elsewhere

Today is sunny, the kind of crisp, clear, blue day at the tail end of winter that brings with it the promise spring will come. The kind of day that draws you outside to walk, to breathe in the cool air, and feel the warmth of the sun as it grazes your face.

I spent part of the morning walking with the dogs, bringing them in after lunch for kibble, yogurt, and a nap. Maddy, at five months, still needs that midday meal. Or so she thinks. Afterward, I went out to purchase some new dress shirts for hubby and pick up a few necessities. In between the 7-11 and Kohl's, I came across a thrift store I hadn't noticed before. While I generally hate to shop, I infrequently have moods conducive to wandering through unique little thrift stores and gift shops.

The thrift store had a name we've all seen before, something to the effect of "Second Time Around". I went in and began to wander about the store, picking up a piece of pottery that caught my eye and inspecting a Swedish Modern headboard in a lovely blonde wood tone. As I made my way to the back of the store, nearing the register, I heard a man and a woman talking. It was all business, talk of rent, transporting goods to the store, and collecting bounced checks. The man was older, perhaps the woman's father, and he peppered his sentences with various phrases meant to thank the Lord for their good fortune. I smiled to myself and thought about Brother Bill, the preacher at my childhood church. Something in the old man's manner and phrasing reminded me of him.

I finished my errands and came home. The dogs, fresh from their crates, were delighted to see me and ran immediately to the back door. The cats even slunk in to see who had come home. The house had grown too warm and stuffy while I was gone, so I opened the bank of windows on the kitchen wall, looking into the backyard. Suddenly the cats could hear, rather than just see those birds, and now, even though I closed the windows twenty minutes ago, they are still meowing at me, pleading for open windows again.

This time last year I wouldn't have given you a plug nickel for this town. I would most likely have wished to be elsewhere. Suddenly, undeniably, it is home.

• I believe this is heaven
  To no one else but me
  And I'll defend it long as
  I can be
  Left here to linger
  In silence
  If I choose to
  Would you try to understand?

from Elsewhere by Sarah MacLachlan

a very full day

Yesterday was an unusual day. It was hectic and full and required me to wear heels. I drove to our old hometown, leaving our house at 6:00am, for an appearance in court. I arrived in good time for the 8:30am appearance and promptly signed in, just to sit and wait until almost 11:00am. Much back and forth, negotiating, and red tape. I actually appeared before the judge at around 1:00pm, with no break for lunch. I was famished and the room was cold as an ice box. The judge, however, was lovely. I was sworn in and answered two questions in about four minutes. Hardly worth the drive.

The really harrowing part was sitting in the crowded and too warm waiting room for so long. Court rooms and their waiting areas, especially in larger cities, are not very pleasant places. No one who works there seems to know anything at all except for the judge. Some of the people I dealt with looked like they were half asleep. I do try never to generalize, but I think government workers get a bad rap for reasons based in reality. No food, no drink and I really think they would prefer that you don't talk or breathe as it's inconvenient for them. There was one bit of excitement. A woman of about thirty stormed into the room through one door, practially ran across the room to the exterior door and left in an obvious huff, cursing all the while. Some joker in the room made the comment that if she came back it would probably be with a gun. Those in the waiting room laughed. One of the ladies that worked in the office gave him a dirty look and got up to see if the woman drove away.

Afterward I drove to my favorite convenient store in the free world to fill the car with gas, buy a sandwich for lunch, and just breathe in the atmosphere. It's a silly thing to miss, but I do miss them, so much. They are clean, spacious, and well stocked. The gas pumps are covered generously, car port style, so that you can stay dry in the rain. The whole parking lot is lit up like day time at the first hint of darkness. The convenience stores here are mostly 7-11s and I just hate them. They are small and dirty and everything is crowded into a space that's far too small. I write the company back home and tell them how wonderful they are each time I visit, then beg them to build one here. In between visits, I get used to the stores here and forget just how great the ones I left really are.

By the time I arrived home, the boys were home from school. The dogs nearly knocked me down when I walked in the door, they were so happy that I actually came back to them. I love that about dogs. The cats casually glanced my way and several hours later, came to sit on my lap and demand attention. My elder son was somberly practicing skateboard tricks on the driveway, running in and asking me to watch about every ten seconds. The little one did his homework and went next door to play.

The rest of the day was a blur of chores, homework, and dinner. It is a rare evening that we are all home together. My family chatted and laughed while I fed them quiche for dinner because the chicken was still frozen solid. I went to bed tired, but happy. And wondered how I ever managed to work and maintain a home at the same time.

a busy week

I have been very busy.

Last Friday I drove to my old hometown to pick up my mother-in-law's bichon frise. I had agreed to keep him while she is on a cruise to Alaska. Toby is about fourteen years old. He is partially blind, doesn't hear well, has a bit of an incontinence problem (in my brand new house!), and for some reason, no matter how clean he is, he has a terrible smell. On the other hand, he is sweet and loveable and my mother-in-law adores him.

I can't wait for her to get home.

Jack, our adorable nine month old schnauzer, wants to play with Toby all the time. Toby wants to play with Jack about twenty minutes a day. A terrible combination, I must say. I spend a lot of my time just separating them. They have to be walked in succession, because Jack practically runs a mile before he does his business, and Toby barely moves faster than a turtle. At least he only has to walk about six feet before he's ready to go.

The kids went back to school on Monday. Our lovely daughter went back to her high school, even though we've moved into another area. She is driving to school for the first time and is pleased with her schedule. Both of the boys went to new schools, the older one to middle school and the little one to elementary. The fourteen year old is very unhappy after two days of school. I can only hope it gets better. The little one, though, is doing very well. He is delighted with his teacher and the school, and he's made two new friends.

This afternoon I am meeting my daughter at a drug testing facility so that she can take the drug test for her new job! I am excited for her but also slightly worried; she was offered a position in a local drug store after she had filled out one application and had one interview. I hope this experience doesn't make her think it will always be that easy to find a job!

My parents are coming to see the new house this weekend. I am still unpacking and things are really a bit of a wreck. I don't miss the other house, but I do miss the storage. The closets in this house are wonderful and the kitchen storage is amazing, but the general storage for things like games and books and photos isn't quite as good. As a result, I still have boxes full of CDs, DVDs, video games, and books stacked in the dining room. Then there are the miscellaneous items whose perfect storage place always eludes me, regardless. At least in the last house, I had a couple of empty cabinets under the wet bar to stash things. I know it's completely passe to have one these days, but I miss that wet bar.

Add to the above the normal laundry, shopping, and cooking duties as well as the whirlwind of back to school shopping, and I'm amazed I found the time to post today. I suppose I'd better go work on those boxes now. Oh joy.

transition

We have moved. Mostly.

There are still odds and ends left in the old house. Things the movers wouldn't touch. Every last one of my plants, indoors and out. Electronic equipment not packed in its original box. (Who does that?) Gasoline cans. The grill. All taboo items according to the moving company. Then, of course, the entire contents of the coat closet that I forgot to pack.

The kids and I spent part of yesterday carrying things to the new house in my car and in the back of my daughter's truck. I went alone yesterday morning. Just as I was pulling out of the subdivision, rain started to pour. And I mean pour. The kind of rain that makes you think perhaps you should pull off the road for a minute and wait for the deluge to pass.

The new house is a jumble of packed, partially unpacked, and empty boxes. We finally have television, telephone and internet. The weekend was very quiet without them. The new refrigerator has not arrived, so each time we want milk or ice or butter, we have to go out to the garage to the old refrigerator. I am questioning the wisdom of leaving the fridge in the garage while we don't have one in the house. It seemed like a good idea when hubby mentioned it, but in practice it is quite annoying and inconvenient.

The children have adjusted well. I can't say as much for the animals. On Friday the cats found the highest point in a back corner of the house and perched there all day. They were draped on top of each other, the way they used to always sleep when they were kittens. When I climbed up on a counter to try to pet them, Streudel hid behind Lucy and looked at me as if I were an alien. They have mostly gotten over it and have started eating normally again.

Jack is a bit lost. I think I am probably confusing him more by taking him back and forth with me every time I go to the old house. I don't want to crate him every trip we make, and leaving him loose in the new house is out of the question. There are too many lovely things to chew. He does love the old back yard with its big trees and grasses and flowers. As soon as I let him into the house, he runs directly to the back door and sits patiently waiting for the door to open. I think he misses the squirrels.

my luck is changing

Cold air in my Toyota for $50 less than the quote. Four perfectly inflated tires on my lovely daughter's truck. Jack is all better. Packed house. Perfect walk through. Completed closing. The movers will be here at 9:00 am on Friday. Sweet.

Murphy's Law

Moving preparations are going extremely well. I have been pleasantly surprised at the level of my children's packing competence. Granted, we just did this ten months ago, but I remember doing much more of it myself last time. The living room is so full of boxes that only a path in front of and behind the seating is still passable. The walls are bare and the windows are down to the blinds and curtain rods that were already hanging when we moved in. Even the garage is ready. So, of course, something else had to go wrong.

Driving along the turnpike a few days ago with the air conditioner full blast to combat stifling heat and humidity in this suddenly seasonable Oklahoma July, we smelled smoke. The kind of smoke that comes from mechanical failure.

I drive a Toyota Avalon that came equipped with a climate control system. Not one light will come on. The heater won't work. Not that we really want it to. The fan won't blow, not even hot air. The outside temperature display no longer works. It's not that it is registering zero, or even the wrong temperature. It is completely blank. In other words, complete and utter failure of the climate control system.

The garage called yesterday to say that the compressor failed internally causing the entire climate control system to lose power. We need to replace the compressor and the dryer thingy. At the bargain price of $800. Of course it's no longer under warranty.

Hubby went off to work in our lovely VW Passat with perfectly functioning air conditioner. That leaves us with only daughter's truck for transport. The air is nice and cold. However, it seats three. There are four of us left in the house. Of course.

I walked out this morning with keys and purse in hand to run out for a gallon of milk for breakfast. What I found was a flat tire. Completely flat. I guess it no longer matters that the truck only seats three as it is now useless to me. The kids can have juice for breakfast. Or water. Or soda. I frankly do not care as long as they stay out of the gin and the wine. I am reserving those for myself.

The good news is the Toyota will be ready this afternoon. Thank the Lord for small favors.

moving toward home

It is pouring rain this morning and the house is dark and quiet. The children are still sleeping at five minutes until 9:00am. I know I should wake them but frankly I am enjoying the solitude. We are supposed to pack their rooms today. In about a week we'll move. We are nowhere near ready for the moving vans to arrive. I confess that I have never been ready for the moving vans until the night before they arrive. Well, once I was. But that was due to the fact that it was a corporate move and the moving guys did all the packing as well as the loading and unloading. All I had to do was make sure the house was neat, pick up the baby, and get out of the way. That was many years ago, the baby was my almost grown daughter, and I have forgotten completely what it was like to have the luxury of someone else packing up my belongings.

I remember all too clearly our move last year. It was really a chore. We had lived in the same home for twelve years. It was a three bedroom, two bath, two car garage house on a corner lot and it was filled to the brim with all of those important and not so important things a family collects over time. We had a big garage sale and I still had to box things up and move them out just to put the house on the real estate market.

Before we knew we'd have to move away from home, we had started looking for a larger house, something bigger with another bedroom in our same school district. I knew we needed more space but I don't think I realized just how small our house was until we moved into this one. There is so much space here that I felt a bit lost at first. In fact, I missed my little gray house. I missed my beautiful soaking tub that sat under a skylight in redwood decking. I missed the vaulted ceilings and the natural light that filled the house. I missed the walls I had stripped and painted and papered, the woodwork I had stained, the tile floors my husband had painstakingly laid. Oddly enough I missed the intimacy of the smaller space. I missed lying in bed and hearing my boys murmur to each other across the hallway.

I think what I missed most of all was the feeling that the little gray house was my home. This house is not my home. It is roomy and has storage to die for, but it isn't mine. I can't change the fixtures or the wallpaper in the extra bathroom or the carpet. I can't rip out the horrible bushes the homeowner didn't tend for years. I can't change the kitchen counters or tear out the wall between the laundry room and the half bath to make it big enough to turn around in. I have wanted to do each of those things since the moment we moved in.

I am not looking forward to the logistics of moving. I most definitely am not interested in packing or unpacking. I don't want to get the kids up and make them work the next week of their summer away. But when it's all over and I am sitting in a house full of boxes waiting to be emptied, I know I will feel happier, more content. We bought a house. And once again, I'll have a place to call my own.

a place to call home

We are buying a home.

I'm still a little shocked by the whole thing. All the rentals were too small, not right, or just really horrible. As I complained about them, hubby would nod his head and tell me to buy something. The next day, I would look for more rentals. This has gone on for a good month and a half, maybe more.

I bought a copy of the local newspaper this week. I read through the rentals, found nothing new to look at and began reading the ads for home sales. I'm not really sure why when I had been so dead set against it just a few weeks ago. Perhaps it was my husband's voice in my ear. Or maybe it was the fear of being made to move again. Whatever the reason, I picked up the phone and called on a home.

In the past we've always gone for twenty or thirty year old neighborhoods, the kind with sprawling houses and enormous trees. This home is brand new but the neighborhood is a bit rural. The homes in the front of the addition were built as long as fifteen years ago. The lots are large and the streets are wide. Trees have been saved throughout the neighborhood during construction, so the landscape isn't barren and treeless. It's really quite lovely.

The home is beautiful. I especially love the kitchen. The cabinets are a lovely medium dark oak and the countertops are granite. There is an island in the middle, a six burner gas stovetop, a built in microwave and double convection ovens. There are tile and wood floors as well as carpeting. The master bath has a whirlpool tub that I can hardly wait to get into. I am in heaven. The kids have laid claim to bedrooms, tried out the computer nook, and laid on their backs in the empty living room floor. The boys have scoped out a treed area for their 'secret hideout'. I think they'll be happy with their new home.

There are details to work out. The home still has to be inspected. There are odds and ends to be addressed. But barring catastrophe, I think my search is over. And in the process, every member of our family has committed to living in Edmond. Wonders will never cease. Now I just have to pack.

in limbo

I spent the morning driving around town looking at rental properties. I have to say that it's a very depressing thing to do. I walked through empty, dark, dirty houses with unkempt lawns. Assurances that the carpet will be cleaned and the lawns mown did little to brighten my mood. I found one that will do.

I have more houses to see today. A couple of the brokers I contacted have expressed interest in purchasing this home we're in and letting us stay on as tenants. That would be the answer to my prayers.

My daughter passed her driver's test this week and has begun driving on her own. It's an odd feeling. I am happy for her but I am terrified. I'm sure it's a common reaction.

My middle son has been gone all week. My house is quiet and my younger son hasn't yelled, screamed or cried once since the older one has been gone. I feel a bit guilty that I am enjoying the peace of his absence.

searching for a home

The first week of summer is coming to a close. The kids have slept late, cooked up delicious things in the kitchen, spent their days playing with friends. My house has been full of children of all ages, mostly boys. I hear video games and guitars in their bedroom. There have been late nights and heavy footsteps on the stairs that got them into trouble with their father. Not once this week has the doorbell been for me. It is heaven.

I am looking for another house to rent. We are running out of time here. Each time I think about it I get a bit angry all over again. I looked at a house right here in the neighborhood a few days ago. It was in disarray, needed carpet, needed paint. It seemed small in comparison to this house. The search for this house took so long. I know there has to be another one somewhere that we'll be happy and comfortable in. I just can't seem to find it.

Hubby thinks we should just look for a home to buy, but I don't think we have enough time. It usually takes a couple of months once you find the home you want. I reminded him that we are renting for a reason, to be sure this is where we want to be. Buying seems so . . . final. I know it's not really, one can always sell a home. But something is keeping me from taking that step. I am not quite sure what it is.

old homestead

Someone had built the house and lovingly planted the trees around it for shelter and respite from the blazing Oklahoma sun. By the time we arrived, the glass was gone from all the windows and the front porch slanted with age and neglect. The roof was green with a red brick chimney but the house was a weathered gray, paint removed by wind and rain, sun and time. I always wondered what color it had been.

My little brother and I found old baby food jars filled with buttons and beads and old pieces of lace under the rotted floorboards of the wide porch. It was a small house, just one story, built with the front and back door opposite each other for ventilation, the front door facing the west. Built long before air conditioning or central heat. It wasn't even wired for electricity.

For a long time, grain and alfalfa were stored inside the small rooms. Time passed and a pole barn went up to shelter the alfalfa. A while longer and large granaries sprouted beside it. Daddy tore the old house down and we found remnants of someone's life lurking in the crawl space and hidden inside the walls. Papers, a bit of cloth, an old shoe, some writing on the beams. For a long time the place where the old house had stood was left empty, the only signs it had ever existed were a ring of trees and an artesian well. When Daddy built a shop there, an angry March tornado tore it down with harsh winds, as if to say nothing but the house belonged inside the stand of trees.

I kept the baby jars high on a shelf in my room until long after I went to college. I must have been about nine years old when I put them on the shelf and slid them back behind my books. My mother found them when she packed to move, at least twelve years later. I found them in the attic of my little house last summer, long forgotten, nestled in a blue and white floral box among beloved childhood books, cards and letters from romances long past, the cap I wore when I graduated, vacation Bible school crafts. For thirty years they have been carefully packed away, a reminder of that house and how sad I was when Daddy tore it down. I cannot part with them now.

life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans

I am not having a good week. At all.

We have to move. I haven't even unpacked all the boxes. Arghh. We rented a house in our new town so that we could get a feel for the community and figure out where we wanted to make our home. The neighborhood we are in is very nice, we like the schools, the kids have made friends, and it is a 10 minute drive to hubby's work. We don't want to move right now. But apparently the owners of the home haven't paid the note on the house since November. I don't know what they have been doing with our rent, but it wasn't what they were supposed to be doing. Now the house is going into foreclosure and we have a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, to find another place and move. I'm boiling mad. I am angry that these people would rent the house to us, have us sign a one year lease and then not make their mortgage payments. No, furious. Furious.

The worst part isn't the packing up and moving. What really upsets me is that I have to uproot my children again. They just got comfortable here with their new rooms, the new neighborhood, the new schools, and now we have to make them go through it all again. Can you sue someone for causing your children emotional suffering? Probably doesn't matter anyway; they have filed for bankruptcy.

I suppose I should try to see the bright side of things. At least we don't have to move until school is out. I have a bit of time. Just not enough. And this is not what I had planned. Oh, well.