Digging Out; Catching Up; Taking Moments

I write to you today from Little Miss's gymnastics class (which we were 5 minutes late for and haven't attended in over a month). Although I have showered since the last time I painted, I can see four splotches of white paint on my body without even really looking hard. Sweet Husband optimistically left for work this morning hoping that--in the full light of day--the living room ceiling might not require a second coat, but--at some unknown time this afternoon--I'm going to have to dash those dreams. And get some more plastic sheeting. And remember to buy dog food.

But, we are gradually eradicating the "nude bra beige" walls. (Color name courtesy of Sweet Sister.) We cooked dinner at home almost every night this week. And, as I enjoyed my coffee on the couch this morning (on the couch that's in the kitchen temporarily), I noticed that the river birch branches outside the windows make the dining room feel like a bit of a treehouse. That made my heart happy.

A few other things we've been up to lately....

Our summer bucket list has been hung, and we've even crossed off one item since this photo was taken (the "ice cream pizza" pictured at the top of this post, which was the Kid's invention). Amazon says our badminton net and rackets are arriving today, so I suspect that another "cross off" is not far behind.

The Kid went to Cub Scout day camp for a week at the end of May. Signing him up for Scouts was one of the most spur-of-the-moment decisions--and one I was initially a little hesitant about, to tell the truth--but it's been great. I think he's like his Mama in that he likes to do a lot of different things, and Scouts helps feed that. Also, I really like the community service aspect. We could do some of it on our own, of course, but Scouts helps give us some goals and structure.

Little Miss has been more intense than her normal self lately, which I'm chucking up to the crazy amount of change her little three year old brain has had to absorb. Nonetheless, she had a blast on school break with a new babysitter, and has enjoyed the string of doting family popping in and out since the move.

And Dame Maggie is quite pleased that our backyard is now fenced. It's still a bit temporary in one or two places, but the largest swath is finished.

This year's garden is a single raised bed with a few tomato plants and some herbs, but--in the few quiet moments we have--I'm enjoying looking and thinking and dreaming for next year. We have a really pretty space (or we will once just a leetle bit of tree debris is cleared away).

And we even managed a little party. Nothing fancy--just take-out pizza and drinks and bubbles with our close friends--but it made me feel a little more at home.

Gymnastics time is up. Time to head home and think more about where I really want to put the big bookshelf. And whether we can get away with skipping paint on the hall ceiling. (Signs point to yes.) Happy Saturday!

The Power Of Place

The other day I was helping someone brainstorm super powers for a project. I was easily able to think of the super powers of my loved ones--my husband's knack for finding kindred spirits, the way my friend Kim can make beautiful flowers spring from the ground, how my friend Jennifer is so good at building community--but I was having trouble thinking of my own.  Not the super power I would choose, mind you, but the one I already have. Like, if I were a Twilight-style vampire, which of my already-there gifts would be enhanced?

I was up late unpacking boxes when it finally came to me--my super power is a huge sense of place. Being able to feel the emotions and memories that emanate from houses and gardens and small, precious things.

Like, the first time we walked into the dining room at our old house, and my spine tingled with all goodness that I could tell had happened there and all the goodness that I sensed to come.  The love and the food and the conversations and the prayers. 

The deep sense of hard work and the smell of earth and sweat that hit me when I walk into a well-tended garden.

Or the echos that come to mind when I hold my grandmother's gold teething necklace. Her on the farm as a baby. Her fears as her baby sister died. Her joy when she was married. Sitting on her bed next to me as a child, holding out the necklace, and telling me "one day this will be yours".

While this sounds like a beautiful super power--and most of the time it is--this week it has also been downright painful.

As I keep telling Sweet Husband, I'm not doubting our choice to move for a second. I love our new house. I'm enjoying making it ours, and I know that I'm already a better mother here, without every single loose toy boring into my brain because there's no room to escape.

But.

We were so happy at our old house.

It was our tiny, sweet love nest.

Home to two good dogs and one bad one who I loved all the more for it. Six messy ducks and about three dozen chickens, including our darling Tori buried in the backyard.

We hacked the garden out of the wilderness. (That seems over dramatic, but if you'd seen it when we moved in....)

My son spent his first night there, propped in a basket between parents too in awe to sleep. My daughter was born there, in two good pushes three feet from the wall in the front bedroom. Their placentas were both buried under the rosebushes.

It's the first place I grew beets, the last place I hugged my mother-in-law, and the dining room has the most amazing afternoon light no mater what season it is.

Standing in the middle of it all this week, as we did the final work of moving and cleaning, it kept all swirling around me. Parties and Christmases and everything between. Memories so happy that they hurt.

Until tonight, when I told Sweet Husband that I wasn't going back again. I just didn't want to feel it all anymore. He agreed to do the remaining few days of chicken chores by himself. I walked through my garden and my kitchen one last time. Collected eggs and gave the chickens a smile. And then we left a note--wishing the new owners happiness and luck--and locked the door.

Our sweet little house will be happy without us. And I know we'll make a new sense of place at our new house--one that will be deeper and more profound, even, because odds are that we'll be here much longer. But just because it's the right thing--just because it's going to be wonderful eventually--doesn't make it easy right now. And right now, I'm really going to miss her.

Hey There, Friends

Well, that was the longest blogging break I've taken in ever.

It's been a combination of all of the things. Some very good, actually. Others...well, um, you know how when they interview bomb survivors and they all talk about taking a minute after the blast to make sure their arms and legs are still attached? Very metaphorically, a lot like that.

But, obviously, I'm typing so my limbs are good. (Metaphorically and otherwise.) And Little Miss and I had the silliest conversation today, and I found myself really wanting to write it down here:

Little Miss: If you go through the car wash with the windows open, do you die?

Me: No, but you would get very wet.

Little Miss: Brother says you would die.

Me: Your brother is wrong, but I still need you to know that it's a very bad idea.

(Note: She has just recently learned to roll the car windows down by herself, and is experimenting with the feature wildly and often. I'm still wondering if the wiser choice might have been to have answered her initial question "Yes!" and stopped there.)

And also, the kids got new bikes for Easter and we've been taking advantage of the beautiful weather this week to work on learning to ride them.

The Kid is right at that spot where he just needs to get 30 seconds of good balance to get the feel of it and he'll be off. Little Miss is a bit confused at the difference between forward pedaling and backward pedaling (i.e. braking), but she's is extremely motivated to keep trying because her bike has a rainbow basket (!!) and streamers (!!!). By the end of the summer, I fear we'll have two cycling daredevils.

Actually, I don't fear it. I'm heart-glad to envision it.

And for said summer--here's the really good thing I hinted at up top--we'll be living in our new house.

Yes, indeed, we have sold the Hacienda and will (next month) be heading off to adventures at our new place. While we probably will try to come up with something better eventually, in my head I have dubbed it "the Grandma House", and those initial nicknames seem to have a way of sticking.

The name started because, the first time Sweet Husband showed me pictures of the house online, I thought he was joking because parts of it are so dated.

But then he convinced me to go look, and--much as I expected otherwise--it got stuck in my brain, and, worse yet, my heart...until I was the one convincing him that it was the one and losing all chill re: our negotiations to buy it.

In the end, while there are parts that are pretty dated...and while some of the de-granny-fication is going to take us a few years....the old girl has great bones and a lot of potential.  And, in the very best ways, there is something about her that actually reminds me of my grandparents house and all of the good memories I have of visiting them while I was growing up. It feels like it's going to be our home, you know?

Full "before" pictures will be posted in due course, but a teaser for now:

I still don't know if I'm really back-back for writing here a lot. I have too many balls in the air to make promises. But I do know that I have missed it (and you--all the friends I have here) so I'm certainly going to keep trying to pop in at least once a week or so.

Have a nice weekend, all!  

Just Because It's Bad, Doesn't Mean It's Gonna Get Worse [+ My Valentine's Day Mixtape!]

So we've been having an adventure this week. An adventure that began with "It feels a little chilly in here," and ended with a new furnace. Due to factors I don't 100% understand and wouldn't bore you by explaining if I did (carbon monoxide, chimney liners, little green men, IDK), our furnace had to be completely shut off on Monday and couldn't be replaced until Thursday.

When I heard that news, on Monday afternoon, I was seriously annoyed. 

I mean, I knew it would be fine eventually. But thoughts of all of the hassle that was going to happen between "now" and "eventually" started raining down hard. We were going to be freezing. Or we were going to have to move into a hotel for the week. Or the kids were going to light the house on fire with a space heater. Or Maggie was going to light the house on fire with a space heater. Or the pipes were going to burst and our house was going to disintegrate into a two-story heap of lath and plaster and icicles. And on and on...straight down the spiral of death and gloom.

Do you want to know the truth, though? That first ten minutes of thinking was probably worse than anything that actually happened afterwards.

A fleet of (mostly borrowed) space heaters kept us reasonably comfortable. I don't think the house ever dipped below 52 or 53 degrees--and it mostly hovered at about 57--which meant we weren't even close to having to panic about freezing pipes. The kids were pretty respectful of the space heater rules, and Maggie just wanted to lay in front of them and take naps. The snow storm we were supposed to get on Tuesday night bypassed us. The new furnace ended up costing about half of what we were expecting. All kinds of friends offered us places to stay if we needed to. Sweet Husband's bosses made us dinner (with cake!) one night, and one of my co-workers knitted me a really cozy scarf. 

I was bracing for a real squall and all we got was a little spring rain storm. It was a hassle, but we all ended up feeling pretty loved, too.

But, enough about that, because speaking of LOVE....I've been working on this playlist for two weeks now. Tweaking it. Getting it just right. Making sure every decade is fairly represented. (Hey there, 1980's. I see you and your Peter Cetera song.)

I make these for myself all the time, but I'm really enjoying the pink-hearts-and-candy silliness of Valentine's Day this year (ohhh! and I'm also thinking of going completely overboard for the Olympics, so stay tuned!) and, as such, I thought I'd share with the class. 

Forgive my inelegant presentation (Amazon has my tunes, but no sharer; Spotify has a sharer, but not my tunes), but this should be enough to let you make it on your own music thingy.

Stay warm this weekend! MMMMwah!

SLEDDING DAY!

We are at just the right latitude to reliably get one great SLEDDING DAY a year.  Sometimes it's more--and one year there was no snow at all--but we can pretty much count on one.

Which, of course, means that when it's SLEDDING DAY, there's no time to waste--we must go! 

This year we needed two sleds for the first time.

The Kid--who has been riding solo for several years now--ran up and down the hill on his new saucer sled until he was so exhausted that he laid down at the bottom and I had to coax him--with promises of hot chocolate--back up to get into the car.

Little Miss started out on laps, but quickly decided that she was ready to fly solo.

Correction: She wanted to go solo and head first.  But the grown-ups decided that solo was good enough for Little-Miss-Fearless today.

I was thinking that we might go do a few more things after sledding, but...well, I think a cozy dinner, a hot bath, and an early-to-bed might be as important of a part of SLEDDING DAY as the sleds and snow.