My New Kitchen, or, How I Survived a Kitchen Remodel But Told My Kids If I Ever Decided to Do Something Like That Again They Had My Permission To Put Me in a Home!

No that's not my new kitchen.  That's my old kitchen.  Before I get into the new kitchen, let me give you a little background on what started this whole thing.

A few months ago, when I was visiting my son and feeling a bit down, I said to him, "My life hasn't turned out the way I had hoped it would."  Now, I know, we aren't supposed to share that kind of thing with our kids, and frankly, I know that the happiness of their parents is not in the forefront of our kids' minds, but I said it anyway.  I went on to explain that I thought I would be living near my adult children and enjoying the grandchildren, when instead we were strewn all over the U.S.  I was actually kind of fishing to see if my son said something about how much he wished I would move closer.  He didn't. I had been thinking that perhaps Hubby and I should move back to California to be nearer to the grandkids.  But when he didn't bite, I fished some more and said, "How would you feel if I moved to Virginia to be nearer your sister?"  He didn't seem to care.  So that's when I realized Hubby was right.  Moving would be a huge hassle especially if the kids didn't care one way or another.

Then my son decided he would solve my problem. 

"Why don't you move into town, Mom?  You could walk to the Starbucks and meet all kinds of people."

Now I am not certain that being able to walk to Starbucks is going to insure I will meet people, but I know where he was coming from.  He wanted me to be happy.  Your kids don't want to have to worry about you so he was trying to help so that he didn't have to worry about me.  Though walking to Starbucks is important to me, I don't think it's going to necessarily make me feel better about my life, but he did spark my imagination. We currently live in a suburban area and, though it's very pretty, and we have a nice piece of land, I can't walk anywhere, so I thought, "He's right.  And I do love Starbucks.  So as soon as I got home, I told Hubby, "We're moving into town."  I'm impulsive like that.  Have you noticed?

So Hubby sighed (he's used to me by now) and got the ball rolling. We qualified for a big mortgage because that's what it would take to move into town, we called a realtor and started looking at houses.  Long story short, it only took one weekend of looking and not seeing anything as nice as what we had and yet  costing twice as much, and it didn't help that our realtor valued our house for a tat bit lower than we had hoped, so it wasn't difficult for us to decide we had it pretty good where we were, not being able to walk to Starbucks not withstanding.  This was probably not the time to make a big move.  Hubby sighed a huge sigh of relief.

But....hold on!

Oh, did I mention that when I was visiting my son, I got to see their new white kitchen?

Ding, ding, ding!

If we are not going to move, I want a new white kitchen!

Huge intake of breath from Hubby. Did I mention that I am impulsive?

Next thing we knew....

And can I now add...if we only knew?

The kitchen was demolished and the project manager says the electrical is going to cost double what we originally thought AND there will need to be more drywall than we originally thought AND a myriad of other things and then he asks, "Do you want to proceed?"  When you no longer have a kitchen, what is the correct response?

And we were already twenty grand over the original estimate.

Huge intake of breath from Hubby AND me! 

"Yes, we want to proceed."

Once it all sunk in what I had gotten us into, I started to panic and fall into a deep funk. 

Hence the title of this blog post.

But I will try to recover myself enough to continue with the story and actually give you some tips on what we learned along the way besides the fact that we are never, ever going to do this again.

I started to feel a little better when the cabinets and sink were installed after only a couple of weeks into the project.

And little details are nice

Things were moving along nicely and I was starting to really look forward to my new kitchen and having it ready for Christmas when our daughter and her husband would be coming.

And then THIS happened!

I had been concerned that the seam in the quartz for the countertop was going to be across the widest part of our counter space - the peninsula - the place where we sit and eat and spend most of our time.  But we were assured that once the veins were matched up the seam would not show very much.  So you can imagine what we felt when the countertop was installed and Hubby noticed THIS!  The work was halted, there was much discussion, many phone calls back and forth from the installers and the powers that be back at the main store, we met with everyone...and then, once it was determined that nothing could be done, we were asked THAT QUESTION again! 

Did we want to proceed?

Well, except for having them remove the countertop, choosing something else and losing the money for the original quartz, I guess we had to proceed.

That took a week off of our project and when the countertop was finalized, it really looked fine.  Looking back...I can't help but wonder if I would have even noticed that discrepancy had Hubby not noticed it first.  So I blame him!

So it was back to work and everything went smoothly after that. The project was not only finished on time - it was projected to take six weeks and it did, though it would have been finished in five weeks had we not had that meltdown about the veins in the countertop not matching - it was finished just in time for Christmas and I was very happy.

I wanted a white kitchen, especially since we live in a forested area and the kitchen was rather dark. However, I had liked some kitchens I had seen where the top part of the kitchen was white and the lower portion of the kitchen was a different color, so I decided to do that.  I wanted Shaker cabinets and had originally wanted to do white cabinets on top and gray on the bottom, but when we saw this sort of gray/green/blue cabinet which was Shaker-style but with a little extra detail, we liked the color and that detail. The color mitigated the coldness that can sometimes come from an all white kitchen and the little detail on the cabinets gave a boost to the Shaker style which can come off as quite plain.

We added a farmhouse sink, chimney style hood, gas cooktop (we had an electric stove before), wine fridge (duh), double wall ovens, the aforementioned quartz countertop, subway tile back splash, under-cabinet lighting, pendant lights over the peninsula and a pantry where a little desk had been to make up for losing our original pantry when we put in the double ovens where the pantry used to be.  

Other than moving a couple of things around and losing a bit of cabinet space, the kitchen footprint and the floors remained pretty much the same and even with that, our final cost was twice the original estimate. I always have had expensive taste.

But we are happy with the outcome and enjoying our new kitchen!

And that little hissy fit we had about the veins in the countertop not matching exactly?  It's hardly noticeable.

 

 

After it was finished, we went on a little weekend trip to California so it wasn't until we got back that it occurred to me that I had to actually put everything that was boxed up for the demolition of the kitchen BACK into the kitchen!

Now it's one thing to have to physically open every box and put everything away, but it's even more difficult to decide WHERE to put everything, especially if your kitchen is much different from your old one.  In our case, the footprint of the kitchen was pretty much the same but the addition of two wall ovens, the cabinet for the garbage and compost, the wine fridge and the chimney hood over the cooktop all decidedly ate into the cabinet space I once had so I had to spend quite a bit of time deciding where everything was now going to go in my new kitchen.

It's also sobering to go through everything as you put it back and wonder, "What the hell?  Why did I have five different kinds of salt and three huge bottles of balsamic vinegar?  And what is this can of baked beans with a Best Buy date of June 3, 2012?"

But one whole exhausting day later, it was all done and I am very, very happy. We celebrated when we finally had our first cooked meal from our new kitchen.


So what did this ordeal, er, I mean remodel teach me that I didn't already know?  


Even though we are newbies to major remodeling, I already knew that I should check out the credentials of the companies I was interested in working with and get estimates from more then one, which I did.  I narrowed it down to a couple of companies close to home and checked them out on Angie's List and the Better Business Bureau and the reviews were good and I was very happy with the team we chose.


But here are some things I didn't already know:


THERE IS A DOMINO EFFECT TO REMODELING A ROOM

After a remodel, all of a sudden the rest of the house looks kind of dowdy.

Our kitchen is a sort of open plan that opens onto a family room.  Once the kitchen was brightened up, the family room, with its leather furniture and dark walls, suddenly just didn't work, so we had to also redo the family room and, now about $3000 later, it has walls that match the kitchen and new, brighter furniture. 

So be prepared for that to happen.  Remodeling has a domino effect. 


OLD HABITS DIE HARD

I learned I am more of a creature of habit than I thought.

My morning habit is to get up when I feel like it (usually by 9:30 but even if I am not asleep I stay in bed until at least 9am on principle because, hey, I'm retired!), waddle downstairs and plop myself down at the kitchen counter to read the newspaper and my many intellectual, high-brow magazines such as People and US Weekly.  I fill my tea cup with a tea bag and water from my instant hot water dispenser and enjoy an hour or two of reading,

EXCEPT

DURING THE REMODEL THERE WAS NO COUNTER AND NO INSTANT HOT WATER DISPENSER!!!

In fact there wasn't even a kitchen, and every day there was a stranger working in there, so that was very, very difficult to get used to.  I had no idea just how much time I spent in the kitchen and how much of my daily life revolved around cooking for enjoyment.  Remodeling the kitchen has to be the worst when it comes to disrupting your life unless you were remodeling a bathroom and live in a house with only one bathroom.  That would be bad too.  But if you have more than one bathroom, at least if you remodel a bathroom you can use the other one.  When your kitchen is torn up, you have no kitchen and no access to food or anything else in your kitchen.



AND SPEAKING OF FOOD

I learned that eating out every night is not as much fun as one would think. 

I consider myself a bit of a gourmand and nothing makes me happier than going into Seattle and trying a new restaurant, but going into Seattle every night was not an option so we had to eat closer to home. I never realized how few good restaurants there were near where I live. You would think it would be fun to eat out every night, but it wasn't.  The cost of doing that notwithstanding, eating out every night required getting dressed and looking at least a bit presentable, which some days I just didn't want to do, likewise eating food that most days I didn't want to eat.  When you eat out every night, the risk of gaining weight is monumental but believe it or not, I actually lost weight due to the stress of having to get dressed and look presentable every day and having to rotate between McDonald's, the Mongolian Grill and a sub-standard Mexican or Chinese restaurant.  I would fantasize about a nice piece of fish and a salad that wasn't made with iceberg lettuce.  And when I didn't want to make myself presentable, we heated up frozen dinners in the microwave. I can't believe I used to eat that stuff back in the day.  Just thinking about another Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine frozen meal makes me feel queasy.

I also never realized how much of my time was spent in the kitchen cooking.  Trying out new recipes on Hubby is one of my favorite past times. 

I also didn't realize what a food snob I have become.



CREATE A STAGING AREA

I also learned that in lieu of not having a kitchen, it's important to try to at least pretend life is going along as normally as possible.

To do that it's important to have a sort of kitchen-like staging area where you can at least make your tea or coffee, have some toast and heat up those god-awful frozen meals (when you just can't bare to get dressed and look presentable) or have available those items you can't live without. It's a long ordeal ahead so make sure you have some comfort food available that doesn't require a kitchen to prepare.

We have a dining room adjacent to the kitchen so we moved the coffeemaker and the microwave in there along with some supplies: bread, cutting board, knives, paper towels, garbage can and a huge bag of paper plates and plastic utensils along with some snacks.  Fortunately, the refrigerator was going to remain in the same spot in the kitchen, so it was kept plugged in and the workers were able to work around it though I felt a bit embarrassed how many times I went to the refrigerator to refill my glass of wine when the workers were there.  But, hey, I was stressed out!


I ALSO LEARNED I DON'T LIKE CHANGE

And when you are a woman of a certain age, change gets more and more difficult.

As a young woman I moved across country several times and pretty much changed my life each time.  Only 13 years ago we packed up and moved from California to Seattle where we knew no one.  That was a big change.  But as I get older, I don't like change at all.  Now, I can't stand it if my daily dose of "The View" gets interrupted by breaking news or the mail doesn't come on time!  So even though as remodeling goes, ours went fairly well and on schedule, I think this will be our last remodel.  It's just too much change for this old broad to deal with.

So, like I said, I told my kids that if I say I want to remodel another room, they have my permission to put me in a home.

But until then, I love my new kitchen and I am glad we did it.  However, I confess that I am already starting to forget the inconvenience and pain of the remodel.  I have a feeling that remodeling is like childbirth.  After awhile, you forget the pain and think that maybe it's time to do it again. 

There is that upstairs bathroom that needs updating....

But for now, things are back to normal and my Happy Lucky Cat cookie jar and I are happy in the new kitchen!

Thanks for reading!

See you Friday 

for my review of  

"Mudbound,"

A Netflix Original now streaming on Netflix  

 and

 The Week in Reviews

(What to See or Read and What to Avoid)

 and the latest on

"My 1001 Movies I Must See Before 

 I Die Project."

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"Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and The Week in Reviews

[I review the movie "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" as well as DVDs "Lost in Paris" and "Lovely & Amazing."  The Book of the Week is a biography of singer Stevie Nicks, "Gold Dust Woman: A Biography of Stevie Nicks."  I also bring you up-to-date with "My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project" with "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer."





Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

A mother is consumed with trying to get the local police to solve her daughter's murder so she comes up with a unique idea to get them to continue to investigate.

Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) is not a happy woman.  Nor should she be.  Her daughter, Angela, was raped and murdered and the Ebbing police have not found the guy. There is no DNA, there are no witnesses and the case has gone cold.  And, needless to say, Mildred is not happy about that.  Not happy at all.  In fact she is so unhappy that she rents three billboards outside of town, and like those old humorous Burma Shave billboards that used to dot the highways in the old days, the three billboards when read together form a saying, except it's not a humorous saying, not humorous at all.  The first one reads "Angela Hayes was raped while dying," followed by another one that reads "Still no arrests" and the third one, "How come, Chief Willoughby?" The billboards also stand within eyesight of Mildred's front porch and mark the spot where her daughter was murdered.

The billboards not only humiliate Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), but polarize the whole community particularly because everyone knows that Chief Willoughby is dying of pancreatic cancer.  How could Mildred do something like this to a man who is dying?  Well, Mildred has one goal and one goal only and that is to find her daughter's killer and make him pay so she doesn't much care that Chief Willoughby is dying.  A mother's grief knows no bounds.

Mildred and her son, Robbie (Lucas Hedges, who has put in some powerful performances in some high profile films recently - see my reviews for "Manchester by the Sea" and "Lady Bird"), are harassed by the police and the townspeople, but Mildred stands firm.  She is one tough cookie.  Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) is particularly incensed, but then Dixon is not all there and has his own issues. He is a racist mama's boy with anger issues. When Willoughby commits suicide after a perfect day he planned with his wife and children, Mildred is blamed, though Willoughby disputes that by sending letters to several people, including one to his wife saying he did it because he couldn't stand for her to remember him as he faded away.  He also sent one to Mildred telling her it wasn't because of her.

This all may seem quite depressing and dour and it can be dark, but it also has humor and pathos thanks to the brilliant screenplay by Martin McDonagh, who also directs.  I see a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination in his future.  The screenplay is definitely original as well as thought-provoking and beautifully presented.

McDormand is mesmerizing and she and Rockwell are also sure to get Oscar nods for their performances, especially Rockwell, who in a supporting role, is almost unrecognizable as Dixon, the clueless swaggering Mama's boy who really does want to be a good cop but just keeps putting his foot in it.

But I was particularly taken with Harrelson's performance.  As you may have noticed, I have not been his biggest fan, though I was starting to soften towards him since "Wilson" and "The Glass Castle," but here he pulls out all of the stops - in a good way - to put in a nuanced and poignant performance about a man who really wants to help Mildred but is just too busy dying.

Written, produced and directed by McDonough (he also wrote and directed "In Bruges"), along with a Best Original Screenplay nomination, "Three Billboards" is a likely Best Picture and Best Director Oscar candidate. 

The film leaves a deep impression partly because of the performances but mostly because no easy answers are presented for any of these deeply flawed characters which is just like life, right?

Rosy the Reviewer says...already nominated for a Best Picture Golden Globe as well as Best Original Screenplay with Best Actor nods to McDormand and Rockwell.  I have no doubt it will get similar Oscar nominations - so get thee to the theatre! 

***Some Movies You Might Have Missed***

(And Some You Will Be Glad You Did)!

On DVD

Lost in Paris (2016)

A Canadian librarian heads to Paris for the first time to help her Aunt.

Fiona (Fiona Gordon) lives in a part of Canada that is so cold it looks like the Himalayas.  As a young girl, her Aunt Martha (Emmanuelle Riva who so stunned in "Amour," which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2013) regaled her with stories about living in Paris.  Now the grown-up Fiona is still in Canada working as a librarian and her Aunt did go to Paris, but now her Aunt Martha has written to her to come to Paris and help her because she says social workers are threatening to put her in a nursing home.

So Fiona packs up her huge backpack with her Canadian flag waving out the back and heads to Paris.  But when she arrives at her Aunt Martha's house, no one is home, and later when she asks a jogger to take her picture on a bridge with the Eiffel Tower in the background, she falls backwards off the bridge into the water, losing her backpack and all of her money.

Then we meet Dom (Dominque Abel), a homeless man camped out in a tent next to the Seine.  He finds Fiona's backpack and her purse with all of her money in it.  Donning one of her sweaters and carrying her purse, he heads to a posh restaurant where he encounters Fiona, who had received a meal voucher from the Canadian Consulate while she awaits her new passport.  She compliments Dom on his sweater which she says is just like one she has but when she sees her purse she realizes what has happened. 

That scene was rather funny but then it all went downhill for me after that.

I so wanted to love this film.  Librarian?  Paris?  Beautiful cinematography and production values? Accomplished actors?  What's not to like?  But it just didn't add up to anything for me.

Written and directed by the stars, Fiona Gordon and Dominque Abel, I had several issues with this film.  One, it was just too farcical.  I am not a big fan of broad, farcical comedy.  But having been a librarian myself, I am also not a fan of librarian stereotypes, and Fiona, with her weird hairstyle that reminded me too much of a librarian's stereotypical bun, her glasses and her sneakers just made me cringe.  Not to mention she didn't seem like she was very smart. She was a grown woman who was totally flummoxed by being in Paris for the first time.  I mean, she was a librarian.  Didn't she read any guidebooks before she went?  And then there was Dom, who came off as part Monsieur Hulot, part Mr. Bean, but unfortunately, I was never really into either of those characters.

Rosy the Reviewer says...if you like fantasy with broad humor you might like this, but despite the production values - the film was lovely to look at - and some sweet moments, the film was just too unrealistic and Keystone Cops-ish for me.






Lovely & Amazing (2001)

A little slice of life circa early 2000's about a mother and her three mixed up daughters.

The best thing about this film was seeing a very young Jake Gyllanhaal.  It was also a reminder why I never really liked Catherine Keener very much.  Not that she isn't a good actress.  She is and maybe that's the problem  She is too good.  She is too real, and unfortunately, she brings that realness to too many really annoying characters.  Since this film was 16 years ago, it's highly possible that this was the first of her many annoying characters.

Keener plays Catherine, a woman who - did I say she was annoying? - is in an unhappy marriage and can't seem to get a job.  Instead she makes little chairs out of twigs and tries to sell them to boutiques.

Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer) is Catherine's sister, and she is a model/actress who is very insecure, so insecure that in a cringe-worthy full-frontal nudity way she stands naked in front of Kevin (Dermot Mulroney), an actor she has just had sex with and only recently met and asks him to critique her body, though I will say it was refreshing to be reminded that women once actually had pubic hair.  Elizabeth is also obsessed with adopting stray dogs.

Jane (Brenda Blethyn) is the matriarch who has adopted Annie (Raven Goodwin), a little black girl.  And thank god we have Annie, because she seems to be the only one in this film with any sense. She serves as the conscience of these vapid L.A. people.  Everyone else is self-absorbed and insecure, especially in regards to their body image. We see where Catherine and Elizabeth get it from when Jane sets the tone by planning on getting some liposuction to lose five pounds.

This was an annoying movie about annoying people.  I think it was supposed to be quirky and funny and real, but I just thought the whole thing was annoying.  Everyone talks at each other and makes no connections and, in fact, Catherine is down right rude to little Annie, telling her when they are at the beach that she certainly doesn't need sunscreen.

Catherine is clueless and just taking up space and to make matters worse her husband is having an affair with her best friend.  Finally shamed about not working, Catherine gets a job at a quick stop photo developing shop.  Remember when we had to get our pictures developed?  There she meets Jordan, a very young Jake Gyllenhaal, and actually starts feeling a bit better about herself, probably because Jordan has a huge crush on her and she knows it.

All of the characters are train wrecks, but like a train wreck, you can't take your eyes off of them.  I guess we are waiting to see if they can be redeemed but halfway through the film I said out loud to the screen "Who are these people?"  But I guess the point here was that everyone's life is messy and narcissistic and it's all reflected in Annie, who no one seems to be taking care of.  There is one particularly poignant scene when Annie takes herself to McDonald's to eat because no one has the time to fix her dinner and she sits in silence as the adults around her act like idiots. She has a weight problem and you can see the insecurity of the adults is rubbing off on her when she feels like she has to justify how much food she has ordered.  "I'm not going to eat it all." But her no-nonsense innocence is in stark contrast to the jaded, bored sensibilities of the adults.  So if that was the point, OK, but I just wish the film didn't have to also be annoying to make that point. 

Not sure how I ended up watching this film. Must have been one of those instances where I saw a trailer for it.  You know the ones.  The trailer is more interesting than the film.  Or maybe I read somewhere that it was some sort of cult classic and I should see it.  Roger Ebert liked it, but then he liked most things.

Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, who went on to direct "Enough Said," which I liked much better than this one, this film was notable for its portrayal of real women and the relationships between mothers and daughters. It had the makings of a smart, observant film but it just really didn't go anywhere and the fact that the characters were so annoying didn't help.

The film was also notable for the early careers of so many actors - Keener, Gyllenhaal, Dermot Mulroney.  But like I said, I never really liked Keener as an actress just because she seemed to play so many characters like this - quirky, inappropriate, awkward but these days she has morphed into a sort of middle-aged warmth that I like better. She is still awkward and has all kinds of actory mannerisms but at least she isn't annoying anymore.

But the film belongs to little Raven Marks in her very first film role (she was 9) and who went on to have a very successful TV career. This film was also at the height of Dermot Mulroney's popularity (it followed "My Best Friend's Wedding"), though he never really lived up to his promise as a leading man and is now seen mostly in bad guy roles.

Rosy the Reviewer says...I actually think it's possible to make a film about annoying people without it being an annoying movie but that didn't happen here.  It's neither lovely nor amazing.

***My 1001  Movies I Must See Before I Die Project***

162 to go!

Have YOU seen this classic film?





Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

Henry likes to murder people.  A lot of them.

I had been putting off seeing this one because it just looked creepy as hell...and well, it was.

The film begins with a close-up of a woman's beautiful face, but as the camera pans slowly away we see that she is dead.

Then we meet Henry (Michael Rooker) driving his beaten up car interspersed with more flashbacks of other dead bodies as he drives along. Henry stops for coffee at a café and compliments the waitress on her smile.  Henry could just be any handsome young man.  Even serial killers can be sociable, I guess. But then he goes to the mall, targets a woman and follows her home.  But when she arrives home her husband comes out to help her with her packages so Henry backs off.  But he'll be back.

Then on the way home Henry picks up a young hitchhiker carrying her guitar. 

Henry lives with Otis (Tom Towles), a gas station attendant and part-time drug dealer, who has just picked up his sister, Becky (Tracy Arnold), at the airport.  Becky has left an unhappy marriage and needs a place to stay.  When Henry arrives, he has a guitar case with him and gives Otis the guitar. Oh oh.  So much for that young hitchhiker. 

Henry and Otis had met in prison. Henry was there for killing his mother. We get a little insight into Henry's character when Becky asks him about killing his mother but that is the only attempt made to explain why Henry likes to kill people or why or how he chooses his victims though he gives some insight when he says to Otis, "It's always you or them one way or another."

We never actually see the murders, just the bodies, until later in the film, when Otis witnesses Henry killing a prostitute and gets the bug himself and the two end up killing a family together and filming it with a video recorder and then watching it on their new TV.

Later it becomes clear that though Henry kills practically everyone he comes across he is more of a gentleman than Otis, who is quite the perv, especially when he tries to rape Becky, his own sister.  Even Henry has standards.

This was Michael Rooker's first feature film role and he is amazing as the handsome but dead-eyed Henry but for me that doesn't save this film.  It's just too dark and intense.

Directed by John McNaughton with a screenplay by McNaughton and Richard Fire, this is a low-budget film (he used then unknown actors and spent only $125,000) that does a good job of showing the seemy side of life and the actual brutality of murder, something that is often trivialized or even glamorized in films today, but the film is very, very hard to watch and I had problems with why it was even made or why it was a must see. I felt guilty for watching it.

Why it's a Must See: "[The film] is loosely based on the story of real-life serial murdered Henry Lee Lucas.  It is exceptional for its realism of style and amoral viewpoint, and it remains with the viewer as one of the most disturbing movies ever made...Henry evokes horror through gritty realism and excellent acting.  The film is not fun to watch, but it is important in that it forces viewers into questioning our cultural fascination with serial killers."
---"1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die"

Oh...OK.

Rosy the Reviewer says...very, very disturbing.

***Book of the Week***

Gold Dust Woman: A Biography of Stevie Nicks by Stephen Davis (2017)

A biography of singer Stevie Nicks who helped to make Fleetwood Mac one of the most popular bands of all time.

This is an unauthorized biography so rock and roll biographer Davis did not have access to Stevie herself so had to rely on existing interviews, articles and books about Stevie and the band, as well as the recollections of Stevie's friends, family and those she has worked with. But Davis has put together an entertaining biography that covers the basics of Nicks' life - her Welsh ancestry and her growing up years (she was born in Phoenix but her family moved to California when she was very young) as well as the ups and downs as she made a career for herself as one of rock and roll's leading ladies. 

Stevie came from a musical family.  Her grandfather had dreams to become a country singer and often brought Stevie along when he had local gigs.  In high school she started playing the guitar and writing songs and eventually met Lindsay Buckingham and they formed a duo - Buckingham Nicks. They worked the grueling music scene with Stevie waiting tables to make ends meet and hoping for a big break.  

In one of those classic Hollywood right-place-right-time scenes, it just so happened that Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac was looking for a replacement lead guitarist.  Fleetwood Mac was a successful rock band, but because of the loss of Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer, who both left the band under bizarre circumstances, they were faltering.  When a recording engineer at a studio where Nicks and Buckingham did some work recommended Lindsay, Mick offered Lindsay the job but Lindsay said yes only on the condition that they also take his girlfriend too -- and rock and roll history was born.  When Stevie and Lindsay joined the band, their songwriting, charisma and Stevie's flamboyant stage presence helped Fleetwood Mac become one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time.

Davis shares lots of inside information especially during the tumultuous time that they were all making the Rumours album, which could be called "The Break-Up Album."  All of the band members were in various stages of breaking up.  Davis also covers the personality clashes (according to Davis Buckingham wasn't a very easy guy to get along with); the-who-was-sleeping-with-who lineups; Stevie's relationships with Mick Fleetwood, Don Henley and Joe Walsh; the drugs and drinking that almost killed her; and her solo career that is still going strong. 

Rosy the Reviewer says...an entertaining biography of one of the most glamorous and sexy women in rock and roll who at 69 is still sexy and still rocking.
 

 

 

 

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Rosy the Reviewer:


"My New Kitchen,

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I Survived a Kitchen Remodel But Told My Kids if I Ever Decided to do Something Like That Again They Had My Permission to Put Me in a Home! "

 

  

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