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I’ve been sitting on this post. I’ve been afraid that what I want to share isn’t quite eloquent and beautiful enough. I’ve decided that I’ll just let it be what it is.
I press forward with working, preparing to move, busy house projects and marriage stress. I even continue to blog about the progress on our house and family adventures and close calls. (Do you realize that in the past two months we have had two ambulance calls to our house and one rushed trip to the ER?) .
But it’s time for me to take a step back from all the craziness and acknowledge that my grandma passed away a couple weeks ago. Yes, my most loyal blog fan has died.
Somewhere near the middle of July I pretty much abandoned the blog, but Grandma is the one who motivated me to get back online and update it so that she could check in on me and my family while she was in the hospital.
Many might see a blog as an impersonal way to stay in touch, but I think that it served as a connection that kept my grandma close to my life’s adventures and my inner-workings. I would hear second-hand that she was shocked about something I wrote, or hear that she was asking other family members if they had read my latest post.
The result, I think, is that my grandma probably knew me pretty well, even though we didn’t see each other or speak very often. We had occasional email and photo exchanges, and she sent a fair amount of lovey dovey angel and teddy bear forwards.
I am sure of her affection for me.
I feel lucky that I was able to take enough time away from house projects to go and visit her this fall–once when she was first brought to the hospital and once after she was moved to hospice care. I brought my guitar and sang some seemingly random songs (that were actually chosen quite strategically) with a prayer in my heart to be a conduit of the spirit for her.
God, I love to sing. It physically feels so good and right. I smile and close my eyes and and sometimes can’t believe that it’s my flesh moving the air and creating the sound. It feels like someone else has taken control of my head, heart, throat and lungs and breathed something clear and true out of them.
When I sang Schubert’s Ave Maria at a funeral for my husband’s great aunt several years ago, I hardly had to open my mouth and the most beautiful and big sound echoed from little me. Spirit took hold and played me like an instrument. It left me warm, bright-cheeked and feeling humble.
Last night I got my guitar out and started jammin’ on the song that came together the last day I saw my grandma alive. The song had the bones of a chorus before that day, but hardly a real verse. And when I sat down to play it for her, it clicked.
My sister Becca and I sang it at her funeral last week. Becca added some beautiful harmony and suggestions for pacing and an ending. It turned out so lovely, and it feels wonderful to sing.
My little J. told me last night that it was good music for jumping. He was jumping from the couch to the bean bag chair and running laps around the kitchen. As we set the table for dinner, I was still singing it and when I stopped, two of my girls kept singing the chorus without me.
I think they actually really like the song. It made my heart smile.
Pray Our Way to the Other Side
Hanging on, my friend
This can’t be the end
The path isn’t straight
If we lose sight along the way
Let’s pray our way to the other side
Asking forgiveness on the way to the other side
Let’s pray our way to the other side
Learning to trust on our way, on our way
We’re on our way to that other side
All the love we have to give
Come to me you say
And together, we’ll pray
On our knees
Hands to the sky
Grace and healing freeing you and me from the lie
We can can trust in Him
To lead us there
Let’s pray our way
To the other side
And it won’t be the end
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A song was born, Grandma made it to the other side, and each of my blog posts will permanently be missing one loving visitor.
We’re getting so close. This past weekend Sean and I hung the cabinets This Old House style and thanks to our neighbor Al, the counters are also installed in the kitchen. Everything is farm house straight:
We also spent a day attending to the yard and putting away materials in preparation for some more excavating work. We are extending our driveway along the house and adding gravel as well as preparing the site for our garage to be built next year. As it turns out, we are also having our septic repaired. (Sigh.)
The project list is shrinking, and we’re feeling the pressure to get the rest of it done… yesterday.
We need some help.
I didn’t have the walls ready to paint this past weekend because I’ve damaged my wrist (at least temporarily) from mudding and sanding. I’m going to keep it wrapped and pop lots of ibuprofen this week and do my best to finish the last coats of mudding in the living room, stairway, and one more bedroom so that all remaining rooms are ready for sanding and paint by Saturday.
If I can hang on and push one more week out of my arm, maybe our sweet little C. will not have to finish the rest of it up for me:
I’m feeling the burn to get this done. Can you help us!? For an hour? Or four?
Needed this Saturday September 26th
- Sanders (first thing Saturday morning!) and Dust Wipers
- Wall Painters (I know you’re all out there! About ninety-eight thousand people have approached me about helping with this in the past six months. The time has finally come.)
- Pressure-Washer Operator (for porch and window trim)
- Cleaning Helpers (to bravely take on The Dust. Vacuuming floors, walls, window sills; wiping cupboards, ceiling fans and light fixtures; washing windows and screens, steam cleaning the couch… everything is filthy. It just has to end.)
- Child Care! Okay A. and L. are too old to need this, but they are usually game for tagging along if you want to take the whole crew. Especially if it means getting out of doing yard work or other manual labor on the house. Or babysitting.
- Meal Preparation and Cleanup. Cook and serve food to our hardworking friends so that we don’t have to stop working except to stuff our faces!
- Roofer to finish installing ridge caps, top the chimney pipe and trim the valley shingle edges
Sean and I need to be able to finish installing floor transitions in two doorways and the wood treads and landings on the steps. The idea is to be ready for floor finishing during the week of Sept. 28 – Oct. 2, and to forge ahead full steam…
Next Saturday, October 3
- Exterior painters for porch and window trim
- Interior trim installers
- Gardeners/Grass planters
- Closet organizer installer
- Window insulator/sill-board installer/caulker
- Child care helpers
- Meal preparation and cleanup
- BONFIRE ATTENDEES! Yes, it’s time for a party. We plan to burn a huge pile of brush and junk wood. (And make merry drinking beer and pop and eating snacks. ) Fire starting around 7-8 PM. Bring your own chair and a song in your heart. Be sure to call us to let us know that you’re coming so that we can talk you into helping us at some point throughout the day too.
If arrangements work out, carpet will be installed upstairs between Oct 5 and 9… and we’ll be ready for the last wave of help by…
October 10
- LARGE ITEM MOVERS! The massively heavy couch (two recliners) is already moved, our giant living room armoire is sold and we are hiring out to move the piano… (“You’re welcome,” to everyone who has ever helped us move!) The bulk of what’s left will be managed in small bites as we go but we’ll need help with a few large items: stove, washer, freezer, desk, dressers…
If you can help with any or all of it, I can’t even begin to tell you how deeply appreciated it would be! We are SO aware that we can’t do it all alone.
I ended my Memorial weekend feeling absolutely blessed. Blessed by fabulous friendships and by God’s amazing and humbling synchronicity at work as we charge ahead.
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We have bartered a wood stove for window installation (and are getting the windows at a deep discount besides!).
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The labor for our roof tear off and installation is being donated.
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The application for a permit for our driveway has been approved, mostly because of who we know.
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The labor for our stairway installation is being donated.
Each one of these items has a long involved story to explain how they came about. The point of all of it is so clear: We are being blessed!
I also have to interject a few words about partnership and marriage. I have felt for a long time that this project is one giant metaphor for me and Sean and us taking time and energy to rebuild our life together. Moving forward prayerfully and intentionally. Establishing new financial habits. Being kind and respectful partners with a common goal: a safe, functional, spirit-filled home for our family. Few goals are so worthy!!
With that said, we were blessed this past weekend with a visit from the Malveys, who maintain a permanent spot on our list of our favorite people in the entire world.
I get giddy when we have plans to visit and our time together is never enough. Thanks for your help with everything this past weekend Malveys! I have a few more pictures I didn’t manage to get resized last night with this round, so keep an eye out for another round of Memorial Day shots!
Sean, Craig, Me and Lori hanging out on the stoop:
The ceiling above the stairs… or where the stairs USED to be!
My new favorite picture.
In the interest of preserving our lawnmower blades, we had a contest to see who could pick up the most sticks out of the yard. Complete with cheesy prizes! (Photos forthcoming.)
The kids formed alliances, in true reality TV style. J and L formed a team:
Against J, C, W, and A. Forces to be reckoned with for sure!
After a Saturday full of destruction and a Sunday full of mud and tape, the tile floor is installed at last… the plan is to apply grout this coming weekend. My knees and back will live a happy and complete life if I never install tile again.
Sean has been having knee trouble and our calendar has been filled with a plethera of family and church and school events. Combined, this means that work has stalled out a bit at the new house.
The good news is that the deadline to be out of our current house has been extended to December. We would still love to be living in the new house before school starts in the fall, but we do have some breathing room in case that becomes an impossibility.
The only things we’ve accomplished in the past couple of weeks are puttering sorts of projects. The drains have been assembled and I discovered that I should have installed the bathroom door before I put in the cement board on the floor… ergh. Modification and rework. The bane of my existence. And a reality of working on an old house when you don’t really know what you’re doing.
A fresh dumpster is in place for some more destruction, but we really need to get that darned bathroom working before we make an all-out call for help.
Phase one is the bathroom. Believe me, that’s enough. Once we finish that, we can move on to phase two projects: roof, windows, and stairs. Phase three involves the rest of the interior finishing. Electrical updating and sheetrocking bedrooms. Paint, carpet, trim. Sanding and finishing the floors.
I feel so far away from painting anything. I can’t even begin to think about color schemes and decorating.
Because of Sean’s knee and the amount of work involved in a full tear off of asphalt and wood shakes on a 12/12 pitch with all new underlayment required, we are getting bids on the roof. And we talked to our friendly local excavator about roughing in the new driveway, even though we won’t have a garage built for awhile.
Right now the driveway is shared with our neighbors. They seem like lovely people but since we’re planning to build a garage on the opposite side of the property anyway, it only makes sense to put in our own driveway.
We are tapping a resource on some windows for a deep discount… and another resource for helping us to rebuild the stairs…
Too many irons in the fire!
Meanwhile, the kids have been busy exploring the new yard. We put up some swings in an ancient ash tree in the front yard for them to fight over. Spring blooming has revealed two large clusters of lilacs and a mature apple tree. That makes me smile (makes Sean cringe).
New and old maples, pines, and birches spatter the perimeter. There’s a huge old nut tree of some kind in the front too. I wish I had more tree knowledge!
Well, enough of this rambling post. Lots of stuff in the works, nothing getting finished… this is the state of things.
Yes, there’s a hole where the toilet will be! And a hole for the heat duct. The cement board is installed and ready for the tile.
The washer and dryer will be stacked next to the chimney wall, with a linen cabinet to the left of the outlet (between the tub and the washer/dryer).
Not all of the electrical work was finished when the inspector showed up last week, so we can’t finish putting up the drywall quite yet.
Look! A light switch to the right… this is the back of the new bathroom wall. It works a light in the ceiling of the living room where there was no light fixture before.
I realize we’re not changing the face of the planet or anything, but man it feels nice to put something together and turn on a switch and have it work!
The next shot documents some exploratory destruction. We are going to rip out and replace the stairs and we needed to see if we could tear out this little spot for more head room… looks like it used to be a small storage cavity.
Newspapers lined the floor… since 1961. We saw headlines featuring JFK. And Martin Luther King, Jr. marching and getting arrested along with his fellow ‘negroes’.
How do you spell linoleum? Not sure. But Sean tore some out of the big kids’ bedroom. I wonder if we should be trying to spell asbestos…
Here it is! The new Cady place... as soon as we can make it habitable.
The front door and windows, from inside the porch. The main part of the living room is inside to the right.
Here's the living room. Stairs leading up are off the frame to the right. The bathroom is behind the partially-destroyed wall. Kitchen is straight back. We had a pizza picnic on the floor--our first meal in the new place. Yay!
Super powered Cady kids can walk through walls...
The soon-to-be-expanded bathroom. Will include laundry!
I'm not sure this photo truly depicts how disgusting and cracked and rotted this space is. It's slated to be torn out completely.
Here's the view from the kitchen into the living room (bathroom on the right).
The side door that leads into the kitchen... on the west side of the house. Patio doors to the backyard on the left. Twelve-year-old daughter numb to the crazy mom sporting a camera.
The kitchen viewed from the northwest corner. Random crazy husband jumping into the shot.
View of the backyard from the patio doors in the south facing kitchen. Solar dryer included! We are on an acre, surrounded by farm fields and one neighbor to the west.
Six-year-old strikes a pose at the top of the world's steepest set of stairs.
South facing bedroom above the kitchen.
Same south facing bedroom. The only bedroom with a door at present. Four-year-old with panda in the closet saying, "This could be an extra room for sleeping!"
The bedroom with a boarded up window that faces west. An amazing trick panda!
Gotta love all the paneling. This is the third bedroom, with a window facing east.
View from the landing at the top of the stairs into the east bedroom. Panda boy returns.
Panda boy in the kitchen.
My husband and I have officially been together for 16 years (married for thirteen). I’m 32, so that means that we’ve been together for half my life.
I know who I am better when I’m around my husband. Not that I’m always in the mood to be someone happy around him, but I think that’s really the point. I don’t have to put on different colors around him.
Best of all, I can say the weirdest, sickest, messed up things around him, and nothing shocks him. If you know me at all, you can guess what sorts of weird sick things I might come up with. Then think SICKER, WEIRDER, AND MORE MESSED UP. Then you’re starting to get close.
He made a comment recently about dying young. And I told him to hurry up so I can remarry while I’m still young and hot.
But the truth is I can’t imagine starting over with someone else. All the uncomfortable getting-to-be-comfortable-with-you crap. No thanks.
I just hate that some days I’ve used up the nice and friendly piece of me before I ever get to see him and he gets stuck with the bitchy, cranky, headache afflicted me.
For some reason, when I sat down to write this post, I thought I was coming up with something really transcendental.
These thoughts aren’t new. But they’re true. And I’m grateful for the half of my life we’ve been together.
