The "K" Word

The K word. So deemed, because the Mr. and I, in an effort to keep the peace, made the word Kitchen off limits, lest a fight break out in the Stephenson household. As funny as that  sounds, now that the renovation is almost complete, it was a real bone of contention between us, not very long ago. And by not very long ago, I mean, like, six months ago. 

We knew the kitchen needed updating. All the cabinets were made of brown pressed board and falling apart. The drawers were falling off and the doors were hanging askew. The inside cabinet shelves, made of particle board were rough and not easy to clean. They were dirty and broken. I hated them. Ditto, the countertops, made of some kind of white plastic. chipped and unlevel. The floor was about five layers deep over the original hardwood floor, built in the early thirties. I could see it under the dishwasher. I had no idea what kind of shape it was in, however, due to the aforementioned five layers on top of it. The top layer, of peel and stick squares was coming unstuck in places, revealing a one inch ply wood subfloor. All this to say, something needed to be done. 

We had lived here twenty years when we found out, to our surprise, that we had a lot of equity in the home. So we decided to refinance, and take some cash, and fix some things. We took the cash, and decided to level the foundation first. Sadly, we ended up getting completely scammed by the "foundation repair" man we hired. We lost sixteen thousand dollars to him, due to our naiveness, and his scumminess. That sixteen thousand dollars would have nicely finished the kitchen, with some left over at the end. 

So we hired another guy, who actually did do some leveling, and to remove the counters and kitchen floors. He did do some leveling. Not enough, but some. When the walls started cracking, we stopped. Sadly, this house will never be totally level, and I've come to accept that. Some old houses never will be level. He tore out the cabinets with a sledgehammer. And the walls. We ended up firing him, because he never showed up to work, and when he did show up, it was clear to us he was in over his head. He tore out part of the floor in the breakfast nook, and the way he was rebuilding it was kind of crazy. It wasn't level. It was weak. The screws were popping up out of the wood. And all the time, he was demanding more and more money. and tools. He wanted us to buy him tools. And he was unpleasant. The Mr. finally told him to take his stuff and go. He did, leaving the floor open to the crawl space and the outside elements as well, where the crawl space holes were. We wallowed around in the "hole" as we called it, for a few days, even having our 80 year old home health worker help us, trying to fix the floor he had left us. Finally we got smart, and we went and talked to our neighbor, who recommended someone he knew that was fair and honest and a good contractor. 

We met the guy, and loved him right away. He fixed the breakfast nook floor, undoing and reworking most of what the previous guy had left us with. He installed the new-to-me cabinets that I had bought from a salvage store in Dallas. They had been sitting in my garage for months. I would go out and look at them, and wonder how they would look in the kitchen. They were gorgeous. White with lots of drawers, and decorative end shelves. And one triangular shaped glass fronted cabinet that I couldn't wait to see installed and lit up from the inside. 

The only problem was, since we had lost that initial 16 K, we had to do things a little at a time. We had run out of money, because we had other things we had to fix, also. The kitchen was the last on the list, and also would end up being the biggest expenditure. So the new contractor would come and go,  as money came in for us, alternating us with other jobs. And he has been a Godsend. The cabinets are in. The walls are painted. The trim is in, and the crown moulding. And last week he installed the new floor, on top of the old. Because what I didn't mention, was that when the unpleasant contractor finally got all five layers of the old floor removed, what we found below was pretty awful. The original hardwood was patched, and rotten in the corners. That had to be replaced. There was some kind of black paper all over it, which gave me grief for a few days, when I realized it could be asbestos. Fortunately, after a lab test, it was determined to be paper and nothing else. On top of that were a couple of layers of linoleum, and on top of that, the one inch sub floor, and on top of that, the peel and stick floor tiles that were coming unstuck. So, after much dithering, we decided, that rather than tile, which had been our first choice, and would have made the floor too heavy, and too tall for the adjoining dining room (there would have been a very large step up). We would just do a floating vinyl plank floor. Restoring the original was just not something we could do at this time, sad to say. But if at any time we change our minds, it's still an option. If we had put in tile, it would have taken away the option for restoration from us in the future, or for whoever lives here when we are gone, which I hope will be many years. So white, marble looking vinyl plank. Not everybody's cup of tea, but I like it, and it's worlds away from the dirty paper covered floor we walked on for a year, underneath it. It's so clean! 

I walk into the kitchen now, and although it still isn't finished, the end is in sight. I smile to myself, as I putter around. It's a pleasure to cook, and even to do the dishes. The countertop is granite. The cabinet knobs are pink glass. Or whatever color I want them to be. For the month of July, celebrating Independence day, I turned everything red, white, and blue. Red glass knobs, blue curtains with stars. White ceramic caddies, for holding spoons, etc. It was lovely. Then back to the pink polka dotted curtains, and the pink glass knobs. When Spring comes, I might change to lemon yellow...

Time is a Thief

  I have been watching this show. It's actually a You Tube channel and the name of it is Urban Eye. I don't know exactly how I came across it. Maybe it was suggested to me, based on my love for old houses and chateaus. One evening I clicked the link, intrigued and I haven't been able to tear myself away. There are no spoken words, it's just piano music, really, beautiful piano music, as a house comes into view and a short written history, with occasional gross misspellings (which I graciously overlook). Usually of what was, and sometimes what is now. Sometimes there is a surprise at the end, either something very good, or something terrible. You never know. And you can never tell by the outside of the house how the inside will be. Sometimes the outside will be decaying and the inside will be surprisingly intact. Sometimes the outside will be nice and the inside will be a disaster. As the camera moves inside you kind of have to prepare yourself. It is my kind of spellbinder. 

Sometimes there will be pictures of what it looked like in it's heyday, juxtaposed with how it is today. Sometimes it's haunting. There have been a couple of them that have ripped my heart out. One such episode featured a house in California that had fallen into disrepair and then delightfully restored, although I didn't particularly agree with his taste in furniture. I breathed a sigh of relief. This wasn't going to be one of the bad ones. Only to see a note flash up on the screen at the last second, saying that the entire house had gone up in flames in the Eaton fire earlier this year, along with photos of the inferno. Rip. my. heart. out. 

I love old houses. I know this is silly, but I feel like they have personalities. Nothing delights me more than a well kept old house. And nothing horrifies me more than seeing a house that was once stunning with the roof falling in, and graffiti all over the fireplace mantles, and broken open windows with the rain coming in. Well, except one thing. I just watched an episode of an old Greek Revival that had been stripped of every single thing that was even architecturally interesting. It took me a minute to catch on. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the columns on the porch. They were just sticks holding up the porch. Then I realized the doorknobs were gone, as well as the decorative doorway casings, the entire stair rail, and of course, all of the mantels. The only word that came to my mind was rape. The house looked like it had been raped of every good thing. Maybe that word is too strong. Maybe I'm making too much of it. Maybe whoever owned it last sold it all to an architectural salvage company. It was just sad. But not as sad as the ones where the people just left and never came back for their stuff. Pictures, clothes, furniture, just sitting in the silent house, forever, until someone comes to make things new, or tear it all down. 

What haunts me, though, is the ones where the once grand Dame, with the beautiful woodwork and graceful windows has been reduced to weird colors, and ugly paneling, dirty shag carpet and horrible wallpaper. The ones where people took the things they cared about and left the rest as trash. Flotsam. Junk. Garbage, left all over the house. Dirty walls and sagging everything. Broken windows. And the aforementioned graffiti. One thing that occurred to me as I watched, is that old adage, time is a thief. 

I love old houses. In particular there is one old house I love the most, and that is my own. As I sit with my mouth half hanging open in equal astonishment at the stunning and stunning decay, I think about where I am with my own home. I burned out a long time ago on fixing this place. We have been here 23 years and I have been just contenting myself with keeping it clean and an occasional coat of paint when it was needed. But after watching this show a few times, I began to look around. I wondered what happened to the drive I used to have to make this home a lovely home. I saw the paint splotches on the floor left by the former owners. Why have I never done something about that? I noticed my baseboards. They need cleaning. I have windows that need repairing. I began to look around with fresh eyes, and ask myself what I could do to make this place nicer. It's been a long time since I felt that stirring. 

And, I decided, the first thing I would do was a whole house purge. The images of the lovely homes descending into crack houses has haunted me. All that junk. 

I have a lot of junk. It's all behind closed doors, but it's there. In every nook and cranny, every closet, cabinet and cubby. I'm tired of it. I don't want it. 

So I got off my duff and went through every single thing in my room. The sink cabinet, the bathroom, the cubbies, all the end tables, and I made a couple of piles. One to Goodwill, one for trash. It took me all day. And it felt wonderful. I have yet to get into the closets. That will be tomorrow. I have already started on the office. It's more difficult there, because there is more sentimental stuff there than anywhere else, and it's also the art room and of course it's where the paperwork is, the bills happen here. 

And we have called some people to take care of some of these things we have gotten behind on. We have a new water heater waiting to be installed. The dead tree outside the house will be gone next week. We have made plans to replace the rotted soffit on the north side of the house and after that a new living room floor. I am also making plans to replace the broken windows, and I actually spent actual thinking time about how I could sand those paint spots off the floor in my bedroom without bending down, since I'm old, now. Think a Swiffer type pole with sand paper stuck to the bottom. I may need to refine this plan a little. I don't think a swiffer would be exactly right for the job, but something along those lines. It seems like some of my fire is coming back online. I want to do better by my house.

I think about how my house will be after I'm gone. Will it be abandoned, or worse, will the next people trash it, or just let it rot? Will it be loved as much as I have loved it?

I'm kind of glad I can't know. It's actually the one thing that has held me back from selling it. The Mr. wants to. He wants to travel. He wants something more modern. I have told him if we ever move I will have to go far away and never look back again. I could never bear seeing something bad happen to this place after all the blood, sweat, tears, and money we have poured into this place. It would kill me. 

So tomorrow on with the purge. Going through the underside of the craft desk, where all the past projects have gone to die. And the bedroom closets. And the upstairs bathroom. And then I will have to take a break. It's been about 108 degrees here, and the AC, even though it's brand new, cannot keep up with that kind of heat. By afternoon all you can do is sit in front of the fan and watch more TV or read a book or nap. 

The girls are back in school and they seem to be loving it. Arya is in fourth grade, and Claire in second grade. Time, certainly is a thief. 

Frozen

 This old house in Winter. I know by now what to expect, but somehow I am always surprised at how cold it gets here in the winter. I'm not talking Minnesota cold, or Michigan, or South Dakota. Just regular old Texas cold. We usually have a few cold blasts, followed by a welcome warm up, and hopefully a respite before the next cold front comes blasting through. Every once in a while, though, we get some really cold stuff. And I hate it. I start wondering why I live in a house with 44 windows and no insulation and I start making plans to move as soon as I can. Of course as soon as it warms up I come to my senses. I'm not going anywhere. 

We have had a few winter adventures that have tested our mettle. One such cold January comes to mind. The Mr. was out of town. The Aunt was visiting and was supposed to be going home the next day. An arctic blast came through, and both the Mr. and the Aunt were stuck. School was out and there were two rambunctious dogs and a cat running circles around my three kids. It was a madhouse. And then the littlest dog chewed up the fridge cord. The fridge went out and there was no way anybody could come to repair it. I needed to fill the cooler to put food in, and I was on the verge of sending my teenage daughter to the Kwik Chek around the corner for ice, when the folly of that idea hit me and I just had to laugh at myself. I had a whole back yard of ice and snow. So I dragged the cooler outside and filled it with ice and then dragged it back in and filled it with food. That weekend found my coping abilities tested in many many ways. I found myself walking through the living room, muttering over and over, I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me...I can do all things through Christ...

Fast forward a few years to two winters ago. We had had a gas problem with the fireplace and I didn't have it on at all that year. We were just relying on three electric heaters from Sam's and one gas Dearborn in the dining room. It was really cold. Cue the Arctic cold front that took out all of Texas. Many were without power. We were one of the lucky ones. We had warmth...upstairs. In fact, upstairs it was super duper hot. Someone had the bright idea to plant the thermostat for the heating/cooling right at the top of the stairs in the hall. So in the winter, when it gets cold downstairs, the thermostat gets all that cold air rushing up the stairs and over compensates. In the bedrooms, we cook at night, while it freezes downstairs. That year everything froze. Our little heaters did absolutely nothing to dispel the cold. The gas heater wasn't much help, either. I would bundle myself up in a coat, hat, gloves, scarf, and put on shoes just to go make lunch. As ridiculous as that was, it got even more ridiculous. One night, during that freeze, the dishwasher being frozen, I washed a couple of dishes by hand. I laid them on a paper towel to dry, and in the morning, they were frozen to the countertop! I had to scrape the paper towel off the counter with a spatula!

After that we looked into upgrading our HVAC system. We had solid wood walls, so duct work wasn't an option, but the AC company we had been using for many years, and had come to trust, sold us some brand new Mitsubisi mini splits. One for each room downstairs. We would have AC this summer and be free from the curse of indoor cold this winter. 

We had them installed in April and the bill was almost 13 thousand dollars. But well worth it. And it worked great all through the summer. The house stayed cool. 

Winter rolled around a few weeks ago, and all seemed to be well. Cue another arctic cold front. It was down to about six degrees. I was warm upstairs. I went downstairs for something and was alarmed that the heaters didn't seem to be heating very well. They were on, but not much air was coming out. We went to bed. When I woke up the next morning and went downstairs, I thought I was going to die. It was like being outside. My houseplant had frozen. In the house. I called the AC guys and they came out and fiddled around with it, took some things apart, came to the conclusion that nothing was wrong, it was just too cold for them to keep up with. They did get them to blow more. They are down there blowing away, right now, but the air is not particularly warm. I'm just stunned. I can't believe we spent that much money for a heating system that won't heat when we need it to. We have to have additional heating which defeats the entire purpose. Turns out there is only a forty degree differential, which means if it's zero outside it's not going to get above forty inside, according to the guys. 

So I'm not sure what to do. Seems like somebody should have mentioned that forty degree differential. 

We would have gone with another choice. Arrgggh. Sometimes I feel like we are just going in circles with this house. 

C-c-c-c-cold!

It's cold. I hate it. That is all. 

The Rising Tide of Stuff

We got too. much. junk. So I decided we would have a garage sale. I was kind of halfhearted about it until I mentioned I might have one to my good friend, Sue. Sue has been wanting to have a yard sale for a long time. She jumped on board immediately, and I had no choice but to get my act in gear and follow through on my plan. So I started kind of going through stuff  and taking a few things out to the garage, where this sale is supposed to happen on Friday and Saturday. But once I got moving, I finally got motivated to make. this. happen. 

The Junk. It has been accumulating for years. In the not too distant past, we had a full house of seven people, three dogs, two cats. We have a four bedroom house and the aforementioned garage. Everybody, including the cats and dogs came with stuff. In time the kids have almost all moved out. We have one at home, now, and just one dog. But when the kids all left, they left stuff. The front room became the depository for all the stuff. It is a stuff room. I want it to be a guest room. With no stuff in it. I probably should have had a garage sale a long time ago. I talked about it. I just never did it. And then the Mr. became ill and everything was off the table. For the last two years all my energy has been spent on getting the Mr. better. But now I need to start divesting myself of stuff. Because I am running out of room in this house. Literally tripping over stuff. I bought some new wooden serving trays the other day to make it easier to carry food up and down the stairs (because we don't eat at the table like normal people unless it's a special occasion. We eat in our bedroom).  I had set them on the counter. Ally came in and wanted to cook. She needed the counter space, so she set them on the floor. The Mr, who rarely comes into the kitchen, spending most of his time upstairs, came down and didn't see them and tripped. Poor man broke his toe.  The next day I had some people come out to do some plumbing and I piled a bunch of project stuff I am working on in the laundry room floor, right on top of the crawl space access. The only crawl space access, I might add. Of course the first thing they asked was where the crawl space was, so I had to move it all out of the laundry room so they could get under the house. It was a bit embarrassing. The laundry room is crammed full of stuff that has nowhere else to go. Our tornado hiding place under the stairs is jam packed with stuff, and if we have a tornado, I guess we will be just plum out of luck. 

There are few things that give me more anxiety than stuff. I realized it a few years ago. I may have a little bit of  PTSD leftover from my junior year of high school. My family and I lived in a house in Sherman, Texas  It was March 29, 1985. The landlord, who was a local hot shot lawyer who owned half the town sent my mom an eviction notice. We had thirty days to move. Only he didn't wait thirty days for us to go. Four days after the notice I got called out of Mrs. Wilson's English class into the hallway. A teacher told me I needed to go home, because someone had reported that there were people at our house, in our house, throwing everything we owned out into the front yard and out the second story windows. I called my mom. She came to get me and we drove home. And it was unbelievable. Like something you see on TV. Men were throwing things out the windows. Hurricane lamps that had belonged to my great grandmother. clothes. My records were in the middle of the heap. The fridge and piano, just rolled out to the curb. And the men were laughing at us. That was the worst part, I think. We stayed up all night trying to salvage our stuff, in the rain.  The best part about that whole night was watching God in action our our behalf. Mom was gone, dropping off a truckload of our stuff at a new place. My sister and I were huddling together on the porch alcove with my aunt who had begun to pray. Jesus, will you stop the rain, so we can save this stuff. To my amazement, the rain stopped. A few minutes later it began to rain again, and again she prayed. Again, the rain, to my astonishment, stopped. A few hours later it began to really rain. She prayed and nothing happened. But, we realized it was fine, because everything that was left was covered in plastic, now. It took us all night, but we saved our stuff. 

But now, grown up, I have these anxiety issues. I find myself in a struggle, caught between the emotional and the logical. The logical says that stove in my shed, the really cool one, a retro throwback to the fifties that belonged to my great grandmother, really needs another home. The emotional says But that was Grandma's.  It's sacred. The logical says But it's taking up half the shed,  space you could be using for the project stuff that is currently on the laundry room floor, sitting on top of the crawl space. The emotional says But it's was Grandma's. It's sacred. Maybe someday I can use it. Even though it's gas and I only have electric. The logical says let it go. The emotional says But it was Grandma's. Let it stay. 

I called my Mom today to talk about Grandma's stove. So. much. guilt. at the thought of selling it. Because it was Grandma's. She told me I should see if any family members want it, and if not, I should sell it. After I got off the phone, the logical side of me breathed a sigh of relief, because I don't really know what to do with the stove.  I only took it because it was Grandma's. The emotional side of me cried real tears at the thought of giving it up. I feel like I am betraying her in some way. The only conclusion that I can come to is that I must be a NUT to let stuff like this cause me so much angst. But in the end I have actually decided to side with the logical and let it go. 

The other thing that I have major anxiety over is cleaning. Cleaning gives me much more anxiety than stuff. But I think they are both related. I once read a book called The Book of Waking Up, by Seth Haines. The book was all about the many form of addiction. In his case, it was alcoholism. Some people are addicted to drugs. Some people to sex, some to shopping, some to television. Some to Amazon. Some to Netflix. In each case, he says, the addiction is related to pain and the addiction itself is an avoidance of facing that pain. He asks What makes you cry in front of your kids? I thought about this deeply. And the answer came. Cleaning. Cleaning?? Yes, Cleaning makes me cry in front of my kids. Cleaning has always been a major point of anxiety for me. Why is that? If it's true that there is a source of pain there, and I could trace it back to that point...Well let's just say that my house growing up was not the cleanest house on the block. When I had kids I swore I wouldn't live like that, and it became an obsession, almost.  And THAT'S where the pain is. I don't want to live like I did as a kid. It was painful. So when STUFF is out of place in my house, or when there is too much of it and it is cluttering up my life, it makes me crazy. And I cry in front of my kids. Well, I used to cry in front of them, not so much now that they are grown and gone.  And rage. I made them crazy with my craziness!

So. much. anxiety. over stuff.  Not helped by the opening of the new Amazon dump store a few months ago. So much fun shopping there! So many great deals on stuff we don't need. It's addictive. And they they have these Mystery Boxes you can buy for fifty or a hundred bucks. You don't know what you are getting, but you might get lucky and find something worth having that you didn't know you needed. 

My husband was, to my dismay, very attracted to these Mystery boxes. He bought three or four. The first one had some interesting stuff. A couple of carburetors, some kits to teach teenagers about electricity. Those looked cool. A bunch of party stuff. You know, like, little signs you put on the cake that say Happy 53rd birthday, I think maybe a computer keyboard, and I don't remember what else. The second box was full of shoes. All different kinds of shoes. Boots, slippers, tennis shoes... and some Halloween stuff. I was not impressed. 

We gave much of it away. But still, the rest of it sat in the office, on the floor, in boxes for several months. One day I walked in and looked at the pile of cake stands, that I had no place for, a video game joystick, an air bubbler for an aquarium, the electricity kits, the carburetors, the shoes, and I had enough. The stuff had. to. go. 

But it didn't go, it just moved, down to the stuff room. Until this week. The straw that actually broke the camel's back and finally forced my garage sale hand was small. It was a tea canister. The tea we drink comes in a metal canister. Too pretty to throw away. So we have been accumulating tea canisters for a couple of years, off and on. We now have about fifteen tea canisters. I have recycled, reused, rehomed them in every way I can think of yet still they come. They are everywhere. The answer, of course is to get a different kind of tea, but we really, really like that tea. I tried to throw them out. The Mr. caught them on the way out the door and brought them back, again, much to my dismay. 

So today I really started working on this garage sale project. I brought a bunch of things to the garage, to add to Sue's growing garage sale collection. I spent a few minutes with my steam cleaner and an area rug that was waiting on the garage floor for me to clean it. Mid October and it's as hot in Texas still as most summers everywhere else. Almost 90 degrees and I was wearing sweatpants and definitely sweating. Hot and tired from hauling stuff from house to garage. Trying to do three things at once, clean the rug, lop some limbs that were hanging over the garage door, and doggy poop patrol. My knees were killing me. I was getting a little grumpy. The Mr. was needing me and I was trying to help him, while trying to do the three other things, plus I knew there was still a boatload of stuff that needed to be carted out to the garage. And the smoker needed cleaning. The Mr. had decided to sell it, but I would have to clean it. And the fridge, the hated black Maytag needed cleaning, so I could finally get it OUT of my mudroom. I had high hopes that someone would buy it, despite it's little ice problem. 

I finally got all that done and came inside to haul out those Amazon boxes. I brought the handcart and loaded it up high, with one of those little electricity kits sitting on top, a plastic toolbox full of all kinds of gizmos and gadgets sure to make any teenager forget about playing with their Switch for a while. (sarcasm, Ha!) I carefully levered the wheels of the handcart down the steps into the sunken living room which I had to go through to get to the garage. BAM everything fell off. Tea tins flying everywhere. I may have said some mildly caustic words as I stopped and piled it all back on. Then negotiated the steps back up out of the sunken living room and around the corner to the back door. Door open, no problem. Cart through the door, no problem. Two steps out and EVERYTHING FELL OFF AGAIN. Only this time, the little plastic kit hit the deck and a million little gadgets that could have entertained a million teenagers went everywhere. I might have lost my mind a little. The Mr. came out and I got down and picked all of it up and tossed it back in the plastic kit it came in. He took it all inside and carefully reassembled the whole deal, making sure every little piece was in the right place. I finished hauling the boxes outside and came back in. He was sitting at the table with the finished kit. I was tired, and dirty, and sweaty, and it was right as I was walking past him, that I saw something that just arrested me. I stopped my yapping.  I remembered again why I love this old house so much. Peace returned.  I forgot about how tired and sweaty I was. I marveled that God knew exactly what it would take to get me to just stop and let the anxieties and petty irritations fall away. The late evening light was coming into the house through the south windows and falling onto the walnut of the piano, and the pale green wall of the dining room. It was breathtaking. The movement of the trees outside the window playing tag with shadow and light in the last hours of the day and putting on a show for anyone who took time to watch and see. It was the same feeling I get in the morning, sometimes, in my bedroom watching the prisms as they cross my yellow wall, reflections of the rising sun on the glass knobs and old mirror on the closet door. The same feeling I get when I wake early and see the first rays of the sun through the front door glass and making wavy glass patterns on the stairway wall. Makes me thankful to have had the privilege of living here, despite any troubles we may have had along the way. And that is a might good way to end the day. 

The Trouble with Refrigerators.

So we got a new fridge. Actually we bought a new fridge. It's a first for us in almost thirty one years of marriage. But first a little backstory on how that came about. Let's go way way back to the first fridge we had when we came to Texas. We had been married almost ten years, and obviously we had had several fridges but none of them were ours. They all came with the apartment or house. We had never owned one. When we came to Texas we became, by default, the proud owners of an avocado green leftover-from-the-sixties refrigerator. I'm not complaining, My grandparents had passed away and my dad needed someone to take care of the house they lived in, fridge included. I was happy to do it. So we moved in and moved all of our things alongside all the things that had belonged to my grandparents. 

That fridge was a beast. Roomy and greener than green, it was really all we needed. We took it with us when Dad sold that house and we moved into our own place. It sat in the corner for a year and did a marvelous job of taking care of our food for us. 

And then it died. And we had no money. My wonderful in laws took us to Sams's and bought us a new one that we would pay them back for over time. I must have had a bad day, that day, because I distinctly remember not being thankful about it for about a week. It wasn't the one I really wanted. I embarrassed my family. I embarrassed myself. To this day I am ashamed. I don't know what was wrong with me. Selfish much? Spoiled much? Ungrateful much? I eventually got over myself, and loved the fridge until the day I moved into my new house. And there it was. The fridge of my dreams. It was tall and white. It had ice and water in the door. It was a side by side. It wasn't new but it was beautiful to me. 

The old fridge, which was probably newer than the new fridge, went into the garage. Sometime later someone offered to buy it from me for a ridiculous amount of money, so I sold it to him. And that was the end of that. 

The new fridge, the one that came with the house served us well. But I noticed something. As the years went by and our family and food needs grew, it seemed to get smaller and smaller. Then one day, disaster! The water stopped coming out and we could never figure out why. Maybe because we never in almost fifteen years changed the filter. Hmmm. Then the cover that keeps the ice from flying all over the room broke off. Then we started having gasket problems. I would come downstairs in the morning and take the melted butter out of the fridge for toast and yell at the kids for not double shutting the door. And I never noticed before how quickly white gets dirty. It was difficult to keep clean. 

One day about three years ago I was at the Habitat Rehab store nearby when I spotted a very large black refrigerator. I walked over and took a look. Maytag. It was so shiny. And clean. And large. And the freezer was on the bottom, a new concept for me. It didn't have water or ice in the door, but it did have an ice maker inside. I asked how much and although 300 dollars was a lot of money for me, I bit. I hesitated, but I bit. I knew this was about a two thousand dollar fridge. I couldn't believe I was getting it so cheap. I really should have known. *Facepalm*. I REALLY.should.have.known. 

I talked them into delivering, which is not typical for them, and we were all set. Our friend, who sometimes did work for us around the house, would help install it and take the old one off of our hands. 

The day came for delivery, and I was so excited. The guy was here to install, and the delivery, although late because their truck had broken down halfway here (I REALLY should have known!) was enroute. 

So they got it here, and had to take the doors off, it was so big. And really. It was so.so.big. Very large. And very dark. It dominated the kitchen. Especially since the previous owners had built an elevated stand to put it on. It had been large in the store. It was three inches larger, here in my kitchen. But I loved it. For about one day. Then we began to notice water coming from the back and soaking through the adjacent cabinets. And mold. Upon investigation we realized that the water line was not hooked up correctly. It was leaking. We called the installation guy. He couldn't figure it out. We never did figure it out. We just unhooked the water line and turned off the water to the fridge. The whole three years we had it we had to buy ice for our drinks. Which I really didn't mind...except that about a month later I noticed I was having trouble with the freezer door. It wouldn't shut. Upon investigation I saw that there was about two inches of ice build up on the bottom of the freezer. I began to have misgivings about this fridge, this "deal" of the century. I googled it, of course. I found out what the problem was. I watched some Youtube videos. And realized right away it was out of my league. This was going to take a professional. So I called our appliance guy, who has always been fantastic about helping us keep our appliances maintained. I wished I had called him about my white side by side instead of getting in a hurry to get a new one. By the way, that white side by side came to a bad end. They install guy who took it home laid it down in the back of his truck to get it to his house and it never worked again. That was the end of that. 

So I called the guy and when he heard what the problem was he all but declined to fix it. He hemmed and hawed and wouldn't set a date to look at it. He didn't outright say it but the message was clear. Better buy a new one cause I ain't comin' out. Only, once again, because the Mr. had fallen gravely ill and wasn't working, we had no money for that. I would just have to deal with my "deal" of a fridge until we could get a new one.

So every month like clockwork the ice built up and I chipped it out. It wasn't difficult, just awkward because of the basket drawers that had to be removed first, and the frozen food, and it was messy. It was so, so, messy. 

Eventually the door wouldn't shut right anymore and it started leaking. I noticed the floor was wet. I cleaned it up and chipped out the ice and it was all right for a few weeks. From then on when the floor got wet I got to work chipping ice.  Then one day about a week after an ice chipping incident, I came into the kitchen to find water pooling on the floor. Literally running out. I looked in the freezer and sure enough, there was a lot of ice. It seemed that the ice problem was accelerating. I cleaned up the water and chipped out the ice and hoped it would be awhile before it happened again but that was not to be.  A week later, the same scenario. And now I was noticing the floor had begun to deteriorate around the fridge. So I put my foot down. Now that the Mr. was recovering well, and our finances were back in order, we needed to get a fridge. A new one. Never again a used one with no warranty. So we went shopping. After looking for months and months online at the cost of  new fridge, I wasn't shocked at the price. In fact, we got an ok deal, not great, just ok. A LOT more than three hundred dollars. With a warranty. And American made. And delivered and set up by a professional. 

I went home from the store a lot poorer, but happy that we would finally be done with the hulking black monster, as I called the one from the Habitat. 

But first I would need to do some prep. I asked my son in law to help me move my old fridge, the hulking monster, off of the pedestal the previous owners had built and down onto the floor. He was happy to help. After it was down I took a look around and realized how shabby everything was looking in the kitchen. It shouldn't take much to throw some touch up paint on and spruce up the trim. And maybe get some new tiles for the floor where the old ones were coming up. And paint the mudroom while I was at it, which was long overdue for a makeover. 

So I jumped into what seemed like a small project, forgetting that not only am I old now, but for the last two years I have been mostly sitting, both at hospital and at home, while the Mr. was ill, and in keeping my eye on him in his recovery. I got out the paint and slopped it on, which was not my intention. I had also forgotten that I really can't see well anymore. Mistake after mistake after mistake had to be cleaned up. I became frustrated with myself. And exhausted, as day after day I spent hours on the ladder trying to put lipstick on this old tired pig. At one point I lost my mind. I think I scared the Mr. I think I scared myself. I yelled at the Mr. and then I burst into tears. Then I took myself off of the ladder and took my tired, dirty, sweaty self to the shower and to bed. Next morning I apologized profusely to the Mr. And went to the Lord. What on earth is wrong with me? I'm snapping at everybody, on edge, tired...and exhausted. And although I didn't hear him say it, I understood that I needed to put down the paintbrush and just rest for awhile. Rest. I thought back to the beginning of the week. Sunday morning I always make a point to spend the first part of the day of the first part of the week with the Lord. I sit in my garden, I pray, I read my Bible. This is actually something I do every day, but Sunday I also attend church, usually a livestream. I know that isn't really "attending" but when the Mr. had his transplant the liver doctors told him he needed to be careful about being in large crowds. Every time he has been in a crowd he has come down with something. So we are careful. But if he feels good, occasionally we will actually go to a church down the street. He wasn't feeling good last Sunday, and I should have been in my garden talking with the Master, however I decided instead, in a break from my norm, to mow the lawn instead. I struggled with myself the whole time I was mowing, because I was missing out on my time with the Lord. The first fruit of both the day and the week. And it set the tone for the whole week. I realized I had, over the coarse of the last few days become frenetic about work. All I did was work, and worry about work, and think about work, and fret about work that was done and work that had to be redone. I was in a turbulent spin cycle, with no end in sight. For me a lesson learned. It wasn't that mowing the lawn on a Sunday was wrong, I have spent many a Sunday afternoon doing yard work. But not during the time I should have given to the Lord. Not a big deal, maybe for anyone else, but it threw me off track. 

So I put away the paint and brushes and just rested this week. Once or twice I looked at them there, waiting for me to get on with the job, but I passed them resolutely by. 

The new fridge arrived on Thursday and now takes up the space formerly owned by the Maytag. And it's MARVELOUS. Water and ice at the touch of a button. It's so clean and pretty. Stainless and shiny. Roomy without hulking over the room. And it doesn't leak. I had hoped we would be done with the old one, but The Mr. wants, after all, to keep it. So the guys left it and I can't get it out the door to the garage where it will eventually go. Now it sits empty in my mudroom, hogging up all the space.  As a parting gift, it leaked for the entire week on the floor, as all the ice in the bottom melted and ran out the freezer door. What a peach, that fridge.  

Sunday morning we actually made it to an actual church with actual people. It was nice to hear a live sermon. Not that the livestreams are bad, they are actually very, very good. But it's good to be with community sometimes. To know that we don't live on an island revolving only around ourselves. We had lunch and coffee afterwards and then went to the grocery store. The Mr. bought me some fall Mums to plant and we finally pulled into the driveway at about three in the afternoon. I edged my way around the hulking monster by the back door and put away the groceries and then straightened the house. I went outside and planted the mums and watered the garden. It has been a dry, dry year. It has been difficult keeping the plants alive. The Cannas look terrible but everything else looks amazing. I sat down in the garden and just looked around at everything. I was suddenly overcome with so much gratitude at what God has done for me this year. For us. The yard...the house....all the outbuildings...The new fridge...I used to sit outside and pray that God would provide a way for us to get all the outbuildings fixed...the garage, shed, and hot tub room, as well as the house itself were falling apart. There was so much rot. So much that one year, when the tax man raised our house taxes substantially due to "improvements", I appealed with photos of all of the rot and won my case with no trouble. And we had no money to fix any of it. The Mr. had been unemployed off and on for several years and it seemed we were always trying to play catch up with the bills. The house and especially the outbuildings showed it. 

Now I was looking at every building fixed and painted. A beautiful new deck. A new roof. Flowers everywhere. Cheery lights overhead, swinging gently in the evening breeze. It was truly a miracle. And the Mr. himself...only one year ago staring death straight in the face. Now very much alive and well.

Truly truly a living, walking, talking, breathing miracle. I close my eyes and 

I feel that breeze on my face, in my hair. I feel the change of seasons in the air. I know the year is coming to an end and it makes me a little sad. Soon I will be caught up in getting the house and yard ready for the first frost. Putting summer things away and battening down the hatches for winter. This has been a wonderful year. I hate to see it end. 

The Mr. needing his dinner, I leave the garden and head into the house with all these thoughts still in my head. As I near the door I hear a raucous noise overhead, the unmistakable sound of geese making their way south. I can't see them at first and then they break into my sight, five or six of them, their loud honking an exclamation mark to the thoughts I have just been thinking. 

What a wonderful way to end a wonderful day. Marvelous. 

Jan 2021

I still love the old place. It's been 17 plus years now, since the day we walked in and decided to make this old house our home. So much water under the bridge, so much change, since that day. My oldest daughter was ten years old when we moved in here. She now has a home and a family of her own. My son was nine years old. He is 25 now. My youngest was just five years old. I too, have matured here. As I sit here, thinking about all these things, I feel the age creeping into my bones. There is grey now, where once was youthful blonde. Keeping the house from showing it's age is becoming just as difficult as keeping that grey streak in my hair in check. The old bones don't like spending hours on the ladder, anymore. The enthusiam for the difficult things that need doing has waned over the last few years. I do what I can, even though it makes me tired. However there are some things I just can't do. It's either way out of my league, meaning I don't have the skill, or, like the roof, it's going to take a team of people to repair it. I survey the house, the roof, the soffets, the siding, and all the outbuildings from my vantage point in the garden. The garden is where I have poured all of my energy the last few years. Unable to do much on the house, I have planted a vegetable patch, a flourishing Canna garden, Boxwood hedges, Monkey grass bed, Hostas, and created the patio itself last summer. I dug a patch of ground, poured 12 large bags of sand, and laid almost a hundred stones, leveling each one as I went, down on my knees in the grit of the sandy earth. So I would sit, and look at the house, and talk to God about it. Lord, you see this old house. I don't have the time, the money or the skills for what it needs anymore. Or the energy, if I'm honest. Father, I lift up this old house, and ask your help. Then I would finish my coffee and go inside, and do whatever needed doing for the day. Year after year I watched the outbuildings deteriorate. Sometimes I despaired, but not for long. I always ended up at the foot of the cross, where I bring all my difficulties, concerns and joys. 

 One day last year, one of the Mr's friends needed work. He was out of a job. He just happened to be a carpenter. The Mr. hired him to repair one of the outbuildings. It wasn't a huge job. Replace the siding, trim, and paint it. Sitting in my garden, I looked at the finished job, and I marveled. Just like that, it was done. I turned my eyes to the other outbuildings. The garage and what we called the "hot tub room". The hot tub room was a small building with, you guessed it, a hot tub in it. We had never used the hot tub. Really it was a waste of space. However the room had apparently been built around the hot tub, and we had no way to get it out. So there it stayed. The wood trim around the bottom of the building had begun to rot away. The paint had faded. It was ugly. The garage siding was rotting. The soffets were rotting. The door frames deteriorating. And the garage was top to bottom full of junk. We had had many discussions about the junk and how to get rid of it. It would be a lot of work and it would fall on me. And frankly I didn't have the motivation to do it. Cue my 25 year old son. He had been living on his own, and in a few weeks his lease was going to be up. He wanted to be here, and we wanted him to be here with us, but there was no room in the house. At that time my daughter, her husband, their two children, plus myself, my youngest daughter, my husband, two cats, and three dogs were taking up every inch of space in the house. We were overflowing all over the place. We decided the best thing to do was fix up the garage. Turn it into an apartment. I finally became motivated. It was a hot, hot summer, but I didn't care. I began sorting through the 17 years of junk we had accumulated, old boxes of papers, Christmas trees, old furniture, giving some away, saving some, but throwing much out. The Mr. hired some guys to move what we kept, and we bought a storage unit to house it all. And then, the garage was empty. This was something we had been dreaming of since the day we moved in. But it was in terrible shape. The drywall was falling off, missing in places. The mice had obviously been having a field day in here. There were holes, lots of holes. We hired those guys who moved the stuff, and had the reno skills, to fix up the garage. Out went all of the old drywall. New walls, new outlets, an actual ceiling, instead of the openness to the rafters. Paint, an air conditioner. They boarded up the outside where the garage door showed, so no critters could get in. My dad and I replaced the outside door frames one weekend, while he was here on a visit. My son moved in.  One day I got out the paint and I started painting. Gone was the dilapidated siding. And suddenly the garage was not just nice, but very nice! The garage fairly gleamed. I painted the old doors. There just remained the rotting soffets. Then one day the Mr's friend came by, again looking for work. I mentioned the hot tub room. I had taken the time to remove all the dead rotten trim, just the week before. It was ready for new trim. Instead, I came out later, and, to my surprise and delight, he was working on the garage soffets. Over the next month he replaced all of the rot, and painted it, and also replaced all of the hot tub room trim, and is currently making plans to get that hot tub out of there. Once that is gone, plans can move forward for another idea I have had for awhile for that building. More on that, later. 

 I was sitting in my dining room, a few days later, when I heard a knock at the door. I answered to a young woman, who wanted to know if she could look at our roof. Our neighbor was having his house reroofed and she worked for that company. She had noticed our roof. I had a sneaking suspicion when I saw the contractors across the street that they would be over. Our roof is somewhat noticeable, with a crazy steep pitch terminating in a large catslide down one side. And did I mention it needs some repair? I told her about our past experience with our insurance company and our two previous denials trying to get them to help us with said roof, and our formidable deductible. She didn't seem to think any of that a problem. She called our insurance company and got an adjuster out here. They both agreed without question that we need a new one. We are at this very second waiting to find out if this third time, our insurance company will finally relent and help us get a new roof. 

The other day I sat in my garden and looked around in awe. The prayers I prayed have been answered. Just like that, after years of waiting, it is all done, and getting done. It had come, suddenly, at a time when I had been wondering if God heard me, when I prayed. The answer had come, an unequivocal YES. He hears me. He hears us. He may not answer within the parameters of our timeframes, but he hears us.  I would look back on this and many other answered prayers, and would know with a certainty, that although my prayers might not be answered in the parameters of my timeframe, God still hears. He answers in his own time, when He is ready, not necessarily when we are, or think we are. So I wait. And I trust. And I know with certainty, without a doubt, that He will hear my prayers, and in his own time, suddenly, it will be done. And it will be very good.