May 18 2013

Update May 18

I’ve  been on an epic purge of household items and so far, we have boxes and bags of clothing, kitchen utensils, duplicate pans and serving dishes, games, toys, and books.  Slowly, PC and I are making our way through the basement, the garage, the closets and the office to get rid of as much as we can in an effort to streamline our lives and reduce some of the clutter and stress from all this crap we’ve saved.

Today he cleaned out the clutter from behind the garage; he loaded up scaffolding and ladders to take across town to a painting job he starts Monday, and then the rest of the items he either threw away or put in storage until we can get a garden/yard shed put up behind the garage for all my work signs and directional signs (“For Sale” and “Open House!” for example), as well as gardening supplies.

We have sixteen chairs in the back yard.  SIXTEEN.  Several are the plastic lawn chairs one buys at a discount store, plus a wicker armchair, patio chairs, and chairs that go with a glass-topped patio table.  We’ll be weeding through those soon.

After a morning of rearranging cabinets in the kitchen, I washed clothes and hung them out to dry, and for dinner, we grilled sausage and shrimp and served it over cheesy polenta.  Rabbit, not a fan, ate a leftover chimichanga from a previous night’s dinner.

Next week is Rabbit’s last week of school, with the school picnic on Tuesday.  The following week, she starts swim lessons at a local Swimtastic school, with 90 degree water and small class sizes.  She’s also officially given up on violin, having completed the full school year we required when she asked to be able to try it out.  We’ll return the violin to the friend who loaned it to us, and we’ll start searching for a piano teacher to give her lessons.   We are still waiting to hear back on whether our insurance will cover the cost of the braces she needs.  She is almost able to ride her bike and once she can ride it without risk of wrecking, we’ll get her a bigger bike so she and I can go riding together.

We got a landline/house phone this month.  It occurred to us that Rabbit didn’t know how to use a phone and that at the age of ten, this is a little strange.  We’ve not had a landline for the past several years, and now that she’s able to be alone at home for small stretches of time, we figured it was time she knew how to call out and learn some basic phone etiquette.

In other news, I have been super busy with work and taking care of clients; so far I’m on track to surpass what I did all of last year by July 1 of this year. Needless to say, there hasn’t been a lot of time for blogging.    PC has been busy with his painting business but could always use more projects.  We are hoping to have an informal open house/backyard picnic for friends this summer, to celebrate our 25th anniversary, which was back in January.

And I have gained 5 or more pounds so I need to get back on the bike and start riding again.

What’s new with you?

May 5 2013

I’m Cold and I’m Catching Up

Between the psychotic weather (2 inches of snow on May 2nd) and being swamped with work, I haven’t felt much like writing.  Three or four evenings a week, I’m working with clients, showing houses, phoning other Realtors, or online searching for houses.

In addition, the cold weather has made me feel reclusive so that when I have down time from work, I want to stay in my pajamas and curl up on the sofa with a book or a movie.  I was certain that by this time in the spring, I’d be out on my bike, or in the yard planting a garden, or sipping iced tea and watching flowers bloom.

Instead, I was able to enjoy one day last Tuesday when the temperatures soared to almost 90 degrees.  Everyone in town was outside, like survivors emerging after a terrible tornado.  Mowers roared to life, and I quickly did six or seven loads of laundry in succession, hanging them on the clothesline to dry.  By evening, the temperatures were falling the clouds were rolling in.  The next day it rained, and the day after that, there was snow.

Wednesday before the rain started, my neighbors in back of us invited me to help myself to as many of their perennial flower plants as I wanted, since they were getting ready to tear out a tree and regrade the entire back yard, and were not interested in having a flower garden.  I quickly hauled out the wheelbarrow and a shovel and was over there in a flash.

I dug up the rhizomes/bulbs of resurrection lilies, daylilies, daffodils and several other flower bulbs I didn’t recognize.  The entire wheelbarrow was full. The neighbor’s children helped me, peppering me with questions and regaling me with tales of how much they liked worms (“Riley kissed a worm, once,” Aiden informed me) and ignoring their three year old sister, who plopped down in the dirt and bawled until I gave her a clothespin with which to pick up tiny leaves, which she deposited in the wheelbarrow along with the plants.

I spent another two hours transplanting them in my yard, along the fenceline and in the flower bed in front of our deck and boxwood hedge.  There are more plants free for the taking, including peonies and a rose bush, but I don’t know where I will put them.

This week we have Rabbit’s school concert on Tuesday evening and the school carnival on Friday.  It will be Rabbit’s last performance with the violin, as she has decided it just isn’t for her.  We are looking for a piano teacher for her to begin lessons this summer, and will also enroll her in swim camp.  She’s outgrowing her shoes and shirts, her long lanky arms and legs seeming to grow over night.  We are also waiting to hear back on approval for her braces – since her healthcare is paid for by the state as part of her foster-to-adoption scenario, we’ve been required to wait up to ten weeks for approval to have the orthodontia paid for through Medicaid.

PC’s painting business is coming along steadily; he is currently finishing up a trade-job with a friend who is a mechanic.  PC did a painting project in his friend’s basement, banking hours that he will trade for repair work to my car down the line.  He’s bid on a few exterior painting projects that we are waiting to hear back on – hopefully the weather will improve so he can get started on some of these.

This weekend I made homemade wheat sandwich bread, homemade white chili, and chocolate chip cookies.

That.  Is about that.

Mar 25 2013

Middle Age

On Pinterest today, I found myself un-following the boards of several people who were posting wedding ideas, or tips for parents of toddlers.  Several of my younger friends had style boards containing shorty shorts, tips for bronzing bare legs for summer, and ab-toning exercises.

Unfollow.

Time was, if someone came into the workplace with a new baby or there was a family gathering with little folks, I was right in the mix and had to snuggle the baby and play with the little kids, my heart aching with longing.

Now my baby is ten years old and using a hair dryer by herself and applying benzoyl peroxide to a sprinkling of acne on her forehead.

I’m coasting well into middle age and instead of being sad or nervous about it, I am relieved.  Other than the occasional hot flash, there’s much to enjoy about being in my mid-forties.

For one, I’m not at any risk whatsoever of being approached to serve as a bridesmaid or maid of honor any more, freeing me from the nightmarish spectre of dyeable shoes and ill fitting dresses I will NEVER  be able to wear again.

I’m at a stage in life where the maternal longings of my body have been long sated by the beautiful girl who was given to us, who still occasionally wants to snuggle and who tells me she loves me every day.  The only tiny warm body that takes up lap space and relies on me completely is Hazel, our cat.

My untanned skin is no longer an embarrassment to me when I’m surrounded by peers.  It reassures me that my sunless years resulted in fewer wrinkles on my face and less crepey skin on my neck and chest.  If anything, I feel ten times more beautiful in my forties than I ever did in my thirties, or even my twenties (except for maybe a six month phase at 28 when I was a size six and had no grey hair, but I also didn’t know how to buy a good bra or wear eye shadow).

The worries I had fifteen or twenty years ago are long gone.  Of course, I still have stresses about money or time management, but having become a mother, my perspective has changed dramatically.  Having lost a parent, I value time with family much more.  Having lost friends, I value  open communication and relaxed socializing much more.  Having lost my youthful bravado and over-confidence, I value hard work and contemplation much more.

I have been privileged to know and love wonderful people in my life.  I have accumulated knowledge and hopefully a bit of wisdom along the way.   Putting together a meal for my family, helping someone find a home, balancing a checkbook, buying clothes for my daughter, teaching her to make a bed….these are not the amazing and adrenaline-laced activities of a twenty-five-year-old girl.  They are the daily in-stride duties of a middle aged woman.

Yesterday I showed nine houses to a newlywed couple.  Each one was different, each one fell short of their expectations.  ”I’m just not feeling it,” said the wife.  One house needed carpet and wallpaper removed.  Another was on a busy street.  One other didn’t have appealing colors.  All these objections could be overcome. I could have lived in any of those houses, knowing that a little imagination, paint, or compromise is what makes a house feel like a home.

After we finished, I went home and, walking into the kitchen from our car port, I was drenched in the warmth of our house.  The air was redolent with the scent of microwave popcorn my daughter had made.  She and my husband were watching a movie in the living room.  I took off my coat and made a chocolate cake, poured a cup of coffee, and sat down with them to read a book and watch the squirrels raid the bird feeder just outside our picture window.

The gift of middle age is to know that life is never perfect, but rather a series of moments of sheer perfection that crop up more frequently than we realize.  At twenty, I relentlessly pursued happiness.  At almost forty-five?  I embrace joy.  My only regret is not knowing the difference twenty years ago.

Mar 2 2013

Falling Silent

I seem to have fallen silent – at least on here.

When the blog started in 2006, bloggers were already an established thing.  But Facebook was not. Twitter was not.  Social media was something entirely different than it is now, and not the twelve-headed beast that has connected us all and simultaneously disconnected us from one another.

The long form essay, the thoughts strung together on a daily basis, sometimes with pictures: those things have been replaced by the 140-character soundbite, the link to something that links to something that links to a meme that is passe before it’s even 72 hours old.

I like to think that this blog created something lasting and permanent, a print of my life, my thoughts, my views.  I love going back to see the moments of my daughter’s life that are not recorded in any other form.  I treasure that my father’s last months were captured here, that I was able to articulate some thoughts about marriage and family and the passage of time.

Now my daughter is ten years old and entering a new stage in life, where she struggles to learn and find her way with peers, where she is testing her boundaries with us and testing the tensile strength of our family bond.*  I can’t post pictures of her like I used to without feeling that I need permission – she is a different person, her own entity and spirit in a way that differs from when she was small.

My work life has changed as well.  Since my father died, I stopped working for someone else and have my own business, which has started to consume exponentially more of my time.  My involvement in the youth retreat program has ended, my husband has his own business, and the extra time I have seems to revolve around something other than blogging.

I’m not saying this blog is going away.  What’s happening is that it feels as though I’ve said what I need to say in this format and perhaps I need to rethink what to say and where to say it.  What it means to me to be a writer is still elemental: I have a story, I have a voice, I have a need to set it down for posterity and reach out with it to touch other people.

How I do that by writing about school lunch ideas or making detergent has become my dilemma.  This blog has strayed from how I feel about things to being a record of what I did that day – I don’t like that development.   Obviously, there is a time and place for rants and anecdotes and recipes, but they are the extras.

In other media, I post snapshots, school lunches, jokes, daily events and running commentary.  I have come to realize that I want my written voice to be more than just a series of soundbites.  I want this strange and complex and beautiful life God has given me to look like more than a jumble of hastily scribbled sticky notes.

For now, I would appreciate knowing what it is you most value from this forum.  That may help determine where I go from here.

But meanwhile?  After not writing from age 20 until age 38, I have spent nearly seven years exorcising the trauma of my thin-skinned college self reeling from the shock of a C grade in creative writing.  What an idiot I was, but what a gift that turned out to be.  I spent the past seven years and over 1,500 posts learning all over again what writing meant to me.  It means everything.

The blog stays up – I will still post on a semi-regular basis.

But.  It’s time to start that book.

 

*By the way.  Her name is April. His name is Phil.  And they are completely wonderful.

Feb 14 2013

The Old House Remembered

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482428_4297989298998_1854132749_nSee the following posts for memories of the house where I grew up…because today it was torn down.  A giant bulldozer and truck came in and leveled it, and the rubble was hauled away, including the hand-stained paneling my dad made for the kitchen, the heavy iron floor vent covers, the crate in the basement addressed to a returning GI who lived at the house in the 1940s.

Gone are the rose bushes in the front, the wood floors, the shelves my dad put above the kitchen windows, and the scorched attic beams that reminded us of the house’s survival of fire back before our family bought it in 1968.

Gone are the ferren brick tile basement walls, the giant old furnace, the cast iron bath tub in the upstairs bathroom.  Gone is the smooth plaster lining the stairway, the wavy glass window panes upstairs, the wide planks of pine wood covered in old linoleum that we walked on in the upstairs bedrooms.

In my heart, there is a spot that will forever be occupied by the big white frame house on the corner of Chapin Street in that small western Nebraska town.  In my memories, it is clean and tall, with roses and lilacs, irises and tulips all blooming.  Mock if you will, but to me it was a living and breathing thing.

Packing up the house

Visiting the house

Emptying the house

My mom’s kitchen

Thirty panes of glass

Dinner Bell

Homesick

Jesus With the Corndog, Mary With the Pantyhose

Sighs of the Past (excellent photo)

Still Life With Hot Wheels

Too Late Schmart (great picture)

The Front Door

Feb 12 2013

Strike Zone

Last night, Rabbit took her usual evening shower.  [Side note: we moved showers from evenings to mornings for a while but after the protracted shower time made morning preparations a living hell, we moved showers back to evenings.]

Anyway.  Last night she took her shower and forgot to set the timer we keep in the bathroom.  Our rule has been 10 minute showers, because our water bill is outrageous.  Rabbit was in the shower for at least 20 minutes.  I leaned into the bathroom and told her to get out, and that she needed to remember to set her timer.

Tonight, she got in the shower and was in there for at least 20 minutes before I went out to consult with PC about consequences.  We are working to model appropriate behavior for Rabbit, including better consistency with rewards/penalties.  A United Front.  Parents Working Together.  Whatever, I decided to visit with him before imposing consequences.

We decided that since she hadn’t set her timer, this would be strike two, and that three strikes would result in a loss of television privileges for the evening.

When I went back inside, Rabbit was just coming out of the bathroom.  I stood in her bedroom doorway and asked if she had forgotten her timer.

“Yeah,” she said sheepishly.  ”I forgot to set it.”

“Well, honey,” I began reasonably, feeling that PC and I had the upper hand and the high road and that all would be smooth sailing, “That’s the second time because you forgot last night, so this is strike two…if you get three strikes, then—”

She didn’t even let me get the rest of my sentence out.  ”That’s not fair!” she yelled. “That’s not strike two because you didn’t tell me when the first strike happened.  So this is strike one!”

And off we went, into the tall grass.

I politely and calmly told her that no, it was strike two and that—

“No it isn’t!”

Okay, I interrupted, let’s start over and please don’t interrupt me or argue about—

“I’m not arguing!  That’s not arguing!”

please dear jesus let me not scream or start laughing or both…

I told Rabbit that because she had argued, we’d moved straight on to strike three and that unfortunately, as a result, there would be no television tonight.

And then commenced the gnashing of teeth and dropping of tiny plastic toys onto the floor in an annoying and passive aggressive fashion.  I turned on my heel and went back to my office and Rabbit shouted “Fine! I don’t get TV so I’m getting back in the shower!”

You what the what?  ”No way, sister.  You’re done with the shower.”

She stomped her foot.  ”I want to watch TV!  I want TV!”

Yes, because that will guarantee you get what you want: tantrums.  In ten years of life, a tantrum has never resulted in the granting of privilege and favor.  Perhaps she felt she was overdue.

“I’m going outside,” I remarked.

“NO!” she shouted, realizing that meant I was going to talk to her daddy.  ”No! Why are you going outside?”

“Because I want to go outside,” I said.  Not shouting, by the way, but wanting to.

“Fine!” she yelled, and went back to her room, still draped in her towel, water dripping from the ends of her hair.  As I went into the kitchen, I heard legos being dropped onto the floor and flung into the hallway.

PC and I decided that we would implement a strike system and that three strikes would equate a loss of privileges, but that Rabbit would also be allowed to do certain jobs to redeem a strike and save her ass.

When I got inside, I talked to a calmed down Rabbit about it.  I let her choose the jobs she would do to redeem her strikes and this is her list:

1. Clean the litter box
2.  Unload the dishwasher
3.  Folding socks
4.  Using the rubber sponge to get cat hair off the rug
5.  Dusting the furniture
6. Other jobs as we come up with them.

She also helped make a list of strike-worthy offenses, including (but not limited to) the following:

1.  Throwing a fit (in the south, it’s “pitching a fit”)
2.  Not cleaning her room
3.  Not doing her other assigned chores and jobs
4.  Talking back when we tell her to stop
5.  Arguing

She was very interested in the process when she got to be involved in the list – I referred to it as a “Justice Summit” and PC felt we had made reasonable strides.

We’ll let you know how reasonable it all turns out to be next time the poo hits the fan, but I feel encouraged so far.

Feb 11 2013

Busy and Tired

Today: showed six houses.  Tomorrow: showing two houses, having a meeting, writing letters to residents in a neighborhood to try to convince them to sell their houses.  Wednesday: hair appointment, then an electrical inspection at a house.  Thursday:  probably showing more houses, putting up open house signs, calling buyers. Friday, I don’t know. Saturday, house inspection.  Sunday:  three open houses.  Next Monday, showing a bed and breakfast that is for sale.

Meanwhile, I need to get an orthodontist consultation for Rabbit, schedule her educational assessment meeting at the school, get my contacts re-checked, sort through a year’s worth of paperwork in preparation for taxes, find an accountant and on and on and on.

BUT: at least I’m busy, and we have a working dishwasher.

But good lord, I’m tired.