I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Rush!
This morning at 9 a.m. I got dressed in my “Cleaning the Basement” uniform–work jeans and sweatshirt, headscarf, headlight, and work gloves–and headed for the basement. I had conquered my fear and worked in the musty spidery basement without any anxiety. I have confronted a lot of scary things in my life and one really cool thing that I have learned about fear is that it’s a bully who backs down when you confront it.
I saw only one or two spiders while I was I was down there and they quickly darted away. I also saw a strange looking creature on an old cabinet. It looked sort of like a white octopus. There were a couple smaller ones nearby. I have never seen such a thing before so I took a picture of it.
I put some stuff in the car to donate and I hauled old falling apart cabinets and a bunch of other junk into the yard. EJ and I had discussed whether to fill the pickup with junk and haul it to the landfill or rent a dumpster. When I saw the pile of junk growing, I texted EJ to ask if he wanted to just rent the dumpster afterall. Since they will drop off and pick up the dumpster, we won’t have to take the time to drive to the landfill. He said yes, so I called the rental place. They told me that they won’t have any until May 29th. Ok. I reserved one. Then I went back to cleaning the basement. I worked until about 2 p.m. and I was amazed and proud of all the progress I made. I want to clean enough of the basement so that we can easily haul out the chest freezer, shelves, and EJ’s tools and stuff. I also wanted to make the old furnace accessible so maybe we can get a furnace guy to come while I’m still down here so he can plan what needs to be done to install a new furnace. I don’t know how we are going to arrange to get the furnace in since we will all be in the north soon.
I am watching the days quickly pass by and I have a lot to do so after I ate lunch, I went out to paint. I painted a strip of green trim on the back porch, painted the garage door, and painted our front door…all green. Then I started painting the trim on the garage. I got all the parts done that I could do without getting out the ladder. It was getting late so I thought I’d finish up another day. I will probably need EJ or JJ to paint the way up high places.
I came inside and took a shower to wash off basement dirt and green paint. I had just sat down when the phone rang.
It was our mortgage officer. She said that once EJ arranges for house insurance–which he needs to do ASAP–we can schedule closing. She said it’s possible we could schedule the closing for Tuesday.
AAAAAHHHHHH!
All my plans were made for closing on Monday, June 1. I have arranged to have the dumpster dropped off May 29th, and I was hoping to get the furnace guy here and arranged for him to install a new furnace. I have to close out our other checking account, cancel our internet down here, fill out change of address cards at the post office. I was going to do all this next week! And a Tuesday closing would mean I’d have to bring the dog and seven cats up all by myself….The mortgage officer said we could schedule the closing for Friday of next week if that will work better. It might. I could dash up on Friday and then we could drive down and get the pets, and essential items like sleeping bags and cleaning supplies and clothes. Or EJ could get a power of attorney and do the closing without me on Tuesday. That would save money on the motel room. Or….EJ and I will have to discuss this when he gets home. He’s currently at the Secretary of State (i.e., DMV) getting the tags renewed on his pickup.
I am so not ready.
But I am excited.
We have arranged for EJ’s nephew to help us move on June 6th. That still hasn’t changed. He has a friend who has a commercial truck and they will come down and move us. Yay! Until then, we will be camping out in the new house, tearing out the old carpet, installing new flooring, and painting walls.
The Basement
Ugh, the weather sure is crazy. Monday was a warm 80 degrees. The weather forecast had said that it would rain but since it hadn’t rained all weekend as predicted, I took a risk and I painted the front porch. I began at 9 a.m.–or maybe before–and painted until mid-afternoon. It looks nice.
I was going to paint the green trim and maybe the garage door today, but it was too cold. There are frost warnings out for tonight so when I finished all my work today, I went out and covered the plants I had put outside. I also turned the heat back on.
Being unable to paint messed up my schedule. I drank coffee as I contemplated how to spend my day. I didn’t want to have an unproductive day when we have less than two weeks before we close on the house. I feel rushed to get as much done as we can because I don’t want to keep coming south AND I want to get our house up for sale soon.
I decided to work on the basement. When I last went to the dark basement to find paint, I had managed to find the light to turn it on. I left it on, but EJ turned it back off. So I decided to work in the first of the two rooms of the basement. I got on my work clothes–which is also my paint clothes–including a old sweatshirt–and put a headscarf on to protect my head from spiders and their webs. I went into the basement, but in the small room there is exercise equipment, a chest freezer, and EJ’s work bench piled with stuff. I had no idea how to pack it. I peered into the pitch blackness of the other room. Nope, I couldn’t do it. I changed my clothes.
I decided to walk to the post office for our mail and then walk Danny. As I walked I thought that I really need to get a start on the basement. So when I got home, I changed into my work clothes with spider protection head scarf and went into the basement. I put a few things into an empty kitty litter bucket, but I felt overwhelmed by the task of packing EJ’s stuff. I peered into the blackness of the other basement room. Nope, I couldn’t do it. I changed my clothes.
I decided to drive to the grocery store. I knew I would have to go sometime this week and I might as well go on a cold day when I can’t work outside and I’m too scared to work in the basement.
When I got home, I remembered that we had decided to donate JJ’s dresser. He has had it since he was born–his crib and dresser were a set–and it’s really much too small for his adult clothes. I’ve been wanting to get him a new dresser for years, but never did. I measured to make sure the dresser would fit in the car. Yup. No problem. I took out the six drawers and slid the dresser down the stairs, and carried it and the drawers out into the car. I took Danny with me to the Hospice store. I had worked with the woman who helped me unload the dresser years and years ago–at my first job at McDonalds. I had told her I had a little dresser to donate but when she saw it she exclaimed, “TJ! You said it was LITTLE!” Well, I thought it was little–it’s smaller than EJ and my dressers and is much too small for JJ’s clothes. The woman said, “Did you put this dresser into the car yourself? I don’t know how you did it.” I told her that I had even carried it downstairs. She was impressed.
Photo from LOTR.Wikea.com
When I got home, I was determined that I needed to get a start on the basement and no darkness or spiders were going to keep me from it. I put my work clothes back on, grabbed a big broom and a flashlight, and swept the spider webs from the ceiling as I advanced into the dark. I felt like Frodo Baggins with his sword and elvish light. I got the lights on–they have to be turned on individually. Once the lights were on, I felt braver. I worked for a couple of hours and made a lot of progress. I hope to get more done later in the week.
Soon, soon, soon, I will be in our new house in the Enchanted Forest. I love Google Earth because even though I am not up there, I can explore the area. It’s fun. I look at pictures of our new house and it’s difficult to believe that soon it will be ours. I have told JJ that at first the house will feel strange and unfamiliar, but it won’t be long before the house is “Home.”
Baby Birds
My guys have been here…and are gone again.
One of my neighbors said I must get really lonely during the week here all alone. I do miss my guys like crazy, but during the week I keep busy and just try not to think about missing them. I think instead of getting as many projects done as I can so we don’t have to return too many times this summer, and I think of the exciting life waiting me in the North. The hardest time is after my guys leave. Sunday evenings are the worst…I am filled with a lonely ache.
My guys will leave me behind only one more time and then my exile in the south will be over. However, I told EJ a couple of months ago that I will never really ever leave our village–a part of me will be here forever. He said, “No you won’t,” but I told him I could prove it. I reminded him that a couple of years ago the Google car took my picture several times while I was walking Danny so I will always be in our village on Google Earth. It’s like Danny and I are haunting the village.
Yesterday morning (Saturday) EJ and I drove to the Secretary of State with the intention of renewing the tags on pickup truck. “Secretary of State” sounds very important, but actually it is what other states call the “Department of Motor Vehicles.” EJ says that Michigan is the only state that calls it the Secretary of State. We had to drive to the city because that branch was the only one in our area that was open on Saturday. When we walked into the place….we took one look and went right back out. It was filled with people–busier than I have ever seen any Secretary of State office ever. We decided that EJ will renew the tags up in the Emerald City sometime this week.
Since we were already in the city, we decided to go to Lowes to look at flooring for our new hours. Then we went to Menards. We really would like to get wood flooring, but it’s too expensive. It would take too much of our savings and we need to have enough money to buy a riding lawnmower to mow our five acres in the summer and a plow to clear our driveway of snow in the winter. We considered laminate flooring, but it’s of lesser quality and just about as expensive as wood flooring. Since we’d like to have the flooring put in quickly, we’d have professionals install it, which adds to the price. So after talking it over, we decided that we will settle for vinyl flooring that looks like wood, which is what we have in our house now. It’s less expensive than wood and laminate flooring and we can easily and quickly install it ourselves. Also, if it wears out, we can easily replace it. We have this type of flooring in our current house and people often can’t believe it’s not actually wood.
This morning EJ and I were scared awake at about 5 a.m. by a very strange sound. It sounded like a loud slap….slap…like a wooden ruler slapping against a desk. EJ got up to investigate and discovered that Luke had pried open the door to the upstairs and now was trying to pry open our bedroom door. A couple of the other cats had followed Luke upstairs. EJ got the cats downstairs and he followed them down and fell asleep in his new Lazyboy. He said Luke tried to open the upstairs door again. The cats aren’t allowed upstairs…We have a door on our stairs to keep the heat downstairs, and I don’t want to lug kitty litter up and down the stairs. However, once we get to our new house, everything will be on one floor and they will have access to the whole house.
This afternoon EJ worked on putting up more drywall. A while back he built a platform over the stairs so he could put up drywall in hard to reach places above the stairs. He is going to have to dismantle the platform for moving day (which is in two weeks) so we can get the upstairs furniture downstairs, which means he will have to finish the drywall next week. That is going to be our next weekend project. I’m hoping I can paint all the wall during my last week at this house.
I kept EJ company today while he hung drywall…and helped him when I could, which wasn’t much. While I was upstairs, I opened the curtain in JJ’s room and startled a Mourning Dove, who startled me. Then I saw that the Mourning Dove had built a nest on the window sill. She had two babies in the next. I got EJ and JJ and we stealthily observed the Mama and babies. I also took pictures.
EJ and I also stood for a while and watched the baby sparrows in the birdhouse outside the kitchen window. One of the babies keeps poking her head out of the door and looking around in wide-eyed wonder. We cooed encouragement to her as she got her wings out of the house, almost ready to fly away, but she lost her courage and withdrew back into the house. Soon she will leave the nest.
I think our house is very pretty in the Spring and Summer and I love all the birds nesting on the sills, and in the vines on the house, and in the birdhouses. However, in the north we will also have birdhouses–and the I think the variety of birds will be greater, if only because we are in the country. EJ drove JJ to the house a few weeks ago, and JJ said there is a nice birdhouse already at the new house. I will enjoy continuing the birdscaping there. I’m not going to take down my birdhouses down here until late summer when the birds are done raising their families because I don’t want to harm any baby birds. However, even if we sold our house as soon as we put it up for sale in mid-July (I hope), I doubt we’d have the closing before autumn.
This week I’m going to try to get all the outside painting done. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, but I’m hoping the weather will be nice for the rest of the week.
Rabbit Trails
A friend said something the other day that sent me scampering down some rabbit trails. For those who might not know, “going down a rabbit trail” is an idiom that refers to thoughts or discussions going here and there off the main topic. Although some people think they are distractions, I happen to love going down rabbit trails in my thoughts because they can lead me to some interesting and profound places.
Photo from Fanpop.com
An example of a rabbit trail is this: Last weekend EJ asked if we had any bread. I told him that we had some on the counter, but he couldn’t find it, so I said, “There, see? I’m pointing right at it.” That made me think of Kaylee, a character in a favorite science fiction television series from the early 2000s called Firefly because she had said much the same thing in an episode. Firefly makes me think of how much I enjoy science fiction, which makes me think of when JJ asked me last weekend about the sore on my face. I told him it was where an alien had entered my body and now it was in the process of taking over my brain. That made me think of the science fiction program called Stargate SG-1, in which parasitic aliens entered a person’s body and possessed them.
Photo from sg1.cz
These evil parasitic aliens declared they were gods and enslaved people from various planets, demanding their worship. One of the main characters on the show, an alien named Teal’c, had once served these false gods, but he had rebelled and now fought against them. His example caused others among his people to also rebel. When any of his people were facing death, they declared victoriously, “I die free!” This always makes me think of recovering from abuse because abuse enslaves a person’s mind, causing a victim to believe he/she is worthless, inadequate, and a bunch of other things. Recovery is really a battle against false beliefs forced upon a victim by a godlike abuser who demands submission to his/her control. I have told EJ that when I die, I want “I died free” to be written on my tombstone because it has great meaning to me.
All EJ did was ask where the bread was, and locating the bread was all he was thinking about, but my mind skipped and leaped from one thought to another and ended up in a totally different place. That is a rabbit trail. So when I say that a person said something that made me ponder, I simply mean that he/she said something that caused my thoughts to skip and leap and wander from one place to another, and it may (and likely is) very different from and unrelated to what the person had in mind. I am not saying that the person was thinking or saying what my thoughts wandered to.
My friend said something that started me thinking of how very difficult it is to watch someone have wonderful dreams come true when he/she is going through intense suffering. I know how difficult it is because I have been there. I have seen good things happening to people while I and my family have suffered with things like chronic illness, infertility, miscarriage, abuse, financial struggles, my son’s cancer, and many, many other things. I know what it’s like to see others get pregnant when I struggled with infertility, or when I heard of loving families getting together when my family is abusive, or when a person gets the new house in the country that we would have loved while we can’t escape town, or when a new boss gives his friend, who we knew abused his family, honest and loving EJ’s job. It is hard.
Thinking about how difficult it is started me wandering down the rabbit trails. Actually, I revisited memories and experiences and lessons learned in the past.
First, I thought about a woman I had worked with years ago, before JJ was born. She was quite terrible at empathizing with people who were suffering. I was sometimes appalled at her lack of sensitivity and empathy. However, she knew how to “rejoice with those who rejoiced” better than anyone I have ever known. She totally shared in others’ joy without the slightest sign of envy. There was no “Nothing good ever happens to me” nor “Why can’t I have good things like that?” When someone shared a good thing with her, she asked tons of questions about it and was totally excited for them. She increased others’ joy through her sharing in it. I decided that I wanted to be more like her when it came to sharing in joy. I have really tried to share in others joys…as well as their sufferings. Both are tremendous gifts to give to others.
Thinking of joy-givers made me think of joy-suckers. Rather than increase joy, as my co-worker did, some people are very good at decreasing it. For example, I can’t think of a time when my sister was ever glad when something good happened to me. She always said things like, “Nothing good ever happens to me” or “You are God’s favorite–He always gives you good things and never gives me good things.” She always made me feel guilty about having good things happen to me, and after awhile I felt reluctant to share good news with her because she always diminished it. I always ended up trying to reassure her that I don’t always have good things happen to me, and that good things do happen to her, and that God has no favorites. I know now that she is a narcissist who must always have the focus on herself. I have finally concluded that it’s ok to enjoy good things because every gift is from God who richly provides us with all things for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17). I’m not saying we ought to be insensitive to those who are suffering–absolutely not–but that I think we can be joyful and grateful when God gives us “good” things. EJ and I have often discussed that difficult times are also gifts from God…but that is a topic for another day. I think we ought to enjoy the gifts God gives because they help us rest from difficult days in the past and often they strengthen us for difficult days ahead. I don’t know if I explained my thoughts about this very well, but I hope you understand. I really try hard not to be a joy-sucker who sucks all the joy out of good things other people have.
Hmmmm. That, I think, is the real gift of those who share in the joy of others. They give people the gift of being able to enjoy the blessings that God richly provides them. That is a tremendous gift to give others. As the old saying goes: Share sorrow is halfed sorrow and shared joy is double joy. Or as Romans 12:15 says, rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. I currently have a friend who is wonderful at both rejoicing and weeping with others, and she is such a blessing! I would like to be more like her.
Another memory that my thoughts skipped to is of a time when a friend got a tremendous job and began to make a great deal of money–like $100,000+ a year. And her husband also worked so it seemed they were bringing in truckloads of money. At the time, we were struggling to make ends meet. EJ’s company had given him the choice of either getting laid off or continuing to work but at a lesser job for 1/3 less pay. He chose to continue to work–mostly for the health insurance but also because if he got laid off, he might never be called back to work. You know, “out of sight, out of mind.” At the time we were struggling to make ends meet, our vehicles developed problems and our furnace died. Envy began to creep in: “Yeah, and all I have is problems!” But then I remembered that my friend had told me stories of times when she was a single Mom and was so poor that she couldn’t even afford to buy toilet paper. I’ve never been that poor. And she has suffered other very terrible things in her life–both before and after she got this tremendous job. I felt ashamed that after all she had gone through, I begrudged her the good things that were coming into her life. I stopped being envious and started being glad that she could now enjoy abundance.
This was a valuable experience that helped me realize that when we see people experiencing wonderful things in their lives….well, we have no idea what terrible, dark seasons they have endured before. Maybe they are just now finally enjoying good things after years of terrible suffering. I am sincerely glad, now, when I see others finally have a season of blessing. If I feel envy start to creep in, I reject it, reminding myself that they may desperately need this time of goodness in their lives.
That is what has happened to EJ, JJ, and me. We have gone through years and years of difficulties. We have prayed fervently for answers and for relief that didn’t come and we accepted it and praised God through it. But we were tiring. I have always tried to walk when I couldn’t run, to crawl when I couldn’t walk, and to at least not retreat if I couldn’t go forward, but JJ’s battle with cancer took the rest of our strength. It is exhausting to be a caretaker and in the last year I had no energy to do anything. I still clung to God, but I found myself just trying to get through the days–and so did EJ and JJ. Desperately, I told God that I knew that He is good and faithful and keeps His promises, but I now needed Him to carry me and to show me His goodness in tangible ways that I could see and feel. “I will faint,” I paraphrased, “unless I can see Your goodness in the land of the living.” And finally we feel God is moving us on to a wonderful place where our spirits can be refreshed and strengthened. These days I am frequently thinking of Ps. 66:10-12:
For you, God, have tested us,
refined us as silver is refined.
You brought us into the net
and bound our bodies fast.
You made men ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water.
But you brought us out
to a place of plenty.
I know these are inadequate words for those who are in the midst of brutal suffering, but it really has helped me to consider these things when life has been hard.
That is where my rabbit trailing thoughts have taken me.
What I Did Today
Not long after I got up this morning, the mortgage officer called. Apparently it’s a regulation now that they have to compare our tax information to the information that the IRS has to make sure it matches. She had tried to get our tax returns from the IRS site but it wouldn’t let her. She suspected it was because she wasn’t entering the information exactly as it was on our tax return so she gave me a link to the site and she helped me set up a profile which WAS A PAIN! When we finally got the profile set up, I clicked on the tax information she wanted, but nothing happened. Grrrr! She looked at the FAQs and we figured out it was the popup blocker causing the problems. She helped me figure out how to turn the popup blocker off on my computer and it worked! But then I wasn’t able to save the document and email it to her–I got an error message–so instead I printed it so I could fax it to her. About midway through all this frustrating procedure, I said, “Sheesh! You expect me to deal with the IRS site when I haven’t even had a cup of coffee?” We laughed.
I don’t remember having to do all this stuff when we bought our current house more than 20 years ago. The mortgage officer said it won’t be long now before the mortgage process is completed. Yay!
After getting dressed and eating breakfast and drinking half a pot of coffee, I left to run my errands. I stopped first at the bank to get the document faxed. I also closed one of our two accounts. I plan to keep the other one until I don’t have any more documents to fax since customers can have documents faxed for free. Since the bank is only two blocks from home, it saves me having to drive ten miles to the next town to have documents faxed. Besides, I really like the tellers. They are nice. EJ worked with the husband of one of the tellers and the husband of the other used to work for the Village and also was very involved with JJ’s Boy Scout Troop. They looked up our new house on-line and think the house and setting is really nice. I am really going to miss them when we move.
At the bank I also ran into the daughter-in-law of our neighbors. She used to watch JJ now and then when he was little. She said it’s going to be very strange not having us live here–and she told me to keep blogging about our adventures!
For the last few weeks, villagers keep stopping me and saying, “I hear you are moving!” When I went to vote the other day (last week?) I ran into an older villager who, after saying “I heard you are moving!” told me that she had always liked our house–she had been here a lot when she was a child because her best friend lived here. Occasionally over the years various people have shared memories of our house. One had said that the front door used to face the other street, but when they put in the fireplace they moved the front door so the entrance is on the other street. I think it’s interesting hearing about the history of our house. Only it won’t be our house for long.
When I finished running all my errands, I took Danny for his walk. I figured it was best to do it before I got busy. On our walk, I encounter another neighbor, who is interested in how we are going to transport a dog and seven cats to our new house. We have decided that Danny will ride with EJ and the cats will ride with me. I have two nice cat carriers and I bought five cardboard ones. I plan to have JJ ride with me so if any cats escape, he can keep them from distracting me. My neighbor said she might have a nice cat carrier that I could borrow. She said she would look around at home for it.
After Danny and I got home, I talked to my dear friend on the telephone as I ate lunch. Then I went outside to paint the back porch. This has been the only day I could paint this week because earlier in the week it was rainy, damp, or cold, and tomorrow it’s supposed to rain again. I painted the third side of the porch that I hadn’t been able to paint before, and then I put a second coat of paint on the other two sides. When the weather is nice again I will paint the third side again and then I will begin painting the front porch. When I have all the cream painting done, I will paint the green trim everywhere.
I thought about mowing the lawn after I finished painting, but decided against it. I went in and relaxed instead.
I am developing a lot of colorful bruises from my tumble over the exercise thingy. I have found dark bruises on my arms and legs. It’s kind of hard to see in the pictures, but my whole left foot is one big bruise. Ouch. It’s surprising I didn’t break anything. As I was falling over the thingy, I imagined being seriously hurt and my guys finding my cold lifeless body when they returned home.
Since it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, I think I will do some more packing and also make potato salad for my guys. They arrive home for the weekend tomorrow evening.
The Things We Leave Behind
It’s been a rainy week. I keep checking the weather forecast to see if conditions will allow me to paint this week. Today and tomorrow it is supposed to be sunny but I do not know if it will be dry enough to paint today and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow night so….painting outside this week might be a “no go.”
Yesterday a cold front came through and the temperatures dropped through the day to overnight lows in the 30s. I was chilled so I turned on the heat. Brrrr.
When EJ first moved up north in early March to begin his new job, JJ and I got a lot of the packing done, emptying bookcases, closets, and drawers. We left the kitchen and downstairs bathroom alone because most of the items in those rooms are “essential.” However, since this week’s weather prevented me from working outside, and since our moving day is getting closer, I decided to begin packing the kitchen and bathroom. I plan to pack everything except what I absolutely need. I will have to get more boxes before I pack too many more things because I am running out.
Since JJ was diagnosed with cancer, I have not exercised much and our eating habits deteriorated. (We were too tired to fix healthier meals.) I gained some weight. Last night I looked in the mirror and thought, “Bleagh.” I hate doing exercises–like aerobics and pilates and exercise equipment. I think they are boring and feel like work. I’d much rather take walks outside where I can enjoy my surroundings and forget I am exercising. There are a lot of trails through beautiful surroundings near the Emerald City and I plan to do plenty of walking when I get up there. However, I thought I might as well get started now, so last night I took the exercise thingy downstairs. I don’t know exactly what it is called. It’s not a bike or treadmill or elliptical–you lift your own weight by pulling back on the handles and pushing with the feet, sort of like a rowing machine. EJ says it works on strengthening the core and I thought I could use it while I watched something on Netflix to take my mind off the boring exercising. I managed to get the thingy downstairs (which was exercise in itself!) but Luke ran upstairs while the door was open. Rats! The cats are not supposed to be upstairs. He stopped halfway up the stairs, so I went to grab him but I forgot I was on the other side of the exercise thingy and I fell across it. Besides various bruises developing on various parts of my body, my foot scraped across the thingy and it is bruised and swollen. So now I have an exercise thingy downstairs but I cannot use it. This is my normal experience with exercises and exercise equipment. I always seem to hurt myself when I interact with them. I rarely hurt myself walking my Danny.
EJ has been working first shift for the last month. After years of working second shift, he is not used to getting up early so I have my phone alarm set for 6 a.m. so I can make sure he is awake. Each morning I send him a text such as “R U awake?” or “Wake up!” This morning I texted him “Have a gr8 day!” and then fell back to sleep. When I woke up again an hour later, I noticed that I had forgotten to send the text so I pushed “send.” He responded with “Uh, okay…” I looked at the text more closely and saw that I had actually written “Yage a tr8 day!” Obviously, I was not awake when I first wrote it. LOL.
Photo from powerlisting.wikia.com
This morning I chatted with JJ at FB. He told me that the electrical people needed access to their hotel room and he was expecting them soon. The first image that came to my mind was of superheros with electrical powers. I know the electrical people JJ is expecting are simply repairmen, but I think the way I look at the world is much more fun. For example, the other day JJ saw a small sore on my face and he asked, “What happened there?” I could have told him it was a simply a small sore (duh) but instead I told him it was where an alien had entered my body and now it was in the process of taking over my brain. He said, “So I should kill you before it takes complete control?” We have fun conversations.
Photo from: nanonews.tumblr.com
This last weekend as we drove to the thrift shop to donate tables, I told EJ that I think we are storytellers. A nonstoryteller would say something like “After I worked outside, I drank a glass of ice water.” However, as a storyteller, I (and we) have to tell the whole story: “It was a brutally hot, humid day and the sweat poured off me as I pushed the mower over the long grass. All I could think of as I worked was the jug of cool water in the refrigerator. When I finished mowing, I staggered into the house, reaching into the refrigerator for the water like a desperate man dying of thirst in the desert….” A nonstoryteller states facts, while a storyteller describes the scene in vivid detail, making the reader understand the difficulties, the struggles, the emotions, and then the relief.
I told EJ that I want to describe how important this move to the Emerald City is for us, and why moving there gives us such feelings of joy, delight, and freedom. However, to describe that, I would have to put into words the difficulties, the struggles, and the emotions we felt living down here. However, there really is too much to put into words and I do not know how to set the scene without appearing to be negative. Like how do I describe EJ’s struggles at the company he worked at for 17 years? Without describing the struggle and his legendary endurance, a reader can’t understand the awed joy and relieved disbelief he feels working at his new company. How do I describe JJ’s struggles down here, including battling cancer? Without that, you can’t understand his joy and hope at being in the North.
And how do I describe my own struggles down here? I’d have to be able to put into words the damage of emotional abuse, which is difficult because so few understand it unless they’ve experienced it. I’d have to describe the struggle, pain, damage, difficult journey toward recovery. I’d have to put into words how it feels to brace myself whenever I go to the store in case I run into abusive family, or how various places are painful triggers. Moving to the Emerald City represents freedom to me–freedom from the dread of abusive encounters and freedom from triggers of painful abuse. I’d also have to describe how much I love natural beauty and how difficult it has been to have the sight of sunrises, sunsets, and approaching storms blocked by neighboring houses, and the stars blocked by the light pollution of nearby towns. Or how I long to see wildlife wandering across my yard. I do the best I can to bring beauty and wildlife into my yard with gardening and birdfeeders, but I thirst for more natural beauty like a desperate man in a desert longs for water.
Photo from w3talks.org
I told EJ that in the North there are layers of things we love. The foundational layer is the various beauty of the land–the forests, the sand dunes, the rivers and lakes and Great Lakes. Next there is the natural activities–gazing at the night sky, walking the trails, birdwatching, fishing. There is also the layer of simply enjoying having five acres in the Enchanted Forest to putter around in, gardening, EJ working in his shop, sitting on our patio drinking coffee in the morning. Then there is a layer of activities like watching the Tall Ships or the huge Great Lake boats or visiting lighthouses. There is also a layer of cultural activities such as festivals, and art shows, and libraries, and many other things we can enjoy. There is layer upon layer and each layer is a delight to us.
As I go about my day, painting and packing, I think of all these layers. I think that without understanding the things that we leave behind (abuse, discouragement, lack of wild beauty, lack of exercise and unhealthy food) , a person can’t understand the joy we are reaching for, but sometimes there are no words to describe it.
Clean Up Days
My guys had to run errands in the Emerald City after EJ got out of work Friday afternoon so they got a late start and didn’t arrive back here until 11 p.m. They were extremely tired and glad to be home. As soon as they arrived, I began washing the dirty laundry they always bring back with them. I was able to get the last load into the dryer before we headed to bed.
A good night’s sleep re-energize my guys and we had a tremendous weekend together.
Saturday was Spring Clean Up Day–the day in which the Village rents huge dumpsters so villages can get rid of unwanted junk for free.
Friday morning I had filled the pickup truck with junk that we wanted to get rid of–old fences pieces, old windows, broken chairs. Saturday morning EJ and I threw in a few more things and then unloaded it at the dumpsters set up at the Village Department of Public Works. I was planning to help unload, but the dumpsters were too high for me to throw heavy items into. Besides, my help was not really needed. The were several Village workers and men from the dumpster company who helped EJ empty the pickup.
When the pickup was emptied, we drove back home to refill the pickup. EJ went up into the second story of the garage–actually the garage is only one and a half stories–and threw stuff down which I dragged to the pickup. We pretty much emptied the garage of junk, except for the tires and old air conditioners which the Village wouldn’t take. When we had a good-sized load, we went back to the dumpsters and EJ and the guys threw it in.
After our second load, I had to leave with JJ. He had opened an account at a bank in the Emerald City and wanted to close his account at the bank down here. Afterwards we drove to a store because I had a few things to get. Mostly I needed paper for the printer because the printer was out. We have paper at home….but it’s packed in a box and buried under a mountain of other boxes and I didn’t want to bother trying to find it.
While JJ and I were gone, EJ saw his old Lazy-Boy chair, which finally broke last week and he decided to haul it to the dumpsters. When JJ and I returned, I profusely thank EJ for remembering to take the old chair. I was so focused on ridding the garage of junk that I had totally forgotten the old chair. We got to talking about his current old chair, which is also not in the best of shape and not worth moving to the Emerald City. We decided we had just enough time to take it to the dumpsters. The DPS worker laughed, “Wow, every visit you bring chairs that look better than the last!”
We would have preferred to wait until we moved to buy a new Lazy-Boy for EJ but after hauling the two old ones to the dumpsters, he had no place to sit. Our couch hurts his back. So we drove to the furniture thrift shop and found him a really nice Lazy-Boy for not much money.
This morning as we drank coffee together, we observed some of our coffee and end tables and other little tables. We weren’t sure we wanted to haul them up north because they were a bit battered. I considered trying to refinish them–most of them would be worth refinishing–but we weren’t all that attached to them and didn’t want to have to bother with it. We have bought all our living room furniture at thrift shops or yard sales for little money. We have fun “treasure hunting” and EJ had said there were a lot of thrift shops up there where we could buy nice tables. So….we searched the house and found seven coffee tables, end tables, and other little tables that we didn’t want to move to our new house and we loaded up his Buggy with them. Then we drove to the closest Goodwill and donated them. When we left the “Donate” door, we went around to the front door because EJ wanted to see if he could find some shirts. I found some T-shirts and jeans. I needed jeans but often have trouble finding any at thrift shops because my legs are short so “average” jeans are much too long. I’ve learned to just look for short jeans hanging among the longer-legged ones on the racks. I found several pairs of short jeans in my size.
As we browsed the store, EJ pulled me over to show me that there was an end table in the store that was exactly like the one we had just donated a couple of minutes before. We thought it was amazing that there were two matching end tables in the store because they were a bit unusual. But a few minutes later I saw in another part of the store, another end table that was a duplicate of the one we had just donated–one whose legs had been painted blue (not by us). These were not duplicates but the exact tables we had just donated. We laughed. We had not expected the tables to get taken into the store so quickly after we dropped them off.
If felt good to get rid of so much junk this weekend. We declared that we have made a lot of progress and we had a very fun weekend. It was hard for us when the guys had to leave for the north, but I remind myself that there is only three weeks left before we close on the house and I can go North.
Sweltering
I spent all Wednesday sleeping–not because I was lazy but because I didn’t feel well. I had an achy head, chills, and nausea. I felt too awful to be awake. I kind of wonder if the damp rainy days aggravated my sinuses or something.
Thursday I felt better, so I went outside and scraped old paint off the outside of the back porch. I had to reach high above my head at times, and the flaking paint rained down on me. Some of it apparently got into my eyes. They have felt itchy and burning ever since. Hopefully, they will recover soon.
After I scraped paint, I painted. Halfway through our mortgage officer called with papers I had to get to her. I printed a form she emailed me and signed it, found the other papers she wanted, and then drove two blocks to our bank and had them faxed to her. I have one more form to get to her but I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for so EJ will help me find it when he gets home. After I took care of all that business, went back to painting. I was able to complete two sides of the back porch before I had to stop. We are supposed to have several days of rain, but when we get another sunny day I will paint the third side and then paint a second coat before moving on to the front porch. When I get all the cream painting done, I will paint the trim green on the house and garage.
We are supposed to have storms this afternoon so I did not paint. However, I was able to accomplish a lot of things.
Every year in May our village has “Clean Up Days.” They rent some huge dumpsters and the villagers can haul their junk there for free. When we first moved here, we used to be able to haul the junk out to the side of the road and the village would haul it away, but nonresidents started bringing in their junk to their resident friends and relatives so the Village starting providing the dumpsters and checking ID. Even so I think some people take advantage of it. I think one year people got in to where the dumpsters are at and filled them up before the villagers could get to them. It’s always the unscrupulous few who ruin things for the honest folk.
Anyway, I spent the morning loading up EJ’s pickup truck with junk we need to get rid of. At least it will be one less trip we have to make to the junk yard.
When I finished loading the truck, I mowed the lawn. Then I took Danny for his walk. It was sweltering outside and I had to take frequent breaks to cool off. I am certain that I have snowman DNA because when it gets hot, I begin to melt.
I have a couple of friends who live in Texas. One of my Texan friends had to move to Pennsylvania for a bit and she hated the long-lasting cold and couldn’t wait to move back to her beloved warm Texas. Another friend and I enjoy comparing our weather. “Brrr!” my friend says. “It’s really cold here in Texas today. “Oh,” I reply, “It’s really warm here in Michigan. How cold is it in Texas?” She answers, “80 degrees! How cold is it in Michigan?” I say, “It’s a very warm 65 degrees.” Then we laugh. But, seriously, I don’t know how they can endure the heat. When we first began to tell people that we were moving, several assumed we were moving south. It’s reasonable that they would assume that because many wimpy Michiganders get tired of the cold and move south, at least for the winter. We exclaimed, “South? Ugh, no! We are moving NORTH!”
The last time I talked to our mortgage officer on the phone–yesterday–she said the weather was very nice in the Emerald City and asked me about the weather down state. I told her it was sweltering (in the 70s). She told me that the Great Lakes are like an air conditioner blowing cool air into Michigan so the weather stays really nice and bearable. I can’t wait to get there!
This afternoon I gave Danny a bath. He hates baths but he patiently endures them. He patiently endures a lot of things he dislikes. His fur is so thick that it takes two or three days for him to dry.
The receptionist from JJ’s current oncologist called this morning. The transfer of JJ’s medical stuff to the north is progressing.
My guys have a couple of errands to run in the Emerald City and then they will be driving down to join me for the weekend. We have a lot of tasks to do. Ugh. There’s so much to do that it feels overwhelming and I don’t know how we will get it all done. Only 24 more days to go.
A Somewhat Slow Rainy Day
Yesterday the temperatures were well into the 70s. This morning I awoke to a cool, rainy day with temperatures reaching only into the upper 40s. It was the sort of day that makes me want to do nothing more than cuddle with cats and watch movies on Netflix.
I did accomplish a few things, but not many.
I walked to the Township Hall to vote on a proposal to raise state sales tax from 6% to 7% in order to fix Michigan roads. Because of the freezing and thawing, such terrible potholes form that they could almost be called sinkholes. Ok, maybe not quite that bad, but bad enough. I won’t tell you how I voted (but I prefer potholes to taxes). EJ and JJ weren’t able to vote because they are in the Emerald City instead of here in….I don’t have a fantasy name for our place in the south.
JJ is eager to vote, but he hasn’t had the opportunity yet. First, because he was busy battling cancer and now because he isn’t down here. I told him that as soon as we can after we move into the new house we will register to vote up there.
Danny had wanted to go with me when I left to vote but he isn’t registered to vote so he had to stay home. However, as soon as I got back home I took him for his walk. It was drippy, not rainy, at that time, but I took an umbrella just in case.
Later I washed the dishes. Being home alone, I don’t dirty many dishes so I only wash them when enough accumulate that it makes it worth my effort. I’m living like a bachelor–eating when I’m hungry, washing dishes when I have to, doing laundry now and then, and sleeping and waking when I want. I would trade all of that to be reunited with my guys.
I am counting the days. I discovered a widget for my blog that lets me count down the days to an event. Only 27 days left until my exile ends–until we sign the papers that make the new house officially ours and I can join my family in the north. Yay!
Our bank allows us to check the status of the loan online. I am not sure whether I like this feature or not. It’s nice to know how our loan is progressing, but it also makes me impatient. There are six steps. It took a week to accomplish Step 1, which was setting up the loan. We’ve been stuck at Step 2 (Underwriting) for more than a week. I started to wonder if it was normal to take so long, or maybe something was wrong and we wouldn’t get our loan or…..? Wouldn’t it be totally terrible if our loan was denied and we couldn’t buy the new house????!!!!
Today when I picked up the mail at the post office, I found a package filled with forms from the bank. I figured they were copies of the forms we’ve already signed, but emailing the mortgage officer to ask about them gave me the opportunity to innocently ask how the loan was progressing. To my relief, she replied,
“Everything is going well on your request! Your file is in underwriting and I anticipate it coming out very soon (maybe even today). Once the underwriter has reviewed everything, they may request additional items, if so, T. or I will let you know. We are getting close to closing!”
Yippee!
Tonight EJ and I went over various tasks that he needs to accomplish and I need to accomplish regarding the houses. Some things he does better than me and other things I do better than him. Like he will arrange to rent the U-haul truck because he knows more about what we need while I’m arranging getting JJ a new oncologist up north. Tonight EJ had to deal with the 401(k) from his old company. I laughed when I asked him if he had to fill out a form or if he had to call someone and he replied, “I’m going to scream it like Tevye at the wedding telling Lazar Wolfe to keep his diseased chickens.” That is a Fiddler on the Roof reference. I tried to find a clip of the scene to share here, but couldn’t. Fiddler on the Roof is one of my favorite movies.
My guys always make me laugh. This weekend JJ told me with great excitement that he and his Dad had seen a porcupine! I exclaimed that oh, wow, that was so cool. He confessed, “Well, it was dead alongside the road, but it proves there are porcupines up north!” LOL.
JJ worked his second evening at his new job. During his break he told me that his second day went really well. I’m so thrilled!
Weekend Stuff
The last few days have been quite productive.
Friday I went outside at 9 a.m. and painted the garage until 5 p.m. I completed two additional sides of the garage. When I was on the ladder painting the side nearest the house, I heard a sound and saw a robin with a worm in its mouth land on a branch of the tree at the corner of the garage. As I watched, it moved to its nest and settled in. I was a bit nervous that it would go into “defense mode” when I moved my ladder closer to the nest, but it didn’t seem upset. I enjoyed glancing over now and then and seeing it sitting on its nest.
My guys got home from the north later that night. It was really good to see them!
Saturday I went out to put a second coat of paint on the garage using a thick roller instead of a brush. EJ fastened a very long handle to another roller so he could reach up high to get the parts I wasn’t tall enough to reach. Then he climbed up into the second story of the garage and reached through the window to paint the very top. Meanwhile, JJ scraped off the old loose paint from the fourth side of the garage next to the woodshed and he also got a start painting it. With EJ and JJ’s help, we were able to get the entire three sides of the garage completely painted. We weren’t able to finish the fourth side but I will paint it later in the week when there is no more danger of rain. I will also paint the trim green, which is what it was originally.
When I finish the garage, I will begin scraping the flaking paint from the front and back porches of the house and paint them.
Saturday afternoon we put away our paint supplies. EJ went to his friend’s place so he could rotate the tires of his Xterra “Buggy.” Meanwhile, JJ and I went to a couple of thrift stores to find him clothes for work. He needed black dress pants and dark blue dress or polo shirts. We were able to find everything he needed. At the first thrift store we stopped at, they had a special “fill a bag for $10” sale so I bought me some new t-shirts. That was fun. My favorite t-shirt is one that has a large paw print on the side. I told JJ that I had been marked by a werewolf. I told EJ that it was my “animal whisperer” shirt.
My guys went back north on Sunday afternoon. Each week it is harder to see them go and leave me behind.
Photo from kapanlagi.com
This morning I had to take Danny to the veterinary to get his stitches removed. Just outside of our small village is a sheep farm. As we drove by, I saw two tiny little lambs standing on their wobbly little legs next to their Mama. I think they must have just been born and were standing for the first time. They were adorable.
When we move up north, I am going to miss this sheep farm. They have a Great Pyrenees dog that guards the sheep. I have a friend who had a Great Pyrenees and she said that at twilight the dog barks to announce to the world that it is now on duty and then it guards the premises from all intruders. I think that is awesome. Great Pyrenees are white and it is not easy to distinguish them from sheep so we play a “I Spy the Great Pyrenees” game every time we drive by the farm.
When Danny and I arrived at the next town, we went first to the plant nursery where I bought some grass seed and a flat of flowers. I have leveled the area where EJ had had his vegetable garden and I wanted to make it look grassy instead of bare ground. I put the flowers in the raised beds that EJ had made for some of his veggies. I thought it would make the back yard look attractive to prospective buyers of our house.
Danny was having a great time riding in the car until we arrived at the veterinary. Then he got scared and whimpered. Despite his fear, he was very calm while his stitches were being removed. I told the vet that we were moving to the Emerald City and he wished us happiness. He said that he was retiring and had sold his practice. We’ve taken our pets to this vet for more than 20 years. Whether we moved or not, we would have had a new vet to care for our animals.
I have to find JJ a new oncologist in the Emerald City now that we are moving up there. I’ve research oncologists on-line and after Danny and I got home, I called the one we had decided on. The receptionist told me that they will be happy to have JJ as a patient but they must first have a referral from his current doctor. So I called our Cancer Center and the receptionist said she’d inform JJ’s oncologist. Meanwhile, when JJ comes south this weekend he has to sign and mail a release form to his current Cancer Center giving them permission to send his medical records to the new one. We had picked up the form when JJ went in for his last port flush. We hadn’t filled it out because there were too many unknowns. Now that JJ has a job and knows his schedule, and we are closing on a house soon, I feel I can start transferring his medical care up north.
After I got the medical stuff started, I went outside and worked in the yard until late afternoon.
JJ began his new job today at 5 p.m. During a break he texted me, “First day is good so far. I am learning. Should be fine.”
This weekend I got a bit stressed because although several people have said they would help us move when we were house-hunting, none have told us that they will be available on the actual date that will hope to move. If we have help then we’d rent a U-haul. Without help, I worry about EJ trying to move all the heavy things like appliances and furniture with his damaged back. Although JJ and I would help, we are not as strong as EJ so he’d be doing the heaviest lifting. So then I thought that maybe we could hire professional movers to move the heavy things, but I talked to a few and they seem to be awfully expensive. Plus, I read that sometimes unscrupulous movers won’t deliver a family’s possessions unless they pay extra fees they suddenly add on. Yikes! I think we have decided to rent the U-haul and ask people if they will help us.
I was also stressed because we have only a few weeks before we move and we have lots of projects still to do. I don’t want to have to spend every weekend this summer running down to the old house to work on projects. I want to put an end to our old life and begin our new life.
So I stressed a bit, and I got a bit upset. This triggered the effects of emotional abuse. Emotional abusers use manipulation, guilting, blaming, gas lighting, and other tactics to destroy their victim’s sense of identity and reality, causing their victims to not know who they are, to second-guess themselves, to feel inadequate, to blame themselves, and even to not like themselves for not being good enough. So last night these feelings were triggered and I began to wonder if I was justified in being upset or not, to wonder whether I should speak or be silent about things that upset me, to wonder how I am supposed to act, to wonder who I am (am I a good person or a terrible person?), to blame myself for maybe being unkind, for feeling like an awful person, and to feel waves of helplessness and insecurity. This evening I found a really helpful article at FB shared by After Narcissistic Abuse – There is Light, Life & Love. It’s about allowing ourselves to be who we are, to feel, to mess up, to be less than perfect, to not live up to others’ expectations or approval. The article was so helpful that I thought I’d share it here:
I AM MY OWN AUTHORITY
by Anonymous
I must give myself the right to be me – to function as I see fit. It is impossible to have a sound self-concept until I am true to myself and accept full responsibility for my own individual life, my own need fulfillment. At any instant I can start a new life.
I ALLOW MYSELF THE FREEDOM – I DEMAND OF MYSELF THE RIGHT:
To recognize myself as an important and interesting person in the world – a unique and precious part of life.
To feel warm and happy, kind and living toward myself.
To realize that at my divine center I am no better or worse, or more or less important, than anyone else in the entire world.
To be different, to make mistakes, to be “wrong,” to be inadequate.
To take the time and effort to fulfill my own needs.
To share my voice, my truth, my feelings, my thoughts, my opinions.
To be happy and free – to be harmonious and effective – to succeed.
To be open and kind, loving and lovable – compassionate and helpful.
To be keenly sensitive and aware – radiantly healthy and energetic.
To do less than perfect – to be inefficient, to procrastinate, to “goof off,” to kill time.
To have “unacceptable” thoughts, images, desire and experiences.
To allow others to make mistakes, to be “wrong” – to be ignorant, to be “screwed-up.”
To act spontaneously, to resist, to change my mind, to be stubborn.
To be emotional – to love, to cry, to be angry, to be selfish and uncaring.
To drop all masks and images – to not fulfill other’s expectations and images of me.
To be criticized condemned, disapproved, disliked and unwanted.
To fail and to learn from it.
To be loyal, courageous, and exceptional – in both my person and my work.
To accept my own authority – to follow my own “knowing.”
Paint Memories
This morning I paid bills while I drank coffee and ate breakfast. Then I went outside to paint the garage.
Well, first I had to scrape off the old paint. The garage is actually quite weatherbeaten so most of the old paint was already off. I just scraped off most of the remaining loose bits from the front and one side. I couldn’t get the peak of the garage because it was out of my reach. I don’t know how I’m going to paint there. I really, really need someone taller to help me–or someone with a taller ladder who isn’t afraid to climb it. I start getting scared at about the second step up our stepladder, but I force myself to climb to the top–not the very, very top, but the next step down. EJ had called a former co-worker who did home improvement on the side to see if he’d finish the drywall and maybe paint the garage, but the guy never stopped in to look at what we wanted done.
I was eager to paint, so after I scraped as much old paint as I could from two sides of the garage, I began painting the front. I’ve been wanting to paint the old garage for years and EJ had considered siding it and fixing it up, but we spent most of our efforts working on the inside of the house and never quite got to the garage. The garage is dilapidated so I don’t have expectations of making it look good. I’ll be happy if it’s just looks less bad. We had chosen a tan color to match the trim on our house, but it turned out being a bit more yellow. With all the zillion and one paint choices available, it’s really difficult to get the right shade to match the old. This presents a problem because I was going to use the leftover garage paint to paint the outside of the back porch because the paint is peeling there. So if I paint the back porch, I will have to paint the trim of the whole house so it will match. Sigh.
Before I started painting, I put on my paint clothes. My paint clothes are old clothes that I use to paint in. They end up getting splashes of paint all over them. I never wash them so over the years they have splashes of all the paint from all the painting projects we’ve done. It’s sort of like “paint memories.” It is fun to remember that we had once painted our bedroom that color, and the bathroom used to be this color. I had to find new paint clothes because the old ones stopped fitting and one day in a frenzy of cleaning, I threw them out. So now I am starting over with “this is the color we painted the old garage where we used to live.”
Thinking of paint splashes reminded me of a time years ago–JJ might have been 9 or 10 or so–when he and I painted the porch. At some point, one of us–I’m not sure exactly who–accidentally painted a streak of paint on the other. That one said, “Hey! You painted me!” and retaliated by painting a streak of paint on the painter. “Don’t paint me! It was an accident! I’m going to paint you back!” It wasn’t long before we forsook our painting altogether and used our paintbrushes as weapons, painting each other with abandon. By the time our paint battle was over, we were both covered in paint. It was lots of fun.
It was sunny and warm (in the 50s) so it was very pleasant to paint–at least until afternoon when it got a little cloudy and a bit chillier. But I really enjoyed painting, and as I painted I thought about my guys up north. Yesterday EJ had texted me, “I’m the happiest i’ve ever been in my career. I look forward to going to work, even on Monday.” He had also texted, “JJ says he is wonderful, very happy.” It fills me with joy to know that my guys are so happy.
I really enjoy painting the front of the garage, but I was really tired by the time I was finished. And hungry. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I put everything away, took a shower to scrub off the paint from my skin. Then I eagerly started making myself food, but before I could finish the mortgage officer called to warn me that I was going to receive a call from the structural inspection people to get permission to do their inspection. The woman from the structural inspection company called a short time afterwards and I gave my permission to do the inspection. The cost is coming out of our mortgage, but if we pay for it up front it’s much cheaper than if we wait for closing. I paid for it with my debit card, and then turned off the stove and oven so I could drive to the next town to transfer money from our credit union savings to our bank checking account before the bank closed. I had enough in the account to cover the cost of the inspection, but I didn’t want to risk our balance dipping too low. While I was in town, I stopped at the grocery store so I’d have food for EJ and JJ when they come home tomorrow night.
When I finally got home, I was beyond starving so I grabbed a raw steak from the freezer and started gnawing on it. Ok, no I didn’t. I actually turned the stove and oven back on and finished cooking my food, which I devoured.
Finally I took Danny for his walk. He thought I had forgotten, but I hadn’t. While we were on our walk, Danny tried to eat some food that had been dropped on the ground. Danny is always finding dropped food on the ground and eating it. I try to prevent him from doing it–because who knows what he’s eating? But I have a retractable leash and I let Danny sort of roam and he is sneaky. If I pull him away from food one day, he will remember it the next and meander over to it when I’m not paying attention. Chomp. It’s especially bad for the month or two after Halloween because the kids eat their candy and drop some of it, which Danny finds. I thought that that’s one thing I won’t have to bother about when we move up North. We will be in the country and Danny won’t find so many dropped candy, cupcakes, ice cream, pizza, or whatever else he gobbles down before I notice.
While we were on our walk, I also saw a bumblebee. This made me think of the poem I learned as a child to recite every spring. I still say it every spring.
“Spring is here,” said the bumblebee.
“How do you know?” said the Old Oak Tree.
“I just saw a daffodil dancing with a fairy on a windy hill.”
Now I am exhausted. I will spend the rest of the evening relaxing.
JJ’s Interview
7:30 a.m. is not too early in the morning unless a person has spent half the night thinking exciting and planning thoughts. Then it is much too early. Ugh. JJ texted me when he got back to the motel after dropping his Dad off at work. I replied, but my mind was foggy and my eyes are blurry and I couldn’t really see the letters on the phone. Who knows what I sent him. A gift of introverts is that we think very deeply. A curse is that we can’t always shut it off, especially when there are exciting things happening.
JJ was very excited and nervous about his job interview. I told him to just do his best, be polite and act confident, and he would do fine. When serious encouragement didn’t decrease his nervousness, I used humor. I told him to remember that he is the descendant of mighty Norse berserker warriors (on his Dad’s side) and of Irish storytellers who had kissed the Blarney Stone and were skilled with words (on my side). He replied, “So you are telling me that I can overpower the interviewer with BS?” Well…uh…exactly?
JJ had made sure he had interview clothes with him just in case he got an interview. When he had gotten dressed for his interview, he sent me a selfie. I thought he looked great and told him so.
So off he went for the interview. A while later he called me in great excitement to tell me that he got the job! He starts Monday! Woot! JJ had worried that having to quit working and drop out of college because of cancer would affect his ability to get a job. However, he said the interviewer was very nice, and that she had a son named “JJ” and that her father had had cancer. So they were able to connect.
While JJ was preparing for his interview, I got a message from our loan officer that she was still waiting for us to sign forms. Apparently she had emailed them on April 21 but I had never received them. She suggested that they might have gotten caught in the spam filter–which is where I found them. Oops. So I quickly printed out and signed my forms and then went to our local bank and faxed them. EJ went to his northern bank as soon as he got out of work to sign his copies.
The survey and inspection of our new house was scheduled for this morning. EJ had to work and couldn’t be there, but the realtor was there. When EJ first went to look at the property, they noted where they guessed the property boundaries were. After the survey today, the realtor told us that “where EJ and I thought the lines were, we were WAY OFF! There’s actually a lot more room than we thought there was!” That’s cool.
Here There Be Spiders
This morning after I drank coffee and ate breakfast, I went upstairs and mudded the drywall for a bit. I really don’t mind this task. It’s sort of fun.
When I came downstairs, Danny asked to be let outside. I headed for the back door, but he indicated that he wanted to go out the front door instead. Ok. So I took him out the front door and let him in through the front gate. When I came back, Little Bear made a dash out the door and ran under the porch before I could grab him. Sigh. I went inside and got a small sample can of moist cat food that occasionally comes in a bucket of kitty litter. I opened it and plopped some of it in piles near the porch. Then I waited. As soon as Little Bear came out from under the porch and started eating the treat, I grabbed him and took him inside, leaving the treat for the outside cats to enjoy.
After Little Bear was safely inside, I went to paint the bathroom. I’m repainting it the same color it was–just making it look fresh. I thought the gallon of paint was already in the bathroom, but when I opened the can I discovered that it was the brown color we had used to paint the stairs. Bummer. That meant I had to go down into the scary basement to find the correct color of paint.
Our unfinished basement is divided into two sections, a little room and then a big room. The chest freezer we use most often is in the little room. I avoid going into the big basement room whenever because there is no light switch to turn on the lights. When EJ goes into the big room, he plugs in lights and then unplugs them when he leaves. I know more or less where some of the lights are, but not exactly. The basement is filled with stuff, making it a maze. It is very dark and spiderwebby and I am always afraid of stumbling into a sticky spiderweb or of spiders dropping down onto my head. I also imagine a huge spider lurking like the one that pounced on Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.
It takes a lot of courage for me to go down into the dark basement, but no spiders–real or imagined–are going to keep me from my appointed tasks. So I got EJ’s battery-powered lantern and headed into the black nether regions of the house. I held the lantern in front of me as I navigated the maze to the shelves where the paint is kept. I moved cans of paint–occasionally feeling the touch of spiderwebs. Shudder. I finally found one that said “Bath and Kitchen” paint but in the feeble glow of the lantern I couldn’t really tell what color it was, so I took it out of the basement for a better look in stronger light. It was the wrong color. I turned the lantern back “on” to head back into the dark basement. It stayed off. I jiggled the lantern. It still stayed off. Seriously? NOW it dies? Well, at least it didn’t leave me stranded in the dark, right?
(Photo from weknowmemes.com)
I couldn’t find any other flashlights, so I used the very faint glow of my cellphone to feel my way to the other side of the basement to where I could faintly see a light. I bravely reached up into the dark ceiling and turned on the light. I found another light and turned that on. Those gave me enough light to enable me to see the shelves of paint. Using my cellphone for a tiny bit of extra light, I was able to find the correct color of paint for the bathroom.
Relieved, I escaped the basement. No spiders had dropped on my head (that I am aware of). No giant spider pounced on me or wrapped me in its web to feast on later. However, I left the lights on in case I have to return.
For the next several hours, I painted the bathroom. I got it all done except on the wall next to the washer and dryer. I just could not get the stackable washer/dryer to budge even the tiniest bit. I will have to paint that section after we move everything to the new house.
After I finished painting, I took Danny for a walk in the bright sunshine.
While courageously ventured into the dark basement, in the North Country JJ is bravely preparing for his interview tomorrow.
Progress
I woke up groggy from a night of little sleep. Ugh. A lot of nights I don’t sleep very well because my mind is busy with the excitement of the coming move, as well as trying to plan everything. For example, we close on the house on a Monday. I will have to drive north for the closing but then back south because I need to take care of the cats. (Danny will ride up and down with me). I also can finish last minute things. We won’t be able to actually move until the following weekend. Then there’s the logistics of taking seven cats on the long trip to their new home. I also think about when to switch JJ to an oncologist in the Emerald City. There’s so much to think about. I am tempted to do more packing, but I’m making myself wait until closer to the move date. I don’t want to have to unpack any more packed items because suddenly they are “essential.”
This morning I drank several cups of coffee and ate a quick breakfast of toaster pastries. They aren’t health food, but they are delicious and quick to fix. After my mind had cleared of sleepiness, I went upstairs and did some more drywall mudding. It’s kind of fun and makes me feel productive.
When I finished the mudding, I went outside and contemplated the fence. There’s one piece of wooden fence that has been propped into place. I decided that I could easily install it permanently and that’s one more job that we can check off our list. When I placed the fence into place, however, I saw that it was a smidgen too long so the gate couldn’t close properly. I went and did other tasks while I thought about it and later decided that either EJ could shorten the length or the new owners of our house could. So I got out EJ’s post hole digger, dug the hole and then placed the post into place. It was too long and needed to be cut. Hmmmm. I set that post aside and pulled up from the ground a shorter post that had a bird house on top–after first checking that there were no birds or eggs inside. I put it in the hole and it was just right. I could find only two nails that were long enough, so I put one at one side of the fence and other at the other side. It will do until EJ can find more nails. At least now a stiff wind won’t blow the fence down. It’s amazing what tasks suddenly get done when a person decides to move.
Tomorrow I think I am going to paint the downstairs bathroom.
JJ was rather discouraged this weekend that he still didn’t have a job. Although, really, when you think about it, he hasn’t been looking all that long. Today begins only his third week in the North. The first week he explored and got his bearings and the second week he started looking for a job, which means that he’s only been job hunting for one week. I told JJ this morning that only three months ago, we weren’t even imagining moving–and look at all that has happened since then! EJ and I keep telling JJ to not get discouraged but to just keep looking.
Most companies these days seem to require people to fill out job applications on-line. When JJ got back to the hotel last night, he filled out an application for Kmart in a town located between the Emerald City and the new house. This morning JJ received a call asking him to come in for an interview. He scheduled it for Wednesday morning. “See?” I told him, “Life can change in an instant.” Now he has gone from discouragement about not having a job to the terror of having an interview. LOL. Fortunately he has interview clothes with him. Tonight he is going to have his Dad help him learn the way to Kmart.
Weekend Work
Friday morning I woke up early–groaning because I didn’t sleep well the night before–to take Danny to the veterinary for his surgery. It took a few tries to get him in the cage at the vet’s. I stooped down, gave him lovings, told him he would be ok, and gently pushed him into the cage, but before I could draw back and latch the cage, he’d push himself out. At one point, he tried crawling into my lap. Poor dear. He hates the vet’s–and I hate to leave him. However, we thought it was best to remove the small growth near his eye before it could grow and cause complications.
After I left the veterinary, I stopped at the grocery store for a few items, and then drove to our bank to fax a form to the inspection company, giving them permission to do the inspections on the new house.
Later in the afternoon I went to pick up Danny. They said the surgery had gone well. I had been told that he would need a cone so he didn’t scratch the stitches, but they couldn’t find a cone that would fit him. One with an opening big enough to put around his neck would be much too long for him. I decided that if Danny started to scratch I’d just make a cone for him–possibly using poster board. So far Danny hasn’t even seemed to notice that he has stitches. He is such a calm, gentle, easy-going dog.
Later in the evening my guys arrived home from the North country for the weekend. The pets and I all greeted them warmly. Luke missed JJ so much that he cuddled close and trilled songs to him.
Since the pictures of our new house on the real estate site weren’t all that great, EJ drew me a diagram of the layout of the house. Saturday morning we discussed paint colors as we drank our coffee, as well as moving strategies, etc.
After breakfast I went back into the attic. I dragged out bags of JJ’s old toys and asked him to sort through them, deciding which to keep, which to donate, and which to throw away. He had fun re-discovering toys he had forgotten. He actually kept fewer keepsakes than I had expected. While he went through the toys, I dragged out other bags and boxes to sort through. I took bags of “throw aways” to the trash can, and put the boxes of donate stuff in the car. I’ll take them to Goodwill some time in the next week.
After lunch, EJ and JJ worked on getting some more drywall up in the hallway. They didn’t get it all done, but they did make progress. Meanwhile, I did dishes and laundry.
Sunday morning EJ taught me how to do drywall mudding so that I can make progress on the house while I’m here. Mudding sort of uses the same method that I use when I butter toast: spread it on and then scrape it off.
While EJ hung a few more pieces of drywall, I dragged JJ out to the garage to help me try to pull down a dead limb that’s on the roof. He first tied a stick and then a hand rake to the end of a rope and threw it up onto the roof like a grappling hook, hoping it would catch on the limb so he could tug it down. We didn’t have much success, but it did give us plenty of opportunities to laugh. He finally made a loop in the rope and lassoed the end of the branch. We tugged and tugged and couldn’t get the limb down. It must be tangled in the branches of a living tree. We finally gave up. Oh, well.
After the guys left for the North, I took Danny for his walk and then I went upstairs and mudded. I kept thinking of The Karate Kid as I worked: wax on, wax off, spread it on, scrape it off. I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I figure I have to start somewhere and EJ can correct my technique when he comes home next weekend.
I did a bit of mudding for a while and then I went out to the garage and dragged out the mower. Our grass is getting a bit tall-ish in places so I thought I’d try to cut it. I didn’t have much hope of getting the mower started after its winter’s rest. Last year I struggled half the summer with mowers that wouldn’t work and was about to declare war on all mowers everywhere. To my amazement, the mower started quite easily today. Yay!
The weather is forecast to get increasingly warm as the week progresses so I’m hopeful that I can get started painting the garage. I anticipate that this week I will be quite productive.
