The Kitchen of the Inner Hippie

 Today is the day of destruction. We've waited and dreaded the pulling out of the upper cabinets, but if we want the boxes of food and dishes to return to the kitchen, it must be done. Today:

 Adam had a burn pile yesterday and will have one again for these cabinets.

 The dining room looks worse and worse before it will look better!

 Meanwhile, Lady Nature is looking quite lovely, and even when she drops her decorations, she makes a carpet.

 Our camellia is blooming at last. After two weeks of vibrant daffodils in church, this Sunday it will be blood red camellias, perhaps appropriate for Communion Sunday.

 We'll need lots of shelf brackets, and they were expensive at Lowe's ... about $7 - $8 each. So Adam made them instead.

 And here, the Inner Hippie comes out in me. I decided to color many of my shelf brackets.

 I like the little red birds, but the moon-and-stars below is my favorite. I imagine my little grandchildren-to-be pointing up at them. "Oh, Nanny! There's the moon!"

Some ladies would be aghast to have such things in their kitchens. Some are saying, "Oh yeah! Love it!" Some are thinking, "Well, nice in her kitchen, but not in mine!" All of that is fine. We are none of us alike. Some of us are just ... a little less alike than others, haha!

Adam made his turn-table for his concrete art. Here, he's waxing it well.

 There's a metal rotating thingie in the middle of the boards, the disc-shaped device that you'd put in a corner cabinet for a turn-around. I bought it at the hardware store. He mounted the boards on it.

I made a batch of tea tree soap yesterday. It was unusually uncooperative.

 The day before, I made a batch of my bee balm, my most popular product.

And I finished weaving that scarf.

I do have a pretty serious Inner Hippie. It's an Inner instead of an Outer Hippie because I'm a pastor's wife, and there's only so much weird and quirky that a pastor's wife in a small Southern county is allowed to show. I proudly sport my toe ring, but that's hardly noticeable. In truth, if I weren't a pastor's wife I'd look much more like a gentle hippie off the farm as well as on it. It's why I have chickens, why I spin and weave, why I burn incense in my studio (well, I just like the aroma). It's also why I enjoy meeting other women who are way off the spectrum of normal, who love nature and growing things, who are a little awkward in social situations, who would identify with my desire to weave my own cloth and make my own clothes, and live in some communal group and tend sheep for a few years. 

A few people have unwittingly encouraged me over the years in my Inner Hippie. Some gave me books, some invited me to their farms, some taught me old-fashioned skills, but most were just so interesting to meet. Hippie people are never boring, and they are usually kind and gentle-spirited.

Well, I hear Adam thundering around in the kitchen, battling dry wall.

 Not suitable for company.
It turns out, yes, there is dry wall behind the bump-outs. But not finished dry wall.
Adam says this will be a lot of work, work he's not particularly good at, and it will take a while.

If you want to see some talented hippies building their own stunning house, here's a show about it if you click on this link.
Sadly, after finishing this amazing house, it burnt to the ground on New Year's Day this year. I think they plan to rebuild.