Whose kitchen does this look like?

If you've been in mine, you'd say MINE! (Well, not yours, mine.)
I was doing my HGTV Rate-My-Space-looking when I saw this picture.
Whoa!
'Course my first thought: this is blog-worthy!
If you look close you can tell that the room directly in the back of that kitchen is a dining room. In our house it is our (cluttered) laundry room/pantry.
[I need to take a picture of our kitchen.
When I get home I will.]
Right now I'm in COLD (and windy) Oklahoma City. Brrr. I brought my heavy coat AND my light-weight coat. I HATE being cold.
Speaking of that makes me think of the coldest I have EVER been... which translates into the MOST MISERABLE I have ever been...
I was 22 years old, teaching English and Speech in Mission Junior High (Go Eaglets). I was also a volunteer with the McAllen High School's Campus Life organization. (Similar to Young Life.) Anyway, I got a chance to go - for free- on a ski trip as a sponsor with that group. I had enough money to buy a ski parka and ski boots. THEN my car needed to be worked on, so that money had to go to my car.
Not to worry. I had been told how to dress to ski without ski clothes. You just take jeans, warm sweaters, a coat (which was kind of light-weight, since I lived in the lower Rio Grande Valley and no one wears a heavy coat down there) and Scotch Guard them (that's spray stuff you can put on cloth furniture to keep liquids from soaking in.) So I took the Scotch Guard spray with me on the trip.
Oh, another thing you need is long underwear. I didn't want to waste my money on that when I had pajamas with feet in them.
For shoes I just wore my regular ones.
At that point in my life I didn't care if I didn't look like a skier.
I didn't.
We go to the ski place (near Santa Fe) and I have sprayed myself completely and think I am ready to go. It was Jan. 3, 1975. (Surely that was the coldest day on record in that area.)
Anyway, we had to wait for 2 hours outside - to rent our skis.
I thought my feet were going to freeze completely off.
Oh, did I tell you I had never skied before? Well, once we got the skis and took the beginner's class, I found out that I was not a born skier. I fell and fell and fell and fell, and was absolutely miserable. That Scotch Guard quit working after the first fall.
Then, one of our teens had altitude sickness and needed a sponsor to stay with her - inside- the rest of the trip. My lucky break! I volunteered.
That was the last time (and only time) I've skied. EVER. I've been on ski trips...many.... and I always enjoy a good book, and lots of hot chocolate.
Sorry if this is a longer post than usual.
I'm sitting here waiting for folks to get out of a meeting so we can go eat out. .... and well, why not record that episode of my life?
AND it makes me not feel so cold up here in Oklahoma.