It’s funny sometimes thinking about why do we do the things we do to ourselves.

In this case I’m thinking about having kids.

And to be clear, I love my kids.

I’m a big fan of my kids.

But then you also get sad about, oh, your kids are going to go to college.

You’re going to become empty nesters.

You’re going to see them less or spend way less time with them over time and how that’s going to be sad.

And like all parents basically go through this.

But then it’s like, why do we do this to ourselves?

I don’t know.

But it was top of mind recently because Lauren and I have been having some kitchen-related discussions.

Here’s the form that these kitchen-related discussions take.

For a while we were thinking about doing a full-on kitchen remodel, potentially even involving taking down a wall and making the kitchen be much larger at the expense of having a dining room that we use at most twice a year.

But getting way more storage, way more surface areas, etc.

But then it’s like, do we want to spend $100,000 to $150,000 on that?

And I don’t want to spend $100,000 to $150,000 on anything.

And so it became a question to me, well, how long are we staying in this house?

Because for a long time my assumption was I would die in this house.

Not anytime soon, I hope.

But Lauren had been making some noise recently about, well, once the kids are all in college, then we’ll probably downsize.

And I’m like, look, I don’t want to spend any money on a kitchen or on the house if we’re going to leave it.

Liam goes to college in four years, fewer.

And Lauren’s like, well, I think that we’d want to stay until they were all out of college at a bare minimum.

And so I think we’ve got at least 10 years here.

If it’s 10 years, then I’m open to selling it, but probably still don’t want to spend six figures.

And so then we were looking at some of the resurfacing things you can do in the kitchen, right?

Like where you replace your cabinets and can change the color without changing the whole footprint.

Obviously way cheaper, like orders of magnitude cheaper, like 20% of the cost or so.

But then some of the things we discussed in talking about remodeling the kitchen still remained intriguing.

So what I think we’re going to end up doing, probably, 85% chance, is we will have the cabinet boxes stay the same, the doors all get replaced, everything gets painted into a new color.

And we also bring out a plumber and set up a little pot filler, not by the stove, but rather by a new coffee bar.

Our house, like so many houses, has one of those desk setups in the kitchen, but it’s not a desk that gets any use, and it’s dumb, and it’s a poor use of space.

So we turn that into a coffee and tea station, and that would be across the island, such as it is, from the sink.

And Lauren’s like, that’s not a big deal, and I’m like, it’s a big deal.

I want a water source right there.

If that’s where the coffee and tea machines, kettles, et cetera, are going to be, I want a water source right there.

So that’ll be an expense.

But hopefully if we do this all the right way, we don’t have to replace any countertops, which would add an enormous cost.

Maybe we do a little bit of upgrading to the inside of the pantry, but that doesn’t have to be very expensive.

So we’ll probably do that, because to me, if you can advertise the enjoyment of an updated kitchen over at least 10 years, there’s some real return on investment there.

But a six-figure change over 10 years, no.

And less than 10 years, definitely no.

So I’m living here for 10 years.

That’s my announcement, I guess.

Well, anyway, I think you’re wonderful.

I hope you’re having a wonderful Thursday.

And today, a fun fact, I’m going to finish this recording and go to the dermatologist.

Later today, Lauren and Liam will go to the same dermatologist.

I tried to get my appointment time to overlap with theirs or be adjacent to it, but couldn’t.

So I’m going now, because that’s when it fits in my day and when it fits in the dermatologist’s stay, I guess.

So I hope you’re having a wonderful Thursday and more soon.

Lex.

Sometimes the episode ends and there’s still blank space in the episode and people will point out to me, hey, why were there like 40 seconds of silence?

And it’s mostly because of a weird quirk of how logic works.

But today I left and thought, hey, wouldn’t it be fun to put a bonus message there, which I’m doing here.

It’s not a very exciting bonus message, but it’s still a bonus.

So happy bonus, everybody.