A NEW KITCHEN

I’m going to make a statement that might seem a little confusing or strange. Those of you who know me personally may understand. For the rest of you, an explanation will follow.

I CAN’T REALLY GET BACK INTO MY WRITING UNTIL I GET A NEW KITCHEN.

All right, let’s break this thing down. Mid-September of 2023, I’m just about finishing up the fourth draft of the second book of the Wichita Chronicles. I figure I have enough time to get this submitted to my publisher, The Wild Rose Press, before they go into their holiday shutdown. I hadn’t anticipated my wife sending me a link on Zillow to a house.

We had been looking for about eighteen months, you know, hoping to downsize from a 2500 sq ft Victorian home in Historic Midtown here in Wichita, KS. We are in our 60’s, moving steadily toward retirement, and, well, better sooner than later. So, eighteen months of nothing turns into three months on a roller coaster. Closing, then getting an offer on our old house, then closing, then the holidays. Exhaustion, physically and mentally and emotionally.

Now, it is 2024. We’re unpacking, setting up all the rooms. I’ve got a basement office that also houses about 75% of all of our books as well as enough space to work out in. My wife has gone from a Craft Room to a She Shed with vast amounts of comfort for her personal and spiritual needs. She put up several wall hangings. The cats are adapting magnificently. Everything is great.

Except I’ve gone from a 27 cu ft refrigerator to 17 cu ft one; from a dial fuel Wolf range with a gas cooktop to a coil range with only three burners working; a dishwasher that can take up to four and a half minutes to start on account of it dying; and a vent hood whose light doesn’t work. This hasn’t stopped me from cooking, baking bread, and making sausages (which you are all aware of because I have often posted about such things).

My two prominent forms of creative expression is writing and cooking. I have done both independently of each other. Somehow, they have become intricately entwined. The notion of taking disparate items and blending them to a cohesive whole is invigorating to me. Yet, just making dinner or lunches for work or baking bread is not enough.

Well, that is all changing. The appliances have been ordered and will have been installed by the time you read this. Rather than going through a renovation, we are using a local company for a transformation to include countertops, cabinets, and a new sink and faucet. By the second week of February, I will have my new kitchen.

No, I haven’t stopped writing. Heck, there’s this blog post. (I also started on Book Three of the Wichita Chronicles, just because.) But, just as my office is a new level of comfort than the old house, the kitchen will be as well. It is in these new environs that I can proceed forward in all my future adventures.

Now, if only retirement can hurry up and get here!

ADDENDUM (AFTER THE FACT): As of today, right now, this very moment, the appliances are in and operational. The transformation is 95% complete (a couple of cabinet doors need to be reordered). The electrician will be in soon to finish installing the task lighting. EVERYTHING that had been removed from EVERY cabinet, shelf, and drawer has been put back (and in some cases not in the original place). I may have lost some space. What I have GAINED is a brighter, more modern, and more functional kitchen.

These are the plusses and minuses of life. The Rolling Stones famously declared that you can’t always get what you want. BUT you might find you get what you need. And, well, my needs have been met. Certainly, there are further things to be done to make this house truly our home.

For the time being (after this weekend which marks the period of insanity from Thanksgiving to the Super Bowl), I will be able to return to the fully creative processes which sustain me. The work is still ongoing but I’m closer to where I need to be.

And STILL waiting on retirement….