kitchen

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Sometimes A Kitchen Can Be A War Zone

I just left the kitchen for a few hours because I’m uncomfortable with the production going on in there.

I’m not one to really hang around the kitchen other than at meal time, but today there is a much bigger reason to stay clear.

There seems to be two chiefs in the room at the same time.

Our son is home for a day or two – a quick little stay over to hang with his Kingston buds and take in an event. He also thought this would be a great opportunity to cook up a whole lot of food with his mother.

The idea is to end up with weeks of meals that he can freeze and then reheat without a lot of preparation.

The idea is a great one; it makes good sense … but it’s all happening in our kitchen and not his.

Why I’m staying clear is that we have two chefs who are claiming to be in charge of this process and no one is giving an inch.

Mike has a plan for cooking his chicken thighs: breaded and sitting in an inch of oil, frying away in the oven.

These things can’t be healthy, but apparently they taste great with all that grease. … I’m imagining the same kind of greasy results you get when you eat chicken from KFC.

This is not the way Lily would cook the chicken, and there have already been some attempts on her part to change the process.

But Mike is having nothing of it. It’s his way all the way. He wants the grease to coat his stomach when he eats this stuff.

Lily, on the other hand, is concerned that the grease will coat the inside of her oven which, I might add, is under six months old and is viewed much like Gollum’s precious.

Lil was hovering a little too close for a while, mere inches from the young chef. I was able to get her attention and she moved back to a couple of feet away.

I knew at that point that being in the kitchen for any length of time was not something that was healthy for me … I’m not talking about the grease in my arteries from eating his chicken, I’m talking about being in the direct line of fire in a battle zone.

The tension is real. Lil is trying to edge her way into the process. Mike is acting like he has been doing these things for ten years and he has a few things to teach his mother.

You can see the bite marks on her lips as she holds her tongue from engaging full throttle.

They are both trying to find their way, and some common ground where they can be in the kitchen cooking together, with no fear of a food fight.

Now that I’ve retreated away from the heat of the kitchen, it seems that the young chef has actually taken a few tips from the pro with appreciation.

I think it will be safe to go back in there some time soon.

Here’s the thing: Control is something we all want. We like to control our environment, our decisions, and actions. But as much as you think you are the best judge of yourself, there is one who is better. God knows you more than you know yourself, and although giving up control to Him is hard, it is so much more beneficial to you.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What’s your control issue? Leave your comments below.

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It’s Like We Have A Brand New Kitchen

With just a little paint, our kitchen will be finished, for now. We’ve been working on our kitchen for about two months, but it’s coming to a close soon.

When I say “we”, I mean Lily and the people she has employed to work on it.

I have to say that the project is looking really good and the little things we did have made a huge difference in the look of the room.

Don’t get me wrong, Lil is not done. She still wants to get a new dishwasher and fridge, but those are going to have to wait for a while – the old ones haven’t died yet.

What won’t wait is new lighting in the kitchen. Apparently, the new lighting we purchased about 3 years ago (Lil says it’s more like 10 years, but who’s counting?) does not go with the new look of our kitchen. That means we have to take out perfectly good and relatively new lighting so we can spend more money on getting something that she will feel better with.

In my parents’ day, you fixed things in your house that were broken or were getting worn out. You didn’t just change something because you wanted a new look.

That’s why in some homes that were built in the sixties and seventies, you still might find a blue toilet, or an avocado-coloured bathtub.

They worked so why replace them?

That’s not how things work today. You make one change and that will start a ripple effect of changes to make everything match the first change you made.

Maybe it’s better that we do things this way now. It prevents you from going to use the washroom and finding yourself in a time machine that has transported you back to 1974, leaving you afraid to look in the mirror for fear you might be sporting an afro, big bell-bottom overalls, no shirt and platform shoes!

I had an outfit like that back in the day – minus the afro.

Personally, I will be glad when we are all done and there are no more … oh, one more thing.

I like the changes but I’m going to have to get used to opening and closing cupboards again. It’s been nice for the last month to just take whatever I needed off the shelves without opening or closing doors.

It’s too bad that the open concept look wasn’t the style Lil was going for. But really, it wouldn’t be right not to show off her work.

Lily used a special painting system to renew our kitchen cupboards. It was a four-step process, that turned our cupboards from an medium oak colour to black. That and new handles have made the cabinetry look completely different.

We also had a new counter and sink installed. Then she completed the makeover with a white tile backsplash.

Lily has done a great job on the kitchen and though I have questioned her ideas and teased her throughout the process, our kitchen truly does look stunningly new.

Here’s the thing: Your life with Christ is much the same as refinishing a kitchen: it takes time and effort to make the changes, and there will always be more changes to come. Be happy with the changes that God has made in you, but also be aware that there will be more to come. It’s like our kitchen – there will always be one more thing.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What change is God making in your life right now? Leave your comments below.

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Her Emotions Got The Best Of Her

Often it is our emotions that dictate our actions and reactions.

This morning I came back from early morning hockey to find the lights on in the living room.

Normally, on a Saturday morning after hockey, things are the same as when I left at 6:30 a.m. – dark and nothing stirring.

But this morning there was activity. There was a vacuum humming in the background and I wondered what was going on.

There were a couple of possibilities: Lily had a lot happening and she needed to get a good jump on the day, or we had a guy coming in to do the backsplash in our kitchen.

I knew that it was a guy who was going to be doing the work and his work would focus only in the kitchen, but that didn’t matter; the whole house needed to be clean before he arrived.

… Turns out that neither one of those reasons was correct.

Lily had the vacuum out because there was a trail of ants in our living room and there was no way they were going to survive on her watch.

She was so busy vacuuming the little critters up that she couldn’t tell where they were coming from or going to. But she didn’t stop talking to them … in a rather loud voice, I might add.

That Dyson vacuum really swirled those ants up. They either got a great ride out of the deal or it was like they were swooped up and taken from Kansas to the world of Oz … only there was no yellow brick road, just a garbage can at the end of their ride.

The ants kept coming though. Lily was so preoccupied with killing them that she wasn’t doing anything about dealing with the reason they were coming in or how to keep them out.

Finally I decided to remove a large poinsettia plant from the living room that may have been their destination. And Lily got some spray we had in the garage to attack them.

We wiped up around the plant and made sure that the area was clean. Then we sprayed the place where the ants were coming in, as well as the outside of the house.

You would think that after that we could get back to the regular activities of the day and let the spray do its thing, but no! Lily wanted to make sure the stuff was working so she stuck around and watched the ants curl up and die.

… It kind of amazes me that she is perfectly fine seeing that kind of a massacre but when I put on a shoot’em up, blow’em up movie, she can’t take it.

At least in my movies no one really dies; it’s all made up stunts.

When it comes to ants in her house, there is no way she’s taking prisoners alive!

As far as the ants were concerned it was a real-life horror and they were the main characters.

I think watching the hockey game tonight, no matter how rough it gets, will be tame compared to this morning’s events.

Here’s the thing:  When something grabs our emotions, we can’t let it go. I wonder if many Christians have an intellectual relationship with Christ but it has yet to get to their emotions. Faith in Christ is more than giving assent to a belief; it involves being emotionally engaged in what you believe.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What grabs you emotionally about Christ Jesus? Leave your comments below.

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You’ve Got To Know The Right Guy

Knowing the right guy is so important. When you need advice or expertise, being able to connect with the right person is invaluable.

When it comes to making or fixing things around the house, I’m pretty limited.

I can do a few things as long as they don’t involved sharp objects. I’ve just had way too many cuts on my hands to be comfortable with saws and knives. … Hey, I’ve even done some damage in the past with a screwdriver and I wouldn’t consider it a sharp object.

In the past week or so I needed some advice on the kitchen upgrade we are doing at home.

Let me say upfront, I’m not doing much on this one; Lily is doing most of the work, which involves a lot of painting.

But we were also getting a new kitchen counter and that meant we would have to disconnect the water to the kitchen sink for about a day.

There were no shut-off valves under the sink so I needed another solution … unless we wanted to shut off the water supply to the entire house for over a day … No!

The guy at the hardware store said I needed a converter piece to connect our old style pipes to the new kind of pipe and then add a shut-off valve to that.

Well, I bought all the parts and it came to about $52. I thought that seemed like an awful lot of money for 24 hours of water!

I mean, for that money, there was no ride I got to go on, or show I got to see, or course I got to play. It was just plumbing parts … pretty uninspiring.

After I bought the parts I had a few days before I had to shut the water off, so I just kept them all in the bag.

The day before I needed to shut the water off I decided to go to another hardware store to see if there was a simpler solution.

I showed the guy at the store a picture of my present hook up and he suggested a threaded cap.

It was basically a plug that screwed into the end of the pipe. It only cost me about $11 and about 10 minutes to complete the whole task.

He was the right guy to ask.

After the new counter was installed, we needed a piece of wood to span the length of the opening under the sink. It needed to be 1 1/8″ thick, and if you know anything about wood, that’s not a common thickness.

I went back to the hardware store and the wood guy was totally unable to help me; he had no solution for me.

However, the next day I was talking to a friend who works in construction and told him what I needed.

Without hesitation he said, “You need 5/4 piece of wood. You have to get that at…”  and named the supply house.

Again, knowing the right guy made all the difference in the world.

Here’s the thing: We experience a lot in life that we don’t have answers for. We come up against things that we are totally unprepared for. But no matter what it is, Christ is that guy who can help us in our need. So often we don’t go to Him first. Christ is the authority and expert; He is able. Go to Him before you look elsewhere for help.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need advice and help with right now? Leave your comments below.

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I Don’t Like Wallpaper Much

I remember why I don’t like wallpaper that much – it’s not a fun task to take it off!

I’m sure there are some types of wallpaper that can be easily removed … maybe it’s just the ones my wife picks that aren’t.

We are renovating our kitchen right now. I should really say that Lily is renovating the kitchen. She has done all the planning and work so far.

We have a new range and, in a couple of weeks, we will have a new counter. But before that comes, we needed to take off some wallpaper that Lily had put up as a backsplash above the counter.

The new backsplash will be tile.

I’m not sure if it’s proper protocol, but I would have put the tile right over the wallpaper … if it hadn’t been for Lily’s choice of wallpaper years ago!

This wallpaper has some texture to it. It looks like tile so it’s not really flat against the wall.

But really, how hard could it be to remove paper from a wall?

Well, it turns out that it can be pretty hard.

I came home from work one evening to find Lily working on the wall. She said she had been doing it for a couple of hours and she hadn’t gotten very far.

Of course I tried to help and do a little of the work. But this is what I found: this wallpaper had to come off in three layers!

There was a plastic-like layer that held the colour of the paper; the second layer was sort of foam-like to give it the texture and look of tile. Then under that was the paper with the glue that stuck it to the wall.

Each layer had to come off on its own. Let’s just say there was a lot of scraping that needed to be done.

It reminded me of the last time I took wallpaper off a wall.

At that time we lived in Edmonton and had just bought our first house. The previous owners had some pretty disgusting wallpaper on the living room walls and we wanted it off immediately.

They were also smokers … so picture Lily and I sponging down the walls with brown water dripping down from the ceiling to the floor.

The paper was an old style and pretty much cemented to the wall. It was a brutal job.

This one was cemented much the same. Lily wondered why it was so tough; she had used this same wallpaper in Edmonton. Then she remembered that she never took it off the wall there. She had just put it on a few months before we moved.

Well, the stuff we just destroyed the kitchen walls over has been up for 21 years. Let’s never do that again!

Here’s the thing: Habits stick to us like cement or some kinds of wallpaper. They don’t break or come off easily. That’s good and bad news. The good news is if we have habits that are the kind we should keep, they will stick with us. If we have habits, however, that need to go, be replaced or just displaced, it’s going to be a fight. It will take a lot of work, but you have help. The Lord is with you to help you as you deal with those habits. Lean on His muscle to remove those old habits.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What habits in your life need to be removed? Leave your comments below.

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Near Painless Method For Keeping Your Kitchen Clean

This week I found an almost painless way to keep a kitchen looking clean all the time.

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If you know me, you know I’m not really the guy you would naturally go to for tips on anything in the kitchen. I can boil an egg though. I proved it this week – two actually, and they were delicious.

My kitchen and culinary skills have never evolved to any extent and it may be due to always having someone in my life who had those skills.

It’s not that I dislike cooking, it’s that I don’t really know how to do it. I’m okay with a BBQ, and that’s probably what saved me this week.

I was away at our cottage ALONE doing my yearly planning, so I had to fend for myself in the kitchen. Almost all my meals consisted of using the BBQ.

The meals turned out tasty … with all the food groups represented in some sort of fashion.

However, with cooking there also comes cleaning. I never thought they went hand in hand before, but that was because we had a dishwasher.

The dishwasher is neat; you put the dishes in it and the kitchen looks clean.

There was a time when our dishwasher broke down and I was forced to do dishes with my wife. It was a trial and it was traumatic. I wrote a few blog posts about it (you can read them here).

This week I started off ignoring the fact that I needed to wash the dishes. I soon realized you can only do that for a couple of meals. Then the dishes pile up in the sink until you can’t get any more in and they spill over onto the counter.

So I decided to try something. When I started a meal I would run water in the sink and throw some dish soap in. Then, as I made my dinner, when I was finished with something, I would run it through the water, swish it with a cloth, and place it on the drying rack.

By the end of the meal, I only had a few things to clean up. I would quickly wash them and then dry them all with a towel.

It was simple – almost painless. I never stood over the sink for more than a few minutes and best of all, the kitchen virtually looked clean all the time.

It was amazing. I never went by the kitchen trying to avert my eyes from the mess. I never got that nagging feeling of “I’ve got to get at the dishes”.

Like a home with a built-in dishwasher is how my kitchen looked. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be happier with a dishwasher – and I don’t even mind what kind of dishwasher – either the built-in model or the live-in kind.

I’m not going to push my luck though. My new method is something that might be helpful to someone else in my family.

Here’s the thing: I’ve been reading through the Bible each year for the last 17 years. Sometimes I would get really far behind and have to exhaust myself trying to catch up. I’ve found it best to set a time and read a little bit (about 4 chapters) every day. That way you can keep up and you never have that pile of scripture that you have to clean up all in one sitting.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has keeping up with something helped keep you from being burdened with it?  Leave your comments below.

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A Plea for Understanding

This blog is for my wife, Lily.  I don’t mind if you all get in on it, but it’s really just for her. You see, we’ve been married for over 28 years and she still doesn’t understand some things about me.

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I know there are some men and women out there thinking, “My husband or my wife doesn’t understand things about me, either”.  I’m sure there is some kind of name for this, something like “misunderstandinitis”.

The other day, I heard of a condition called “affluenza” — meaning someone’s wealth can cause them to dissociate their bad actions from consequences. This condition was used to successfully keep a 16 year old out of jail after driving drunk and killing four pedestrians. Some misunderstanding!

I have a condition that causes all kinds of misunderstanding; it’s called hypoglycaemia. It’s a big word but basically it means I get low blood sugar. There is not enough glucose getting to my brain so my body craves more sugar to replace the low supply.

What my wife doesn’t understand is that this happens really fast, and I often get it around dinner time. She hasn’t figure out why I can’t wait to have dinner at 6 or 7; it doesn’t matter to her, she could go forever without eating.

I can almost hear some of you right now asking, “Well Paul, why don’t you make dinner and have it ready when you need to eat?” If I made dinner, I’d be bringing home hot wings three nights a week, pizza the other nights and for variety maybe Five Guys burgers every once in a while.

It would get a little hard on the wallet and would not be the healthiest for us … and I am concerned for my wife’s health, so she has to do the cooking. Okay, enough on that.

Back to her inability to understand me after so many years … At dinner time, I need to eat. She doesn’t understand that my body really reacts. I get all weak, like you would feel if you just ran a marathon, only without being out of breath. I also start to sweat – “perspire” may be a nicer way to say that – and I feel very hot.

I get shaky on the inside – my hands don’t actually shake but they feel like they are – and I crave something to take that feeling away. So I hunt for food, anything, chips, cookies, crackers, peanuts, ANYTHING!

All this happens in an instant. I can be fine one minute and the next, well, it comes over me like turning from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. I get all surly and cranky.

I think that if I lived with a person like that, I would want to keep Mr. Hyde hidden as much as I could. But not my wife! She is surprised every time Mr. Hyde shows up in the kitchen and dinner is 45 minutes to an hour away.

I love my wife; Mr. Hyde doesn’t like her as much as I do, but he still loves her. But man, can I get a little understanding around here?!

Here’s the thing: Often we want what we want from God but don’t think about understanding His perspective on what we want. If we are in an asking position before God, we should be seeking to understand His position … and there is no better way than to become more and more familiar with God’s Word.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What are you most often misunderstood about? Leave your comment below.

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Confessions of a Culinary Master

I’m not much of a cook; in fact I would say I don’t really cook at all.  Those who have the same kitchen skills as me might be able to say, “I make a mean Mac’n Cheese”.  But I don’t like Macaroni & Cheese, so I can’t even say that.

I do make my breakfast each morning that consists of cutting up half a grapefruit with a special knife that reduces the preparation time in half.  Along with that, I make a small bowl of Oat Bran Cereal that involves boiling water, 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt and a 1/4 cup of oat bran.  You know, just writing that, I feel, makes me sound like I can cook.

Then recently when I was alone at our cottage, and had to cook for myself, I made a meal that looked so good, I took a picture of it.

I know what you’re thinking looking at that picture, it’s got “Chef Silcock” written all over it!  When I put together this meal, how it looked on the plate impressed me so much I was compelled to record it so I could share it with others … at the very least, brag to my wife and daughter who probably wouldn’t even give me a passing grade at cleaning up the kitchen after a meal!

When I ate the meal, it was even better than it looked.  I savoured every morsel of it and when I was done, I sat back and marveled at how it had all turned out.  I didn’t get a passing grade on the clean up though.  I tossed everything in the sink to wash up sometime later.

Now for the confession:  Although I made the salad and cooked the beans, the meat had been pre-cooked by Lily about a week earlier.  She knew I was going to be alone the next week so she prepared it and put it in the freezer.  All I had to do was nuke it (however, I did that to perfection).

For the salad, the lettuce came in a large container.  I just reached in, grabbed a handful, plopped it on the plate, and added some croutons from a box and dressing.  The beans, well, that’s where my experience making Oat Bran came in.  I’ve been heating water on the stove for years!  A little water in a pan, tossed the beans in after cutting off the tips, finished with a little butter on top … de-lish.

Here’s the thing:  I can’t cook, but by all appearances from the picture it looked like I could.  By withholding information on how the meal came together, and by using words that suggested I had cooked it all myself, maybe you had an opinion of me that wasn’t true.  So, how often do we present ourselves or use words to give an impression of our spiritual state that isn’t quite accurate?

We shouldn’t give the impression that we are doing well spiritually when we are not.  On the other hand, we shouldn’t downplay the condition of our relationship with God to others either.  God desires us to live a life of integrity.  If spiritually you are struggling, don’t cover that up.  Get busy and work on it.  If you’re doing well spiritually, let others see and be influenced.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question: How do you struggle with integrity before God?  Leave your comment below.