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A Palatable Life

I find it interesting and maybe even a little disturbing that my most profound lessons come from embarrassing misdeeds, painful injuries, and diatribes oozing with shame or humiliation or both. Right? As they say to live is to suffer. Or is it the other way around? “I’m so good on hurt,” says Anne Lamott in her new book Almost Everything. Aren’t we all? 

So here I stand, clothed in a sackcloth, wondering what’s the endgame? 

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I learned geography after a humiliating misplacement of Louisiana when I was like twenty-three. I learned to be present while traveling with my Mom through the desolate world of chemo therapy. I learned to talk softly (still a struggle) when my entire third grade class lost 5 points during lunch due to my unfortunate telling of a humorous story. I learned about courage while fighting for my kids especially when it came to bullies, disgruntled adults, and a handful of destructive teachers. I learned patience while waiting out temper tantrums, test results, and four rounds of puberty. And of course I learned how to be flexible from my countless associations with the PTA.

So if I put it all together it takes patience, humility, and courage to walk softly in this world, adapting to the current circumstances, and a total bonus if you know where you’re going? 

I am not someone who is ashamed of my past. I’m actually really proud. I know I made a lot of mistakes, but they, in turn, were my life lessons. Drew Barrymore

I’m teaching my students how to interpret parables this month. If you want to understand the complexities of life you have to study the parables. Let me give you a tiny foot up on the process. This is how Jesus taught, and how most of us teach our kids, although we might be unaware. Jesus would tell a story, sometimes there would be a question embedded in the tale, and often the answer was unexpected. He was moving us towards a more loving approach to life, a call to action, expanding our kinship with those marginalized by society.

Jesus said, ‘The kingdom is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it grows larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree. The birds of the air can come and make nests in its branches.’ (Matthew 13:31-32).

In response to a question from a lawyer asking, “who is my neighbor,” Jesus answers with a parable called the Good Samaritian. It is the story of an injured man beaten, robbed, stripped of his clothing, and left to die on the road to Jericho (known as Bloody Pass in Jesus’ day), he is passed up by both a Levite and Priest, but his arch enemy, a Samaritian, stops to help? If the question is about the scope of neighborly love than the answer is unexpected. We are all neighbors, this includes our enemies, even those with opposing political affiliations. Damn. I liked it when I was only responsible for my family and a dozen or so people I counted as friends? 

“You shall love your neighbor with your crooked heart. It says so much about love and brokenness — it’s perfect.” John Green

Interestingly Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. uses the Good Samaritian parable in his speech I’ve Been to the Mountain Top, on April 3rd, 1968, in an attempt to move people from apathy to action, just as Jesus did in his day. Of course we all know how things turned out for Jesus, crucified for his radical teachings in his early thirties, but some might not know Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died the day after giving this speech. He was shot while standing on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, on April 4th, by James Earl Ray. Clearly this message is both powerful and controversial.

“The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help what will happen to them?” That’s the question.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 

Vincent Van Gogh admitted himself into a sanitarium in St Remy de Provence in 1989, he had become despondent, saddened that the townspeople of Arles, where he had been living and painting, had given him the name the red-headed madman. After finishing this painting, a depiction of the Good Samaritian, Van Gogh took his own life. It begs the question, who is my neighbor, and what will happen to him if I do not stop to help? 

These stories always give me pause. If one conscious act of kindness can save a life than it’s worth it. I hate to admit how many times I’ve walked right by those in need, ignored a friend who was suffering, turned a deaf ear to the anguished pleas of others so I could race up to the lake, catch up on the Crown, or lose myself in the latest New York Times best seller. Please don’t poke at my sweet little bubble, it’s limpid, and likely to pop. Clearly we’re called to action. So now what do I do? 

The parable offers … a vision of life rather than death. It insists that enemies can prove to be neighbors, that compassion has no boundaries, and that judging people on the basis of their religion or ethnicity will leave us dying in a ditch. Dr. Amy-Jill Levine

I write, I fondle my life in public so you will know you are not alone, it’s not for everyone, but it’s how I’ve chosen to respond.  

For me, writing a story is like making pasta. I watch my life as if a pot waiting to boil, anticipating all those tiny globules that will soon be floating to the surface, disrupting the calm. When the timing is right, I lean over my life, and dump a wad of dried up words in the water, watching them sink to the bottom of the pot. Then I stir the water, spinning the words until they mysteriously rise to the top of their own accord, tender, ready to consume. It’s the only way I know how to make life palatable. 

In the Secret Life of Walter Mitty it says, “to see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.” I believe we will experience a plethora of conversional experiences before fully realizing our innate purpose…which is to love (that’s gooey, I know, but mix it with purpose, intention, advocacy, and it becomes esculent). 

“Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

A radically transformed heart is rare. We have a tendency to crucify pure love. It takes time, the world wasn’t built in a day (plus we’re supposed to rest on the seventh), truth is complicated, and the work is difficult. So while I wait for my compassion to kick in I do the laundry, cook a meal, go to spin class, fill the hummingbird feeder, and do the best I can when it comes to loving my parched neighbor. Anne Lamott says, “we do the smallest, realest, most human things. We water that which is dry.” 



I’m Living in the Gap, drop by anytime, we’ll cook some pasta.


Anecdotes:

  • The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
  • We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love. Sigmund Freud
  • A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning. Brad Henry
Posted on by cheryloreglia · 3 Comments

The Itsy Bitsy Spider



“Larry!”

Nothing.

“LARRY!”

Nothing.

“LAWRENCE JOSEPH OREGLIA!”

“What?”

“Come here quick!”

“Why?”

“OH MY GOD, GET IN HERE!”

He comes sauntering through the back door as slow as molasses. Really?

“Look at this,” I’m pointing to a pile of clothing on the floor of the closet where a HUGE black spider has positioned himself. 

“What?”

“I was about to grab my pajamas and take them to the laundry room when I noticed this spider was trying on my top. Look at that thing?”

“Where?”

“Are those the only two words you know? There’s a huge spider sitting on my pajamas.”

“I can’t see anything, I’ve been outside.”

“For the love of God? Smack yourself a few times, this is an emergency.”

It isn’t more light we need, it’s putting into practice what light we already have. Peace Pilgrim

I get the look as he leans his head in the closet for a better view.

I scream, “Watch out!”

He jerks back so quickly he bumps his head on the doorjam.

“They can move sideways you know.”

I think he glared at me. That’s the thanks I get?

“I can’t see a thing,” rubbing his head.

I start singing, “he was blinded by the light, revved up like a dunce,
another runner from fright…”

“Those aren’t the words.”

I practically put my finger on it, “Honey, it’s right there, he’s as big as my damn hand.”

He squints, “It looks like a zipper.”

Shaggy starts barking and jumping around which is not helping.

“A zipper? Are you kidding? Those are his god-forsaken legs all spread out! He’s enormous.”

“Oh yeah, he’s coming into view, holy shit!

“It’s spider season. Every year, right about now, thousands of the godless eight-legged bastards emerge from the bowels of hell (or the garden, whichever’s nearest) with the sole intention of tormenting humankind.” Charlie Brooker

“Holy shit is right. You think he can hear us?”

“No”

Spiders, in fact, do taste, and also smell, through special sensory organs on their legs, as well as on their pedipalps. And they hear – or, more specifically, they sense vibrations – through hairs and tiny slits distributed over much of their body. A spider’s sensitivity to vibrations is finely tuned.

“You need to find a cage and remove it from my closet.”

“A cage?” He slips off his shoe.

“Wait, you’re not going to kill it on my new pajamas? It’ll leave a mark.”

Whack, whack, whack. “I got him.”

“Yes, you did. See how his body parts are all smashed into the fabric of my new pajamas. Perfect. I wonder if a stain stick will work.”

Larry gathers up the fragmented body with a wad of Kleenex and dumps what’s left of him into the toilet.

“Hope his friends don’t retaliate.” 

“I’ll be outside if there are any more emergencies?“

“We should watch Arachnophobia tonight?”


“I’m watching the game.”

“Chicken.”

A few hours later… 

Larry and I are walking to the car to attend a winery event in Kelseyville when I feel something bite my calf! It’s true.

“F%@#K,” I reach down and try to squeeze the culprit to death through my skinny jeans. I sort of scream, “Larry we have to go back in the house!”

“What? Why?” (His new favorite words?)

I’m running towards the house unzipping my jeans as I go.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I think there is a spider is in my pants and the damn thing bit me.”

“I think you’re imagination is getting the best of you.”

“Well than my imagination bit me.”

He slowly unlocks the door. Hello molasses?

A certain degree of emotional detachment is important. It helps you take a step back from problems, surprises and expected events, and therefore, to be less affected by them. This helps you stay calm and in control of yourself, and therefore, be in a better position to deal with whatever is happening in your life. Remez Sasson

I race past him and rip my jeans off in the entry way. Obviously the spider fell out of my pant leg during the run to the house. Weird? Standing there with my pants around my ankles, no dead spider, no suspicious mark on my calf. I shrug. 

“Well this is an interesting turn of events?”

“Honest mistake,” attempting to retrieve my dignity as quickly as possible. 

He tries not to laugh, “I can do a thorough search if you’d like.”

“That’s very kind of you…but no. I’m good.”

“We can’t be too careful.”

“Yes, yes we can,” I head back to the car, inspector Larry slowly following.

“Well I’m glad we got that out of the way and you weren’t compelled to rip your jeans off while we’re tasting wine.”

“Spider venom comes in many forms. It can often take a long while to discover the full effects of the bite. Naturalists have pondered this for years: there are spiders whose bite can cause the place bitten to rot and to die, sometimes more than a year after it was bitten. As to why spiders do this, the answer is simple. It’s because spiders think this is funny, and they don’t want you ever to forget them.” Neil Gaiman

“Very funny. I think it was spiderman who was bit by a random spider and gained all these super powers. Right?”

“What?” (There it is again)

“You never know.”

Later that night Larry came down with the flu and can’t find the remote to the T.V…

“Karma’s a bitch.”

“Just bad luck.”

“I feel great, as if I had superpowers!”

“Maybe you can find the remote with those superpowers?”

“Haha, that’s what I used to hide it.”

I come to believe the key to everything is attitude. Unexpected things have a way of creeping into our lives, but a negative event can sometimes awaken our curiosity, resilience, and perseverance, which can lead to unimaginable outcomes? Or one dead spider, the flu, even superpowers?

Scientist have discovered why some female spiders eat their mates. According to data analysis, it turns out the male spiders deserve it. Unknown. 


Anecdotes: 

  • I’m only going to say this once, listen up, “Nancy was right.”
  • Scientist think that a person is never more than 3 feet away from a spider at any given time. #fact
  • That moment when there’s a spider is on you, and you suddenly turn into a black belt karate master. Unknown
  • An adult being bitten by a radioactive spider and getting superpowers is kind of ridiculous? Tom Holland
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Characteristics of Fruitful Conversation (#10 my favorite)


When I was young I would watch, okay scrutinize, how the adults in my life reacted to unexpected situations. I was searching for clues as to socially acceptable behaviors, attitudes, responses to events I didn’t know how to handle. For example how do you respond to anger, frustration, fear, or sadness in others. These were skills I’d yet to develop. 

What I learned from these close observations was empathy, compassion, and the permission to act. 

If I were being perfectly honest I’d admit to closely watching people today because I feel unprepared to manage the anger, frustration, fear, sadness surrounding our political landscape. It’s as if I’m tip-toeing around trying to avoid triggering all these landmines that have mysteriously riddled our lives.

“Let’s not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.” James Thurber

I used to trust myself. I knew what reasonable behavior looked liked, how to discuss politics, or at times debate issues without it sprawling into a heated argument. I am forever grateful my first teachers were fairly calm, kind, and responsive to the plight of others.

“Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do.” Maria Shriver

I have watched my Dad move someone from anger to calm with such grace and ease you would have thought the man was trained to do so. I couldn’t figure out how he did it but now I realize it was his presence. A phlegmatic person is like water to fire, anger needs fuel to combust, and a lot of hot air. My Dad was a fire extinguisher. Heaven really had no idea who they were letting through those pearly gates. #Hero

Courage has nothing to do with our determination to be great. It has to do with what we decide in that moment when we are called upon to be more. Rita Dove

My Dad was rather priestly, prone to the blessings of wine, and just when I need him most, he’s off traveling in new vineyards. Conspicuously unavailable, except in my dreams, which isn’t helpful because he just smiles, laughs and hugs me before disappearing as quickly as he materialized. 

I’m sort of back to square one wondering what do you do when confronted with the unexpected? Maria Shriver says, “Starting at the bottom is not about humiliation. It’s about humility—a realistic assessment of where you are in the learning curve.” I might be at the bottom but always in search of good tutors.

So I turned to my mentor Krista Tippett and scrutinized a recent talk she gave on Living the Questions. Of course it all started with a tweet!

Krista tweeted after her annual sabbatical from social media, “Heartsick at the “right” & the “left.” Politics has become the thinnest of veneers over human brokenness. The vast majority of us don’t want to live this way. It is left to each of us, where we live, to start having the conversations we want to be hearing & grow this culture up.” 

Let me just say there was some backlash.

So in courageous Tippett style she confronted the issue head-on in a podcast called Living the Questions: Can conversation make any difference at a moment like this? (Linked to full podcast)

As the podcast begins Krista admits she is nervous, anxious, apprehensive in her gut, “I think we’ve got this horrible, churned-up place in our middle as a nation right now.” She acknowledges there are huge conversations or reckonings with regard to gender relationships, sexual abuse, boundaries, but more importantly we need to create the right spaces for these exchanges. 

I thought some of her most important thoughts came near the beginning of the podcast. She talked about not only the intention behind conversations but how our discourses affect the children we are raising and the world they will inherit. Let me hear it. #Snap #Snap #Snap

She said, “there are a couple of things in what came back from the tweet that do feel really essential to define. One of them is this question about the nature of conversation. The point of speaking together differently is learning to live together differently, our compulsion as humans to share space with each other, to put words, which are very often inadequate — but to struggle to put words around our deepest thoughts and our deepest longings and our most difficult subjects — to do that with each other. That’s the root of what is happening in conversation that is at the core of what it means to be human.” She’s sort of dramatic but damn my girl makes a lot of sense. 

I looked up the word conversation and it is defined as the informal exchange of ideas by spoken words. Krista takes it to a whole new level, she says, “it’s about shared lives, listening is about bringing our lives into conversation, something much bigger than talk.” There was a lot of chit chat in the podcast so I cherry picked the ripe fruit, peeled, and sliced it for you. You’re welcome. 

Here are the highlights:
  1. There are so many layers to the truth. #Caketalk
  2. The most important conversations we’ve had in our lives, the hardest, the ones that were turning points, they have a lot of silence in them. #SilenceIsGolden
  3. We have to create safe places and trust (which has to be earned) before we can have any meaningful conversations. #SafetyFirst
  4. Conversation done well strengthens relationship. #LitmusTest
  5. A good conversations has good questions in it, genuine curiosity, as opposed to posturing. #PulpitNo
  6. If we let every important subject be framed by the loudest, most visible, or most extreme view then we lose the opportunity to explore these topics and find common ground. #DramaQueenOut
  7. It’s a place where we carry our questions alongside our answers, and we carry some curiosity alongside our convictions. #CuriositySavesTheCat
  8. I think if we could create some better spaces for conversation, just people starting where they are, and model [calmness], that is an interesting place, a robust place; that, in fact, is the heart of our life together. #PhlegmaticsWanted
  9. The vast middle is the heart of our life together. #Gospel
  10. There are some people who see it first (changes that needs to happen) and then there’s a long period of gestation. John Paul Lederach calls it “critical yeast,” where small groups of people in an unlikely quality of relationship start to create new possibilities, and then that becomes infectious. #CriticalYeast
I love the term “critical yeast,” it was the focus of the On Being Gathering Krista held earlier this year. Things were heating up politically at the time but I had no idea it would get to this level so quickly. Krista challenged us to nourish, embolden, and accompany each other, to become critical yeast, and expect a pushing back before we are able to rise.

I think we need more Phlegmatic types, those who naturally influence the way we interact with each other, the ones who exude a sort of divine calm. Someone who innately knows how to defuse fear, anxiety, and frustration before it has a chance to explode into anger and hostility. 

Krista believes if we can change the way we talk with each other we can change the way we live together. We have to do this for our children. They are scrutinizing our behavior as we speak, searching for examples of empathy, compassion, but more importantly how we accompany and nourish one another. I believe this is the true nature of our hidden unity but it’s currently under heavy fire.  

“Generous listening is powered by curiosity, a virtue we can invite and nurture in ourselves to render it instinctive. It involves a kind of vulnerability – a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. The listener wants to understand the humanity behind the words of the other, and patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own best words and questions.” Krista Tippett

I’m Living in the Gap, drop by anytime, we’ll make it so. 

Anecdotes: 
  • Thank you Claudia P. for not only a good walk today, but civil conversation, and much needed encouragement to keep moving forward.
  • You realized you were surrounded by love, that you were held by love, and that you’d had too small an imagination about that word, that thing. Eve Ensler
  • A mystic is anyone who has a gnawing suspicion that the apparent discord, brokenness, contradiction, and discontinuities that assault us every day might conceal a hidden unity. Krista Tippett
  • In anything funny you write that isn’t close to serious you’ve missed something along the line. James Thurber
Posted on by cheryloreglia · 4 Comments

Remodeling House and Spouse


Trigger warning, this post involves relationship issues, if this is your hot button, skip to the bottom, and just read the anecdotes. Next week I’m writing about why no one wants to fold the laundry, it’s not much safer, you decide.

After much deliberation, I’ve come to the conclusion my needs are not being taken seriously, the competition for common goods, funding, and resources is totally rigged. For example, today I enter the house, my home, our sanctuary after a grueling day at work, starving, with an urgent need to pee, and I’m shocked to find the house in total disarray, without even a courtesy text!

A simple, “Honey, I’m having the house repiped, it’s sort of a mess, go straight to the Hyatt Regency, check-in, relax, I’ll have a bottle of wine sent to the room, we’ll grab dinner downtown. I’ll bring a bag with your toiletries and a cute outfit for tomorrow.” Okay, honestly that’s a little fantasy of mine, it’ll never happen, but at the very least, “I’m having the house repiped, it’s a damn mess, no water, use the bathroom at work.”

In what I would call a rash attempt to remedy our cloudy water, sluggish pressure, and rusty connections Larry decides all by himself to have the entire house repiped. Now I think it’s important to mention when I recently told him, “sweetheart we need to update our thirty year old kitchen, it’s a catastrophe waiting to happen, the old grout is a harbor for bacteria,” and we ended up with a new driveway? What the hell? 

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. John Steinbeck

So I walk into a completely TORN up house, I’ll admit my reaction was less than stellar, but without prior knowledge it was a little shocking. What if Larry came home from work and I had the Property Brothers from HGTV remodeling my kitchen? Exactly.  

The contents from under the sink are strewn across the kitchen floor, in every room the furniture is shoved towards the middle so they can carve these gigantic holes in the sheetrock, the house is swarming with men, I won’t even reference the dust, grubby toolboxes (a clear tripping hazard), dirty pipes piled everywhere, and no water. Did I mention I need to pee? 
“The strewn and tangled wreckage that litters our lives is the precious raw material from which great beginnings are forged,” says Craig Lounsbrough. What else can you do? I grab an expensive bottle of wine, step over a worker to reach a clean glass, and plant myself in the dusty living room. 

When Larry passes through I politely ask, “it’s 6:00 pm Lawrence Joseph when in the hell are they leaving?” It’s a fair question. He’s running from room to room checking on the work, covered with dust, looking rather frantic. “I have no idea.” Not what I want to hear. 

What I do hear is a study stream of water coming from the guest room? I assume someone is working back there, so I continue to sip my wine, while I consider dinner options. Larry comes by, grabs the glass right out of my hand, and takes a sip, “I think they’re finishing up.” He looks so satisfied? This is when he hears the water coming from the back of the house and sort of runs towards the deluge with my glass. “Hey, dude!”

He screams, “we’ve got a problem back here,” his voice an octave higher than normal, slightly alarmed I watch him run to the garage with my glass, sloshing wine as he goes. Men are running everywhere yelling in Spanish. I see a dry vac get dragged to the back of the house. There is a lot of commotion so no one notices me drinking right from the bottle. Apparently there was an unexpected leak which resulted in a unfortunate flood. An hour later they left. I still have to pee.

With the furniture eschew, gapping holes in the walls, and water available only in the master room I forge a new plan. I don’t know about you but I’m not a happy camper. Larry says, “good news, my Mom invited us to dinner, but they already ate, maybe we can run over and see if they have any leftovers?” Perfect. 

Larry says, “And just so you know they’ll be back tomorrow to finish up.”

“That’s my day off!” I have eight loads of laundry to catch up on from the lake house, a blog to write, and a hundred journals to grade. 

“Will there be water?” 

“No” 

“How about the noise?” 

“It’s loud.”

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yeah, I don’t think it’s legal.

The next morning while I’m sipping coffee in bed, Larry comes running in the room, “get dressed, they’re here.” I sort of fly out of bed so I can use the restroom, dress, and brush my teeth before the workers descend, and the water is turned off. I set up a table in the bedroom for grading but little did I know “pretty loud” is seriously an inaccurate term. I had to dig up some earplugs from a recent flight and go about my business amidst the dust, sawing, and hammering. I ended up using the facilities only five blocks away at the local Starbucks.

Strange men have been creeping through the narrow crawl space under my house for seven hours, pulling out the old galvanized pipes, and replacing them with copper ones. It’s a complicated process. Renovating a home with a significant other is one of the ultimate tests of relationship endurance don’t you think? My strength is noticeably waning.  
Have you ever attended a marriage seminar for people who hate seminars? Our friends did and they came away marriage intact, slightly amused, and in total agreement about the subtle nuances between the way men and women operate. 

If I remember it all correctly, Travis Bieberitz (the speaker), says men’s brains are made up of little boxes. A man has a box for every subject… job, money, car, driveways, wives, etc., and the rule is the boxes NEVER touch. When a man discusses a particular subject, he goes to that particular box, opens the box, and discusses ONLY what’s in that box. Then he closes the box, puts it away, careful not to touch any of the other boxes. 

Women’s brains are very different. Women’s brains are a wad of interconnected wires, so dense they form an impenetrable ball of circuitry, no issue stands on its own, because everything is CONNECTED, and apparently driven by emotion. Which is so true. 

For example Larry’s “driveway box” was created a decade ago, it sits front and center in his wee brain, and the only thing in the box is pavers. That’s it. His “repipe box” is right behind the driveway box but not touching. As opposed to the little box hastily created on “Cheryl’s kitchen,” which is stored somewhere in the back of his brain, and it’s totally empty. So we have a newly paved driveway, new pipes, and no kitchen. I’m annoyed.

I’m sure he has a box to deal with my annoyance but while his “new piping” box is open he has no access. My circuitry is going haywire and he’s walking around with a cup of coffee, smiling at the progress, completely unaware of my near overload. Sometimes I want his brain. Deepak Chopra says, “if you restore balance in your own self, you will be contributing immensely to the healing of the world.” What a lovely thought.

Remodeling is like a crash course on the viability of a relationship. You find out what you and your partner are made of. Large sums of money are involved, plus ego, personal preferences, childhood dreams, high stress, forced collaboration — the list goes on notes Peter Pearson. 

I found an interesting exercise for couples who might be considering a remodel. Each person writes down 10 ideas or desires they have in relation to project ideas and exchange them with their significant other. Then each person circles the things that are similar, checks the ones they can compromise on, and crosses out the ones they completely disagree on. Are you laughing? Yeah, like on the floor, rolling around, kicking your legs in the air?

My List:
  1. Remodel kitchen
  2. Put in wine bar
  3. Remodel fish bathroom
  4. Remodel back bathroom
  5. Repipe kitchen for water pressure
  6. If money left, repave driveway
  7. Establish a sanctuary room with water, privacy, and dust free.
  8. Eat out during project
  9. Decide on a budget
  10. Expect to go over 20 %
Larry’s List;
  1. Repave driveway
  2. Replace piping in entire house with copper
  3. Put in wine bar
  4. Replace garage cupboards
  5. If money left, remodel kitchen and guest bath
  6. Cook in every night
  7. Stock outside refrigerator with beer
  8. Shower at the gym
  9. Decide on a budget
  10. Not one penny more
So deciding on a budget and putting in a wine bar are our only common areas of interest. But somehow we ended up with pavers, copper pipes, and I’m pretty sure the outside refrigerator is stocked with beer? “I think remodeling is in some way a litmus test for what your current relationship is and what it could be,” says Peter Pearson. 

Pearson also says the key to successful negotiation is nobody points a finger, instead of saying, “Get the hell out of my way, I WANT a functioning kitchen,” try, “We seem to disagree on an acceptable budget for the remodel.” Clearly this guy has never met my husband.

It’s more complicated than it sounds and at times it will degenerate into a little mud slinging. At that point I agree water pressure is key. Pearson also advises don’t be distant intimately during a remodel. Really? After a very long day Larry walks up to me, pulls out my earplugs, and says “dinner out tonight?” Now you’re talking and maybe I’ll consider bringing the project into the bedroom. Oh Lord, that is sure to mess up his boxes!





I’m Living in the Gap, you can drop by anytime, because I don’t live in a box! 




Anecdotes:

  • The secret to a happy marriage remains a secret. Henry Youngman
  • All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner. Red Skelton
  • After 35 years of marriage, when I have an argument with my wife, if we don’t agree, we do what she wants. But, when we agree, we do what I want! Jacques Pepin (I like this guy!)