Stacy Witscher

J Anders - My current kitchen was like a UUUUU, but I opened it up to the family room and reconfigured it so it's open on the family room side and has a door to the garage and one to the dining room. 10x13 seems like one of those awkward shapes, too big for a galley style but a little too small for an island.

The speed rack was a gift. I think my mother got it from amazon, but any restaurant supply store will have it.

Turkey burner sounds like a great idea, I'll keep that in mind. At some of the restaurants that I worked, we had faucets over the stoves to fill stock pots. I'm not so lucky at home. And I'm probably building a straw bale house, plumbing will be congregated on interior walls.

I've used one of those knife sharpeners before, most of the time I use a whetstone.

I don't like electric stoves because of the lack of control. If something is boiling over on a gas stove, all I have to do is turn it down, on an electric stove you have to move the pot. It never even occurred to me to worry about the air quality when using a gas stove. I've never had a problem with that. The stove has a hood, and there is a window in the kitchen.

I think that I come from a different perspective with this. I'm tired of people buying houses on busy streets and then expecting the traffic to change to suit them. People putting up snarky signs always brings out the worst in me. That being said I'm a very defensive driver, so maybe what bugs me is the assumption that I'm reckless.

My house right now is 73 degrees F. It's 63 outside, for summer this is a bad combination. Let me preface this discussion with, I live in the SF Bay area, the climate is/was very mild. I think the high today was 75F. In spite of all my efforts, window coverings, increased insulation, closing things up in the morning and opening in the evening. This house is a nightmare. Now, I'm moving in about 7 months, so I'm not looking to do all kinds of stuff, but it does make one think.

My house is older, about 1950's, and is better built than later tract homes. Why isn't there more talk about changing building codes to include passive solar design?  How is this not relevant to climate change? Why are so many still looking to technology to save them? It's part of what got us into this mess.

Frustrated and hot.

What I'm looking for in a kitchen has changed over the years. The house I'm building isn't going to need multiple work spaces because it's being built just for me. That being said I do tend to spread out. My current kitchen is 9' x 16' and I have to say I think that it's the perfect size. I'm having trouble finding examples of kitchen this size in natural building. And I do want extra storage like a garage for canning pots, dehydrator, meat slicer, etc.

The plan is to also have an outdoor/summer kitchen. Hopefully, with a low canning/stock burner. It's getting harder and harder to lift heavy canners to the stovetop. This will be shared with my daughter and any guests we have on the property.

I've never had problems with refrigerator/freezer not keeping things cool, although I did have one that dripped inside.

I think that the most important thing is good knives and a way to keep them sharp. Unfortunately I've never been very good at knife sharpening, but I'm working on it. But I still can't go back and forth between my western knives and my Japanese knives, the different angle throws me. My go-to knives are a serrated knife, a chef's knife and a small boning knife that doubles as a paring knife.

I also have a speed rack that holds sheet trays or half sheet trays. I love this. It's on wheels, so I can move it around. When things come out of the oven, the sheet tray gets put right on the rack to cool, and it holds about 8 trays or 16 half trays. I've also made screens for drying that fit into the rack.


I loathe electric stoves, but so many of the properties we look at have them, some even those horrid glass tops. We will definitely look to replacing with gas. And likely gas and wood for the outdoor kitchen.

Such an interesting thread. Marriage means so many different things to different people. My ex says that he and I were looking for different things. I said you'd be hard pressed to find a spouse that didn't expect you to come home most of the time. He just really didn't want to be married with children, which is fine, but it would have been better if he had figured this out before.

From reading other people's post and the OP's post, I will say my experience seems quite different than many people's today. I had children young, and then married young. He was older and I believed the words he said. This seems a fatal flaw of mine, believing people's words. The last couple years, I constantly remind myself to watch people's behavior, don't listen to their words.

I stayed because things weren't that bad, he wasn't abusive or cheating for a long time. But unhappiness takes its toll, and things got worse.

I have to say, I've had a lot of terrible things happen to me, but marrying him was the worst decision I ever made. And I'm the happiest I've been since having babies. I love babies.

Rob Lineberger - why would it be a long year? There isn't much difference between being separated and being divorced. Here in California, the only real difference between a legal separation and a divorce is with regards to remarriage. My ex and I were legally separated for about 5-6 years prior to us filing for divorce. In fact, the paperwork is identical, it's just a box to check for separation or divorce.

I totally agree with Joseph. Life is too short to put up with an incompatible marriage.

Nicole - while I acknowledge your experience might be different, most marriages break up because a spouse is abusive/cheating. People don't leave good marriages, in my experience.

While it is doubtful that I will ever have that kind of romantic relationship again (my choice), differing expectations can enter all kinds of relationships, see the thread about volunteers that make you go hmm. I struggle with this with my adult children.

But whatever you decide, I wish you well.

Sometimes I use citrus peel infused vinegar as a weed killer. I like to infuse distilled white vinegar with citrus peels  for about a year, then I use this for a weed killer and a heavy de-greaser.

Close to the house for around pavers and cracks in the sidewalk, I like boiling water, the best is boiling water from boiling pretzels (quite alkaline).

I do think that the urban vs rural thing contributes here in the west. As my racially mixed daughter and I are looking for property, most people we know carry on about how this area or that is racist and/or redneck. So we have traveled to areas that we are considering and looked at the racial make-up, typically most areas have had significantly less asian populations from the Bay Area. That's been the big difference. We try and keep an open mind as well. Just because an area isn't highly diverse doesn't necessarily mean they are racist.

I'm loving the foot shots Joseph. I love being barefoot, connected to the earth. I'm still transitioning back to barefoot after plantar fasciitis and achilles tendonitis issues. I'm working on transitioning to fox-walking as well. It takes some calf strengthening, and some realignment. My oldest has always walked on the balls of her feet, almost tippy-toed, and it works great for her.

I also have a wide toe spread, years of being barefoot and pregnant (my choice). Good times.