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Life Under Pines
Martha Stewart + Norm Abram = Me By Sundi McLaughlin
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he year was 1999, DIY and cooking shows were just becoming a part of popular culture and I, a newlywed, absolutely loved watching these shows offering simple fixes and projects to improve our modest home. The world was right on the cusp of having the internet readily available in homes, so the TV was a great way to learn new recipes or turn something I found for 10 bucks into something that looked pretty dang nice. To say we were on a budget is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. My husband and I were both deputies at a sheriff’s department in Florida and we were each making about $16,000 annually. We were graduates of law enforcement academies (top in my class, thank you very much) and our job more often than not was wrestling with our fellow citizens high on every drug imaginable and being screamed and spit at more times than I care to remember. So when I got home from my low paying, stressful job and removed that drab olive green polyester uniform, I really liked to imagine myself as a Martha Stewart meets Norm Abram. I grew up with a dad who was a teacher but always worked two or three jobs, so as a child my brother and I learned how to hang drywall, paint siding, roof a house, tile a bathroom
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and everything else under the sun. My brother and I would make up games to occupy our time and as much as we hated the work I know looking back it informed my work ethic, my ability to push myself beyond what I thought I was capable of, as well as learning the feeling of satisfaction for a job well done. So by the time I was married, I was ready to strip and refinish furniture, reupholster old chairs and paint every room. My dad agreed to help me strip an old antique phone table which was painted an off-putting ’80s mauve. The painstaking work was in the end rewarding as we sanded and scraped until we uncovered a beautiful Maple finish. My Dad wasn’t much of a talker but working in the silence with him is a lovely memory and that piece is still in my home all these years later, standing as a reminder of the leaner days which ended up being so very rich. As for cooking and baking, my mom was very good about teaching me the basics growing up, but the new cooking shows with their more complex recipes were a challenge I enjoyed. Many of the recipes, however, called for fancy equipment like a stand mixer, digital scales/thermometer or a food processor, which we did not have the money for.
