He can't deny his heritage.

Jeff is the most typical Ukranian man alive. He's a total packrat, and our home is full of stuff that he 'might use, you never know when you might need it'. He has a fishing tacklebox full of little plugs and cords and junk. He has, ummmm, like 3 tool boxes. He even had a box full of every business card he's received over the last 20 years (he's that old). Everything he's ever owned has some special signifigance that only he can appreciate.



When we reno'd the basement, we ended up with a deep freezer and a fridge that needed to be gotten rid of. But nooooooo, it's not that easy to get rid of appliances and since he prides himself on being a 'cheap' Ukranian, here was his solution: he took the doors off of the freezer and fridge, turned them on their sides, spray painted them black, and put them in the garage. They are now our bomb proof cabinets. What happened to the doors, you might ask? Well he lag-bolted them to the walls and now they are shelves.



He briefly played with the idea of turning our old hot water tank into a firepit...not sure what's going on with that one. He hasn't said much about it lately, and he did mention that when our washing machine goes he wants to turn it into a firepit. So I don't know, we'll see.



But I may have won one round. He was so overcome with gratitude for the baking I did a couple nights ago that I could just see the longing in his face. After some lightning speed thinking on my part, I came up with a deal for him. In our cabinets, we have not one, or two, but three shelves full of coffee mugs. In another cabinet, we have two shelves full of glasses. Not even glasses you can really use, but those ones you got from McDonalds in the eighties that celebrated the Olympics. And other useless glasses that we have not used in the whole 1 1/2 years we've owned this house. So, I said that if he got rid of all the mugs and glasses that we don't ever use then I would have space to have all my ingredients for baking, and I would bake for him. And by getting rid of them, I didn't mean putting them in a box and putting them in the basement (his face fell because this was exactly what he was planning on doing), but actually donating them to Goodwill and getting them the hell out of my house. People, I have been trying to do this for years. He just boxes things up and puts them in the basement. It's very irritating.



But he agreed, and said he would do it this weekend. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm holding out hope. This will be a major win for me!