Mary, We do love Hatch chile peppers and usually buy them in August. I don't know if we will do much with them this year other than freeze some as we are about to start tearing the kitchen apart in order to remodel it. I am done with canning for this year, mainly in order to be able to focus on the kitchen itself. I don't want to be trying to can in the midst of the kitchen's demolition and rebuilding. Just today I started cleaning out cabinets and boxing up stuff for short-term storage in another room. Some of my canning equipment went into short-term storage today, and more of it will go there tomorrow. We often go down to the D-FW metro during Hatch time and get our peppers at one of the Central Market stores there---they roast them in big roasters outside the store and also have them available in many, many products so we usually bring home all kinds of stuff.

I will be thinking of you this weekend as the anniversary of your son's death approaches. In the midst of the pain and anguish that I know surely accompanies this anniversary, I hope you also can reflect on happy memories you have of him and my hope for you is that the happy memories help ease the pain somewhat. My wish for you is peace and comfort and, you know, if you need to fall apart....fall apart and grieve but just don't break into so many pieces that you cannot put yourself back together again. If you need to talk about him, about losing him, about how much you miss him or anything else, you know we all are here for you. We are gardeners, yes, but more importantly we are people first and we do care deeply about one another. I've never lost a child, so I know I cannot truly understand your grief and I am sure it goes far beyond what I can even imagine, so just know I'm praying for you and hoping you will get through this anniversary, and every day before and after, with the least amount of pain possible. I know that you are a strong woman to have endured all you have endured, including the loss of your dear son and the physical pain with which you live daily, so I know you can do this. You can cope with all the feelings that this anniversary brings, and I know that you can celebrate his life at the same time you continue to grieve his death. Your inner strength will carry you through. God is good all the time, and he carries us all through difficult times that we cannot handle alone. I know he is with you now and he will be with you on this anniversary.

Dawn

Dawn, thank you. More than you can possibly know, I needed to hear those words. We (the girls and I) don't talk about it because it tears them up. My oldest girl plans to work the anniversary day so that she doesn't have it in her head. I will go out and decorate and clean around his grave. When he died, I had a double monument made, because I will be buried next to him: His part is an actual large tombstone, in black granite, and my part is a bench in dark gray granite...and it's all built together, so that it is 7-8 feet wide. I made it that way, so that I can sit and talk to him, or pray, and so that someday the girls can sit and talk to both of us. That's all I can really say, I guess. Life is not for sissies, is it? It is what it is, and I don't have a choice but to get up, get dressed, and go on. Ok. I need to move on to more productive thoughts:)

I'm excited for your new kitchen! Having said that, I don't envy you all the disruption and hard work:) But in the end, you'll be so happy with the culinary facelift! You mentioned before that you have a galley kitchen. So do I, but I bet mine is smaller than yours;) I just measured it, and not counting the breakfast area.....the total kitchen area is only 8X10. It's a small kitchen, and I have to be really organized when I can. This is the smallest kitchen I've ever had, but the house is only 1300 sq ft, because it's all I needed for just myself. I know you posted it before, but I will never find it....I think you mentioned granite countertops? Are you doing stainless steel appliances? What kind of flooring? Are you doing a gas stove? I remember you currently have a convection oven. I have been thinking about replacing my electric coil top stove with a gas stove, but it would mean having to have someone come and run gas to it.

I love Hatch chiles! Reasors, in Tulsa, does a chile roasting, but I don't drive to Tulsa anymore, and I can roast them. It takes me awhile, but it's worth it. During the winter, I make gallons of Colorado Green Chile, usually with either pork tenderloin or sirloin. I share it with my son-in-law. I always find a use for the roasted chiles:)

Mary, You're welcome. I just spoke from my heart because I know, as a parent, that there must be nothing worse you can endure than losing a child, so even though I've never experienced it, I understand it would be a deep grief that could consume a person if they let it. I know there must be a way to balance the pain and grief of the loss with the wonderful memories of your child's life, and I know you will find that balance somehow. Your son's/your own future gravestone sounds lovely. I bet the bench is beautiful and I think it is wonderful you can go there and talk to him. No, life is not for sissies, but life is beautiful, despite the often painful parts of the human existence, and I appreciate every day we have here on this earth.

You must be confusing my kitchen with someone else's. (grin) No granite for us. I'm not a granite person, though I think it looks perfectly fine in other homes. IIt just isn't what I choose for myself. Our house is a simple, country-victorian style. We wanted a house that looked like it has always been here, so people would look at it and think it was an old farmhouse, not a new-build. So, for my simple country kitchen, we're going with oak butcherblock countertops. I don't know if I'll like them, but I hope that I will. My dream countertops would be marble but I think that, as a canner, the marble's etching and such would drive me nuts, so if we decide later on that we don't like butcherblock, my other two choices would be either soapstone or one of the newer materials like Silestone, Caesarstone or quartz that look like marble. That's what I almost chose, but in the end, I love the look of butcherblock and want to have it. I think I'll love it, but then you never really know until you try it. I decided the marble would look too fancy for what I'm trying to keep looking like a simple country kitchen. The pendant light over the sink (and in the laundry room, and possibly in the breakfast room) are going to be Mason jar lights. Our appliances are black and in great condition, so we aren't replacing them. If we were, I think we would do stainless appliances, though I worry about keeping stainless steel clean. The folks I know with stainless steel have more trouble with fingerprints and smudges than I do with our black appliances. As our appliances age and die (they don't make things to last forever like they used to!), we will replace them, and probably with stainless unless something better has come along by then. Our stove has a convection oven with a dehydrate mode and I hope this stove lives forever, and our refrierator is gigantic (too big for the kitchen really, but in the spring and summer, we need all the refrigerator space for produce) and replacing it would cost a fortune. It is only 3 years old and is 33 cubit feet. I hope it lives a long time, but when the time comes, we likely will replace it with a smaller one. Our kitchen definitely is a food preserver's kitchen, so the appliances that work best for preserving large amounts of garden produce are what we have. Some day I'd love to build a canner's pantry off the north side of the house, which would put it on the other side of the laundry room, so I'd have a big storage area for all the canning and other food preserving gear and for all the canned goods.

We're undecided about flooring. Probably the tiles that look like wood will win out over actual wood. I love the look of wood floors in a country-style kitchen, but tile is more practical. Our house is all-electric and that never will change. We made a very deliberate choice not to have gas in our home at all when we built it. I know gas is a popular option but I don't like it (we had gas in Texas in an old neighborhood built in the 1940s and the constant gas leaks around the neighborhood kept the gas company busy all the time), and kept us all on our toes. I got so tired of smelling natural gas and wondering if it was our house and our gas line (it never was) or one of the neighbor's places. I don't miss having gas at all!

Yesterday I deconstructed the laundry room as much as possible, removing all the stuff from the walls, taking down the shelving, etc. Since the laundry room sits just off the kitchen, it is getting a facelift at the same time as the kitchen. I also started removing stuff from the kitchen cabinets. I'm trying to purge as I go, throwing away stuff.....you know, the stuff that ends up at the back of a cabinet and you haven't used it in 10 years and might even have forgotten it was there? Or you might have forgotten where it came from or why you have it or if you ever used it? That's the kind of stuff I'm getting rid of. Today I'm hoping to empty out more cabinets so we can remove them from the kitchen this weekend. It is a challenge, though, to find a place to put it all! And, of course, it is seriously cutting into my garden time, but I think in the end it will be work it. The only garden chore I did yesterday involved watering the plants in containers that sit in the back yard. It was hot here yesterday and by the time I had watered them, I'd had enough of the great outdoors anyway.

Tim came home from work and was sort of freaked out by how much I had done already. He had that deer-in-headlights look when he walked in the door and saw a lot of the kitchen/laundry room in the breakfast room/living room. lol. He is totally on board with the kitchen remodel, but I think he is fearful of having to live without a working kitchen, and I think he would drag his feet (he tends to procrastinate, especially if he sits down and turns on the TV and loses himself in a movie) in getting this project done, but I'm not going to let him procrastinate. If I take it all apart, he'll help me put it back together, but if I sit back and wait for him to start working on the kitchen, I fear he would keep putting it off.

The part I really dread is removing the tile floor, and I suspect that by the time we are done with that, we will be shaking our heads and solemnly swearing that we will not put down tile ever again. And then we'll most likely put down a new tile floor because human beings are funny that way.

Tim has a week-long training class in early September that I believe involves travel to another city. It seems like all he has done this year is travel on job-related stuff, and then there's another class (it may be local to the DFW metro) in November, so I hope we can squeeze in the remodel in between those two weeks that he is gone, or at least so tied up in class that it is like being gone. He is supposed to work 4 ten-hour days (ha ha ha) and have three days off a week. Ever since he took the job in the SWAT/Special Operations division he works at least five 10-hour days a week, and travels all the time, and isn't home very much, so it is hard to get things done that require his assistance. And, of course, if they have a SWAT situation on his day off, he rushes right off to work, so occasionally his weekend isn't even two days off. I've done most of the kitchen remodel planning on my own, though he did get involved in the planning process near the end, playing around with the online kitchen planner and refining the layout after I got it figured out. We're moving the fridge from one place to another and making a couple of other minor changes, but there's only so much you can do with a narrow gallery style kitchen, and we wanted to avoid knocking down walls and turning it into an overly-long and time-consuming process. I hope the process goes more quickly than I think it will because I do cook a lot and it is going to be frustrating to have the kitchen torn apart and mostly unusable. It also is frustrating that I'm sacrificing the latter portion of the garden season to work on the kitchen, but if I waited until the garden froze, we'd have the kitchen torn up during Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I completely want to avoid that as well.

Now, I want to know who has been living in our house and filling up all these kitchen cabinets with so much stuff? I also dread totally clearing out the walk-in pantry, which is narrow and deep and runs back up under the staircase. I'm about to decide that a big pantry is a bad thing and not a good thing because it allows stuff to get pushed so far back in the pantry that it is out-of-sight/out of mind.

Dawn

Dawn, your country Victorian Farmhouse, with or without remodeling, sounds absolutely lovely. I love butcher block, and I love wood floors, too. I'd have all wood flooring if I had my "druthers". My little house was a "flip", when I bought it. 35 years old, and the guy did a good job, on a budget, of making a nice, brick, sturdy as a brick outhouse, older outdated home look really cute. He had put in second-hand "biscuit" colored appliances (stove and dishwasher). He put a nice small multi-colored tile (with lots of black/peach/cream) backsplash on the countertops in both bathrooms, and I bought matching tile for the kitchen, although I've never installed it. I intend to, though. I didn't care for the "biscuit" color, so I ordered a nice black glossy side by side refrigerator to fit the space I had. It's a very small side by side, which can only be purchased through an order, but I wanted ice/water through the door. The only problem with the glossy black is that my magnets, to hold pictures of my grandsons, scratch the finish. Very fine scratches that I found when the light hit it just right, so I can't use magnets on the front of the fridge. I replaced the dishwasher a few months ago with a glossy black version, with a sanitize feature. My stove/oven is NOT self-cleaning, which is really a necessity for me as I can't get down and into the thing to clean it. It also has two burners that fall apart every time I move them to clean, and I want to replace it. I'm just holding off, because my gas water heater is 19 years old....19 YEARS OLD!!! lol It works fine, but tomorrow it may go out. I was total electric for about 30 years, but this house was plumbed for gas heat, gas water heater, and gas-start/gas log conversion fireplace. I replaced the 17 year old central heat and air last year, and it's very efficient, so that's here to stay. My stove sits against the wall adjacent to the furnace/hot water tank, so there is a gas line there, but I would need a plumber to come and just put a line to it. There is so much variation in burner size if I were to switch to gas, which would help with canning projects. But...having said all that...I'll probably just go with an electric self-cleaning stove/oven if for no other reason, cost.

Although your remodel will require some inconvenience, you will be so happy when it is all done. Maybe, when the project is done, you can post some photos for us! I know I'd love to see them.

Mary, I will be thinking about you, too. My new daughter-in-law lost a 3 year old around Labor day 3 years ago. It was a week before his birthday, so this time of year is very emotional for her, too. Last year we released balloons at the cemetary and then went and had a birthday party. I can't even imagine this pain, but I see her grief.

My first stove, was a continuous clean oven. I loved it. It had kind of a porous coating on it and spills just eventually burned off. It did sometimes cause burning odors, but I've never been much of a housekeeper and cleaning ovens was REAL low on my priority list! They don't make them any more. It was harvest gold. (yikes!) I've gone back to white appliances.

Dawn, you will be so proud and pleased with your pretty decluttered kitchen. I am the procrastinator here, which is why we haven't done any thing here in a very long time. DH is fixing up our rental house to sell. We moved out of there in 1992 and the contact paper I put in the cabinets is still there. He's decided not to try to take it out, LOL. If we sell it, maybe I'll get new floor here and paint the cabinets.

Somehow I missed out on all this kitchen renovation discussion! I obviously have been neglecting GW :) If I could change just ONE thing in my kitchen, I would really like to have a Corian countertop integrated kitchen sink. No edges, no place for dirt to get caught, just smooth and clean! If you get tile, get black grout. Or Oklahoma Red. Don't believe any lie the tile guys will tell you about sealed grout. I have a lovely pale blue tile with Oklahoma red grout. It's lovely. It was supposed to be dark gray, but they forgot to order the grout, so plain PALE gray was what got used. I think before I do anymore renovation I will just move to a house that is already done :)

Mary, your canning sounds amazing! When I move next door to Dawn, will you move in on the other side? I'll raise flowers and ya'll can keep me stocked in salsa and jam! :)

(Mary, I hope this weekend goes by quickly for you.)

Lisa

Mary, That's a long time for a water heater to last! I doubt they make them that well any more.

One reason we're not getting new appliances to go with the new cabinets is because all of ours work so well. For a long time, I pondered getting new stainless steel appliances to go with the new gray cabinets, but the more I researched online and read endless reviews, the more I decided there was a good chance that new appliances wouldn't work as well as what we have or last nearly as long, so I hated to take the chance with new ones, even though I think stainless steel would be beautiful with the new cabinets. From all the research I've done, it seems like maybe they just don't make them like they used to. For every positive review of any brand/any model, there's plenty of negative ones. So, I guess we'll hang on to what we have until the day they die, and then we'll hope we luck out and find decent replacements. My Bosch range has ruined me for any other brand, and it is well worth every cent you spend on a good one when it lasts and lasts and lasts. It's never given us any trouble.

I cleaned out about half the pantry and 5 or 6 more cabinets today. If I work as hard tomorrow as I did today, I'll have everything emptied out by the end of the day tomorrow, and we can spend the weekend taking down the old cabinets (or most of them, we will keep the sink base/sink in place anothe week probably) and hopefully get started on ripping up the tile floor, which is going to be a beast of a job. It is too hot to work outside anyway, so I might as well be working indoors. The garden looks hot and wilty today. It isn't liking the fact that the heat came back any more than I'm liking it.

Amy, When we moved to OK in 1999, Tim dragged along some clothes of his from high school. High school! (We graduated in 1977.) Can you say "pack rat"? It wasn't like he wore them (or even could wear them), but he just couldn't let them go. After we'd been here about 5 years, I told him that I was going to clean out the closet in the guest bedroom and that his high school clothes were leaving this house one way or another. He didn't argue with me. I just don't see the point in hanging on to random bits of clothing that doesn't fit you for at least 25 years. We don't have an abundance of closet space, and I was glad to get rid of that junk. He never gets rid of anything---even when he says he will, he just puts off doing it. So, by cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and pantry I am insuring this project gets off the ground because, with the best of intentions, he'd talk about it but just not get around to starting it. It is my job to make sure we both start it and finish it. I do have his love of home-cooking on my side though, so that will help.

There are things I wanted to do to the house after we moved here in 1999, and half of them aren't done yet. So, it isn't like we are good at completing little projects. We are pretty good at getting them done once we start, but finding time to get started seems to be the issue. I'm tired of having a long To Do list that never gets done, so we're starting with the kitchen and laundry room and, once that's done, we'll repaint the breakfast room and living room to match and just keep going from there. Our house is stuck in about 2005 and I am ready to bring it a little further into the current century.

Lisa, I am pretty stuck on white subway tile (a timeless classic) and dark gray or black grout. I'd like to be more adventurous, but I think I'll be adventurous with accessories that are easily changed out. There's a lime green subway tile I'd love to have, but I think I'd be tired of it in three or four years. Maybe I'll buy a handful of the lime green tile and tile a wood tray with it or something.

My favorite part of the kitchen is going to be the apron-front farmhouse sink. That's how the kitchen remodeling quest started. I just wanted a new sink. We bought it. It sat in the garage for 6 or 7 months and I kept nagging my husband to install it. When all was said and done, we decided the new sink merited new cabinets, and so, while the new sink is still in the box in the garage, by this time next week, the new cabinets should be out there sitting with it. I'm not optimistic enough to think we'll have the kitchen ready for the cabinets before they arrive, but I think that once they do arrive, Tim will be motivated to get the kitchen done because the cabinets will be sitting where he normally parks the pickup.

I've been the chief procurement officer---ordering things for the remodel. Once it all starts arriving, he has to help me install everything, or we'll be buried under a pile of kitchen and laundry room stuff. We're going to install everything ourselves. We're good at DIY stuff once we actually get around to doing it.

Dawn

When we lived in that other house, I wanted a shelf in the kitchen. Just a shelf. DH was perfectly capable of doing that, but every time I brought it up it was...maybe we should hang a cabinet there, and extend the counter and pretty soon he was remodeling the whole dang kitchen. We couldn't afford that. 13 years in that house and I never got that shelf. I believe he put one up for the renters ;).

All this remodel talk has me even more excited. I spent a 4day weekend housesitting watching tiny home and have decided to begin my build as soon as I get my trs check. I am definitely going to use salvaged lumber so I have begun gathering. I just can't spend any more money on this camper when I could use it for my small/tiny house. I haven't decided on the size but roughly 200-400sq feet. Most of that kitchen lol. And lots of windows. I don't entertain and for me and grandkid (s) it should be good size. The loft will definitely be for the kids I don't like doing stairs anymore.

Dawn I hope you take before and after pictures and share with us.

Mary will say a little prayer for you. Can't imagine loosing a child!

We love Hatch chilies. When living in Co. we always bought the roasted.

Living here in Ok. Just the 2 of us DH roasts them and we freeze them.

Would you share your Colo. Chile recipe? Please.

DH makes a lot of Chili and loves trying new recipes.

Thanks.

Mary, I am praying for you. When I lost my daughter February of last year, someone I work with reminded me that God knows my sorrow firsthand. That comforted me so much. Not sure why. Maybe because even though I love The Lord and I know He loves me, sometimes it seems He is far away. That reminder seemed to bring Him right back by my side. Even though He had never left. There is a forum on Facebook called While We're Waiting. It is for people who have lost a child, no matter what age. It helped me a lot. They have a sister forum for siblings. This might help your daughters. This is a pain no one should ever experience, but know that you are not alone and are in my thoughts and prayers.

Mary, I thought of you throughout the weekend and was hoping you'd make it through the difficult days as well as possible.

Please check in when you can and let us know that you're okay. Or, if you're not okay---if you feel that you are drowning in immeasurable grief, just remember we care about you and are praying for you and are waiting for you to return here to us when you feel ready.

Nowyousedum, I am sorry for your pain. You seem to handle it so well. I hope that, if a similar tragedy were to befall our family, I would somehow be able to exhibit the grace, strength and dignity that both you and Mary have exhibited following great loss.

Sorie, Well, there won't be before photos because we spent the whole weekend tearing out the old kitchen, which was a long, tiring ordeal, and I'm glad it is done. I'm sure I'll take after photos of the new kitchen when we reach that point, but it won't be any time soon. Now that we have torn out the old kitchen, we won't really be able to work on the new one very much at all until after Tim's business trip next week, so kitchen life will just be sort of chaotic for a while. The dogs and cats think the world has come to an end because we have messed up "their" kitchen. You know how animals are----it is all about them! At least that's what they think.

Dawn

Bummer Dawn no pictures. Oh well will look forward to the new kitchen.

BTDT and I know what a mess it is and yes the critters think it is "their" kitchen. LOL