Deal me in.

Watching a skilled craftsman work is, in our case, both thrilling and terrifying.  Our contractor friend is a mix of spider, gazelle and dancer among the rafters and ladders, boards and shingles.  He thinks nothing of stepping backwards to the edge, stopping just short of toppling over to the ground, to measure, to nail, to double and triple check.  He has caused many an intake of breath over the last few weeks, as we stand around in awe watching him confidently scurry from one end of the house to the other. Is he that agile, that fearless or is he just plain nuts?

I have to say, I’m leaning towards nuts.  I thought the tree guys were crazy, but, this guy,  I am just not sure he wasn’t born into the circus and has chosen not to share the story of his dark and checkered childhood or something.

Work on the house continues at a fast pace, his expert advice and dedication to perfection and quality is not lost on us.  He is there to guide and instruct hubs along the way and that has proven to be invaluable, too.  We are very grateful for his friendship as well as his professionalism, his personal and work ethic and just darn good work.

So! We are bleeding money as you might guess.  Hubs, who is Mr. Conservative in all areas of life, is freaking out and I am beginning to get a little nervous.  I have put the new sectional on the back burner for the time being as a decision we made last week, to switch to all hardwood flooring instead of carpet, and to replace our existing hardwood in the rest of the space at the same time, created a bit of an uptick in the budget but also opens up furniture placement.  Now I need to live with the space to know for sure what to do, which is almost as exciting for me as actually getting new furniture pieces.  I love figuring it out.

I feel like those folks on HGTV at times saying “Well, if we increase the spending there, we have to find room in the budget” ~ always playing the good cop bad cop game with hubs.  I have a spreadsheet and make new entries and correct entries every day, as it seems like there is a new wrinkle every day.  Sometimes not a bad wrinkle, as it may have pointed out an error in our plan, but a wrinkle just the same.  I don’t know that we could have ever built a house together, but, this is our third “big” remodeling project and we’ve done okay.  There was one little yelling session the other day, which was followed by a fairly long silent treatment, but overall it’s good.

After this many years, it will be 39 years of wedded bliss in October, I am somewhat surprised by the silent treatment card still being in the deck.  Both played to me and by me, the silent treatment does still work a bit.  If forces me not to say any more, thank you.  I can push it and I know it.  It also allows me to walk away and not have to hear any more, what is usually frugal, logical and sometimes even *gulp* right thinking.

   

That aside, I do find that hubs has become very resilient to the silent treatment.  He may even relish it.  What does work at this stage of life is the no cooking treatment.  I can go days with eating just cereal or rice and skip big meals for days - but not so much hubs.  He needs to eat.  So, if he walks through the kitchen and sees meat out for dinner, a salad being cut up perhaps or potatoes being scrubbed or peeled, he knows not to start trouble.  Not a good time to find fault with a decision I’ve made or discuss a new plan that may change the budget, or alter the design, like paint color.  You better just love that paint color buddy, unless I nod some acquiescence that it is an open topic, or risk not knowing where your next meal will come from.

Now, today, this week, we are in safety zone mode.  We’ve made all our big decisions, unscathed and fed, and are left with just a few, basically minor, items we need to both consider and agree.  For example, I have voiced my opinion about the size of the new television, and he wants a bit bigger.  But, I know this bigger television decision will require a new piece of furniture and I have had my eye on something that I had no real place for, until this new television was added to the ante.  Now I know where to make that next adjustment to the budget. 

Different but the same.

I didn’t particularly want the blog posts to be all about the renovation of our lake home, but, I have to admit that is taking over a huge hunk of our lives right now so it is what it is! In between the nailing, the decision making, the sawing, the sweeping is the little bit of other stuff that we are managing to squeak out.

 

I feel like it’s been weeks since I’ve seen the grandkids for example, and this construction site is really not a good place for hosting them, so it may be a few more days.  It’ll be fine in a couple weeks but right now, it is controlled chaos at best.  Meal preparation around here is almost non-existent but the local restaurants are loving us.  The bad news is the amount of fast food we are ingesting, not good for these old arteries.

We have been enjoying the evenings, with mild August temperatures and gentle breezes keeping the bugs at bay.  We have a new neighbor, who is renting the small house next door to us.  He’s here from Arizona working on a big construction project in the adjoining town and thinks he will be here about a year.  He wanted to be on water, he is hoping to try ice fishing for the first time in his life, and he’s a hoot. He’s lonely at times, being away from his family, so he walks through the fence line and comes over in the evening to sit a while and check our progress on our renovation.  He is both curious and knowledgeable so there is always some lively conversation.

His wife is in town this week.  They have it scheduled for her to be here about once a month for a few days.  She holds down the fort in Arizona and works as well.  Last evening, after hubs put in way too many hours on the roof and carrying lumber, they invited us over for dinner.  It was perfect.  The evening was great, although the bugs did kick up a bit, and we ate inside.  Now, I have been in this little rental house a few times over the years and I have to say, it is a cute little place.  Our neighbor made his special country ribs, which were perfectly prepared on the grill, and a nice baked potato, some great bread.  Lovely, really.  Here’s where it gets good…they don’t use sour cream but a spoonful of a nice mix of diced avocado, tomatoes and red pepper after the butter.  It was so good, so different and how I will be eating my baked potatoes from now on.

 

Dinner conversation was filled with stories from our childhoods with their background of being raised in the Texas panhandle sprinkled with regional phrases, their easy drawl.   We laughed and learned.  Of all the traveling I did as a child, Texas is not a state we landed in during those years, so I very much enjoyed the stories.

 

I love learning something new, especially at this point in life.  Something we’ve not experienced, or ever really even thought about.  Sure, in Indiana we have corn fields, but, to think of acres and acres and acres of planted fields, as far as the eye can see, and how different their view is from our own, their experiences yielding different but yet similar results.

Sit down with someone new this week, if you can, and learn something new from your neighbor here on this earth.  Take the time to ask some questions and be delighted with your differences, and your similarities.  

Failure to commit.

Doing a little hurry up to slow down this week.  Some last minute plans and a torrential rain storm has left the yard wishing for more attention and the building project super underway, but soggy.

 

It’s fun to watch the house change and become something we hope we will be happy with for a long, long time.  Or, at least as long as we are given.  Our contractor friend is a dream.  Busy, thorough and informative.  He listens to ideas and makes adjustments where needed.  He also is a voice of reason and a calm reassurance that things are progressing just like they should.  I don’t like these days much, when things are left “open” to the elements, but, a necessary evil I suppose.

Hubs has been busy and puts a couple hours in each evening when he gets home from already long days at work.  I feel sorry for him, sort of ~ he is also liking the activity and seeing things change.  We’ve got a few decisions to make but most of our “design” or style choices have been made and well, we're just waiting for it to all come together.

 

I placed a furniture order this past week and that was big for me.  I will have more as the budget gets spent down on the building materials (leaving me crumbs) and I have a firmer grip on what we’re doing!  Which, I sound like I am joking, but, renovating is scary! Budgets are scary!   I don’t want to do too much too soon for fear of hubs freaking out and careening over the edge, and I still can’t make up my mind.  I mean, I have a couch that I love, but need more seating.  Once I get the chairs I ordered, and the carpet and paint colors, I hope to commit to a sectional.  I haven’t been able to commit to a sectional design, size or color.  I mean, that’s a big ol’ piece of furniture.  I have had a sweet, young furniture salesman follow me around and around the store, and stand at the fabric sample rack for an eternity.  I need to be sure I love it, and so far, no swooning.

We are very excited and it is fun to see a change every day.  I look around at construction madness in the yard and it is a little overwhelming, but, still fun.  I see trampled plants, and mud on top of mud on top of what was once a shrub and I’m crestfallen, but, still excited. Every time I go to one of my favorite stores ~ Pier 1, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel or even Target or Walmart ~ I’ll pick up something new for the kitchen, or for the porch that has yet to get framed.  This week it was pillows at Marshall’s, and dish towels at Target.  I have had to walk away from some gorgeous pots for new plantings by the improved front door and hope I will be able to find the same thing next time I’m out, or heaven forbid, pay full price in the spring.  Somethings I know exactly what I want, others I will spend hours looking for just the right thing, come home empty handed to try again tomorrow.

 

But, I still can’t commit to that sectional.  

Catching the wind.

It’s no secret that like all of you with them, I love my grandkids.  They crack me up, bring me much, much joy.  I have one seven year-old girl who has always just entertained me and is so much like her mommy, my daughter.  I have a near five year-old grandson who says the deepest, most adult phrases and full paragraphs, that leave me rolling from his grown up wisdom, on all topics.  I have a four year-old grandson who is wild in a good way, free spirited, mechanical..a boy’s boy, but a mama’s boy and as sweet as he can be.  Not far behind him is his little sister who is showing signs of needing to keep up with him and can be just as daring, and darling.  Rounded out by the little guy, the sweetest baby, born this spring and a delight. 

This summer has been full, but never full enough, of time with these kids.  It is a couple hours for them to arrive for a visit and when they aren’t here, I am thinking about them.  Like, ALL the time.  Wondering what they are doing, how school is, if they are outside, inside, swimming, reading.  I miss them so when they have left following a weekend visit.  I love them so.

Of course, they leave me little signs they were here.  Toys left out, books laying around.  Dirty towels, sheets…the usual.   A pantry full of unusual eats…Fruit snacks, sugary cereal, chips in multi flavors.  Things that are not often in my particular menu plan.  There’s always a half empty bag of this or that.  Some things that go stale before they return, so get tossed and some things that remain till they visit again.

 

I am working in the landscaped areas as much as I can while this summer air will allow, making sure the current remodeling stays out of my plantings, protecting or moving my shrubs and flowers as things are thrown all around the house, out of windows and from roofs.  Hubs tends not to watch where things are going and has many times over the years destroyed one plant or another.   I mean, I get it…plants can be replaced but watching something grow to maturity and fullness is difficult to then see torn out to make room for equipment or structure, or trampled.  

 

That being said, I have areas that I tend that are far removed from the building project.  A bit of a respite in what is becoming more chaotic by the day.  I have a little wind chime, a gift from years ago, that has been hanging on a low branch for a number of years.  I had to move it recently and when I did, the string holding it in place broke and it had been laying on a bench.  My little grandson came across it and concerned, wanted to hang it somewhere it would catch the wind, do the job it was meant to do.  Encouraging him to put it down, that it was broken, that I would have to fix it before it could be hung again, he found a solution.  I think it may be a while before I move it as it brings a smile to my face to see it, right where he left it, his chubby, grubby little hands in a hurry while we called his name, beckoning him to “Come on!”  At about a foot off the ground, it won't catch much wind, but it does catch my breath. 

Thinking about what's next.

I was recently struck by how routine my days are.  I mean, now “retired”, I am almost as scheduled, subconsciously so, more than when I worked outside the home.  I go about a daily routine almost as if I were getting up and preparing to leave for work.  Well, except for the makeup and nice clothes.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I know I can throw an unexpected delay or sleep in a bit later to my day, but typically, it will still go the same.  I decided this morning, while walking around admiring some of my landscaped areas, that I should shake things up, do something different.  I then thought what would that be?  Go counterclockwise around the yard instead of clockwise? My “scheduled” morning isn’t super challenging, you see.

I start out the front door and watch where the little dog runs off to, and she almost always goes to the same area when she first bolts out the door.  I walk past the little dogwood tree at the corner of the house, thinking about how much it has grown and soon will take over the pathway.  I walk past the area where the cars have been parking for 100 years and resolve to move my car to the “new” designated parking space…only to think “nah” or “later”.   Then down to the lakefront, feel the sun on my shoulders and face, check out the lake, the sky, listen to the birds, check to see if little dog has erupted from the woods yet (also her usual routine), walk to the flower pots, check for watering needs and deadhead a few marigolds.  Around this time is when I start to seriously watch for little dog to come out of the woods, call her and whistle, and walk towards the shed.  I check the plantings around the shed, sit on the bench, contemplate life and solve world problems, welcome little dog onto the bench and drink my coffee.

 

This is almost every day.  After we sit for 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how the coffee drinking is going, we head inside.  Today I compared this to sitting in traffic on my way to work and how much better this is.  I fix little dog her breakfast, caution her to slow down, fix my own bowl of cereal and go in to the office to read a few news sites, eat my cereal and begin my day in earnest. 

This doesn’t sound too bad, right? It is a good start to the morning. It doesn’t change much from day to day, sometimes I have company so I may have a grandchild to hold hands with as I make my rounds.  Sometimes, and this happens once a week or so, I may sleep in.  If I sleep in, I usually have the same routine but I may make a bigger breakfast for myself.  I don’t know why, but, something about sleeping in makes “brunch” necessary so scrambled eggs and toast is required, if not a full-blown omelet with cheese and bacon, sometimes potatoes.  I know…I know.

I wonder how this is going to change when hubs retires and is here, too. I do really look forward to when he retires, as gosh, he needs it.  He deserves it, but, I mean, is he going to want to walk around with me? I am sure he is going to expect breakfast.  The thing is, although I am alone every day, for a large chunk of the day, morning is special.  Today, for some reason, today, I began to think about when hubs is here, too.  Not just the weekend, but every day.  He has occasionally caught up to me while I sit on the bench.  It’s pleasant but, it’s not meditative.  Sometimes he’s been up and at it for hours before I sit on the bench, has already done his morning thing, so he’s ready for the day to get underway, whatever it might be.

 

I am not quite there yet, fella, I have a routine.