When researching for the safety article (Page 22) this month, I chuckled at the thought of decluttering my house to create a flex room (Page 13). I visualized myself going from room to room, uncovering items no longer used or past their usefulness and chucking them into boxes to give away, trash or recycle.
The process would take a solid, ultra-focused week to completely clean out closets, desks, drawers and shelves.
Or, in a mere 10 minutes, I could relocate the 15-foot aluminum luxury liner, currently “docked” in the garage, to the curb. Ten expeditious minutes of physical labor pushing a boat — mostly downhill — would garner enough extra space in which to park a car, store boxes of Christmas items, and create a man cave corner in which to hang my husband’s taxidermy and display his awards such as the one earned for a junior high science diorama (most likely completed by my mother-in-law).
Diving to the depths of the boat’s hull, additional “treasures” could earn extra spending money. What’s the going rate on eBay for a queen inflatable mattress with only a small hole?
God love my husband for his optimism in always finding a use for something I’ve longed deemed useless. He’s the glass-half-full partner, quick to see the best, or at least not the worst, in everything and everyone. That’s how he met the challenge of parenthood, too. Ever optimistic when a child’s scuffed knee brought crocodile tears or a kerfuffle with playground friends hurt tender feelings, he would deliver his infamous words, “It’ll be all right” and everything was, well, all right.
Happy Father’s Day to all the glass-half-full and the glass-half-empty dads — we need you both to ensure “It’ll be all right.”
Correction: The article “America’s Fuel Mix is Changing” in the April issue of Kansas Country Living misstated the role of fracking in the natural gas boom in the United States that began about 2012.
It should have said that the dramatic increase in natural gas production was the result of combining two technologies that have each been around for decades — fracking and horizontal drilling. Horizontal drilling involves drilling a well vertically, then bending the path horizontally. With hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, liquid is forced into underground rock formations until they fracture, allowing crude oil and natural gas to reach the surface more easily.
