How To Get From There To Here

How shall I begin to blog again?

How DID I get here from there?

I've thought hard on this...not long, haven't had the time. As a former "24" fan I've often characterized the last four months of my blogging life as "going dark." I mean, I am sure that when Jack Bauer disappeared into thin air he also neglected the sending out of Christmas cards. I can't stop thinking about all those people we communicate with each Christmas who think we've fallen off the face of the earth, or those who've attempted to contact us to ask what's happened to us.

Maybe I will send Ground Hog Day cards and try to explain the story of our last nine months.

In a nutshell, after a summer of selling off our properties and storing the stuff not sold along with our old places, we spent three weeks living with our son and daughter in law before moving into our new home; the property which intrigued us with it's spaciousness, neighborhood and white on white on white interiors. For two days ( or was that minutes?) the Third Coast Colorista thought about what living in a completely white world might be like. Restful? Calming? Peaceful? But then I began to unpack the furnishings and boxes stored through the summer...and recall how vitally important COLOR is in my life.

After a period of creative paralysis, the remodelling plan and process burst through like that old television ad where the Drano pushes the plugging clog through the glass drain pipe. With Avery and Tawe's help the white white white white turned into Sandy Hook Grey, Semolina, Dark pumpkiny Dried Mustard, Beacon Grey, Pale Avocado, Oxford Grey and Soliel. Blues, pale and dense cadet, yellows, sunny and deeply golden, coppers and greys inspired by the beautiful little red breasted nuthatches and Titmice, and Chickadees eating all day just outside our new kitchen's windows. For a month and a half I personally experienced the process I have walked so many clients through for the last thirty years...up close and personal. I gained a whole new empathy for those people as I've lived through the dusts: drywall, wood, ceiling tile and others and the hot odor of soldering, scents of paints and flooring adhesives. My ears now ring with the LACK of cycling air compressors and although all the contractors who worked on the house were more than swell guys, it's kind of nice to dawdle over my coffee in my pajamas beyond 7am. Really I can't complain. In a shockingly short period of time, with guys sometimes working here late into the night ( or early into the morning...) we gutted and replaced the kitchen, finished off the lower level and repainted all but a couple rooms of the house. Amazing. Just amazing. We pretty much lived in the basement for afew weeks, and until a new stove was wheeled into the house with only a day or two to spare, Thanksgiving dinner looked pretty dicey. Even the contractors were shocked at the unheard ofturnaround from order to delivery/installation of new kitchen cabinets and Corian countertops, both arriving weeks sooner that the norm resulting in the impossible dream of pulling off the family Christmas with everything completed. Work was being done until almost noon on Christmas Eve and I literally pulled protective plastic off appliances and immediately pressed them into service.

Now the holidays are over and the dust is settling...AND blowing around (LITERALLY. We have to have the duct work cleaned for sure!). But I think the new "normal" is setting in. Pictures are hung, almost all boxes are unpacked, and cleaning the house is no longer a futile, counter-productive endeavor. I'm beginning to let my mind wander to what I will plant in the garden plot hacked out of the backyard sod late last fall and what shrubs and perennials might best surround the small courtyard patio we had poured as the first snowflakes began dancing in the air last November.

...and then there are those Ground Hog Day cards.....

Continuing to Live Life Spontaneously

September has arrived and while I am feeling myself crushed with our attempts to unpack our things in an unfamiliar place while being deluged with the start ups of all the activities and responsibilities we shed along with our sweaters and socks last Spring, I will delay a blog on the outcome of our BIG ADVENTURES in MOVING until my mind and body catch up with Two Men And A Truck . Instead I will tell a story about visiting a storybook like place called, "The Blue Dress Farm".

Five days after two truckloads and several car, SUV, and van's full of our "stuff" was deposited at the new house, ( It won't be "home" until Avery has had his way with all it's walls, but that's a different blog as well!) ...anyway, we found ourselves pulling ourselves away from our frantic search to locate THE boxes containing underwear, coffee, toilet paper and the like to take a drive to Benton Harbor for a look at a potential wedding venue for Christian and his Emily. They had actually set up an appointment for us with the proprietor.

It was H-A-R-D to tear ourselves away from unpacking after having all our stuff in storage for months, but it was a beautiful day for a drive and the coffee tasted good on the way down the road.

We arrived early and wandered around talking to catering people preparing for the wedding to be held there that afternoon. We took scads of pictures and met with the owner to talk about some of the questions Emily had wanted answered. It's a beautiful place, absolutely what the kids described they desired to gather friends and family to for their wedding and I was anxious to get home to send off pictures to California and maybe Skype that afternoon about the venue.

The caterer's truck had left and another vehicle came crunching down the gravel road into the clearing. It stopped and it's occupants stared at us.

CHRISTIAN and EMILY! They flew in from California to surprise us!! I am not a cryer... but I was bawling like a baby. Suddenly we realized why Megan had scheduled a family potluck BBQ for Saturday night only a week following her big 30th birthday bash. It was the best surprise... TOTAL surprise that we have had in maybe forever. A long time at least. Good thing. We are "getting up there" as my Dad used to say, and shocks like this might prove unsettling.

You know what? Keep the surprises coming!

Thanks to all the faces in this picture who helped us in all sorts of ways to maintain sanity and made it physically possible for us to survive so many aspects of the last several months . (Only Derek is missing from the picture because he was working.) WE LOVE YOU ALL!...MORE!!!

Vern and Eunice, Two Marys and a Joseph

It started with a sermon on putting your feet in the water, committing yourself to what you feel God calling you to do in your life. In a flash...SIX WEEKS ACTUALLY, we have transferred ownership of our homes and furnishings and gardens to Vern and Eunice, two Mary's and a Joseph. They are all thrilled with their new digs and accoutrement. I'm happy for them, really I am.

Yesterday I packed the last box, cleaned the last place to an immaculate status, left instructions to smooth the new owner's transition along with a bouquet of my garden's ( soon theirs) cut flowers and a bottle of wine to enjoy as they consider the killer view. We loaded the car and left Sandy Pines. Adam and Caity and Lola have taken us in for our three "homeless" weeks.

Three doors closing, one after another in rapid succession but soon, NEW doors opening.

Taking A Breath and a Quick Glance Back.

Got Mr. Kozak's for lunch...but got no table or chairs...or bibs?

NO PROBLEMO!!!!

This is a shot of the cousins sharing a tasty gyro on the floor of the empty dining room on our last day in the condo.

It seems SO long ago, but you could count it in days.

It is good to know that we survived that door closing...and the closing of the door as we sold our older place at Sandy Pines...

...just as we will survive as we pack things up and move them out of our sweet place on this little cove full of Kingfishers, Herons, and wonderful sunsets, leaving it to the new owners.

I'm happy that there are three sets of people that are SO excited about the new places they are inheriting from us.

I'm thankful that once again, God has accomplished a maximum of molding and adjustment in our lives in a remarkably minimal time frame.

I'm hopeful that in a month's time we will find ourselves unpacking our things in our new home.

We are blessed, truly blessed!

but God Meant It For Good...

After all the hubbub of the last two months we finally find ourselves with our whole family ( even Emily and Christian who flew in for the week from So. California) at the Fredericks' cottage at the "tip of the Thumb" of Michigan for a peaceful week of vacation on the shore of Lake Huron. And, as always, we spend time appreciating the gift that Steve's parents gave us in the wonderful summer times spent here for all these decades.

Things here have changed over more recent years. First, one winter a burst water pipe resulted in a lengthy and extensive remodelling . By the time it was completed, Nana and Papa were for the most part not able to live up here any longer.

These two circumstances have resulted in a different look here. Mom loved gardening and the window boxes dripped with annuals. Little strips of garden boasted her favorites, dahlias and snapdragons often cut and arranged with tall gladiolas purchased from the local grocery. For years and years, we'd dig out huge clumps of her ubiquitous varigated hostas and orangey red Gaillardia to take home to start gardens at all our homes.

Mom "deadheaded " her Gaillardia and pitched the heads over the foot low cement block wall separating the lawn from the sand dune shore of the lake.

Last summer FOURTEEN of us, three generations, returned for a week of vacation thanks to the graciousness of Steve's brothers who took over ownership after Mom and Dad's passing. We again marvelled at the spattering of Gaillardias flowering in the sand on the beach side of the wall along with the two " Baby's Breath" plants which at one time had been true "specimens"...tall and broad, more easily considered shrubs than a flowering perennial plant, now all surviving rooted in sand with only an occasional drink of rain. We commented on the miracle of their subsistence....and were crushed when the landscapers hired to mow the lawn methodically moved to the beach side of the wall, turning these brave "volunteers" to sand and close cropped stubble.

Imagine our surprise to be greeted upon our return for a week THIS summer by a thick garden of orange and burnt red flowers periodically studded with healthy Baby's Breath plants! It's a powerful relearning of the concept of pruning of plants and people. It always seems so painful and harsh...but the longer term rewards are stellar!

I found myself thinking of the Biblical story of Joseph, now powerful and ruling Egypt, reassuring his brothers who feared his retribution for selling him into slavery in Genesis.

God is in control. There is NOTHING He does not either allow or ordain. He promised ALL is ultimately for good.

"What you meant for evil, God worked for good!"

Genesis 45:5

And...That's That AGAIN

Ten days after our closing on our home in town, we found ourselves sitting in another closing at Sandy Pines. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I am getting used to this emotional upheaval, but I did sense a certain numbness as we walked through "K4" on Sailboat Cove for the last time; at least as it's owners. I really like Mary, it's new owner. I am so happy that she and our wonderful old neighbors are getting EACH OTHER.

I liked hearing her say that after being shown twenty other places she "fell in love" with mine. I am so happy for her excitement to move her vanful of things into my dear little yellow "cottage on the lake" ( we hesitate to use that "T" word) and for her looking forward to her family coming to visit this weekend. It makes it all seem as though it is exactly the way it was always meant to be.

After driving over to our old place to turn on lights and get everything up and running for the new owner's "walk through", we returned to the only roof remaining over our heads to find a park sales agent just finishing a showing with a prospective buyer.

It's a good thing to remember GOD is in control. That there is NOTHING HE does not allow or ordain in our lives.

For today, we look forward to a dinner at Uccello's tonight to celebrate paring ourselves down to one car, one elderly motorcycle, two storage units full of "stuff"....and only ONE trailer on a man-made lake in Allegan County. LIFE IS GOOD

And That's That.

And then, suddenly all the packing was over; the mountains of boxes all transferred to a storage unit...OK, TWO storage units, a mile from home.
NOT our home anymore.
The parting was made slightly less jarring by the new owners purchase of the larger pieces of our furniture on the main level, so the place wasn't so entirely, sterilely empty when I closed the door for the last time.
But I know that already my former space is being filled with stranger's things...it's THEIR home now, afterall.

We've moved more than most and my leave takings have usually been hasty retreats, no backward glances only itching to start unpacking at the eagerly anticipated new digs; new homes whose walls often began as pencil scratchings on my sketchpad.
Not this time.
This time is different.
This is obsessively poring over the MLS between packing marathons. Trying to imagine our things in....a 1923 farmhouse with a small barn and chicken coop. Or a 1956"Jetson" house...which was one day quite stunning, but not alas, today. There are new houses with the shockingly hard colors and black brown cabinetry we started out with in our very first home in 1978. I think I've been there and done that. There are dear old, hopelessly outdated homes that I long to revive...I feel their sense of rejection "How long have you been on the MLS? How many changes of Realty agents ?"....but I'd love to do that transformation for someone else, not for me!
There was a two story "barn", 30'x60' down a winding road in deep woods that a builder tempted us with a creative and practical reworking of space. But taking down the trees necessary to get a yard and some sunshine would yield enough firewood to last us years but tree felling and stump grinding would gobble up a budget.

On the Internet, two houses made my heart go pitty pat. They were both filled with wonderful "creature features" and the MLS photos looked great...but Onsite visits revealed that these homes had broken their family's hearts...water damaged and filled with black mold they sat empty and abandoned; just existing to disappoint MLS mavens who think they've finally stumbled upon "THE" new home for them.

On Tuesday, at 7:50 am, the moving truck pulled up and eight hours later I found myself all alone in my emptied and spotlessly clean FORMER home. Really, it looks like a brand new home. God gifted us with a beautiful, cool day. The breezes grabbed my pretty Martha Stewart lace curtains...I know it sounds hokey but it was as though they were waving goodbye. I AM going to miss them. I WAS tempted to "forget" that they were included in the sale....but if that had ever been a serious thought, which it wasn't, at our closing on Monday, their new owner asked once again, for good measure, "...and the window treatments are all staying?" yes,theyallstay.dang

...but I digress. It was so quiet. No one but me and the waving laces and the ceiling fans swirling lazily. I lingered. After so much rushing around running from detail to detail, I lingered, alone. It was difficult to leave, but I turned off the fans, latched the windows, denying the sweet breezes. I thanked God for all the blessings I so don't deserve, and I locked the door and drove away for the last time.