by Regena Handy

That’s what my husband calls it.

The Trouble Channel. Your reaction is surely that he is speaking of television news and talk shows, right? All those on-going programs that cause your blood pressure to soar regardless of whatever personal opinions you hold.

Nope, not at all. He’s talking about HGTV. Or any of those home and garden, remodeling, do-it-yourself home improvements shows that I like to watch.

So what’s with the ‘trouble’ description, you may be asking. The way he tells it is that every time I watch this channel, I come up with some renovation to the house. In other words, creates trouble for him.

Here’s the kicker though. You see, my husband was a carpenter for years. Knows a lot about what you can and can’t do building wise. As in ‘you can’t tear out that partition, it’s a load bearing wall.’ Now sometimes I’m not sure if he’s being truthful or if he is just making an excuse.

Shows of this type have been the latest craze for a while. Plus, there are also lots of sites on the internet that deal with similar subjects. One that is real popular is called Pinterest. Oh, it has everything imaginable when it comes to decorative, crafty, creative ideas, from Christmas pretties to wedding themes, Halloween costumes to Easter dinner menus.

Now, that’s another thing. These days weddings have themes. And that doesn’t include all the destination weddings that are popular. Not my intention to be judgmental here — to each his own. Probably just showing my age, cause when we got married, our wedding theme was what we could afford. That included a ceremony at my little church, a reception in my parents’ living room, a cake made by an aunt, flowers from another aunt’s flower shop, and snapshots courtesy of an uncle.

Oh, boy, I am really getting off topic.

Back to the Pinterest website, a friend told me that the bride-to-be in their family became so captivated by its suggestions that those helping finally had to ban her from the internet. We were running out of time and money to carry out all the constant changing ideas that she found, my friend said.

Not long ago I saw a video on-line where someone was making and decorating a candle. I get the whole thing about having a creative outlet and crafts can be a very enjoyable one. But this particular idea took hours of melting wax into a purchased mold, setting the wick, then decorating it with expensive bits and pieces. Reminded me of a comment made by a friend who said she spent hours of time and about a hundred dollars on materials for a door wreath which could have been purchased already arranged for about ten bucks.

Regarding the Trouble Channel, I do get a good chuckle at my husband’s reaction when he occasionally watches those shows with me. Never fails that he informs the host that their plan of action ‘just won’t work.’ Probably he’s right.