Labor's Fruit

Wow, the last two weeks have been busy. I spent Labor Day weekend bottling, freezing, and making jam from 3 cases of peaches and painting my bathroom. So we now have lots of delicious peaches to eat over the winter and I won't gag at the Pepto-bismol colored walls in our bathroom anymore. YAY. We also closed the construction loan and I finished the building permit application.

Jeff and Trevor tested their mettle on a 50 mile bike hike on Labor Day and came home with jelly legs and sore muscles. Well, Jeff certainly did, and was completely disgusted with his body's betrayal of trust. I don't think it ever let him down before. Faced with proof that he is not Peter Pan, but indeed, a mere mortal subject to aging and injury, he is taking it quite personally.

I dug hard to find some sympathy, but having a husband who has managed to maintain the same physique and strength he had at twenty-five with NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER on his part has been wonderful in some ways, but tough in others. I mean, I've yo-yoed in and out of 170 pounds of baby weight (six kids, 28 lbs avg. gain each time) over our marriage and have the stretch marks to prove it. I have no illusions of my lack of strength and endurance - hiking to the top of the hill where we are building our house left me completely winded. I figure that's just life and it doesn't fuss me enough to do a thing about it. Jeff on the other hand, is now biking to improve his endurance (You go honey!). I, on the other hand, am just trying to find a moment to curl up and read The Time Travelers Wife or Bloody Jack (a children's book, despite the title).

For the most part, the children are enjoying being back in school. Trevor loves being a sophomore with all the rights and privileges (real and imagined) of being in senior high school. The school does have a very liberal lunch policy and Trevor frequently walks downtown with his friends to buy lunch during their one hour break. Honors Biology is proving tough, but despite the work load, he is excited to be in the class.

Lindsey mostly likes junior high, but not math or the three minutes between classes. She gets flustered under time pressure and becomes more forgetful. I am hoping that the large zippered binder that she takes to all her classes will help her get assignments turned in on time and that she will be able to keep up with everything.

Tyler and Evan are both at the Charter School and seem to be doing well so far. Evan makes friends easily wherever he goes, so the move to a new school wasn't difficult for him. However, Tyler was put in a class where he doesn't know many kids and he says that all the boys are into football and basketball, which Tyler dislikes. So his closest friend right now is a girl who likes books, art, and computers as much as he does. I told him I thought it was great that he has a friend who is a girl, but apparently, he gets teased for it. He didn't think highly of my observation that in a few years, those boys will wish they knew how to talk to girls. He just rolled his eyes. I must not remember fourth grade very well.

Nathan starts pre-school tomorrow and is very excited. The open house on Friday was fun and I know that my biggest challenge will be extricating Jared from the classroom once we've dropped Nathan off. I'll try bribing him with food and see if it works.

We should see some progress on our house this week. I meet with the insulation guy tomorrow, the well driller on Tuesday, the electrician on Wednesday, the engineer from the power company on Thursday, and the excavator whichever day he becomes available. If I get really lucky, I'll get my building permit this week too. So here's hoping.

Trendy Highbrow

Sometimes kids do crazy things with no logical explanation. Usually, those moments are good for a laugh though and Friday's surprise was no exception. I took Trevor to work in the morning and noticed something funny about Tyler when I returned. He had band-aids over his eyebrows.
"Tyler, what happened to your eyebrows?" I asked.
"Nothing. I just have a little cut," he replied.
Not content with that explanation, I promptly removed the band-aids and discovered that his eyebrows were missing.
"Tyler, what happened to your eyebrows!?! Did Trevor shave them off?" Yes, I immediately assumed that Trevor had pulled a prank and left for work pretending innocence. He is terribly offended that I jumped to this conclusion, because as it turns out, Tyler shaved his eyebrows off himself.When I asked Tyler why he shaved his eyebrows, he told me that he thought they were too bushy and was trying to take off just a little bit of the hair, not all of it. Apparently, someone told him he had a uni-brow and he was afraid of being laughed at. So it was with great trepidation that he went to church yesterday with his older siblings chuckling behind his back. To his credit, Tyler bravely walked into church expecting hecklers and to his delight, realized that no one noticed (or if they did, they were too polite to ask). Trevor offered to shave his head to make everything match, but Tyler declined and is still excited to start school on Wednesday. Whew! I'm glad he's learned to laugh about it. He's now quite sure that he's going to be the coolest kid in his class. I told him that there wasn't a doubt in my mind.

Mercury Rising

Never, ever, will I again complain about summers here not feeling summery enough. After that misguided post where I said that it didn't feel like summer here, the thermometer blazed up from 75 to 95 degrees within 24 hours. It's been hot ever since. Now to be fair, it does cool off every evening. But every morning, the mercury in our porch thermometer rises with the sun and the days are LONG here at this latitude. Ah, well. Here's hoping that summer lasts until October so we can get the roof on our house before winter hits.
In home construction news. I got all the sub-contractor bids to the bank last week and have just three little documents to submit tomorrow and then we should be good to close the construction loan. YAY! It's been a LOT of work to gather all the information they wanted, but at this point, I've picked out and priced most of the items that will go in the house, so I have a very clear mental picture of what it should all look like in the end. Yes, I do love the cape cod style. However, since this house is being planned for the way we live, it will have a main floor laundry, a fireplace, a covered front porch, double sink bathrooms, and nine foot ceilings. It won't have the cool mansard roof garage, because I didn't want to sink a lot of extra money for custom framing and roofing, so use your imagination to picture a regular gabled roof like the main part of the house with one dormer window. But it should look much the same otherwise with white siding, grey roof, and green shutters. Lindsey thinks I'm lacking creativity with the color scheme. I countered that it's a classic look and I'm not into fads. She can paint her house purple with aqua trim if she wants to, but not me. Now that the planning stage is ending, I'm getting excited to start. I have the excavator and foundation contractors all lined up and will call the well digger this week. Yehaw! Let the fun begin!

Fly Away

You know all those times you've just wanted to escape your life and fly away? Okay, maybe I'm the only one whose ever felt that way - but I doubt it. I seem to have one of those days several times a year. All the pressure of juggling everything will just build up and suddenly, I can't take it anymore. I've learned that a good cry, a good book, or 'girls time' with a friend usually solves the problem and once I go to sleep, I wake up ready to face everything just fine. But never in my married life have I had the chance to actually escape my life for a bit and just leave. Until last week.

At my husband's insistence, I went to Nicole's wedding and for the first time in sixteen years, traveled alone. It was rather strange, but cool too. No one demanded anything of me, no one screamed my name, and I had next to no responsibilities. I forgot how easy it was to be single and have no one to worry about except myself. And yes, I had a blast. Nicole's wedding was so much fun. Unencumbered as a was, I helped out wherever I could and enjoyed visiting with friends and family and taking advantage of the wonderful hospitality of my parents-in-law.

Two days into my little trip, however, I began to feel something (or somebodies) missing. The quiet soon became too quiet. Everything Nicole's nieces and nephews did reminded me of my children. I latched myself onto whatever group of people seemed friendliest because I didn't have a certain place to be or people to be with. I realized that I really missed Jeff's company (and the bed felt way too empty). So after staying up until 4 am talking with my sister to avoid the empty bed for as long as possible, I grabbed a few hours sleep and boarded the plane to go home. It was on the way home that I realized how much I missed my family. I haven't really been away from them often enough to miss them, and now I think that sometimes a mom has to get away before she can appreciate how the pieces of her life fit together. After a wonderful dose of perspective, I was very glad to arrive home without mishap and embrace the wiggling, energetic, noisy bodies that make my life so full right now and fall into Jeff's arms knowing that I belong there.

But now that I've been given wings and found that coming home is as much fun as leaving. Who knows where I might fly?

August Already?

What happened to summer? Not that I'm complaining exactly. After all, August means that my darling children will soon be back in school instead of trashing the house all day long. But what happened to the last two months? It seems like I blinked and they're gone. Is there some time contraction theory that explains this? I remember summers that stretched on and on. Of course, I was a kid then, but somehow, I had it in my head that I would get so much done this summer and I haven't. Or maybe it's just that it hasn't felt like summer here. We've only used our air conditioner twice. The days rarely hit above eighty and the nights are cool. Now I love this temperature arrangement, so like I said, I'm really not complaining, but it doesn't seem very summery. And there are things I love about summer. But as I think of those things, I realize that maybe the reason it hasn't seemed like summer is because I haven't experienced many of my favorite parts of the season this year. Aha! There's my problem. So for me, an ideal summer requires the following:
1. Less demanding schedule (Okay, so that didn't happen this year).
2. Ripe home grown tomatoes (Ours are still green).
3. Relaxing at the pool (I'm not polar bear enough for this summer's temps).
4. Grilled dinner eaten outside with watermelon (No idea why we didn't manage this one).
5. Reading lots of books, just for fun (Technical editing, manuscripts, and blueprints don't count).
6. Hanging out with friends (What friends? Oh yeah, they mostly took off for the summer or live out of state).
7. Fun vacation (We did get this one in).
8. Frequent date nights (Haven't managed a date since June).
9. Good movies (Did any good movies even come out this summer? The last one I saw at the theater was Prince Caspian in May).
10. Bouquets of flowers from my garden (Sniff, I'm sure the new owners of my house in Ohio are loving all the flowers I planted).

Back to Blogging

WARNING! Excruciatingly long post ahead.

Okay, you’ve been warned. But for those brave souls still reading, standby for an overview of the last two months during which I’ve been off the blogosphere because it took Verizon three ½ weeks to connect our DSL, we left for a family reunion, and then so much happened, I really didn’t know how to catch up. So here’s my attempt….

As mentioned in earlier posts, we moved into The Furrow. I didn’t realize how aptly we named it until I started cleaning it. Eeewwwww. It was SO dirty. We’re talking decades of dirt here. We could have planted a garden on the basement shelves there was so much build up. Anyhow, after destroying my new vacuum’s HEPA filter and blasting through a six pack of sponges, two whole bottles of Lysol, and three canisters of disinfecting disposable wipes, we began moving our stuff the day after my last post. Then Jeff and I left for Seattle for a conference he had to attend – without the kids. Yes, thank you Lucinda. My saintly friend offered to watch our six children in addition to her own four so we could enjoy a four day break (I owe her big time). Anyhow, I enjoyed the blessed quiet, uninterrupted time with Jeff after his meetings, my sister’s company wandering around Pike’s Place, and the cute little shops around the university district. And for the record, I think I could’ve handled five or six days of that.

When we returned, real life smacked us in the face as the exhausting business of changing residences engulfed us. Move complete, I cleaned the old apartment and then Jeff re-painted (Jared had expressed his artistic side on the pale walls). The next week, we planted our garden with help from the kids (Jared worked harder than some of the older kids), baseball began for Evan and Tyler and Jeff left for a week-long conference. So while still unpacking, I shuttled Trevor to work, the boys to baseball and really hated being a single mom for a week. I have new empathy for those who have to do it full-time.

Two days after Jeff returned, we closed the sale of our house in Ohio and then packed for a family reunion and left the next day. We enjoyed fishing, playing, and bonding with each other, and even enjoyed the frigid water of the Puget Sound - from the shore. Being the Pacific, I thought the water would be warm. WRONG. The only ones brave enough to get wet were the intrepid polar bears under the age of fifteen. I covered up with a sweatshirt and shorts, but failed to put sunscreen on my forehead and calves. Yeah, it was real pretty – like a candy cane. I wasn’t the only one sun burnt though. I think we all forgot that although the air and water might be cold, the sun still sent out those beams of radiation to fry our pasty skin. I think the next time we go to the beach, we’ll head to California and I’ll be sure to bathe in sunscreen first. Despite the lingering pain from the excursion, the tidal pools were a lot of fun and it was a very good day. Jeff decided to don a seaweed ponytail to try and fit in with the crowd at the beach. I don't think it's quite his look. Before we left, we collected driftwood for a fire. I was excited to see the green flames that I’d read about in Twilight when some of the characters built a driftwood bonfire on the beach. Just so you know, the flames were orange. I guess I shouldn’t believe details from novels. Oh well. We returned from the family reunion tired, happy, and several pounds heavier due to all the delicious food. Kudos to Rachel for planning it all while trying to arrange their move to Japan.

Swimming lessons and baseball games took up every week night for the following two weeks while I tried to catch up on laundry, continue unpacking, and get back into some kind of routine. Emphasis on try. I still have piles of laundry to do. My sister and her son showed up the last week of baseball/swimming lessons and we enjoyed their company until a few days ago. While they were here, we harvested about fifty pounds of cherries from a neighbor’s yard and made lots of cherry jam. In between all this, I’ve been trying to work out the details of a construction loan for the house we are hoping to build and getting bids from sub-contractors. With equal measure anticipation and trepidation, we are planning to general contract the construction ourselves. We’ll let you know how that goes.

HOUSE SOLD

I thought I'd be shouting and dancing with glee when our house finally sold. I'm not. We accepted a contract on Friday, but it was such a bad offer that after the tears and anger faded, I just felt empty. Losing most of our equity seems to have that effect on me. But after a full year on the market, we knew we had to take the offer to offload the house and be freed from the mortgage. And yes, knowing we only have to make one more payment is a wonderful feeling, but everything else about the sale makes me sad. So needless to say, I was an emotional wreck on Friday. My feelings tempered somewhat by Saturday, but then the world looked half-empty to me.

On Saturday afternoon, I snapped out of my funk. After abusing my lungs with dust clouds that erupted as I took down the curtains in the house we're moving to (I don't think they'd ever been cleaned), I sat outside to breathe some clean, relatively dust-free air and watched my children. The boys ran in the pasture, Lindsey climbed a tree, and Jared gleefully jumped in the mud puddle he'd discovered. Completely oblivious to my mood, they played and laughed and relished the simple joys of childhood. They reminded me that despite whatever financial setbacks we may be facing, life is good.

So today, I am grateful. Grateful for my family, for our health, and for the burden that is finally lifted. I'm grateful for the gospel and my faith that the Lord loves us and is mindful of our needs and even when things don't work out the way I want them to, they do work out. And hopefully, things will still work out so we can build a house for our family. We're not sure yet.

I've learned a lot through this whole experience, and if ever start talking about moving to another state, will someone please smack me really hard until I remember that I NEVER want to leave a home and friends I love to move across the country again? Thanks.