Throughout my childhood I was repeatedly called a dummy by my dad. When I was “asked” to help him, I’d be repeatedly slapped in the brain by verbally being called a dummy whenever I didn’t meet his expectations while preforming a task.

If I grabbed the wrong screwdriver, I was called a dummy. The wrong hammer, you dummy. If I broke a nail while trying to pound it through a board. You guessed it. I was a dummy.

I believe my dad was the victim of generational abuse, but I have no way to confirm that. What I do know is, I believe I was so much like my dad that it forced him to deal with emotions and behaviors he was not ready to deal with. This is why I was a dummy.

I was dumb, because I may have been repeating his downfalls. I was him—only younger. When I didn’t know how to use a hammer. I was dumb. When I didn’t understand how to use a wrench, I was dumb. When I crashed a car, I was dumb. Okay. Several cars. But damnit, stay with me.

When I was veering off course in my dads eyes I was dumb. Not because I didn’t know what I was doing, but rather, I was repeating his mistakes. Perfectly.

Now. Here I am asking myself if people are dumb because they don’t see things the same way I see them. They don’t build things the way I build them. They don’t fix things the way I fix things. Are they dumb? NO. They are individuals. They function the way they function.

Don’t change that.

So I say to my dad, thanks. Because I was dumb, I observed more intently. Because I was dumb, I listened more intensely. Because I was dumb, I taught.

Thank you, your son John

Most of my life I have performed. I’ve been a member of several bands. I have stage-managed several plays. I have been a stage hand. I have been a member of several flight crews for stage performances. I have participated in group art shows. I have had solo art shows. And, I have worked in the highly creative advertising industry.

I don’t tell you this to impress. I tell you this in hopes that you will understand that all of these activities bring on extreme highs and extreme lows. As you work toward the performance date there is excitement. You ride the high that comes with the uncertainty of whether or not this performance will be widely accepted by those who attend. Then the curtain comes down. You take a deep breath. It’s over. Everything you’ve worked so hard to bring to life, is over.

You repeat.

I can only speak to my own experiences, but I will tell you, for me, leaving the stage has always been a struggle. When you spend months, or years preparing for a performance—whatever that may be—and the audience responds with excitement and joy, it feeds you. It feeds you in ways most people will never understand. Then, in a blink of an eye. It’s gone. The show ends. You’re sitting by yourself.

You repeat.

Shows come and go, but the hardest thing I have ever done, is aged. As you age the stage gets smaller and smaller. You become more and more invisible. The experience and stories you’ve accumulated over the years are welcomed by few.

Leaving the stage is hard. Leaving the stage can be the beginning of something new. Leaving the stage is something we will all do. How gracefully we leave, is up to us.

Break a leg.

Drill? Check. Drill bit? Check. Snowshoes? Check. Hammer? Check. Buckets? Check. Lids? Check. Spiles? Check. Water? We’ll eat the snow. Strong heart? Fingers crossed. Okay, let’s tap some trees.

Tapping trees to gather maple water, which wlll become maple syrup is a dance with nature. From selecting the trees, to gathering the maple water, to boiling it all down into syrup can be an elegant dance with the love of your life or you standing alone in the corner of the junior high gym swaying off beat to the music. You could say, one has to channel Euell Gibbons to truly feel empowered. I also realize not many people who read this will know who Euell Gibbons is, but let’s just say that I once ate part of a cat tale because of that bastard. Or, was it a pine cone. Anyway, I digress.

You begin to stalk the trees. Looking for the ones that might yield the most maple water. You walk up to your first “victim”, you apologize to it for the hole you’re about to drill into its side and then thank it for it’s cooperation. Or should I say, perceived cooperation. You drill, grab a spile and start tapping it into the tree using your hammer. Each stroke of the hammer lands with a thud. The pitch of the thud changes. You’re in. You hang a bucket. Place the lid and move on to the next tree.

You maneuver through the maple bush like a cheetah who hasn’t had a crunchy corn puff snack in months. Selecting each tree with care. Carving out a path that will make it easy to gather the water when the buckets fill. When you finish. You throw your head back and belt out a maniacal laugh.

You wipe the sweat from your brow. And wait.

When renovating a home or building a new one, the amount of decisions you have to make is mind boggling. Your brain starts to turn to mush. You wake up in the middle of the night questioning the decisions you’ve made while designing the house. Should I have put the main door somewhere else? What do you mean we have to move the steps to the basement? Why is there a post where the shower faucet is going to go? You break out in a cold sweat when the contractor asks a question and needs the answer by yesterday.

Since my last blog post we’ve rounded the corner. The last of the existing walls was torn out and rebuilt. The structure for the new roof went on, although it’s higher than we wanted, but the decision had to be made. The windows went in. We were delivered the wrong front door, so now we need to wait for a new one. The sliders will be coming soon. The next few weeks are reserved for plumbing and electrical. Lots of decisions to be made during this time. Where do all the switches and outlets go. What controls what. Where exactly are the toilets going to be located. What about the sink and shower heads. And so on, and so on.

The interior images above show where the kitchen will go and pantry, the dining room looking into mudroom, the hallway to second bedroom and bath, the view out master bedroom window and the living room.

If you ever feel you want to renovate your house, don’t. Sell and buy one that’s already finished. I’m kidding, kind of. The process is bit crazy at times, but if you have a good contractor, which we do, the process is more manageable.

We are at the point where the finish line is in view, but there are many decisions still to be made.