By Kathleen Daelemans
If Martha Stewart were a Diet Coach she'd advise you to start off the New Year by purchasing a shiny new treadmill. âSituate treadmill in Home Office, Living Room, Great Room or someplace visitors are sure to enjoy. Arrange matching and coordinating hand towels in nearby bathrooms. Bake a Dreamy Coconut Layer Cake to celebrate. Be sure to make miniature versions of the cake and place in handmade boxes for each of your guests to take home as a keepsake.
There's nothing more gratifying than buying a shiny new treadmill in January unless you already own one. My home gym is filled with New Year's Resolution exercise equipment I pick up around the first of every year. I've been adding to my collection for the past five years. Every piece is as sparkly and shiny and brand new smelling as the day it arrived. You don't have to spend a lot to get a lot either. One of my favorite pieces is my giant exercise ball. It takes up a lot of space and looks very gymnastic. I feel like a perfect 10 just looking at it.
Cocoa, Wolford, M Missoni, Tiffany and Cosmopolitans or Stairmaster J, Your old Nikes and Gatorade?
Exercise time is like cocktail hour at my house. I look forward to working out with the same sense of anticipation and soon-to-be satisfied lust that I do drinking, eating and shopping. My gym has a full bar, racks of clothing and cash registers. MTV Cribs is coming in March.
For real?
For real.
For real?
No. And lest you think I'm living like Oprah and friends, let me give you a tour of my private gym. It's tastefully bathed in coats of crisp white paint. It features industrial carpeting and mold.
My house has a Michigan basement. My gym is located in my Michigan basement. I bought my home in the summer. My first winter, in my first home, I learned all about Michigan basements, and which store I like better, Home Depot or Lowes.
Michigan basements are are filthy caves disguised as nice basements that drive up home prices (as opposed to home values). The walls get damp. The homeowners get mad.
Bubbles Bubbles On The Wall
Damp cave walls (painted to look like a family room) are the perfect host for mold and bubbling paint, all quite disturbing to a neat freak. Throughout the winter, the walls bubble, the mold appears and I scrape and paint.
None of the scraping and painting does a bit of good because eventually, it always comes back. But it always makes me feel better (especially when the paint is still wet) which is at the heart of Martha's word if you will.
Recipe: Miniature Pleated Candied Curtains With Gerber Daisy Embellishments
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: Five Minutes
People who make fun of Martha don't get Martha and never will. It's never been about making the miniature, pleated, candied curtains with Gerber Daisy embellishments come out perfect. Martha's projects are about survival. The longer they take, the longer we have to sort things out.
Martha Stewart projects are as much about the end result as they are about keeping our minds off our troubles and learning how to take back control of our lives and rebuild our self-esteem. So what if I live in a mold pit? My mold pit gets a fresh coat of paint bi-monthly and I get to see all the new tools at Lowes and Home Depot.
WWGD (What Would Giada Do)?
When I can't sleep at night, I ask myself the hard questions. Last night it was: What would Giada do if she had mold in her basement? And then I answer them:
She'd be PTPOKDT (past-the-point-of-keeping-down-toast) horrified but she's Giada. It would be handled. With that young Jackie O air she has about her, she would very discreetly and very quickly wash that mold right out of the air. Paula Deene would have her boys sort it all out. Ina would would call her builder.
Sandra Lee would pour canned fruit cocktail over cubed pound cake, toss it all together until everything was thoroughly combined, and then divide the mixture among six plastic (you-put-em-together) parfait "glasses", top them all with a generous dollop of frozen whipped topping and call it Healthy Breakfast Bread Pudding for Kidz with a z.
If for no other reason than the Pope is coming to Michigan this summer, I've got to stop painting over this problem. So far, my house isn't on his itinerary but he'll likely hear about my home cooking and try to stop in for a bite to eat. If it's hot, maybe I'll serve pitchers of homemade Sweet Meyer Lemonade and generous slices of Strawberry Rhubarb Pie topped with homemade Strawberry Ice Cream made with Strawberries we pick from Longs Farm (a local farm so close, I can almost smell the strawberry blossoms at night). Happy New Year Everyone and Happy New You!
This was hysterical! And I agree -- the people who don't get Martha never will. Second Gluten Free Girl -- she's awesome!
Posted by: Elastic Waist | 09 January 2008 at 14:09
ROFL also!!! I long for a NICE basement since I have a Michigan crawl space :) Imagine the mold down there!!! If I'm going to put up with the mold anyway, it would be nice if I could use it for storage!
BTW, every time you mention Long Farms, you make my mouth water! I've got to get over there and check them out.
Posted by: Ro | 04 January 2008 at 17:36
ps: not that you NEED an idea for a recipe you being a chef and all... not to offend... just thought i'd offer that website up if you do like Meyer lemons. I have found her recipes to be quite good.
Posted by: amy | 03 January 2008 at 12:09
ROFL. I have a MI basement too. DH put on a coat of paint so we could proceed with much homeschooling there..but alas...it stinks (literally and figuratively) down there and it is now just storage. BTW..if you like Meyer Lemons... click on the glutenfreegirl blog. http://gluten-freerecipes.blogspot.com/
she has some good looking Meyer lemon recipes. I just picked some up and plan to make sorbet.
amy
Posted by: amy | 03 January 2008 at 12:08