Making Changes

I have been busy lately with painting our kitchen. I started weeks ago, taking one section at a time so we could still use the room. I was not sure how my Dad would feel about this change so I wanted to make sure that I was not inconveniencing him too much. I am always a bit anxious about changing things around here. Although I have been here for over two years and my Mom has been gone for over four, it is only within the last 6 months that I have realized two things. One is that I am no longer a temporary resident here, my being here seems to be working out well for both Dad and I. The second is that my mother is NOT going to need things to be where they were. This may seem obvious but as I was reorganising one day the thought occurred to me that I could actually get rid of one of her carts from the kitchen. This cart held a lot of her homemade cards, and the paper and envelopes to make them and was also a catch-all for an assortment of odd stuff. When I first moved in here I had cleaned and reorganized this cart. I re-stacked papers, removed obvious trash such as expired coupons, etc. so the cart looked better but the real problem was that the cart in the way. It was a 'light bulb moment' realizing that it would be OK for me to take the cart out of the kitchen altogether. I think that in a way keeping things as they were was a kind of denial. A denial of my right to make myself comfortable here and in a subtle way a denial of the fact of Mom's death. Although intellectually I knew that removing some of her 'stuff' is not disrespectful, the feeling I had was that my changes might be seen as my taking over. While certain objects do trigger memories they are not truly necessary to keep those memories alive. And keeping everything a loved one touched is just not good, period.

Below is a picture of the kitchen in progress. Part of the ceiling, trim, and base coat of yellow done on the right (the wall paper and border had been white! shows how long it has been up!).

Below is the look with all the painting and sponging done (the yellow is not quite right in either photo).

Now since that project went fairly well, I started the bathroom.  I peeled off the wallpaper and uh oh...

Needs a bit more than a paint job, so...

it is time for some demolition...

enter the hired hand, AKA my son Buddy who does this kind of stuff for a living...YEAH!!!