Not rummaging around for excuses

I have been away for a long time.

I am back for a minute.

No excuses.   My life is just  full.  And some of the stuff that makes it full would be fun to write up into a blog post.   But then some other thing comes along and there’s not a minute to write.

But I have this idea that I would like to bring this blog into the life I’m in now.  And bring some of my life into this blog too.   We’ll see how that pans out.

Last anyone heard from me, we were selling one house in Canada, and considering buying one of two houses in Spokane.

So the selling of the Canada house was kind of a sad and deflating and left us feeling a bit like we’d been run over by a truck.   But God is kind, even when it looks like somebody stole your house from you.

And it turns out that, because that sale took exactly the amount of time it did,
and the house we really had our eye on was crazy out of our budget, due to what happened with the sale of our old house,   and we have special needs in a house since there are eight of us plus my mother.
And  because I apparently needed to learn a little more patience….    we waited and hung on and pursued the title holding bank which would decide the timing of the  sale of the house we were hoping to buy.

And we waited  more.  And, while we waited,  I fell in love with this unattainable HOUSE, which is foolish.

From time to time we got news about the impending foreclosure and sale,  which was, by turns, either dismally grim or so wildly encouraging that we began to doubt our own sanity.

And then we made an  offer, and then we waited twelve l-o-n-g days to hear  how the foreclosing bank would respond.   Then they said “yes”.    (***wild applause and a bottle of champagne***)

And then they added 50% to our closing cost because the house had broken pipes throughout which would surely have caused flooding (had the water been turned on),  and this required extra funds on hand just in case of a flooding  emergency  caused by the introduction of water to empty, ruptured pipes.

We  finally closed, June 28 ,  on this house of our dreams.   And then we went into the walls  and saw for ourselves what lots and lots of broken pipes really look like.   Wow.   It looked like no water for a couple of months.   We were building character.

Husband and sons gutted the kitchen, removed all walls, cabinets, ceiling, switched out knob and tube wiring from 1910, and repaired something over two dozen ruptured water lines.    There were two or five pipe breaks associated with each bathroom.  And a century old faucet problem which deserves a blog post all its own.

So my heroic husband got all the pipes fixed, and we set a move date.  And my sweet father in law died  three days before the date we set.  So Jon sadly went to be with his family in Oslo, with much on his mind and more on his plate back here when he returned.
We, with the help of amazing friends, moved without our man here to keep us on track.
That move should also have its own blog post of thanks to Marilyn Hutchens, Sandy and Holly Fortin, Jack and Sue Klein, Genhi Hawes and her marvellous daughters, and a whole pile of people at Christ Church in Spokane.

We lived with a makeshift kitchen in the basement laundry room for four and a half months.
A real oven, fridges, and dishwasher arrived the day before Thanksgiving, and we used them for the first time on Thanksgiving Day to prepare a meal for 22 people.
It was magnificent and I have rarely been so thankful, though I should always be.

We’re still without a laundry room, for reasons which have to do with renovations required in that area of the basement coupled with the $15,000 heating system repair
…… and the first born going off to a private college,
all of   which bumped off a few projects until spring.

Life today is increasingly tending to become what I would call “normal”.   And there was one day last week when I looked around at my Christmassy decorated home and realized, with a bit of a start, that we aren’t moving any more.  After more than two years of being in “moving” mode, it’s over.  I have a home.   That’s really delicious.

The next known big event, after that first born leaves for that private college in ten days, will be my mother moving in with us.  This will be an enormous adjustment.
I’m reading a few books on this very subject, and having her over for weekend “trial runs” so we can trouble shoot our routines and habits, and furniture arrangements and schedules.   My mom is such a sweet woman, and she is really a delight.
But she likes  attention and she likes to go places, and she has a few non-negotiable demands which will be tricky to shoehorn into a life that’s already busting with one insanely busy neurology practice,  five busy kids at home, one kid in Portland, a 100 year old, 7500 sq ft renovation project, and  a very lively German Shepherd who also has some non-negotiable demands.   I can’t wait to see how this will all develop.

So, of course,  I feel compelled to try to read 100 books again this year.  It seems like the only way I might be able to carve out some quiet sanity-preservation time.     I’m not doing 100 books and a marathon this time.  It’s 100 books and Run With the Dog Every Day.    I think the place I’m most likely to fail is in the blog posting.  We’ll see.