There are no quick cures with feng shui: Valley Views

CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio - While at the Valley Art Center's Upcycled Art Sale, this past weekend I checked out the used books table. There I found what could be the solution to my problems: Quick Feng Shui Cures written by Sarah Shurety.

As a red-blooded American, I'm all about quick cures. And, with an author named Shurety, as in sure-thing, what could possibly go wrong? Besides, at 50-cents, the price was right.

Lots of people I know have an opinion on whether something is feng shui or not. Here, at least I have a reference book.

Feng shui is a 3,000-year-old Chinese method of achieving balance and harmony, I read. So far, so good. Feng represents wind energy and Shui is water energy.

The image of a hurricane immediately came to mind when I read that. This amused me because my prior understanding of feng shui was that it is all about de-cluttering, using the right color scheme and having the proper accessories placed just-so.

I was oddly calmed by the image of a hurricane, it fit the current state of my home. You see, for the past five months, a construction project has been underway to create a bathroom upstairs where there's never been one. Of course, you could argue that there are practical reasons for that, but we went ahead with it anyway.

In order to proceed, a bathroom on the main floor was torn apart to gain a pathway for pipes, drains, vents and things of that ilk. That meant the formerly working toilet was yanked out along with plumbing in the basement, because we may as well replace the old cast iron pipes, etc. That meant tearing apart the basement storage area and displacing all the stuff stored there.

And, during one of this summer's monsoon rains, we did have some water that seeped into the basement. And, well, you get the idea.

At this point I must tell you that we do have another first floor bathroom that remained intact throughout the process, so there's no need to call the health department.

Where did we store the uprooted toilet, you might ask. Why, in our front foyer, a most un-feng-shui location, sure to bring a pox upon us. And, at our other entrance to the house from the garage, we stored a new toilet in its box and destined for the new bathroom. Another pox upon us.

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There are no quick cures with feng shui: Valley Views