You're My First Mate

I'd like to give a thank-you to my father and stepmother for instilling my DIY ethic (the other woman in the photo is my Auntie Em. Yes, I really have a wonderful Auntie Em. How Wizard of Oz-esque!!)

They taught me how to do things by hand such as having me out early in the morning in the front yard mixing cement. They gave me guidance when I was stripping the white paint off my first Heywood-Wakefield chair. I basically learned that there was virtually nothing out there that couldn't be restored.  This is my favorite quote from "The Lovely Bones": 

  

Susie, hobbies are healthy,

they teach you things.

Like what?

  

Like if you start something,

you finish it -

you don't stop until

you get it right.

If you don't get it right,

you start over again...

and you keep on going as long as you have to.

That's the way it is, that's what you do.

It's perfectly normal.

You know Granpy taught me to do this,

and now I'm teaching you.

We're creating something here, for us.

Something special.

- I know

You're my first mate, Susie Q. 

One day, all of this all will be yours.