Return and a Spring in My Step

There is nothing quite like being away from all the tech stuff I have come to accept as a normal part of my every day life. Having the hard drive die was beneficial in that it gave me a new perspective on how I am living.  I hope I can now have the fortitude to only open this computer when actually needed and there is something meaningful to express. I also want to catch up occasionally on all the people I signed up to follow.  

I used the past couple of weeks to work on painting the kitchen walls and finally deciding on what to do about the cracked, stained, gouged 35 year old linoleum flooring and chipped, gouged, stained 35 year old plastic laminate countertop. I am ashamed to admit we are going for vinyl. Everything else is out of our price range. On the plus side, the new vinyls are much better than they used to be and can even be recycled when their useful life is over. We chose the best with a 20 year warranty and should not be damaged by doggie toenails...I hope.  And it LOOKS so much like REAL tile that I was amazed! Normally I despise stuff that is made to look like what it isn't but the most attractive patterns are the ones that look exactly like ceramic tile. Unbelievable. I am having to rethink all my prejudices, which is not a bad thing.  Still, I so want to be environmentally responsible and feel major guilt that I am contributing to the oil dependency we all suffer from. At least it is now effortless to find zero VOC paints (I had to send away for them when we first moved to this house to paint the bedrooms). They are slightly more expensive but not outrageously so.  Money. It only takes money to be able to buy the products that have the smallest footprint it seems. We are keeping the cupboards we already have. They are also 30 years old, partial plywood and plastic with real wood doors. No way we can afford to replace those. We will sand the doors and take off the plastic corners and replace with wood and maybe put on some handles and knobs (they have none at the moment). Can't paint them, except for the doors, as paint would just peel right off. It WILL all look much nicer from a cosmetic point of view when we are done. Right now we have to wait until some money Bob inherited from his Dad can be moved up here. That is turning into a crusade in itself. Due to homeland security issues you can't just move money from a US account to another country, even your own money and accounts without major hassle. We're talking around $5000 here, not Ft. Knox, but rules are rules we keep being told. Oh well, I have patience. We've been waiting nearly seven years to fix up this kitchen, another month or so isn't the end of the world.

The yellow I picked (with trepidation...would it be TOO much??) is indeed bright, but very very cheerful, and has a "country" look that works well up here and is good for the many rainy, grey days we have, being that this is rain forest country. I love the changes in the colour when the sun is shining too - everything from lime to orange glows, bounces, and moves across the room as the sun moves across the sky. I have all these odds and ends of blue, yellow, and white china pieces, and a few paintings that seem ideal in this environment, which makes me smile and there can never be enough genuine, heartfelt smiling going on in my opinion.