It was like a first drink....

I am not sure when it happened, maybe it was when our girls went off to college, some of you can relate to an empty nest syndrome but anyhow it happened. I became addicted. The first few times it was weekends, while I ironed. Later, it became an all day Saturday thing, and then I became hooked and needed a daily fix.

Fred used to blame Christopher Lowell but me I know that my problem started long before with the show “This Old House”. That simple show was shoved aside for the likes of “Trading Spaces”, “Design on a Dime”, “Decorating Cents” or “Room by Room”. Then came a long string of copycats. You only have to watch BBC and see almost every hit design show on our side of the ocean was just a renamed and revamped idea from the Brits. It is no wonder they have an air of superiority around Americans.

The summer is the worst because there is time to actually put the ideas I see into place. With my out of the box mentality it is often lethal to Fred. I am slowing pulling him to my side. He has come to the point where he just does what I ask. There are telltale signs still that he wanes, like a rolling of his eyeballs when I explain what I want. My favorite thing is when he sees something in a magazine a year or two later and says “Wow! You were way ahead of your time”.

Of course my ideas give way to stories that come back to haunt me. These are the kind of tales that someday friends and family will be talking about when I am gone. Like when I painted a wall Kelly green in our master bedroom (we moved our master across hall after that one) or when I took apart the toilet and had it sitting in the hall when Fred came home (our toilet was like a rocking chair until the day we moved) and then there was the infamous time I took out an entire wall while Fred was at work. Fred was in shock for a week. All of the above happened before that first sweet taste of a home improvement program when I was ahead of my time.