe both.

In any case, what was a whole kitchen (albeit messy and in mid-pack) on Monday night is now a hammered, chiseled, sawed room of gaping holes and capped wires and to-be-rerouted PVC piping cut off from the rest of our house by an enormous plastic sheet with a zipper up its middle. While I often found the planning for this renovation stressful, I am loving every single bit of what it's taking to raze the kitchen to its foundation. 

This is in part because we have such a great team of responsible, lovely professionals doing the job. Trust is so essential, and honestly liking the people you're working with makes everything that much better. Our contractor renovated the kitchen at our old house, and while one or two of the original team is no longer with him, everyone else is. I love that. 

It is definitely crucial to prepare for being without a kitchen, and a lot of y'all have asked how in god's name am I feeding my family. Good question! 

Last time around, we invested in a high-quality two-burner hot plate and kept our grill's propane tank full. Two friends doing kitchen remodels subsequently used the hot plate, and now I have it in my rotation once more. It is really easy to use, compact, and portable. I have been cooking and freezing things (we have a chest freezer in our storage room) that don't require the use of an oven for months now so that we can regularly have hot, home-cooked meals during the coming weeks. Eating out is expensive and often less healthy than eating at home. Plus, sometimes I want to be in my jammies well before I eat dinner. Last night, T and I ate steaming bowls of chili while we watched some TV. 

It is also infinitely helpful to have your refrigerator relocated to an open space in your house so that you can still use it. Ours is now in our living room. We are lucky to have a bar fridge and wet bar area in our basement. There we have a sink and enough counter space to have our coffee maker and the hot plate set up, some prep area, a garbage can, and cabinetry in which to put plates and such. On another wall of our basement we have counter space where we've put our microwave and toaster oven. So while it does feel a bit scattered and like we're camping, it's fun and totally doable. 

During the pack-up, I thought long and hard about what we need and use daily, and what we can do without for a while. The photo above gives you some sense of what I kept out, including most-used spices, tupperware, and essential utensils. 

I also thought about what I might need to cook for during our renovation. Each Mardi Gras, for example, I make King Cakes for the boys' classes, and Oliver's birthday is on St. Patty's Day. So, I kept out the ingredients and necessary pans for King Cake and will rely on my wonderful next door neighbor's oven for the actual baking. I'll do the same for Oliver's birthday cake if my new range isn't ready for use yet when the time comes. 

As you might have surmised, it is crucial to have a good attitude about all this and to have fun with the inconveniences when you can. Keeping your eye on the end product is helpful as are gratitude and reminders that the renovation will only last for a finite time period. Things will go wrong but a good and capable team will help you find the best solution.

In the meantime, if you're stressed, be sure and watch the demo as it takes place. I've been floating on air this week as truckload after truckload of refuse is taken away, a blank canvas left behind. Progress unfolding before my eyes. What fun!