Tag Archives: home

Jurassic Smurfs

I’ve had a very busy two weeks, so much so that at the end of the day, all I want to do is turn on YouTube and fall asleep on the couch. I usually fall asleep with my cats and YouTube, and I have so many subscriptions there’s no way to give attention to all of them, every day. So I leave the TV on all night so I get subliminal YouTube. OMG I wake up to some strange videos, let me tell you.

One of my favorite themes is decorating, although my favorite style of decorating is with power tools. That’s a story for another day. Still, I have three all time favorite designers, all focused on aesthetics, and they roll through my feed often. These guys (yep, guys) are my favorites, so I help them with their algorithm by watching and liking. Tonight, it was about what’s new in kitchen trends. Again. I was HORRIFIED to discover that walnut cabinets are BACK. Ugh. I like my white cabinets, and oh my god, my kitchen looks like a blizzard. White cabinets, white countertops, white backsplash. It’s my style, my favorite look, and frankly, I don’t care what anybody else says is ‘in’. And it got me to thinking…Uh oh.

You know, if you’ve read my blog entries, you’re aware that I feel a great deal of disappointment about the lack of creativity in the following generations. I was part of a generation that made a lot of discoveries, invented a lot of stuff, created great movies, wrote great books! Every day there was something new. Like optical fiber, the internet, iPhones, smart TVs, blow dryers, microwave ovens, new building materials, great new tools. SO exciting. What happened? Where did the creativity go?

We have so much exciting technology now and, is it me, or is that tech focused on reinventing the wheel? Stay with me for a second. I saw TWO coming soon movies, one Jurassic World and another the Smurfs. What in the actual hell?? Can I say, putting the word ‘actual’ in that sentence is one of MY favorite new things. Anyway…again with the remakes. REMAKES! You know that I have griped about this before.

I have been around a long time, and I live in a world where seniors are all stupid and irrelevant, have no value, get overlooked and definitely discriminated against…and yet the younger ones copy us. WE WIN, damnit. We win! You have all of the cool technology to use and you can’t dream up a new, exciting plot? Come on. Again with the Jurassic Park crap? And Smurfs? Kill me now. Slow down, put down the gaming console and controller and USE.YOUR. BRAIN. Stop copying!!

So here’s my brain going in two parallel streams again, one with nothing new under the sun, and the other, don’t tell me what to like. Which got me to thinking…hahaha. You know how this works.

I’m a real estate broker and I see a LOT of kitchens. I can tell you that the classic look never turns buyers away. But if you go with a trend, a trend…by definition will go out of style next year. Remember these decorators make their money by getting you to hand over yours, and if you are a follower, you’re gonna redecorate. You’re going to find this year’s hot color, this year’s hot countertop style, this year’s hot cabinet color and style and you’re either going to spend money to put other peoples’ ideas into your kitchen, or you’re going to wallow in the self pity of not being able to copy someone else.

See I’m not wired that way. I don’t LIKE to copy someone else, usually, except with cars. Cars cars cars. I wallow in the self pity of not being able to afford to copy someone else’s choice. I do! Every day. LOL.

So there are ‘types’ when it comes to ‘project management’. One type builds the car with NO plans, NO supplies, just runs to the store building a parts list on the way, runs back home and builds builds builds. The other extreme…me…stares at the venue, thinks, imagines, goes looking for the stuff to build it but doesn’t buy it yet, goes back home, stares some more, and then like magic, it all comes together and OFF I GO to buy the stuff, then back home to build. Both ways get you to the same end, but just two different approaches. Neither is better, by the way.

Point is, if you choose a style for your home, however you get that style into play, there has been effort put into that decor. So own it! Don’t spend your life running around chasing trends. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’ve seen MY white kitchen style come and go MANY time though the decor world. It ALWAYS comes back. Always. I win again.

Now back to creativity. Please, I beg you, no more dinosaur movies of the Jurassic type. For God’s sake come up with something NEW. Oh god I cannot bear to say Smurf. What you are doing is copying the old folks you don’t respect, taking our ideas and changing costumes, changing race and gender of the characters or heroes. That’s pretty cheap and pathetic and you should be asking yourself what happened to creativity? I think the answer will disturb you.

And can I just say, if I’m held hostage, I don’t want a girl coming to rescue me. I want a big, tall, muscular man. That is also my style and I also like it.

So there you go.

We can talk about these ideas and more when you call me to talk about the new stuff in real estate. Yep. Changes every year. I’m Brenda, with Premier Advantage Realty, at 919-210-6113.

Home is…?

I read an editorial in Smithsonian the other day, and it made me really stop and think about Home.  I am in the business of helping people buy and sell homes, so it’s easy to get into the mindset of homes as products.  This really defines home as the place people go to nest, doesn’t it?  Move the nest; the building isn’t home anymore; the NEXT building is home…the place where the nest rests.

If that is true, then home is a building where a group of people gather and it can be anywhere.   The Smithsonian article said that original homes might have been a campfire around which the usual group of people gathered, day after day.   But I say, it wasn’t the campfire…it was the people around it who constituted home.  I wouldn’t feel at home looking across a crackling fire at a stranger…would you?

So home is not a building or even a place; rather, it’s the people who gather there, over and over, day after day.  It’s the ones you know will show up, the ones who always come to the campfire.  Gather: It implies a voluntary movement towards some central point…in our analogy, a campfire.  You don’t call it a gathering if the ones there were forced to go there, or went on their own, reluctantly.  It’s a gathering if people just come, over and over, day after day.  You can depend on it, in other words.   Home eliminates a lot of unknowns, then, if you have the same ones gathering, every day, day after day: you know they will be there.  It feels safe.

If you think about all of that, it sounds wonderful, except that there are people who show up every day, day after day, to suck the life out of you and one day toss your carcass aside.  Hahahaha.  That’s not pretty, now is it?   So home must also imply some level of mutual goodness, mutual protectiveness, some level of nobody being a bloodsucker.  There are a lot of bloodsuckers out there, people!  You know its true.

So…it ain’t all good, just because people gather.  Home must be a gathering of people (and cats) who have everyone’s best interest at heart…really care about one another and are interested in others’ wellbeing as much as one’s own (might be a bit of a stretch for the cats).  Now that beats a building all day long, don’t you think?

And you thought I was going to be serious.  I tried; I really did.  But…not a chance.