Starting Over...Again

Two weeks ago a bucket brigade of my friends and family lined the halls of my home and spent a few hours together passing buckets and boxes to each other from the depths of my basement to the heights of a well-stacked U Haul.


Jim Jackson came under protest; as he did not condone our move. Hank Howell came with a sense of humor; when the box labeled "Baby Jesus" was passed to him, he said "There's no room". Scott Howell came; even though his Saturday was already full to overflowing with earlier promises he made to serve other people, he still fit in one more last minute service project for his sister. Brother Larson came, and had the good sense to bring rope.

The following week the hired help came and; one piano, four armoirs, and five pizzas later, emptied the rest of the house. We left it the way we found it, only more loved, more clean and forever haunted by the loss of the best family that will ever live there. I know the walls will miss us, the kitchen island will weep and don't even get me started on the flower gardens.

You know you've been packing too long when you finish taping up a box and turn around to see this scene and you think: "oh how pretty...that's the perfect lighting for a disheveled room" and you snap a picture. You know you've been packing too long when you walk into a store and see a bag of packing peanuts as tall as you are and suddenly hear choirs singing. You know you've been packing WAY too long when you go from an elaborately detailed inventory Sharpied on the top of every box, to "More Stuff" barely scribbled legibly on the last five or six.

We are not there, we are here and patiently waiting to find out about our family's next "where".

I'm not sure exactly where the Lord wants us to be right now, but I do know it's not anywhere near "settled" (or California...please Lord, not California). It's neck n neck right now between North Carolina and Chicago. North Carolina=familiar, been-there-done-that, easy. Chicago=totally new, kind of exciting, but definitely harder. But given the past three months, I'm not sure I can even count on the choices being the same from one day to the next anymore.

I am packing. My back hurts and I took a hit to the jaw today from a falling box. All of my cooling racks except one fit in with my baking pans. I have decided not to care about that, usually I would, but not tonight. I am packing. I am getting an intimate, one on one moment with all of my belongings. All the things that I have felt the need at one time or another to invite into my life. Everything that has, for the past six years, survived my cleaning purges (I am the opposite of a pack rat...always getting rid of stuff) and I am fairly confident that I will never, EVER have to buy another item in my life again...ever. Yeah, that's right...we got S T U F F!

We will put everything in storage for a few months and I am looking forward to being away from all my stuff. Is that a funny thing to say? Well, try it sometime. It's refreshing. Perhaps vacations aren't about where you go as much as what you leave. Just the act of leaving something is freeing and empowering.

People ask me if I'm excited about moving. Well... is it ok to be sad about getting something that you wanted? Because that's how I feel. I wanted to move, but now that it's happening... and goodbye's are immiment, the emotions are very close to the surface. I was teary all night as I packed with boxes and used packing paper that friends had brought me. I've moved enough to know that you keep moving boxes and packing paper after you move for a reason...so when someone brings them to you, it's really a dear gesture.

In Spanish Fork, I chose to love. I decided to accept people on their terms and assume the best. This has made my heart happy and my life rich. It probably hasn't changed how other people have viewed me though...I'm sure it's quite the opposite. I'm sure some people hate me, or are annoyed by me, or think I'm utterly ridiculous. But, like the deviant cooling rack that didn't fit in my box, I have decided not to care about that. There's just no room for it. And I'm ok with that.

Over Paid Party Pooper

I dont' know how much the buyers of our house paid that mean old (oops...I mean "well meaning") home inspector to come in and snoop around, but I hope it wasn't much. Not that I know how much inconsequential bad news is worth, I just think it should be dirt cheap.

Before he came, everyone was happy. We lived in our house for six years, cared for it, loved it, always planned on protecting our investment and possibly owning it (although not living in it) for forever. We fixed all the maintenance problems in preparation for putting it on the market. We looked at each other when we were finished with the repairs and asked the familiar question: "Why do we always make it so nice right before we leave it?"

The buyers were practically giddy as well. Not only did they like the house, they kept making offers on all our furniture too!

But now, we all have this new list you see, and there's no room on this list for happy or exciting. It's all depressing, nick-picky and largely inconsequential and I hate this list. I do, however,
feel more sorry for the buyers than us because...they haven't lived here and therefore don't know how meaningless those things on that list are and how they would never have even been aware of them if it weren't for Captain Sunshine and his fancy digital, thermal scanner of gloom.

A Family That's Ambushed Together...

When my children were much smaller, Family Home Evenings had a lot more energy and excitement to them. We were young and creative and would plan for the evening well in advance. We didn’t have any money then so it was always homemade but no one seemed to mind. It also helped that back then everyone actually wanted to be there.

One Family Home Evening however, ended up being more exciting than any one of us could have ever anticipated.

I had recently heard a suggestion for a fun family activity while listening to a well known LDS author and speaker on tape. This speaker said that you could lay a clean bed sheet down on the family room floor and place a hot air popcorn popper in the middle of the sheet. You would then gather the family around and fill the machine with kernels. As the machine warmed up you could take the lid off of the popper and make a game out of catching the freshly popped corn in your mouth as they flew freely and wildly about the room. Lots of giggles and memories were to be had.

Well we couldn’t wait. We were filled with anticipation as we sat around our popcorn popper. The kids grinned from ear to ear. The machine whirred and off came the lid. But no fluffy white clouds of happiness came flying out, instead the unpopped, but VERY well heated kernels took flight like burning hot shrapnel. Taking out one kid, then the next. Before we knew it, there was crying and screams of terror everywhere. The kids dodged one way and ran the other but it seemed the kernels from hell had impeccable aim and velocity.

Finally my husband started grabbing the children and running them out of the room as I did a head dive for the outlet to unplug the demon attacker from the wall.

Well, as you can imagine, that pretty much ends your evening! There are no lesson or songs or activities that are going to be a good follow-up for that. Just a lot of hugs and kisses, band-aids and apologies. Oh yeah…and one trip to the garbage out back to properly dispose of a certain talk on tape.

Wasps like blackberries. They like to suck the juice right out of them! I went outside to pick myself a nice bowl of blackberries today and discovered a wasp fully engaged in gorging himself on the biggest berry on the bush! Several other attempts revealed several other wasps doing the same thing. All this time I thought I was producing a crop of nice, anti-oxidant rich fruit for my family just to find out that no.... it's actually an after school hang-out for delinquent teenage vespas!

Wasps get to sting people. That pretty much maxes out their annoyance quota, dosn't it? They shouldn't be allowed to sting people and eat their blackberries. Who do they think they are? Bears?
You're lower on the food chain than that Mr. Vespula Vulgaris. You have to pick one irritating characteristic, no going back for seconds.

Here's the thing. These wasps have been living in a hole in my gazebo for a few years. I, being the humanitarian that I am, decided to live and let live. I scratch my back; they scratch theirs, if you know what I mean. This spring I did see one of them eating a grasshoper (gross), but grasshoppers eat my flowers so as gross as that was...it sorta worked for me. I thought we had a beautiful thing going.

But now, they've left me with no choice. I have to show them who is boss of the backyard. Tomorrow morning there will be a freshly caulked hole in my gazebo, with a little tiny wreath hung over it. Maybe the mosquitos will hold a little candlelight vigil for them, I don't know. I just hope we've all learned our lesson here.

Yes!

You've asked for years and years, and I realize now that it may be too late to answer, but I have to say...YES! Yes Mr. Rogers....I do want to be your neighbor! I would and I could.

Aawhhhhh....this feels so right.

Life Longing

Do you have a life longing? Is there something that you long for, but that you have been denied? Not something that I would refer to as a "comic book longing" such as wealth, eternal youth, fame, or super-human abilities. But something that a lot of people have and that is so common, most people take it for granted, something that only you would recognize as being remarkable to attain? Yes? Then you have a life longing.

One common characteristic of life longings is the Almost Factor. The Almost Factor is probably the most cruel part of it all. You almost get there. You almost have it. Or maybe you have it, but just long enough to love it...before it is taken away. There just seems to be one little step, one little detail, that is missing, that keeps your dream away...at longing's length.

And then there's the Why Not factor. At some point, if your life longing is really a life longing and not a gimme-gimme, you'll find yourself asking "Would it matter Lord? Would it really mess anyone up if you let me have a spouse? or a baby? How would that hurt anyone?"

Good questions. I don't have an answer, but I do have this story (which has nothing to do with life-longings, but is just an example of considering the unknown). I had a big responsibility at church when I got cancer. We call them "callings" in my church. I thought I would be released from that responsibility to deal with my illness, but I was not. Many times I wished I was released. But cancer came and went and my calling stayed. When I look back, I think about how hard it was to do both and how much better it would have been to be released, but then the thought always follows...I have no idea how it would have been without the calling. Maybe it was easier to have that distraction and those opportunities to serve. Bottome line; I just don't know what it would have been like to go through cancer without the calling. Maybe it would have been worse.

So maybe my life longing is a blessing in disguise and someday I'll realize that it was better to live without attaining my dream than to actually have it fulfilled. I don't know...we'll have to wait and see.

My personal belief? That we all are given a life longing. Some of us can talk about them, which is helpful. But others have longings that by necessity, must be carried alone, which is hard. You can take comfort and solace in knowing that deep inside, we're probably all nursing a tiny little broken heart. Maybe the next time you cross paths with a real jerk (and I hope it's not me), just remember there's a possiblility that that person is acting a little jerky because he/she is feeling like 'the only one' that day, or maybe even really believes at the moment that they are the 'only one'. After all, pity parties don't exactly bring out the best in us, do they?

Happening and Un-happening

Just as fast as everything happened...everything un-happened. Happening and un-happening at such speeds is quite cruel; evidence of a demented, sinister universe.

The clock started ticking July 27th at about 4:30 pm, when after months of searching and deliberating, Mark and I settled on a lot, a house plan and a builder and we finally signed one signature-starved contract.

One of us is very happy to be keeping our current residence as another rental, the other one of us is...if you s t r e t c h it far enough...just happy to be trying to be happy about that??? Anyway, not quite 77 thousand ticks of the clock later, a voice mail message is retrieved informing us that there is potentially and quite magically, a very interested buyer for our ever so off-the-market home.

The second not-so-happy to be happy guy is suddenly very happy when said buyer makes us an offer we cannot refuse, landing us in contract number two, in less than forty-eight hours.

So in just two days, and a lot of signatures, we find ourselves contently basking in what we assume to be a supernatural confirmation that moving our family is indeed, somehow sanctioned by God.

This basking lasts through a family reunion, and a family float trip. Twelve days of basking (1,036,800 clock ticks to be exact), only to be interrupted by unexpected voice mail number two: the lay-off.

This is shocking. Unemployment always is, but the surprises don't end there. Imagine a long-lost realtor from your past contacting you after six years to let you know your old home in North Carolina is on the market again, ON THE SAME DAY YOU LOSE YOUR JOB. And if that isn't enough, imagine getting a job offer, from a company in North Carolina, ON THE VERY SAME DAY as well.

One might think that moving to North Carolina was the new "sanctioned by God", we sure did. But North Carolina is a bigger move than we really wanted to make, so we become a little conflicted and spend an entire weekend consumed with making the right decision...if there even is one.

The arrows don't stop pointing us in that direction (East) and our hearts don't stop wanting it to be otherwise (West). The diverge is maddening. We take comfort in the fact that we are still in a contract to build a house here and decide that honoring that contract must trump all other indications.

Finally at peace, we move forward with our builder and send him our design choices the next morning. Unbeknown to us, this is where the un-happening begins. He tells us that we can't, after all, build our house on that lot. Their are CC&R issues and lawyers and what not. Bottom line; our last hope for a sign that says "stay here in Utah" is yanked out from under us, we are no longer contract bound, with the exception of our already sold home, which we'll have to move out of at the end of September.

I surrender. I guess I'm moving to North Carolina. I can't deny what I can't deny. God sold my home so that when my husband lost his job, we could move to North Carolina. That must be it.

UNTIL...the phone rings yet again, six hours later. This time, it is our miracle realtor. The one who sold our house that wasn't even on the market, for full asking price. What does Mr. Miracle have to say? The buyers are backing out.

Oh.

Okay. So...did we just go in a circle? Because I feel like I just went in a circle. Like I'm right back where we started, only with a new job, that by the way....will let us telecommute and not have to move at all. Okay. So what was the rest of all of that for???

Can you say demented and sinister?

"Life is too important to be taken seriously"

Several years ago we heard that our friends from North Carolina were going to be in Utah. Their son told our son that he would come see him on a certain day. This is all the information I got. A day. I wasn't sure if his family; specifically his mother whom I adore, was thinking about coming too since the last time his family stopped by she was unable to be there. Again, no definite time was given, they'd just come when they could.

Well, many things began to go wrong that day. My stack of to-dos had already been piling up and becoming worrisome and weightier all week. I was one stressed out lady. I still remember how desperate and powerless I was feeling.

The price of gas had just shot up and I was combining trips whenever I could. I realized at one point that morning that I could actually get some back-to-school shopping done on the way back from another, critical errand I had to run. So I stopped at Target that day and amidst the crowds and the whining tweens, my shopping cart began to fill with pretty good deals, and a few hard-to-finds. My mind started to relax and I was feeling not so overwhelmed anymore, not to mention quite a bit closer to staying on budget.

It was at this point that my cell phone rang. It was Nick. Not only had his friend arrived at our house, but so had the entire family, including his mom. How fast can I get home? he asks.
Well, if I left my cart, and my hard won deals, and drove like mad...15 minutes. But that meant taking two steps back into the land of overwhelming incompetance and day-late dollar-shortness. I paused for a second to consider then said..."I just can't do it". If they could wait 'til I got home (45 minutes) that would be just smashing, but I didn't expect them to. And they didn't.

All the rest of the day I felt deflated, like the biggest loser. All that I accomplished and was finally able to cross off my list was no longer such a bright light at the end of my tunnel. I had been a schmuck to my friend who was afterall, visiting from over 2,000 miles away.

Apologies and explanations have weakly been offered. And I really have no idea how she feels about all of it. I know that she's been back in town a few times and has expressed no interest in giving a get-together another try and I don't blame her. I've traveled across country with a family before and know what it's like to have a long list of people that I want to visit or feel obliged to visit, so I know first hand how stressful that day probably was for her too.

Sometimes you just can't win them all. Such is the life of a woman. No matter how hard you try, or how hard you work, you will always feel like you've let someone down. So in a way, I have really given a priceless gift to my friend: one less person to worry about pleasing. I'm quite sure I'm off her list.

But this isn't as dire, dreary or depleating as it may sound. It's actually liberating and kind of funny. We don't need a vacation or a spa package to relax, all we need to do is acknowledge our faults and have a good laugh at ourselves. It may take a while, but soon you'll be joined by many friends, all laughing at themselves. You know...it's called retirement, aka the Golden Age.

"Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves." Colin Powell

F2 Baby

On August 11, 1999 my husband learned that when your wife shows up out of the blue at your office and wants to take you out for a slice of pie, she's probably coming to tell you something. Maybe something like, she's found a way to fill that one last empty seat in the mini-van? Yup, congratulations, another bun in the oven! Number five was every bit as exciting as the first, if not more. Of course, it didn't hurt that twenty seconds after I broke the news to Mark, a fellow patron in the restaurant stood up and shouted "get away from the windows!".

We were sitting in the restaurant part of the old Inn at Temple Square, next to the wall of windows that ran along South Temple. We dubbiously scanned the room to see if there were any obvious signs that we might want to listen to the crazy guy's frantic warning. Abruptly, other patrons started to stand and move from the windows so, still not knowing why...(maybe it was a gunman?), we left our table and moved to the center of the room as well. That is when we noticed that large debris had begun flying past the windows at uncanny speeds. The world outside had been turned into soup and someone was giving it a stir.


I found a phone in the lobby and called the babysitter at home to see how things were going there and to encourage them to go down to the basement and to also let them know we wouldn't be home for a while.

When everything had died down, people started emptying on to the streets in droves. Even people who otherwise had no business to go outside, went out to survey the damage. We were all walking up and down the streets aimlessly, all talking to each other like we'd known each other for years. Once in our car, it took us over 45 minutes just to get from State street to the I-15 on-ramp.

Everyone wants it to be special when you announce a pregnancy. But no amount of creativity or meteorological divination on my part could have ever produced a more memorable announcement than this. (even though I never did get to finish my piece of pie ).

Rachel, our fifth baby, came eight months later and has ironically been the calm after the storm. But, on the other hand, her creative powers surely carry a F3 or F4 punch that could really put any tornado to shame.