my friend, the house

(Yes, the girls are home. Yes, the girls had fun. Yes, there will be blogging about the trip when the road stops rushing by.)

Someone new found my blog while I was out with the girls. She read the “what is a house” post and made a very nice comment, and I remembered that I haven’t finished the story.

We sold the house to the guy who made the offer, the first-and-only-showing guy. Only we didn’t close on June 30. As often happens, things didn’t go quite as smoothly with the sale of his house as had been anticipated, so closing was delayed until July 20. Three extra weeks of nail-chewing.

Within the first week, all of the remaining landscaping, with the exception of two trees, one hydrangea bush, and a few hostas, was gone.

The old basement door and front door were replaced.

The porch and deck have since been rebuilt.

He’s started a retaining wall at the end of the driveway.

Everything is very pretty now, as opposed to the remaining shabbiness we left behind.

I still drive through the neighborhood on a fairly regular basis, picking up and delivering kids for riding lessons and church.

In one way, I feel like I’m looking at Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, after Linus says, “All it needed was a little love.”, wraps his blanket around it, and proceeds to decorate it with the lights from Snoopy’s doghouse.

And I feel guilty about how I treated my friend, the house.

(Darned tears…makes it hard to see the computer.)

But then, I remembered.

The new owner of my friend, the house, had to sell his old friend, his house, because of a divorce. I don’t know if he has children or not, but suspect that may be the case because of his desire to find a house with three bedrooms in the same area. His old house was only a mile away, in the opposite direction from the house we live in now.

He may very well be hurting, badly, separated from the children he loves. So, he loves the house instead.

And we loved it too. It might not have showed as much on the outside as it should have. But it was there, on the inside.

And we brought it here.

 

so, anyway

As of yesterday we’re a home school. Little girl has hated high school since she started last year. As summer started winding down and 10th grade loomed imminent, her mood started tanking. So we downloaded the official form, gave our home school a very pretentious-sounding name, dug up my college transcript to prove I grad-yee-ated 6th grade just like Jethro Bodine, and mailed everything off. It took less than a week to get it back. Amazed. It usually takes any government agency, federal, state or local, a month of Sundays to do anything. Heck, I’ve had Medicare as a secondary insurer for almost 2 years and they still haven’t paid any co-pays they’re supposed to, so don’t talk to me about how everyone who has Medicare loves it. Everyone I know who has Medicare thinks a bit less highly of it than I do.

But I digress.

Yesterday we dropped by the high school to officially withdraw and thumb our nose at it, just a little, then grabbed a celebratory McGriddle (not me, just her) and headed off to the local used bookstores in search of stuff. We found some stuff and brought it home. She had one homework assignment to complete, and voila! we’re done. Her homework was to write something. Anything. Without thinking about rules, grammar, spelling, whatever. Just write.

Physician, heal thyself.

——————————

My mom sent me this email yesterday. Doesn’t matter if it’s a true story or not; the principle is dead on as far as I’m concerned.

Effort and Reward

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades would be veraged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Do I believe there’s a professor somewhere who never failed a single student? Maybe, maybe not.

Whoever wrote this used Obama’s name, but in my estimation it’s not a criticism aimed directly at President Obama; it’s a criticism of the fundamental flaw inherent in socialism. It’s a wonderful concept; there’s just one problem with it: pesky human nature.

It’s the same problem I always had in school, and at work, with group projects. I wound up doing the work because I was not willing to take the lower grade, or create a less than acceptable product, because of everyone else’s lack of participation.

Pesky human nature.

 

What is a house anyway?

Went definition hunting and found these:

House: a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families; a building in which something is sheltered or located

Home: an environment offering affection and security; family: a social unit living together

Each of these definitions can be found for either term.

One of my pet peeves has to do with the interchangeability of the words “house” and “home”. When I was a  kid, we’d go out for a Sunday drive, or to visit family / friends. If my mom or dad saw a house that was particularly appealing,  I would hear, “What a lovely home.”

No, it might have been a lovely house, depending on your architectural preferences, but it may or may not have been a lovely home.

Home has further implications. Home is about more than the structure in and of itself.

Is it a home if no one lives in it, or is it just a house? If the people living in the house are having difficulties with relationships, do we say it’s an “unhappy house situation?”  Don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “He comes from a broken house.”

So what?

We’ve been talking to real estate agents since the beginning of May about putting our house on the market. Makes sense; we don’t live in it, but we’re still paying the mortgage. The general consensus among the different agents was that it would sell eventually, but it would sell quicker if we put some work into it. Paint every wall “safe beige”, (don’t you love that phrase?), replace the porch railings, replace the deck, fix up the landscaping. Last year we gave the house a new roof, new siding, new windows and new garage doors. We are out of “fixing up the house” money.

We talked to contractors, got estimates on the suggested improvements, thinking that maybe we could do one or two small things.  Still couldn’t afford to do the work, and afraid to put the house on the market unless we did.

Last week we took a deep breath and, Thursday night, listed our house. The real estate industry is almost exclusively internet-driven these days. The listing goes into some magic database and voila! Overnight it’s visible to every prospective home-buyer in the civilized world.

See that: I said “home” buyer, not “house” buyer.

There were four or five hits on our listing over the weekend. No big deal.

Monday afternoon I got a call from an agent, requesting permission to show the house Tuesday afternoon between 4 and 5. “Of course, go ahead, it’s vacant.”, I said, while my brain was screaming in terror at the thought of someone looking at the ratty deck, the walls in desperate need of paint, “safe beige” or otherwise, the outdated bathroom fixtures.

Tuesday night I got a call from our listing agent. We had an offer on the house, a serious offer, from the guy that looked at it the day before. The very first person to look at it. Buyer has sold his house, closing the 29th, and wants to close on buying our house on the 30th.

Of June.

So, last night we signed the seller’s contract documents.

I know the butterflies won’t go away until everything is completed, so I’m remaining calm about it. Really, I am. There’s still the inspection to be done, and I’m sure we’ll have to fix or negotiate some things. We had already dropped the price to compensate for deck and porch, but it ain’t over til it’s over. However, the thought of not having a mortgage, in light of current economy and future economic trends, is almost incomprehensible in appeal right now. I should be thrilled at the prospect.

I mean, it’s just a house, right? An empty house.

This morning I had Wubby go over and move the remaining stuff stored in the basement away from the walls so the home inspector can get to them, just in case we can’t get the 1-800-GotJunk people to come before the inspection. (Why do we call them home inspectors? They don’t inspect the intangibles that make “house” become “home”; they inspect structural issues.)

And I started thinking.

We bought that house 20 years ago, when I was pregnant with Wubby. We were so excited to have bought our first house that we spent the first night there sleeping on the living room floor in sleeping bags! One of the things we liked about the house was that one of the rooms was already painted as a nursery, with big stenciled teddy bears on the walls. Yeah, we painted over them once Wubby left baby-hood. The house also had 2 working fireplaces, one in the living room and one in the basement. One day we were going to finish that basement room and make it a library / office / whatever. Never got around to it, though. Little girl came along, work got complicated, being “sandwiched” between our kids’ needs and our parents’ needs got very complicated. My health got very, very complicated.

In other words, life happened while we were thinking about those plans to finish the basement, rebuild the deck, paint the walls.

As we signed the contract last night, it occurred to me that we closed the deal when we bought the house on June 30, 1989. And exactly 20 years later, crossing my fingers as I type this (which is quite a talent if you think about it), we will close another deal on that house, and it will belong to someone else.

And the tears won’t stop.

I’ve lived in that house longer than in any other dwelling in my entire life. For the 28 years prior to buying that house, I lived in 11 other dwellings. Never stayed in one long enough to get emotionally attached to it.

Until now.

It feels like I’m losing a dear friend. I’ll still see the house almost every day; it’s only a mile away. But we won’t be friends any more.

Maybe it’s because that house is the only one that intersected with my life for more than a few years, or months even.

Maybe it’s the 20-year thing. For a generation, I had a house that was mine, love it or hate it. And I did both.

Maybe it’s because it was my kids’ first house, and they actually lived in it long enough so that, when they go off to live their own lives, they will remember that house as the one “where they grew up.”

Maybe it’s some weird mid-life issue. I seem to being having quite a few of those right now.

I can’t really explain it. I just know that, when I think about it all, I tear up and get all stuffy-nosed. Kids think I’m having terrible allergies.

So, this friend I’m leaving behind, was it just a house or was it a home?

Yes.

 

the Freedom project

So, I haven’t been around here for a couple of weeks…mostly because of pain issues.

But, to be honest, I don’t feel much like writing.

Every day I see the changes taking place and I wonder, what happened to America?

If this is the “change” everyone was sooooo excited about, then count me out, not that I was “in” in the first place. I didn’t vote for this; I didn’t ask for this.

Government taking over private industry? Banks? Telling me I have to suffer while Congress gets its yearly pay increase, and the new White House having Wednesday evening “cocktail parties”? Government giving money that we don’t have to people who are responsible for screwing things up, and telling them to “fix it”? FIX IT?? They can’t FIX IT, because they SCREWED IT UP IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!!!!!!!

Back in my career days I had a small part in the process of outsourcing my own job to overseas contractors. Some of my co-workers were doing nothing BUT training contractors to take their jobs. It was not fun. We, the employees, kept asking anyone who would listen, “What makes you think a contractor can learn this stuff any faster than we did?”, because the truth was that they couldn’t; they didn’t. The project of outsourcing our system maintenance was planned to take 3 months. In 3 months the contractors said they would be able to maintain and sundown an entire insurance policy administration system. I was good, really good, at my job; it took me about a year to become adequately sufficient at working on this system with any level of confidence. After that year I was mentoring and training people who had been there longer than me. We were smart. What made the contractors more capable than us??

Nothing. They weren’t smarter, or more capable.

They were CHEAPER.

This was one of the company’s “freedom” projects. If they could just get free of having to pay us our exorbitant salaries and benefits, and just pay a pittance to the contractors, then the bottom line wouldn’t suffer.

Yeah, right. Like we, a handful of programmers and systems analysts, could bankrupt a company affiliated with one of the largest corporations in the world.

Had the contracting company been able to actually deliver on its commitment of taking over in 3 months, the company would have saved a boatload of money by getting rid of us and using them.

But, they couldn’t deliver because they weren’t any better than us. Just cheaper.

So, for 3 years after I left, the company was still trying to get those contractors up to speed. That system was scheduled to sundown within 5 years of the beginning of the outsourcing project. Three years in, no closer to sundown, but lots of money spent paying contractors AND employees.

We knew this would happen; we told them it would happen.This “freedom” project wound up costing the company 3 years of paying our salaries AND the contractors’ salaries as well.

How many times has anyone actually gotten MORE than what they paid for on anything? When something sounds too good to be true, there’s a reason: it IS.

So, what does this have to do with anything, with what’s going on in our country?

This.

At work, we knew that project was going to fail. We said so. When it did fail, we said, “Told you!”

But, until the failure was complete, we felt as if we had no voice, because, well, we had no voice.

I see what’s happening now and say, “Told you!”

But, I feel like I have no voice, because,well, I don’t. We have a new senator here in NC, a freshman Democrat. She announced over the weekend that she had “serious issues” with this president’s new budget plan. I have “serious issues” with it too. Everyone I know has issues with it.

Will she actually vote against it? Probably not, because, well, she’s a freshman Democrat.

Does this mean that we’re going to have to wait for the entire “project” to fail before anyone with any power admits that we were right?

I hope not, because that “project”, flawed though it may be, is still the best thing going on this planet.

America, the freedom project. Please don’t let it fail.

Is anyone listening?

 

connections

My mom got married yesterday, in a private ceremony at her new husband’s church. They exchanged their vows in a prayer chapel adorned with his woodwork. I haven’t seen it yet, but it sounds beautiful.

And seems to be a very appropriate place.

Daddy was a craftsman with wood, and glass. He re-worked all of the pew racks in their home church. He built a “treasure box” that the church uses when collecting special offerrings. He built a lectern used by Ruth Graham Lotz. His equipment has been here since he died, but is now on its way to one of my new step-brothers, also a woodworker.

I’m learning, in bits and pieces, about my new family. We seem to have a great deal in common: music, ministry, backgrounds in computers and technology. Next Saturday we’ll all meet for the first time. I’ve been getting to know a couple of my new ’steps’ via e-mail and Facebook. Connecting through technology.

But, the thought of making new connections the old-fashioned way, in person, is a bit scary. Here I sit, smack dab in the middle of mid-life, having been an only brat until now and, suddenly, I have 5 step-siblings. And their children. And their children’s children. For the first time in my entire life, I have to share my mom with siblings. It feels strange somehow, and at the same time, appropriate, if that makes any sense.

We’ll all meet next weekend, an early Thanksgiving. And there’s a lot to be thankful for.

Life and love.

Family, old and new.

Connections.

I have to admit that the thought of meeting a houseful of new people scares me. Although no one I say this to actually believes me, I am a shy person by nature. I remember admitting that a couple of years ago, at Thanksgiving actually, and seeing my mom’s surprised reaction. Meeting new people has always been problematic, probably stemming from being the ‘new kid in the class’ more than a few times. New kids are sort of like substitute teachers: they’re not treated very well at first, but the ones that stick around eventually make a place for themselves.

Thank heavens for computers and Facebook. I’m slowly but surely making connections, putting faces to names, making tentative advances to some of these people I’ve not yet met but have something so significant in common with.

It’s strange for me to think of my mom, married to someone else. it took a great deal of faith and courage for her to take baby steps toward making new connections, and those steps have brought her to a new family. She’s connected to a new world.

And, so am I.

 

focus?

I can’t.

Focus, that is.

ADHD must feel like this. I’m constantly looking for my keys, glasses, cell phone, whatever, when I know I just had the whatever 2 seconds ago.

Usually my glasses are on my head, keys or cellphone in pocket of last jacket I wore.

And it’s REALLY hard to focus on packing for the move.

There’s 20 years of stuff in here that need to be sifted, sorted, boxed, bagged, stuffed and hauled. Where on earth do I start?

 

remember

As Garrison Kieler would say, “It’s been a tough week in Lake Woebegon.” Everything about this week has been difficult. Not all bad, just difficult.

The election: Will the next president actually bring about wealth-redistribution? I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have any! Maybe I’ll get some. My nephew found this somewhere on YouTube and posted it on Facebook:

The Redistribution of Wealth Isn’t Appreciated For What It Is Until It’s Practiced!

“Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read “Vote Obama, I need the money.” I laughed.

Once in the restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08″ tie, again, I laughed–just imagine the coincidence…

….When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need–the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful….

…At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application…..”

As Forrest Gump would say, “That’s all I’m gonna say about that.”

Facebook: Dang, but I’m becoming an addict. I’m keeping up w/ family, the kids I hang out with at church, friends, including Alecto and a friend I made back in ‘77 at the Virginia Governor’s School at Mary Washington College. It was amazing how much we remembered about our month-long stay in Fredericksburg, and how similar we are in interests, philosophy, etc after all these years.

I’m also learning new names and new faces that belong to my new soon-to-be step-siblings, and their children, and their children’s children. Lots of new names to remember.

The movers are coming Saturday to pick up the furniture from mom’s that’s going to her new digs. I remember when I met movers who brought furniture from mom and dad’s house to here. Seems like only yesterday.

It’s officially November 7. My dad died on November 7, 2004, at around daybreak. His stroke occurred on November 3, Wednesday after Election day. I remember so many tiny details about that week, and at the same time there are hours that have totally escaped the confines of my mind. Probably a good thing.

The past month has been one of the worst fibro flares I’ve had in ages. And then there are the allergies. I need to find some local honey. It’s supposed to help with allergies. Anyway, we have funky weather here in North Carolina. it’s supposed to be 76 degrees tomorrow, 46 degrees on Saturday. I don’t do drastic weather changes.

So, here I am at 12:56 am on Friday, November 7, 2008, wondering if I’ll get any sleep tonight or if the memories are gonna keep rattling around in my head, making noises and begging for attention, thus keeping me awake.

On a lighter note, the tale of the pink hippopotamus is about to enter a new phase as she gets acquainted with the other hippopotamusses and they all gather to cross the grassland in search of a new home. Pinkie has lots of hippo-siblings to meet, as I operate a stuffed hippo refuge wherever I go.

Sometimes I think hubby wishes I would forget about the hippo comment. I’ve been love-struck for hippos since way back when he teased me by making reference to the similarities between a hippo’s backside and, well, you get the idea. That one little comment was enough to launch me on a career of searching and collecting all things hippopotami.

And ya know, the holidays are fast approaching so of course it’s time for me to start singing my favorite holiday ditty:

I wanna hippopotamus for Christmas, only a hippopotamus will do,

Don’t wanna doll, no dinky tinker-toys, I wanna hippopotamus to play with and enjoy….

 

Feel free to sing along if you know the words.

Of course, I remember every one of them.

 

tree

We’ve lived in this house for 19 years. When we bought it there were 3 trees in the front yard: a miscellaneous pine that had been a Christmas tree but was dying fast, a Bradford pear, and a maple tree.

The dying pine was the first to go.

When our son was about three we decorated the maple tree for Easter. I picked him up so he could hang a plastic egg from the top branch.

The Bradford got bigger and bigger over the years. Hurricane Fran took part of it. Later another portion split away. Then an ice storm finished it off.

The maple tree is beautiful now. It’s leaves are tinged with orange and red, almost like God took a dry paintbrush and dabbed tiny bits of color on the edges of the leaves. Every day the color grows brighter and the green fades a little more. The robins and the hummingbirds have moved out for now, but will most certainly return in the spring.

I look at the tree, see how much it’s grown over the years, and compare notes. My son has grown from a chubby baby to the young man he is now, learning to find his way in college while still managing to find his way home on a fairly regular basis. My little preemie girl has grown into the beautiful, tender-hearted young woman she is now. Hubby has picked up a pound or two, his hair greying in that way that looks distinguished in men and frumpy in women, still the high school freshman I met in Mrs. Calloway’s English class, got to know better in Miss Watkins’ physics class the next year, fell head-over-heels for the year after that. It watched him struggle to find his way, to a career and to God.

The maple tree has witnessed our grief as, one by one, grandparents and then parents left us until my mom was the only one remaining. It has witnessed our joy at the births of our children, their various birthday parties held in the yard or the driveway. It stood as a silent witness as I left each morning for work, hoping for a better day than the one before, and as I came home each evening disappointed. Now it gives its shade for me to sit under to read. It’s branches are high enough that I can mow the grass under it without having to duck to avoid being swiped in the face. My husband, son and daughter have grown so much over the years into the people who bless my life now. I look at myself and wonder if I’ve grown any, in any way that really matters.

But the maple continues to grow and change with the years and seasons.

We’ll be moving soon, just a mile or so down the road. It’s exciting to think of how this has all come about, with my mom finding someone to love, someone to love her in return. It’s also a bit overwhelming to think of moving after so many years, of the logistics of combining and rearranging not just two households, but three, as she moves into a new (to her, anyway) home, we move from this house to her house, and this house gets more sprucing up for someone new to move in. We’re planning to lease this house since the market is so bad, maybe selling it when things improve.

There are some things in the yard that I’ll transplant at least parts of: some iris I got from my sister-in-law, primroses from my aunt, stuff like that. And the monster wedding bell plant.

I can’t take the maple tree with me. It will stay here and watch over the house, observing the new people who will be living here just as it has watched over us. it will tell them about us, and maybe offer them comfort in their daily trials. Comfort it learned as it took care of us and our trials.

I’ll miss the maple tree.

I hope it misses me too, just a little.

 

adjust

There’s a line in “Coal Miner’s Daughter” toward the end of the movie, when Loretta has a breakdown on stage. She says something like, “Things is movin’ too fast in my life.”

Well. Where to start?

Yep, mom is getting married and will be moving to his part of the world, east TN.

Up to now, I’ve been an only child. After the wedding I’ll have 5 sort-of-step siblings. Exciting stuff for me!

As mom and her Mr. combine households, we’ll be combining households here and moving to her place. Housing market being what it is, we’ll probably lease our place and put it on the market later.

Son is having adjustment issues with college. He says that too much freedom is a dangerous thing. Well, YEAH. Study, study, study. If we can get him through this semester things should be much more interesting for him. He shared his portfolio with the Art Department head. General consensus is that it’s one of the best, if not THE best, portfolio they’ve seen from a Freshman intending on majoring in art. He’ll be in 2 studio classes next semester.

Daughter is trying to adjust to high school while missing her brother. She had the wonderful experience of having to write a term paper for a history class before ever having gone through the process in English class. I hate, hate, hate block scheduling in high school. So does she.

I’m sick of politics, sick of the election, just plain sick.

Shameless plug for Decemberadio. My cuz’ is the lead guitarist. He’s good. Turns out 2 of my new sort-of-step-siblings and their families are crazy DR fans. Small world. DR is playing at a church near here Friday and the 2 “soss” families are coming to the concert. We will be transporting a small hoard of youth to concert as well.

Fibromyalgia has been having a field day w/ me for the past 2 weeks. Thrilled about that.

As Loretta said, “Things is moving fast.” Time to grab hold of something and hang on.

Think I”ll grab another cup of coffee.

 

Change is coming! (and we’re not talking politics)

There’s a commercial for something-or-other. A woman about my age talking about how her mother told her that “when the right one comes along, you’ll know.” The scene opens up to an outdoor wedding, and her mother is taking her own advice and getting married.

Mom is getting married.

Soon.

As one of the political campaigns says, or is it both at this point:

Change is coming!