What are you Bringing home?

I travelled with a brother and as we drew closer home, he called his wife giving instructions about what he wanted to eat for dinner: the quantity, quality and density. He omitted a recipe and called again adding to the menu.
I asked him what HE would be taking home for his family and he waived off the idea. I pulled into a mall and bought some snacks and fruits to give his children. He attempted to eat from them and I humbly gave him his size of "many stripes".
My father used to trek long distances so he could save one naira (then) to buy twelve wraps of groundnut at wholesale price when he returned home from work. He taught us, in spite of his lowly state then, to always bring something home when we grow up!
What are you bringing home today?
Some people bring aggression home as if it was their spouses or children that pushed their day southward? I once had a friend when we were younger, who used to run for cover with his siblings whenever the dad drove into the compound. For some, it was their mother. The party of freedom and excitement ended on the arrival of the mum.
Homes are not built with the gravels of terror. Your spouse and children prayed for your safe journey, missed your presence, hopeful that your contract would be approved, and all you could return with was ego and crumbs of sliced loaves of frustration which you snacked on. It's not fair!
If you don't have the tangibles to bring home, bring a Smile, a Hug, a hot Kiss, a Hi5, a funny story worth sharing, a thoughtful affection, a love letter!

Why You Should Never, Ever Put an Island in Your Kitchen.

Whenever I fantasized about my future kitchen, I always pictured a fantastic island. This very-specific vision was quite possibly directly tied to the fact that two out of my last three homes didn't even have counters. Or, perhaps, the steady diet of home improvement shows I watched with my mom while growing up — was there no feature more glamorous in the '80s and '90s than a kitchen with an island? (Meanwhile, I grew up in the standard charming '80s house with a U-shaped kitchen.)

A kitchen island represented the luxury of space for cooking, baking, and entertaining. It held the possibility that, one day, I'd have enough room to store my very specific set of novelty baking pans. I pictured myself enjoying a glass of wine while actually using the pasta maker I once bought in a fit of Nigella Lawson-inspired optimism. My friends would gather around the island, laughing as if we were in a Nancy Meyers movie and I would be Meryl Streep. Or, perhaps I would somehow acquire the patina of Hamptons-esque ease of Ina Garten, and my husband would be my Jeffrey. Maybe, just maybe, we would stop living as if we were children who were suddenly granted their wish to be adults. No more pizza nights. Vegetables would be eaten (other than baby carrots). The island would magically civilize us into our best possible versions of ourselves. 

With such lofty ambitions, it was only inevitable that reality would come crashing down like so many novelty baking pans. When we moved to our latest apartment, we were excited to see that the dream feature was part of the open-concept kitchen. Its design is like the above kitchen: No sink, no range, just lots of countertop. Yet it only took a few weeks before we realized that a kitchen island is way more trouble than its worth — at least in our household. Here are just a few reasons why:

 

1. It presents a new counter for our cat to call "home.": In the ongoing turf war between us and our (much-loved, but very "spirited") cat, the kitchen island is an extremely vulnerable space. You can't keep her away from the other counters AND the island, and since it's an open kitchen, you can't close a door to keep her out. And her most cherished goal in life is to be on a kitchen counter. If she had a Pinterest board, it would solely be of counters to eventually walk on and mantras about climbing the highest counter. You just can't stop her. She just wants to survey the landscape as if she were Simba in The Lion King. 

2. The island is a magnet for messes: One second it's clear, the next, it's covered in junk mail, groceries, and other layers of defeat. It's the downside of having an expanse of counter space: The instinct is to fill it with all of the clutter that gives Marie Kondo nightmares.

3. But even when we keep it clear, the island still looks messy: This is my ongoing problem with open floor plans: Everything's a focal point. When the island is clean, there's still a heavy butcher block cutting board and a toaster on it, which just make it look cluttered. Which brings me to:

4. Appliances look very awkward on an island: Since our main counters house the sink and stove, there's little space for the day-to-day appliances we need. Most are designed with the idea that you'll only see the fronts, not the backs of the things. Everything's on view on an island.

5. It's a conversation-stopper: Again, a problem that mostly has to do with the open floor plan, which goes hand-in-hand with the kitchen island. If we're entertaining and I have to make snacks (inevitably on the island), all conversation stops to watch me. After all, I'm facing them at this island. So I got my dream of being Ina Garten, in that I feel as if I'm on a cooking show where the menus are limited to recipes handed down to me from the side of a Ritz cracker box. Or, if we're fancy, opening packages from Trader Joe's. So, nothing like Ina Garten. 

6. No one sits at the island: You can put out all the stools you'd like, but the island is likely the last place guests will sit. Stools are not built for comfort, unless you're at a bar and have consumed enough cocktails to not mind the dull ache of a harsh wood/metal seat. And besides, if guests are sitting at the island, that means you're stuck standing (or prepping food) at the island. Don't mind me, everyone! I'm more than happy to let you watch me fight the urge to use my bare hands to place goat cheese rounds on crackers, even though it would be way easier. For my next trick, I'll wash my hands every five seconds to prove that I'm not gross.

Overall, these are just the functional problems of an island. That's not to say that there haven't been gorgeous islands. In fact, I still hold out hope that a well-designed island could be in my cards for future homes. Just not for me, right now. Unless you're my cat.

Courtesy: House Beautiful.

How Are You Raising Your Kids?

Too many young women and men are daily regretting their choices of spouses. But wait a minute, who raised/trained those terrible husbands and wives?

Mothers, when was the last time you instructed your son to wash the dishes or do some household chores? Fathers, are you raising your sons to be gentlemen or beasts? And, how did you both react the first time the boy raised his hand to beat a girl? Please note that whatever a man does today is a reflection of his parents' manner of raising him. So, blame his mother for a poor job and the father who looked the other way when the man was being badly raised!

Fathers, for what benefits will your future son(s) in-law be thankful to you? In Yoruba land, it's said that "When a father sees his son in-law and the young man prostrates to show respect, that's his reward for raising a good daughter. On the other hand, if the son in-law merely extends his hand for a lousy, angry handshake, that's also a reward for producing a terrible daughter." Only a man really knows what makes a good wife. Therefore, partner with your wife to raise your daughters into good, educated, well-mannered, virtuous women. The painstaking job of raising kids does not lie only in the hands of mothers. Queen Esther was properly raised by her uncle and it's no wonder that she won the hearts of the men in the palace ( thank GOD for favors as well, but DON

'T rule out her uncle's training). Jairus ran after Jesus for the healing of his daughter. He didn't leave that responsibility to her mother.

Unlike weddings (of a few hours) marriages are supposed to be lifetime events. And it takes pure hard work, patience and the grace of God for them to last the distance. You might wonder, what about love? Yes, it's also important. But love is fleeting and can be very fragile in its existence. Therefore, it takes the above (hard work, patience and God's grace) to maintain it. As parents therefore, let's start preparing for the success of our kids' marriages from the moment they are born.

Changing the World, one Home at a Time.

Charities are supposed to begin at home. How I wish all those who are trying to "change the world" either in the political or religious realm, would start from their immediate environments.

 

They need to build and nurture honest, unselfish and positive lifestyles. Afterwards, they can show the whole world how such noble, moral virtues have produced joy, peace and a sense of contentment in their respective homes.

These are the exemplary and vindicating factors that will always precede them in the process of convincing their audiences. Even the Yoruba say, "The person who wishes to give one a gift of clothes will first have to be seen for what he or she wears."