Yeah, it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

(Don’t vomit.  I know it’s not even Halloween yet!  But, we are on that holly jolly slippery slope to Merryland!!!)

(I am a Christmas freak by the way.)

In the spirit of almost-Christmas and in my new attempts to look at the light at the end of the tunnel, I am going to talk about our kitchen as if I were to actually like it.

The new and improved look.

I believe– and I can’t be certain without looking back and quoting myself directly– that I, only several young months ago, referred to my husband as a deranged Adderal-driven handy man.  (I later took that back.)  I also referred to our home– possibly more than once–as a modern day version of Amityville.  (I don’t think I did take that one back.)

I don’t know how much I’ve written about our kitchen.  (You’re probably sick of hearing about it.)  Or, how in depth I’ve described the utter hell that our kitchen has put me through.  (Have you read Dante’s Inferno?)  But, nine months ago, when we had a pre-toddler who couldn’t tell the difference between a cheese stick and a nail, and I was washing sheetrock dust off of toys and dishes in our only bathtub, and we had no working appliances except a microwave that was hoisted up on TV stand in the living room, things seemed pretty damn dreary.

And, unfortunately, the kitchen still isn’t, well, fixed.

But, I am committed to looking on the side of joy!  Oh yes, I am.  I was just able to warm some milk on the electric range and am now enjoying perhaps the best cup of hot cocoa that I have ever had.  (Double Chocolate Hot Chocolate Mix by Indulge by Shonfeld’s if you are interested.)

We have a sink now and some countertops and the fridge is back where it should be and not by the front door.  The floor, while it still has some missing pieces, is mostly glued back together and is fitted with natural Italian stone. (Though I preferred the hardwood.   Still, I’ve promised not to be negative.)

Those are all great things.  A lot to be happy about.  Here ye!  Here ye!  The kitchen that I did not ask to be remodeled, that was a pile of ashy, wall-less mess when I came home from a three-day vacation in Connecticut, is now beginning to resemble a kitchen in an actual home.

Sip. Sip. Sip.

Oh yes, stay positive.

You may not think so, but I have changed my tune.    Now when I’m in therapy (and no, for you new readers, it was not the kitchen that sent me there) and my therapist asks “What do you like about the kitchen?”, I no longer say “not a damn thing” but rather “well, I think I like the back splash.”

The back splash.

The apple of my culinary eye.

Our back splash.  Our baby.

You see, now, when I begin to get anxious or angry or livid or on damn hot fire, I can just breathe in deeply, think about Christmas, and look at our back splash.  It is the one thing in the kitchen that seems to make sense.  It looks hopeful.  It has potential.  It screams a certain level of pure artistry.

Even unsuspecting visitors who walk into a home that appears to be solid on the outside but is, in reality, all sorts-of oddly jumbled up and gooey on the inside, comment on the back splash.  (I don’t know what I mean by describing the interior of our house as gooey.  But, it seemed to fit the overal feeling I get when I walk inside.)

“Sorry for the mess,” I’ll say.

“Ohhh, but the back splash,” they’ll return.

The back splash, that fine looking piece of unfinished business, has become my mantra; my beam of hope.   If I’m not in the mood to make love or even snuggle, I look inward and visualize the back splash and it helps, oh how it helps.

(You can tell that it is three in the morning.  I’m talking all sorts-of gobbeldy goop.  I don’t actually envision the back splash when confronted with any sort-of sexual situation.)

Still, I am happy to have something to hang on to when I’m feeling glum.  Because, in reality, there are lots of good things happening in our home.  Silas’s Thomas the Train track spread all along our living room floor and hallway is one.  The fact that Paul and I are beginning to work as a team again and not a pair of autonomous freaks is another.  The reality that our home is starting to be filled with music and theater and dancing and laughing again is one big one.

And, yeah, it’s about to be Christmas.

So, three cups of holiday cheer to finding a place in your home that feels like peace even amid the ugly chaos. 

(If you’re having a hard time finding one, you are welcome to try conjuring up mine.   I won’t even get jealous.)

Deranged husband?  Not so nice.

Especially when he left little sticky notes around the house saying things like “Write.  Read.  Garden.  Relax.”  Now I’m a real schmuck.

In other words, I am sitting in the glider brought from Silas’ room to our room watching our son asleep in our bed.  (It was Daddy night as I was off performing in my first improv show in months.)  He’s gorgeous and it is hard to imagine that he once lived inside my body.  Plus, he’s such a ball of peace when he’s sleeping. 

My improv show went well.  I’m tired.  I really just wanted to state my, uh, apology, and make sure I was on my blog today.  Off to a novel and some beddie bye…

First let me not recommend The Other Boleyn Girl—novel or film.

That said, it is garden time again.  Thank God.  The lilacs are blooming and I’ve got kale in the ground.  Life seems good.  Or, at least better.

Recently, in couple’s therapy, I stated, with no humor in my voice, that living in our house is like living in Amityville.    This house that seems to be constantly mutating but never really improving,  this house that seems to have possessed my husband with a deranged adderal-driven handyman who cannot finish what he’s started, this house in which the evil stifles me as me walk through the front door and holds me in its depressive clutches until I leave again.

At least, it lets me leave.

For now.

So, yes, praise God, it is garden time—that 20 X 20 plot of earthen solace that promises to keep me from turning allworkandnoplaymakesemilyadullgirl over and over and over again.

That plot of earth that provides me with that oh–so-coveted “space”.

So, regardless of the fact that I may came home to—Surprise!–   a “work-in-progress” bedroom, I was able to bolt for the garden,  barefoot and in a sun dress,  and water the shell peas and pull at the weeds and tug at the dirt with a hoe and shovel.  I was quite cute and very dirty and free from the kitchen, basement, garage, bedroom, unfinished fireplace demons.

And Silas was able to run around our big back yard yelling “Melmo” (that’s Elmo) because even though he can talk real smart about birds and trees and flowers and stuff he’s also possessed.  The house has him worshipping that cute little red guy with a faith and passion that far surpasses any that I have seen.

I could pause every few moments and laugh at my son and be thankful for these 24 brand new hours.  I could even forgive my husband for his weakness against the evil and me for my recent weakness against chocolate.  (Speaking of, hold on a minute…  There!  Ahhhhh…)

I am just so flippin’ relieved that it is spring!  I’m almost feeling optimistic and I’ve been having sex.

So, there, that’s that.

Happy spring.

Hasta Manana!

But, no.

Instead, this evening, I ate dinner out of a Zoo Pals turtle bowl cross-legged in a pile of mashed flax flakes on the Oriental rug on the living room floor.  And, yeah, I was drinking organic french wine from a Burt and Ernie cup.

I swear, things haven’t been this bad since college.  By the sounds of it, you’d think I’d been doing lines off the counter top around the bathroom sink.

No such luck.

But, before, you judge me too harshly, let me say:  our kitchen has been demolished.  Yes, with a hammer and I don’t know what the hell else by my husband and his brother while I was spending the weekend with my grandma and grandpa in Connecticut.

No, I wasn’t made aware of the destruction plans.  Yes, it was a complete surprise (shock?!?) when I came home.  Yes, the refrigerator is in the living room.  No, we don’t have a kitchen sink or a stove.  No, we don’t even have walls or floors, or a friggin’ toaster.   Yes, that means I’ve been doing dishes in the bathtub and cooking in the microwave.  And, bonus for you, you did remembered correctly.  I also have a toddler running around.   And, holy shit,  there are nails on the floor in the pantry.

Talk about throwing ideals out the window.  I just hope Broccoli Bites are, as promised by their propaganda, a good source of iron and a healthy substitute for a home-cooked meal.

I can’t speak for my husband.  So, I can’t tell you what was going through his head when he started tearing our kitchen apart appliance by precious appliance.  I mean, yeah, it could have used some remodeling, but I’m now questioning whether or not mouse spent the weekend running back and forth from the meth house while the cat was away.
(Meth happens to be our county’s drug o’ choice.  Not a habit of ours.)

So, uh-huh, you guessed right, I’m back to an anti-anxiety pill every evening before I return home.  And, you know what,  I’m okay with that.

You may have noticed, if you’ve read my earlier posts, that clutter–not excusing piles of sheet rock ash and old cabinet splinters– sets me just a bit on edge.  I can barely handle a pile of unfolded laundry never mind a absentee kitchen.

So, aside from my leaning on the little blue ones– which allow me, for better or worse, to enjoy my homemade pizza (okay he got the oven working last night, but we still have no counters or sink, or dishwasher, or table, or floor…) in a pile of crushed flax flakes– I’m pretty proud of the way that I have been handling the situation. I mean, I’m writing now aren’t I?  I could very well be a puddle on the bathroom floor.  (Yes, we still have one… for now anyway.)  I even made my daily trek to the gym before work this morning.  (Yeah, I just threw that in for a round of damned applause!!!)

Well, maybe applause is what I’m after.  Maybe not from you per se, but from myself.  I know I don’t often take the time to celebrate my accomplishments.  But, in this case, the fact that I haven’t gone off the deep end (and I know I was expected to as my family about freaked when they hadn’t heard from me in eight hours…) is an accomplishment.  And, I am proud.  I’m so proud I’m going to crawl into bed early and read Eclipse. (Yeah, it’s the third book in the Twilight series.  And, no, I’m not ashamed.  Well, not very ashamed…)  Because, despite the INSANITY around this place, I seem to be chillin’ like a villain.  And, it’s damn nice.

So, excuse me while I go cross my fingers that two seventeen year old fictional characters might actually “do it” someday and leave the corn flake clean up to my over-energetic husband.

Maybe I’ll even take a bath if I can scoop all the sippy cups out of the tub.

Wish me luck.

I’ll be in touch soon.