Simple feast day fun. We have next to no resources at the moment. : ) We did make an outstanding Shepherd's pie to share with friends tonight. A bit putzy it was. I second guessed my decision part way through. All doubts resolved at first bite.
Otherwise, my 'how-to-draw' afficianados have been making leprechauns. Tutes here and here and all over pinterest fwiw. Have a blessed feast!
previous St Patrick posts (with more ambitious craft and prayer tute's) here and here
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour. - Longfellow
It's that late afternoon time, work mostly done and not soon enough for dinner yet. There aren't so many pressing things to do right now. We are in that in-between place with no commitments, not too many chores, that wonderful suspended time that cannot last. I admit it is more wonderful to me than to the teens who are anxious to be off and running and DOing. I've done a lot of doing. : ) I am really good with pausing.
So late afternoon we get creative. We make popcorn and play games we picked up at the dollar store. Read a book from the thrift store. Chop veggies for dinner.
In no particular hurry.
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
This super delicious, nearly bomb-proof Sunday dinner came courtesy of our daughter Alannah. It is paleo, gluten free, and couldn't be easier to put together. Simply sprinkle McCormick steak seasoning liberally over the tenderloins and wrap them with bacon. Bake at 425° for 25 minutes or until the meat thermometer reads 155°. Then broil for about 5mins to crisp up the bacon. Take it out of the oven and let it stand, covered another ten minutes. (the temperature actually rises while it sits) Please excuse the fab foil pan. Remember we are in temporary digs and Reynolds is the best we can do at the moment. But hey….
Will just say this. There were no leftovers.
"Even to your old age I am the same, and to your grey hairs I will carry you: I have made you, and I will bear: I will carry and will save."
Isaiah 46:4
"Hair" was the prompt this week for my photography group. There is a lot of beautiful, young hair in this house but I thought I would go self-portrait this time and record what that looks like in my life at this age and stage. For me, that is. For now.
Maybe it's all those hours logged at the beauty salon paging through the big idea books while Gram sat under the dryers. Maybe it was watching my aunt transitioning from strawberry to platinum and back, sitting watching those blonde strands wrapped around the hot curlers one by one while I sat on the bathroom floor waiting and chatting. Maybe it's as simple as that box on my ID card still insisting hair color = brown. Maybe it's looking in the mirror and recognizing the person looking back.
For whatever reason, for now, it's just me, being carried along into this age.
Thought some of you might enjoy a quick walk through the furnished bungalow we are renting temporarily while we house hunt and wait for our belongings to catch up with us. It's a beautiful home and we had high hopes when we viewed it online. There were just a handful of short term rentals that permitted pets and among them was this one, a low slung brick bungalow so very like the ones which lined the streets of Milwaukee where I spent the first half of my childhood.
One of the first homes my mother and I lived in by ourselves was a one and a half story bungalow near the state fairgrounds. There was a gas station across the street where she would pull the car in and say, "Fill 'er up," to the attendant who was alerted to our arrival by the bell that sounded when the car approached the pumps. Around the corner was a Dunkin' Donuts where I always ordered the same thing, strawberry glazed. That bungalow was divided into 3 apartments which defies imagination looking at it today. We had the ground floor with one bedroom, which is where I slept, fitfully. My mother took the sofa bed.
My babysitter in those years lived next door to the church and school I attended in a small three bedroom stucco bungalow. The dining room was turned into a playroom overflowing with toys and I remember eating lumpy oatmeal with chunks of brown sugar floating in the milk in the tiny kitchen before school days- with glee believe it or not. When their fourth child was born they moved into a large two story home of the same vintage a few blocks away. We moved into the bungalow.
My mother turned the playroom back into a dining room and a showcase for the antiques she began to collect. I remember how the leaded glass french doors leading from the entry would turn the room into a virtual kaleidoscope. We spent several years in that house. My aunt lived across town in a nearly identical bungalow. My great aunt in a duplex from that era with the same heavy walnut trim.
It became what a house was a supposed to look like to me, despite the fact that that style had been long replaced by raised ranches and wrought iron railings. To me the Craftsman bungalows were the perfect backdrop for the furniture I saw at the big antique-o-rama at the state fairgrounds and in my mother's magazines.
When we began researching temporary housing in UT and this home in a historic district popped up we jumped on it. I had long toyed with the idea of restoring an old home in similar districts in other cities. So we quickly secured this place thinking it would give me us a taste of this road not taken.
It has. ; )
The thing about historic districts is that they contain some examples of the loveliest homes of their day which have usually since seen the underbelly of society. This house was no exception. It had been chopped up into apartments and occupied by a colorful stream of petty criminals over the years until purchased and remodeled as part of the neighborhood's resurgence and restoration. It would be most accurate to say that not the entire neighborhood has achieved 'gentrification' however and this home rests on the um, cusp. It has been so well done inside however and has been exceptionally comfortable and accomodating. It has been a peaceful stay so far, except for that one part…
Shortly after we moved in I woke up early to see my husband off on one of his first days at work here. I decided to scramble some eggs for breakfast. I grabbed the only suitable pan in the kitchen and the butter and olive oil I had picked up at the store and lit the gas stove. It turns out the gas stovetop heats much faster than the electric stoves we have had for years and the light metal pan quickly began to scorch the butter and smoke. I turned it off right away and hit the fan but the smoke detector nearby went off, prompting me to fan the detector and look for the reset button, which was noplace to be found. Meantime another louder alarm went off. I fanned some more and hollered to Moira to wake up and help search for an off button someplace. We ran hither and yon and heard a siren in the distance.
oh yes we did.
Because that part about the house having seen the underbelly of society and all? Well it turns out that there had been a house fire here a while back. The homeowner is understandably terrified of a recurrence. So there is no off button. Rather the detectors are wired to a high-tech system which alerted the fire department, who dispatched immediately to find a franctic woman and daughter in pjs and burnt eggs.
They say you don't become humble without a regular doses of humiliation. Side note.
While I apologized profusely to Utah's finest on the porch, they told me the story of the house fire and the homeowner breathlessly joined us on the porch. (Me, still in pjs for the record.) She forgot to explain about the fire alarm deactivation code, she said. Yeah.
Eventually my heart rate returned to normal. I am SUPER careful and a bit paranoid about the stove. And while we love the house, we decided to settle permanently (ok, semi-permanently) a bit further out from the metro area. Until all those arrangements are made however, we are here at the bungalow like so many years ago.
Some of the very different places we have stayed while traveling here and here and here and here
Break, break as my husband would say. So many things floating through my head lately. I have been reading like crazy and working on new (paleo/grain free/AIP) dishes and exploring our new area. We are buying an older home and are planning our projects. Also have yet to tell you about the biggest, most embarassing fiasco that happened AFTER all the events in the other day's story. Stay tuned for all that. But I digress to show you how we spent the day that was going to be a back-to-school day. : )
SNOW!
Surely the novelty has long worn off for east coast and midwestern friends and I do feel for you! Cold, icy snow is no fun. Let me tell you though, that bright, sunny, warmish snow is a blast. Especially when it melts the next day. From a photographer's standpoint it was heaven after years in a dark, wet place. (which I loved too but is a challenge to shoot in!)
The littles spent an entire morning making a snowman and pelting each other with snowballs. It was exactly what they needed. We are still in that place where their nerves are a little raw and they are extra sensitive. Things that normally roll off your back tend to suddenly appear impossible to ignore and tears make a regular appearance. Nothing better than to cut loose and run and play. It's a simple cure for most of what ails a person.
"There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." – Ranulph Fiennes
Expect variations on this theme in the days to come. ; D
"A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky – unbidden – and seems like a thing of wonder."
– Susan Orlean
Wishing you days full of wonder whatever the weather.
If you visit here for long you know I am doggedly 'glass half full' but that doesn't mean things don't get hairy. I try hard to embrace the counsel Barbara shared here. However now that some of these 'disagreeable' things are past I wanted to share them both so you weren't under the illusion that we lived in a land of gumdrops and butterflies and also so you have a reasonable expectation of what 'normal' challenges amount to in families. It isn't always the challenges themselves but the surprise of it all, the fact they are sometimes so unexpected that throws us. I think the fact we now come to expect them really does help. Because they come. They do.
Living in jolly old England in a 200yo farmhouse is an idyllic, romantic undertaking. I won't try to make that sound any less delightful than it was because people, that was just pure unadulterated bliss. However, getting all your cr@p and your children and your little live creatures back across the planet is no cakewalk.
"Nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be so hard…." – Coldplay
It was hard y'all. So so hard.
It began with multiple inspections of the stuff. The few antiques we acquired had to be certified free of wood worm. I didn't even know what a wood worm was much less if we had one and way, way less about who it was who would make such a determination. Unfortunately no one among the moving powers-that-be were much help. So there were many many phone calls, talks with neighbors, and questions put out on online forums. (read: mom is out of pocket) We finally found a very nice man who both certified our stuff and informed me it was worth about 6 or 7 times the bargain barrel prices we paid for them.
The wood worms ended up being less problematic than the dirt. Turns out none of that could journey to America – no dust, no spiders, no nothing, not on furniture or bikes or cars or lawn chairs. Our beloved landlord found us a power washer and we scoured everything that ever touched British soil. It looked fab. To us. It was not fab enough for the inspector as you can see by her face, who literally white gloved every nook and cranny, all the spokes of the bikes, the inside of the umbrellas, yada yada yada. Suffice it to say we did not pass the first round.
More power washing commenced followed by towel drying and carrying every bit to a mopped indoor storage. The inspector returned as the movers arrived and fortunately permitted it all to pack.
The vehicle didn't fare so well. We paid a service that specializes in such things to prep the vehicle with a special undercarriage clean. Then carefully took it to the loading docks where it…..did not pass inspection. The company guaranteed passing so they agreed to redo the job but the shipper was booked out a bit so the vehicle could not be rescheduled for another couple weeks, and hence is now still on the ocean someplace.
The day the movers arrived we moved into a hotel. Rather two suites in a hotel on base. The littles went to a friend's early that morning until we could get into the rooms. Tess complained she wasn't feeling well when we dropped them off. At some point during the morning Brendan threw up at the friends'. Fortunately it was short lived.
That week went by in a blur. My husband and I took turns between supervising the house/movers and hotel/kids. I don't honestly recall much of that because by the last day I got whatever they had and ran a fever. Which brings me to a whole other story that was never told about bad health news which I got just before the move. There isn't much story to tell yet since it's still unfolding and obviously I am between doctors at the moment. So we will just put that one on hold.
Ok, where were we?
As I shared in another post, we had a week before we flew out. We spent that week getting the boys to their last basketball games, packing some things we would need on the other side and mailing to ourselves, and meeting with friends to say our goodbyes. Some of those were wrenching to say the least.
Insert pause while I let that sink in.
Saying goodbye to people you love never gets easier. It never, ever gets easier. Even military kids who move a lot do not actually get better at this, they just endure it more often. They feel that horrible loss just as deeply each time. There were many tears. There were some bitter words of resentment towards their fate by some. There was a good and healthy processing of the stress and there was….. less good processing. Um…just yeah.
We didn't get to the chapel to say goodbye in person because of the cold/flu thing we had. As it was, that was a blessing. I knew I was unlikely to make it through that emotionally so it was merciful to be spared. I don't think I could bear to say goodbye to dear, sweet Josephine, my 80 something year old friend who was a displaced London child during WWII. We had said what we needed to say in the weeks that led up to leaving. That would be the last for us.
In other news….There was good news on the dog front when we began booking tickets. The little dogs were so light that they could fly as accompanied baggage vs cargo. The tickets were very reasonable and they would check in right along with us. We took them for their shots a few weeks prior. Then we took them back to the vet for their health clearance which had to be done within ten days of the flight. Check!
There was some confusion about their kennels from the airline info. We worried that based on the measurements one kennel needed to be replaced. We did that. The night before we left we read the fine print on the tickets and noticed that though our kennel specifically said airline approved it would not in fact pass muster because it had an upper ventilation door. This isn't a crisis in a large American city where you can go to a box store any hour of the day or night. In semi-rural England, where the sidewalks roll up at 6pm it was a big deal, though not as big a deal as what the coming hours would reveal.
While organizing tickets and passports and health clearances, a major mishap was discovered. The pet passports had been packed. Really big deal. Thus began many phone calls to the airlines, the after hours vet answering service (no they could not open the office to make a copy. period. no) and even the US Customs Dept. The dogs would not leave England with us. While we were making these calls one boy who had gone to dinner with his team earlier walked out of his room and towards the bathroom and very dramatically vomited, not quite in the bathroom, leaving a spray of disgusting on the carpet and up the bathroom walls. Insert pause in the making of dog arrangements while puke is frantically scrubbed, clothes laundered, and a steady stream of prayers are offered that no one else pukes, particularly not during travel.
In the end the dogs would stay in England another week with friends who were angels to them and us. They helped get them to their second health clearance and then to the kennel that transports pets to the airport for just shy of the cost of your firstborn. They are here with us now, praise God.
So the night before we flew out – as all nights before leaving of places – was an all nighter. I think I laid down for about 3 hrs in there. Then we got everyone up and over to the office where we were to meet the taxi. Friends met us that early morning to see us off. It meant the world to us. The very first face I saw coming to England was the last one I saw leaving. It was nice to have the company because the taxi was an hr late due to the freak cold that night.
The taxi timing ended up being ok because the plane was also an hour delayed. That didn't end up being a problem until we landed in Chicago and had all of 45 minutes to get 9 of us through customs and onto a train and checked back in another terminal. We got orange expedited customs forms and airline employees handed us off from one to the other urging us to go faster, faster while they held the plane. I want to stop here to give props to our kids who, though some of them were not thrilled to be leaving at all, were uber cooperative throughout and hustled as fast as their little legs could carry them. Their good cheer and behavior caught the eye of more than one staff person who praised them vocally, took them to visit the cockpit of the plane and stopped to visit with them in-flight.
We boarded the second plane and began the last leg of the journey eventually. It was now well into the wee hours of British morning so kids were dropping off finally, as was I. That lasted until poor Abbie Rose threw up in her sleep all over herself. When you are 6 you dont normally have a change of clothes handy. Thank heavens, she WAS wearing a gray flannel English school jumper which repelled liquid pretty well. She and I stuffed ourselves into the tiny airplane bathroom and did our darnedest to wipe it all off and put her sweater in an airline bag for later laundering.
We landed in Salt Lake City at 9pm UT time, rented two cars and drove very carefully – on the right side of the road – the 30minutes to the base. It became somewhat surreal at that point. They showed us to the very same unit we checked into 18 yrs earlier. It was dated and chilly but we jacked up the heat and Tess and I promptly fell asleep in our coats. We all woke up very early in the morning – thank you jet lag – and realized it had never warmed up. It was 55degrees to be precise. There were calls to maintenance. Kids were hungry and cold. So very tired and cold folks. It was determined that it was a very old building and an unusually harsh wind storm outside. They were sorry. It was just…cold.
More calls. Another hotel was secured. We checked into two rooms on two different floors and finally got everyone bathed and fed. In a bit of a shell shock we made our first foray out into Utah, showing them where they lived so long ago.
It's been two weeks now. Since that time we have been reunited with friends who were coincidentally here with us then. Aidan's godparents in fact!
(blast from the past – UT, first time around circa 1997)
Here also is one of the first homeschooling friends we ever made back in Ohio in the early 90s. (yes, 1990s ; D) In the past two weeks we have looked at hundreds of homes, gone under contract with one, purchased cellphones (and promptly began getting up to speed on cell phone monitoring and counseling of teens on cell phone usage). We have a great deal yet to do. No doubt weird, flukey things will happen while we try to do them. Complications will arise, kids will act out, people will get sick, dogs will get out of the yard, paperwork will be misplaced, adult children will have crises, WE will have crises. Stuff happens. So we will grumble and then we will remind each other not to grumble. We will go to bed early and take walks and say prayers. The sun will rise again and again and again and new mercies will come with the new days.
I probably won't be elaborating about all of the sorrow and struggle because of that silent thing mentioned up top. I just wanted to do that here so you knew. Life can be hard. Life WILL be hard. It's a given. We can't base our happiness on the absence of disasters because they fall like rain. Even if we dodge them with our umbrellas they soak our feet. Our family is not immune by any means.
God is still right there. And joy is still possible. Beautiful things await us at every turn.
So I am going to press on now and continue to share some of those incredibly awe-inspring things we see and feel and do each day. But you will know, right? You will know it's still a very real, very normal, very challenging, perfectly imperfect, big family life.
I wouldn't change a thing.
“I don't care if we have our house, or a cliff ledge, or a cardboard box. Home is wherever we all are, together.”
– James Patterson
For a home "maker" a hotel doesn't pose insurmountable obstacles, not once you truly understand that home is not particular place but a condition, a way of being together. It is the comfort of a shoulder to rest your head upon. It is a story in the truest sense, unfolding chapter by chapter.
Then you know in your heart there is no such thing as a 'temporary' home. There is only home, wherever your people are.
During a brief lull in the action one afternoon after the house was packed up and the keys handed over, I was able to pull out my camera in our new short term space in England. It was a gift – that lull. My husband set it up intentionally knowing that transitions are sometimes difficult for me. Maybe for everyone? Yet, if there is just a wee bit of time to catch my breath here and there it all goes so much better. So instead of scheduling our flight immediately after the furniture shipped we had a week to say our goodbye's, to finish last minute details, and to rest. It was a blessing to take a nap. To look out the window. To breathe.
Margin, it's a good thing.
Thankful. Each and every day.
Because it is said that Paris is always a good idea. Even when you are packing for a transatlantic move. Even when the tiny girl who wanted so badly to go may well not remember it clearly. Even if it's bitter mid-winter cold. Paris seemed like a very good idea before we left, at least for the girls.
Tess has longed to see the Eiffel Tower for as long as she could ask to go anywhere. It was her particular bucket list trip. We earnestly desired to make this happen but since we had already had a couple trip early in the Euro-adventure and no boys were quite as excited about the City of Lights, it became a short Dad-daughter road trip.
It's hard to say what an 8yo will remember. I hope she remembers crepes and looking out over the city in the tower, and walking by the Seine. If not though, I hope she remembers adventure and family and the importance of making dreams come true whenever we can.
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” – Hemmingway
Ultimately this was the whole point of the past five years. The moveable feast. To instill adventure and curiosity and awe. To be brave and open and to say yes to the unknown. It was never about a particular destination, but about journeying, about taking that fascination with people and places wherever you go.
Time will tell how these years will shape them. Us. My prayer is that we meet each day with the same enthusiasm that little face radiates. Embracing it all.
"There'll be peace when you are done." – Kansas
Long time, no see, friends. So much has happened. I just couldn't write about in the middle though.
I have shared before my firm belief that labor is a life skill, one you revisit over and over through other challenges. It became something of an analogy for me and Lamaze breathing has been used way more when NOT in labor over the years.
In Bradley childbirth they talk about the emotional signposts of labor. I swear this international move mirrored those stages eerily closely. There is that initial rush of excitement, looking at homes online, thinking of the future, planning and organizing. You start out pretty sure it can be done. Even as the going gets more challenging you get breaks and feel fairly on top of it all.
Later, as the challenges begin to come closer together, leaving just the briefest moments to catch your breath, the enormity of the project hits with full force. At times you just have to hang on and ride it out. Typically this emotional signpost is silence and a turning inward while focusing on the hard work at hand.
That definitely happened.
At some point I just knew where we were with it all, where "I" was anyway, and that it was going to take quiet concentration to get through. Moreso, I knew that some of what goes through your mind isn't true. It takes a lot of determined effort to counter those little underminers with the truth that God is good, you can do it, and all things are working for good. It works best for me if I just don't utter the yuck and give it a chance to build. So most nights I followed the time-tested advise of an early homeschool mentor who reminded a very young me that everything looks better in the morning and never to listen too hard to yourself at midnight. Instead of writing, I fell into bed, shut off my brain, and started in again with each new day's work. It was enough. It was really all that could be done. By me anyway.
And here we are now, in the mountains of Utah. It's been fifteen years since we left this place. It was a difficult assignment back in the day and I would be lying if I didn't say it played with my head a little heading back. It took some conscious reminding that moving 'back' to a place can still be a moving forward in life. It has taken some reminding that our life has and can and will once more fit nicely into a very different mold.
We have done a great deal of praying and talking and conceptualizing how life will look in this chapter. Suffice it to say, quite different once again. And quite the same. One perk of these tremendous upheavals and opportunities is you learn to identify what in your life is constant and what is variable. What is at the core and what is changeable. What matters and what does not. Also, that you can a great deal more than you give yourself credit for.
One thing that I have missed is spending time in this space and telling our stories. We have carved out a little corner for me in this temporary house we have leased while we house hunt. Tonight is my first time alone here in the quiet sharing. Hopefully we can make this a date. : )
(shared with creative commons permission)
Starry Sky Journal 