Project Kitchen!

I'll admit it. For the last year (maybe two), I have been 'et up' with the thought of remodeling my kitchen. The long hours spent planning and researching and obsessing have brought me to this latest combination of cabinet/backsplash/countertop.
I'm sold on the idea of an IKEA kitchen. That entails either (a) traveling to Pittsburgh, Charlotte or Cincinnati and renting a truck to haul everything home, or (b) ordering by phone or online and having it shipped here. Neither option is inexpensive, but I expect that we will save over $8,000 in the long run. Most of the savings will come from us assembling and installing everything but the countertop.

Brad and I have put a lot of sweat equity into the house this year. We pulled up carpet and were rewarded with nice hardwood floors underneath. We redid the walls in the dining room and living room. And after the kitchen is done, we still want to replace our deck, stain the exterior of our house, and put tile floors in several rooms of the house. We also need to put something on our downstairs walls where our cat has decimated the nice cork tiles. But you know what? It's about time. In the ten years we've lived here, other than painting, we haven't done much to the place. Normal wear-and-tear (plus two kids and an evil cat) has definitely taken its toll.

So what color would you suggest for the kitchen walls? Floor? Encouragement and criticism are welcome.

You say "Toe-MAY-toe"

Inscription

Pine Grove Cemetery, Ravencliff

Located on Wyoming County Rt. 1, 10 mi. past intersection of Rt. 10 & Rt. 1 (1 mi. past Ravencliff, WV), behind Pine Grove Baptist Church (organized 1869), situated on left hillside.


At foot a marble plaque engraved:

Do not stand at my grave & weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am diamonds gift on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain
under gentle autumn's rain.

When you awake in the mornings, hush.
I am the swift rush of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I did not die.

Sharing the Funny

From The Triumph of Bullshit:

Memento Mori

On July 31, 2008, my father retired from his job, after a lifetime of working. Exactly one year later, July 31, 2009, he was laid to rest at Crews Cemetery, after losing his battle with pulmonary fibrosis.

He had such great plans for retirement. He loved to hunt and fish. He wanted to travel and see more of the country, especially to visit historic Civil War battlefields and other places that history was made. He wanted to spend time with his grandchildren, and he especially looked forward to teaching his grandson how to fish, how to hunt, how to go camping and be completely self-sufficient on nature. He wanted to become a fishing instructor.

Not even a month after he retired, he began to suffer from dyspnea.

When he realized that his time was short, and became unable to get around, much less do any of the things he had counted on doing after retirement, he gave me these words of advice: Make hay while the sun shines. Don't make all your plans for the far-away future. Carpe diem, seize the day. You never know what the future brings.

I plan to make some changes in my life. I'm going to enjoy the 'now'. The Flaming Lips sing that "all we have is now, all we ever have is now." Very true. The past is gone, and the future is no guarantee. I will enjoy my family. I'll travel more, eat at my favorite restaurants more often. I will spend more time with my friends.

Here are some excerpts from my father's obituary:

Arnold Roy Keaton of Glasgow passed away peacefully at home Sunday, July 26, 2009, in the company of family, after battling pulmonary fibrosis. He was 61.

Born July 3, 1948 in Hotchkiss, Arnold was the son of the late Roy and Irma Cook Keaton.

He grew up in Jumping Branch and lived in Beckley. He served his country in the United States Air Force and worked as a professional engineer for Cannelton Coal Company, as well as the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health.

He was an avid hunter and fisherman, enjoyed crossword puzzles, cryptograms, bluegrass music, Civil War research, genealogy, and Scrabble, and collected antique mining paraphernalia.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to either the American Diabetes Association or the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.

The family also requests that you consider becoming an organ donor.

A Glimmer of Hope

As it stands now, my dad has an appointment next month to be evaluated for the lung transplant waiting list at the University of Maryland Medical Center. They are making amazing strides in the field of pulmonology. They are now using the first portable lung. They did a study which showed that inhaled anti-rejection drugs for lung transplant patients increase survival rates tremendously.

There is still a very strong chance that Dad will not be allowed on the transplant list, since he had a small malignant tumor on his lung back in October. But I am very thankful that the specialists at UMM are willing to take the time to look at him. That's a lot more than we've gotten from many other transplant centers near us.

As a follow-up to a post from a few months ago, my sisters and I would not be considered good candidates for living lobular donation. Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is considered to be hereditary in some cases, and should we be so unfortunate as to acquire this horrible disease, we would need our entire lung function.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

My dad always used to play a tune on the guitar. I never knew what it was, so in my head I referred to it as 'Dad's song'.

Today, he gave me his guitar. While we were looking at it, he was asked to play something, and lucky for me, he chose that song. I asked him what it was, and he told me, "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" which was written by Bob Dylan, but covered by lots of musicians.

This clip is not my Dad. I found it on YouTube. But it sounds the closest to the way Dad played it.

Tax Day Cometh!

Serious Stuff

It's been a tough year.

My dad has been diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis. He has 35% lung capacity and is dependent upon oxygen. He can only walk short stretches before having to stop and catch his breath. He needs a lung transplant.

Last year, as part of the diagnostic process of this health issue, he got a PET scan. The results showed a very small spot on one of his lungs that turned out to be malignant. He was fortunate to have caught the cancer so early, in Stage 1-B. The surgery to remove it went very well. Since then he has completed his radiation therapy, and is considered to be cancer-free.

Unfortunately though, to get on a lung transplant list, one has to have been cancer-free for anywhere from two to five years. I don't think my dad can wait that long.

My sisters and I have been researching transplant centers across the country. Fortunately, there are quite a few facilities that are relatively close. Some of them will perform a procedure called Living Lobular Lung Donation, which involves taking lobes from two living donors to transplant into one recipient. My two sisters and I are very hopeful that this is the answer. There are three of us - and surely two of us would be potential matches. We are all very willing to give.

We haven't mentioned this to Dad yet. We want our case to be airtight, we want to have all the answers, all the right things to say in response to his protests. This procedure is a very low risk for donors. After donating a lobe, one's lung capacity is only decreased by 15%. And it will make a world of difference in the life of the recipient.

Thar Be Hardwoods Here!

We did it! Yesterday Brad and I pulled up our old carpet and found hardwood floors in decent condition!


I'm now trying to figure out what our next step should be. The floors really need to be cleaned, but I'm not sure what to use to clean them. How you clean them depends on how they're finished. I'm not sure what was used to finish the floors years ago before they were buried under wall-to-wall carpet.

One site says vinegar is the best thing to clean hardwood floors. Another says to never use vinegar, under any circumstances. This site says Murphy's Oil Soap is the way to go. But this one says that's the worst thing you can do.

Grumble. I'm sore. And I hate not knowing what to do.

But the floors are very nice.