A Good Goodbye

Yesterday I cried.

Crying is a good thing. A great thing, even. A cleanser of emotions and a releaser of stored up grief. Not to mention a legitimate and legal reason to eat chocolate after the tears have passed.

Yesterday, we spent several hours in Smithfield, cleaning and packing up some remaining oddments at our old house. I felt a little strange when we first walked back into the empty, echo filled rooms but I didn't really feeling teary. Not then.






I worked, and Steve worked, and Sarah worked. We scrubbed the tubs and toilets, vacuumed, polished the wood floors, mopped the linoleum, cleaned the baseboards and just generally neatened stuff up.

Sarah and I made a Walmart run to purchase a few necessities for the house like towel racks and a shower curtain. As we were shopping, we joked that if we just stayed in Walmart long enough, Steve would have all the cleaning done by the time we returned.

Sigh. It didn't work. There was still plenty to be done when we returned.

By the time the three of us had finished up the last little bit of stuff, it was almost 7 pm and we still had to get dinner and drive three hours home. I was exhausted beyond words. And filled to the brim with memories. And filled up to the edges of my heart with thoughts of the five years of Smith life that had been lived within those walls.

My last job in the house was to wipe down the kitchen counters and then polish up the kitchen sink and all the fixtures. The more I polished and scrubbed, the more the memories surrounded me. So many meals served in that kitchen, so much joyous laughter in the walls around the table. It suddenly seemed impossible to me that the final goodbye had come and I would never again live in that beloved place.





Steve was still upstairs finishing up some tasks and Sarah was waiting with Snowy out in the van.


I went outside into the cool, cleansing air, stared out at the deserted yard inhabited soley by memories and I cried. And cried. And cried.

I remembered the traveling musicians and missionaries to Africa we'd had over to eat. I thought about over 150 people from church we'd entertained at various functions over the years.

I remembered the family meals that would somehow end up with someone grabbing the dictionary to settle a word argument.

I looked at memory pictures like these.

I remembered church board dinners, and birthday parties, and Nathan's High School graduation party. I looked back at all the times that we (and our friends) had played badminton in the back yard.

I remembered how my kids had swung on the swing set and I thought happily about the way Snowy had been the reigning Canine King of his own fenced-in back yard for five years.

A lot of memories. Memories of the place where Nathan and Sarah both grew into the wondrous people they are right now. Those walls hold the chapters of their childhood that we can never again recapture.

I looked at the basketball hoop near the curb and thought of all the times Nathan had gone out there late at night to blow off steam and shoot a few hoops. I remembered the times I had had gone out there to play with him and how he had said such encouraging things to me ("Mom, you are a natural at this") while I flailed and fumbled and created comic relief for the bemused birds and squirrels.

I looked at the street where Sarah, full of triumph and victory, had finally learned how to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time; I remembered the victorious expression that shone on her face when she did it. She had conquered cancer. She had conquered bike riding. She is a conquerer beyond words, beyond a doubt.


I looked at another street and remembered the hundreds of walks Steve and I had taken around the neighborhood, sometimes burdened down and overwhelmed by the challenges of ministry, sometimes giggling hysterically over some funny story.

I remembered Thanksgiving Dinners and Christmas tree decorating, and the way Nathan's baritone voice rang through the house one particular night when he was singing "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" while doing the dishes.

I remembered standing at the top of the stairs and listening to Steve and Sarah's voices downstairs as they ate breakfast together and the indescribably contented feeling the sound of their laughter brought to my heart.

I remembered Snowy (AKA our second doorbell) keeping watching on the neighborhood from the fourth stair, a place which he had scientifically selected because he could see out the front windows from there.


I remembered shouts of laughter and tears of deepest sorrow. I remembered the joyous hellos we said when we arrived at Smithfield and I contemplated the fact that the book of goodbyes had been written.

It was a good day.

A good cry.

A good good-bye.

Stumbling, Muttering, Wringing. And A Fender Skirt.

We still aren't sleeping in our house due to a variety of reasons so I am now carting a lot of the stuff that was unpacked into the new house back to the cottage that we're borrowing.

It always seems that when I'm at the cottage and need something, it's at the house and when I'm at the house and need something, it's at the cottage. My brain is having to think way too hard just to accomplish the basic stuff of life. My brain is screaming for chocolate. My brain is getting chocolate. Chocolate is the only way to get through each day.

Also, to add to our joyous chaos, every sentence Steve and I have said to each other in the past five days has started with, "Honey, have you seen my . . . ?"

And every answer has been, "It's in a box."

We don't know WHAT box. Just a box. Pick a box, any box.

Sigh.

And today, rather than head back to the house to continue to unpack and get one step closer to sleeping there, we are hitting the road in about an hour to drive back to Smithfield (to our other house) in order to take care of some cleaning and repairs there. We also have to pack up a few leftovers that we didn't have time to deal with when the Big Moving Guys were there.

Have I mentioned I am overwhelmed? And tired of being discombobulated in a most discombobulatory sort of way? My little ol' comfort zone that needs to be well organized has stretched to the point of snapping and I now seem to frequently find myself stumbling around, muttering to myself and wringing my hands.

Stumbling. Muttering. Wringing. You should try it sometime. It's tons of fun!

Thankfully, we've had a couple meals brought in and we were also invited to a church member's house for a meal Saturday night. (Thanks, Bibber, Marvin and Betsy; what a lovely evening!)

It's Bibber's sister who is letting us use her cottage; she lives in Florida and only stays here part of the time. I told Steve that if I didn't have this lovely, cozy, peaceful, well-organized place to come to at night, I would be in serious danger of going utterly insane. And I would also be in serious danger of stumbling, muttering and wringing.

(Oh wait. I'm already doing that. Never mind.)

At any rate, I won't keep you here too long with my random ramblings and ruminations. I just wanted to let you know how much I've appreciated all your sweet messages of encouragement in the comments section; I love checking in several times a day to get a little boost of the sunshine you've been sending our way.

I'll close out with a few miscellaneous pictures before getting ready to head down the highway to Smithfield. To clean. And pack. And organize. And stumble. And mutter. And wring. And chocolate-ize my life.


Here is Sir Hubby hard at work repairing the box spring he had to take apart in order to get it moved upstairs.



Saturday night found all three of us at the house rummaging through boxes and unpacked hanging clothes to try and find something to wear to church. Have you ever tried to find a pair of earrings and matching necklace in a pile of boxes that rivals Mount Everest? I engaged in a little extra stumbling and muttering but I finally succeeded.




Here's Nathan's room in process. We ended up not liking where we'd had the movers put the furniture, so on Saturday, Steve and I ended up moving all the furniture around his room. I told Steve I would be happy to lend him my "massive musculature" for the project. He did very well not to snicker out loud over that particular piece of pitiful hyperbole.


After we got the bed moved to where we wanted it and got the box spring in place, we wrestled the queen sized mattress on top of it. (My massive musculature was not feeling quite so massive by that point.)

We had just barely managed to get the the mattress shoved into place when Steve suddenly shouted, "Hey, we forgot the fender skirt!"

Fender skirt? I stared at him in puzzled bamboozlement before finally realizing that he meant the dust ruffle.

Well, suddenly the whole thing just struck my tired brain as being so funny that I almost had to go sit down on the floor because I was laughing so hard.

Of course (as my few male readers will realize), when Steve mentioned a fender skirt, he was talking about a certain piece of a car. And if you need still more of an explanation, I'll just let you know that a fender skirt is the, um, skirt that goes over the fender. (Sometimes I impress even myself with my broad range of knowledge. Not to mention my massive musculature.)

At any rate, we got the giggling over with, removed the mattress, applied the fender skirt, er, dust ruffle, and put the mattress back where it belonged.

And then, oh joy of joys, we made the bed. It's the first "made" bed in the new house and I was so happy about it I just had to sit and stare at the bed for about ten minutes. (I don't get out much.) When you're living in the land of chaos, even the small triumphs are huge.

One made up bed, complete with a fender skirt; we're making good progress. At this rate, we might even be sleeping in the house before Sarah graduates from High School!

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Comments On Your Comments


Mrs. Pam asked if I knew where a comment was from if she signed under "anonymous."


Mrs Pam, it won't automatically tell me, but if you just sign your name at the end of your "anonymous" note, all will be well. (And thank you for being one of my most faithful signers.)

______________________


Anonymous asked, "What is on Sarah's Christmas list this year?"


Mostly Cd's, books, and stuff for her little hand held game gizmo. (I can never remember what those are called.) She also said she wants t-shirts with cute graphic sayings on them. (For instance she has one that says, "Life Is Short And So Am I.")

Unfortunately, in the middle of this move, Christmas has been pushed far to the back of my muddled mind. At some point, I suppose I shall have to stop stumbling and muttering and start concentrating on the season. And eggnog. And sugar cookies. And chocolate.



Jan from Toledo asked which song of mine won the Grand Prize in the national songwriting competition I referred to earlier.

Here are the lyrics. We recorded it with a huge sounding orchestra, strings, brass, etc all done on a synthesizer by a guy who does studio work full time and does an amazing job of making orchestral stuff sound "real." We also had some incredible background singers and the song turned out beautifully.


Let The Blood Speak For Me

1. It's so hard to find the words to say
When I'm standing face to face
With the accuser who comes telling me
That I've strayed too far from grace
Just when my soul begins to tremble
Heaven starts to intercede
And I know I can boldly cry
The only words I need

CHORUS
Let the blood speak for me
Let it tell of Calvary
Let it say again
That I am free
O let the blood speak for me

2. When the voice of condemnation comes
When it drives my heart to tears
When it speaks to me of yesterday
Full of failures, full of fears
Well, I begin to cry for mercy
At the gates of grace I plead
Each day I pray for strength to say
The only words I need

Repeat chorus

BRIDGE
Speaking of mercy, speaking of grace
But no longer speaking of sins long erased

Back to chorus

The Preacher Used To Be A Druggie

Yesterday was my day to show the kitchen Who. Was. The. Boss.

This is what the kitchen looked like when the showdown began.







I took one look and almost turned and ran. I almost told the kitchen, "My mistake. I give up. YOU are the boss."

However, I persevered. I held my ground. I waded two-fistedly into the fight. And two hours later, I had made a little progress.






After five hours of chipping away at the Mess That Was The Kitchen, this is how it ended up.








I wanted to get up and do a happy dance when it was all finished but I couldn't seem to muster up even a shred of Happy Dancing Energy. So I sank into a living room chair and watched Sir Hubby work on some curtains. In the process, I discovered another one of his (many) talents.

(Note: The striped material in the middle and the green floral part of the curtain were already there. The goal is to get rid of the green floral--which doesn't match our stuff--and add a couple panels of the curtains we brought in.)



Do you see the burgundy panel, how it's pleated on top? Steve just whipped that up with his handy dandy stapler gun. If I had tried to do that, I would have stapled by own finger and commenced to whimpering piteously. But Steve just does that stuff like it's no big deal, even though most of it seems borderline impossible to me.




Before the curtain creating gig, Steve pulled apart a switch plate and replaced a shorted out thingy. (Fuse? Wire? Connection do-dad? I have no idea what it's called.) I am happy to report that he made sure that the corresponding fuse was turned off. Fried Husband is not a good thing.

We are starting to feel a little bit more at home at the new house, even though we haven't slept there yet. Our master bedroom still looks like this:



Our bathroom is huge! And we finally have double sinks! Whatever will I do with all that space?


On the not-so-positive side, the house needs some tender loving care in several areas. That's the reason we are able to get it at a price anywhere near our budget.






Here's the old, worn and dirty BLUE carpet. (This is on the stairs and all over the second floor. Sarah's floor has carpet too, but it's in better shape.) We're going to have this carpet cleaned on Monday so that I will feel a bit better about walking on it. Yechh.




And here's the paint going upstairs to the second floor. It's pretty scratched everywhere. (Especially after the queen bed trauma Wednesday.) We'll do a bit of touch up painting in our "spare time."





This is the linoleum in Sarah's bathroom. Let's just say that it's "interesting." (The picture doesn't really do justice to how bright the colors are.)



On a funny note: Thursday when Steve was standing near this bathroom talking to a church member, he commented that the linoleum reminded him of something from his hallucinogenic drug days.

One of the Big Mover Guys was coming upstairs right at that moment and he said to me, "Hey, I heard that. The preacher used to be a druggie!"

I replied, "Yeah, and he's an even better preacher because of it becasue he knows where people have been."



Here's Steve back in his "interesting days."


I really dig the turquoise. (Freshman in college.)


A college picture ID when he was playing bass guitar in bars and doing drugs. (Junior in college.)



And so. The Preacher Who Used To Be A Druggie and The Preacher's Wife Who Never Was A Druggie (although she sometimes abuses chocolate) and The Preacher's Daughter (who was actually addicted to morphine during her transplant) are getting all settled into their new home and new lives.

Thanks for stopping by and checking on The Preacher's Family.

Roots

On Wednesday, Sarah was the very first person to use our very own personal key to unlock our very own personal house.




We then took the new house tour.





Sarah in her room.


Steve "stepping it off" to see how big her room is. Steve is uniquely qualified to step things off because his feet are exactly one foot long. And since he does have feet that are one foot long, if he were to eat a foot long hot dog, he would be "the man with the one foot long feet eating a foot long!" What a feat! (Yes, my brain is tired. Why do you ask? )



After awhile, Sarah informed that she was going to be the first person to use the bathroom in the new house. I said, "Would you like me to take a picture?"

This is the look I got.


So that was Wednesday.



Yesterday, the real work began. The Big Moving Guys arrived and started unloading 13,000 pounds of stuff. (And yes, that is the actual verified amount.)

So with all that stuff to deal with, why is this woman smiling?

I was smiling because it was still early in the day and I wasn't yet in a box-befuddled state of mind.






The befuddlement is starting to settle in.



And then I stopped smiling altogether shortly after I took a long look at all the boxes and more boxes. And more boxes. And more and more boxes. Have I made myself clear that were a lot of boxes? Because there were. A lot of boxes. A lot of lot of boxes.



The boxes overwhelmed both sides of my small brain.



Oh look! More boxes! May I go lie down now?




And even when there were no boxes readily visible, there was still Stuff To Be Done. Oh my aching back. Oh my aching brain.


About halfway through the day, the three Big Mover Guys realized that Nathan's queen sized box spring would not go up the stairs. (The stairs turn halfway up so it's a bit of a tight fit.) Steve's and my king sized bed went up for reasons I don't (as a woman) readily understand. Something about the king sized bed bending? I really don't know. I'm still zoned out in Box World and cannot think clearly about most things.

The Three Big Mover Guys pondered the immovable box spring conundrum for quite some time and finally came up with . . . well, not much. One guy said he and his partner have been moving furniture for eight years and had never before come up against this sort of problem.

Enter my husband. The man who thinks outside the box as a matter of course. He came up with a plan (which of course my box-befogged brain does not understand) having to do with taking the box spring partially apart so that it could bend more. And it made it with less than 1/4 inch to spare!



In this picture, I do realize the guys are carrying a mattress and not a box spring upstairs but it was the only picture I could come up with.



When Steve wasn't busy reconfiguring box springs, he launched into the scrubbing of the floor. The place where our washer and dryer was supposed to go was quite dirty and since we had no mop (and since I can't get on the floor without having to have a crane come in to get me back up) Steve spent twenty minutes cleaning the floor the old fashioned way. Is he a keeper, or what?



In light of all the boxes and mess that currently inhabit our lives, we are ever so thankful to have another (well ordered and lovely) place to go to for sleeping and eating purposes. If we'd had to sleep in that house last night with chaos reigning supreme, I may have been pushed over the edge into Box Induced Insanity. (And believe me, that would not be pretty.)

As it is, we can rest in a chaos-less place and then attack the boxes in a refreshed state every morning. In fact, we're going to be heading over there again today in a few minutes and will probably spend 10 or 12 hours working. I'd better have lots of chocolate to keep my spirits up!

We know that we are really going to love this house and especially love Smithifying it. Our only drawback at the moment is that we can't do any improvements to it since we're just renting it until our house in Smithfield sells. The house desperately needs carpet--the carpet is very old and very blue and we have absolutely no blue furnishings. It also needs to be painted on the second and third floors. (The third floor is the bonus room where Sarah's bedroom is.)

So in the meantime, we'll just move in and close our eyes to the very scratched walls and the very worn out carpet. And then when each small improvement comes along, we'll just appreciate it all the more!

And speaking of appreciating something, on Wednesday after the three of us had spent several hours at the house unloading our two vehicles and putting stuff away, we went back to our borrowed cottage to try to muster up enough energy to fix something for a late lunch. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and two ladies from the church walked in bearing an entire meal! Hurray!

And then last night after our very long day of moving, another family in the church brought homemade beef stew, rice, homemade bread and a made-from- scratch chocolate meringue pie.

The three of us gulped that meal down as though we hadn't eaten in days. It was exactly the right kind of food to eat at the end of an exhausting day--delicious, comfort food. The family also brought two other meals to eat later on when we don't have time (or energy) to cook. We are just overwhelmed by such thoughtfulness and generosity.

It is quite a privilege to be putting down roots here in Manteo and every box we unload digs the roots a little deeper.

And that's a very good thing.