Everything Will Be All Right In The End

The last time I tried writing on my other blog was on my mother's birthday, September 5, of last year.  It was the first birthday since she died and I was getting all philosophical in my writing, then I was getting all factual about her death, and THEN I realized that I was really writing about me, not my mother.  So I stopped.

I find writing either comes so easily that it flows almost effortlessly, or that I'm constantly second-guessing myself and erasing and retyping and re-reading and erasing and rewriting.  It can be such an arduous process.

A few months ago I started reading a Paolo Cohelo book, The Zahir, which is autobiographical-ish in that he talks about being a writer.  He says it's like setting out in a small boat for an island and finding the tides carrying you in a different direction than you anticipated, landing on a different island, exploring it until you're done, then going home.  He also describes the well-tuned ways in which he procrastinates even though he's committed to writing every day.  It all sounded so familiar!

My early life was like that journey in a small boat, taking me for a ride who knows where, but landing me in a good place with my first husband and four beautiful children and travels to places I may have never visited but for landing with David.

My cancer was like that journey in a small boat, taking me on an unpredicted ride, but landing me in a wonderful place full of new and strengthened friendships, love, and self-discovery.

My divorce was like that journey in a small boat, taking me on a whirlwind ride, initially weighing me down and then lifting me away from home, work, and children and landing me in a new state with a beautiful, kind man with whom I'm building a new life, together.  It's not what I would have expected even a few years ago, but it's a great place to be.

And, so, I need to allow my writing to be the same.  Experience tells me that it will all work out.  I just need to keep writing and see where I end up.  It's bound to be a good place.


"Everything will be all right in the end . . . if it's not all right then it's not yet the end."  - Sonny in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Resolutions

On the way down to Florida for Thanksgiving with Peter's daughter and son-in-law, I read the airline's in-flight magazine.  There was a piece about "because I said I would" and the young man who began the website and movement in response to his father's death.  His point is so simple - "A promise made.  A promise kept."  You can get cards from the site or print your own, then write a promise on a card. And then follow through, because you said you would.  It's a way to build up oneself as an honorable person, a person whose word has meaning.  And it's also a way to reach out, connect, help, grow and even seek forgiveness.  It's a way to make tangible those fleeting promises we all have.

Well, the one person with whom I consistently break my promises is ME, so this idea intrigued me.

It's not about making sweeping resolutions, just about making small promises.  I think I can do this! I've been thinking about it since Thanksgiving.  I checked the because I said I would website.  I visited the facebook page.  I ordered the t-shirt.  The cards on on their way.  I did everything BUT make the promises.  So, with you as the witnesses to my promises, here goes!

Fifty-two small promises to myself for a new year full of promise:

• I will do some kind of art every day - draw, sew, crochet, paint, create.
• I promise to take care of my body by putting the right fuel in it.
• I promise to take care of my body by using it every day - exercising, playing, dancing, anything other than sitting.
• I will write on this blog two times a week.
• I will read a new novel every month (I know - pitiful!  But I read too many other things and novels have been relegated to vacation time.  No longer!)
• I will get enough sleep.
• I will take an electronics break once a week.  Music doesn't count.

(Seven promises, only 45 to go!)

• I will call my brothers every week.
• I will visit Kristy in her new place.
• I will see my cousins in Vermont and Massachusetts.
• I will meet my cousins from North Carolina.
• I will make a lunch date with Karen in Virginia.
• I will take a walk with Beth in Virginia.  (Small promises, remember!)
• I promise to send birthday cards so they arrive BEFORE the birthday.
• I will make an appointment with my oncologist.
• I will drink more water every day.  (It should be half your weight in ounces!)
• I will call a friend once a week.
• I will light a candle for my friend Linda.
• I will light candles on my mother's and father's yahrzeits.



Pet me!



• I promise to give Bear some time every day (rather than waiting for him to demand it!).

(Twenty!  32 to go!  This is hard.)

• I will go visit my brother Chris.
• I will go visit my brother Andy and Joanne.

(Wait!  Can I say I'll read a novel in January.  I'll read a novel in February.  I'll read a novel in March?  That would turn 1 promise into twelve!)

• I will read a novel in January.
• I will read a novel in February.
• I will read a novel in March.
• I will read a novel in April.
• I will read a novel in May.
• I will read a novel in June.
• I will read a novel in July.
• I will read a novel in August.
• I will read a novel in September.
• I will read a novel in October.
• I will read a novel in November.
• I will read a novel in December.
• I will read another novel in August.

(34!  52 - 34 = 18  18 more to go!)

• I will visit my parents' gravestones in Culpeper.
• I promise to write a letter a month to an old friend.
• I promise to get Christmas cards to my friends BEFORE Christmas.
• I promise to do something with Possum Point Players.  
• As a member, I will put something in a Rehoboth Art League show.
• I promise to paint a piece of furniture, in honor of my old reading couch.
• I promise NOT to eat french fries.  (Reference the second promise.)
• I promise to no longer sneak a soda when I go to Marshalls. (Ditto!)
• I promise to thin out my possessions in order to simplify my life.
• I promise to see my sisters-in-law this year - other than at my daughter's wedding.
• I will go to Charlottesville to see old friends and a beautiful town.
• I will go to Williamsburg to learn more about Virginia history with Peter.
• I promise to learn more about Delaware history.  I'll start with Lewes.
• I will write, re-write, or share a poem a week.  (And, no, I will not write that 52 times!)
• I promise to say what I think, and think before I speak, more often.
• I promise to stop saying unkind things about myself.
• I promise to stop doubting myself.
• I promise to keep my promises.

So there they are - 52 promises for a new year.  There are so many other things that I know I'll do (time with my children, my life with Peter, making the new house a wonderful, welcoming home) that I didn't mention them - they're easy.  I put down the things that will be a little hard for me.  I don't know why they are, but they have been.  They're the things I let slide when I really wish I hadn't.  Wish me luck!

"You must do the things you think you cannot do."  - Eleanor Roosevelt

Happy New Year

Each year for the past two decades or so I buy myself an Ansel Adams calendar from Barnes & Noble.   Then I sit down in January with last year's calendar, my at-a-glance planner, and, now, my iphone and fill in the coming year's important dates.  They include birthdays, anniversaries, yahrzeits, and other memorable occasions.  It's a wonderful, sometimes poignant, reflective time for me, looking back on the craziness of the previous year.  2013 brought so many changes in my life, but that's the way it is every year.  Each year has a character of its own influenced by its events, evidenced by my notes on the calendars:  births and deaths of friends and families; illnesses, surgeries, exercise schedules; weddings and anniversaries; appointments, dinners, movies, dates, visitors and vacations; work schedules, new schools, camp classes, and now pottery.

Last year, the big things were these:

• Deciding to leave Virginia and come to Delaware to be with a wonderful man.
• Updating, prepping, and selling my home of 17 years with sorting, sifting, and tossing accumulated years of stuff from 6 people, many pets, and my creative pursuits. 
• Weekends with Peter, fixing, painting, and cleaning the house, usually with a Friday trip to Auld Shebeen for Irish music and potato leek soup.
• Cathartic trips to the dump.  Excitement watching the big loaders shove piles around. 

  

  The Fairfax County Landfill.  We spent at least ten minutes watching a front loader smash and move that bathtub to the right spot - over by white goods.  I could have kept on watching for another ten.

• Redskins games in the winter, baseball games in the summer.
  
• Teaching 4th grade with a team of amazing young women who inspired and sustained me in what has now got to be one of the toughest jobs going (thank you, Nisreen, Amanda and Crystal!).
  
• Teaching camp at Pinecrest Summer Pavilion for the 8th year running with Beth and the rest.
• Selling the house in four days! All the hard work paying off.  (Thank you, Tracey!)
• Moving in August with Peter and other friends who stepped up to load the rental truck (thanks O'Haras, Swishers, Heather and Robert).  Then doing it again 6 days later!
  
• Cruising from New York to Florida and the Bahamas and loving the art auctions a bit too much. Meeting Katie and Nenad! And Bob and Debbie.

  

  Returning to New York on the NCL Gem.

• Settling in in Delaware and beginning the house building process for our new place and waiting for UPS to deliver the thirteen pieces of art we bought on the cruise.

  

  A Simon Bull piece from the cruise.

• Hosting friends and family first in Virginia and then in our little two bedroom place and also visiting friends and family.
• Travels to see Peter's children in Florida, Colorado, and upstate Delaware.  Travels to see my kids in New York City and Virginia.
• Ladies' fundraising luncheons with Marcie.
• Meeting new friends in my pottery class and picking up a once a week Art Outreach class at a community center.
• Enjoying the lead up to Christmas with my kids, Peter's kids, friends and extended family.
• Sadly, the passing of my mother in May, juxtaposed with a wonderful week in March spent caring for her:  talking, worrying, and laughing together.

  

  My mom, Evelyn, at the Black Bear Bistro.

• Seeing my brothers more than ever, a sweet result from the sorrow of losing my mom.

So the new calendar is on the side of the refrigerator, ready to be the record keeper for 2014.  As always, I make a wish for happiness, health, and good memories.  

Soup's On! With a Side of Football

Our kids are all grown with only one still in college, but Back-to-School time still feels like the beginning of Crazy-Busy time.  So here's the wonderfully easy crock pot soup that we had last night.  It only took a little forethought and effort to be able to enjoy a delicious bowl of Peter's Vegetable Beef Soup before Monday Night Football.  Yup!  He cooks!  I'm a lucky girl.  Except for the football part.

Peter says the best thing about this soup is that you can freeze it, put it in small containers, and then, on a cold winter night, when you don't know what else you want, pull it out for a homemade treat.

Vegetable Beef Soup - I love how everything coordinates!

Vegetable Beef Soup

~ 1 lb. ground beef (we've used leftover frozen burgers, ground turkey, whatever you have)

~ 2 qts. Tomato Juice (not V-8)

~ 1 bag frozen Vegetables for Soup (a must!  not mixed veggies)

~ 1 bouillon cube (dissolved in hot water)

~ Optional additions (diced onion, canned diced tomatoes, green beans, diced potatoes, clean out the fridge)

Brown the ground beef (you can do this the night before, drain it, pop it in the fridge and have it ready for the morning). Put the browned ground beef, tomato juice, bouillon and frozen veggies in a crock pot.  Turn on to LOW, 6-8 hours. That's it!

We served it with hot rolls and a Temperanillo.


So, back to the football game.  Last night was a challenge for us.  I'm a Washington girl and Peter's been an Eagles fan since birth.  I'm not crazy like he is about my football, but I definitely care.  We had to establish some game rules about not getting pouty or being sore losers and then, whoa!,  the Eagles came on like gangbusters.  Before I knew it, someone popped out of the room and came back in his throwback jersey (Randall Cunningham).  We forgot to make a rule about getting cocky!

I went to look for Watson's jersey, but it's somewhere in a storage unit.  No puppy jersey, no cat scarf! This is how it should have been:

Love these guys!  Hail to the Redskins!

Half of my clothes are still in storage due to the move, so no Redskins' tees were around, but hanging in the middle of all my dresses was my new throwback jersey (thank you wonderful brother-in-law and fam for my Sonny Jurgensen jersey).  Wearing it helped a little in the second half, along with my supportive yelling at the team, but we still lost.  Just less badly.

Anyway, I figure it's better this way.  Mr. Crazy About the Eagles can strut a little and I can insist he make his soup again for the rematch in November.

We can meet in the middle.

How about you?  Do you guys have any favorite easy recipes, crock pot or otherwise?  How about football watching traditions?  I promise more about house renovations and moving to come.

The Move Began - And the Lists

I just sold the house where I'd lived the longest ever - 17 years! - and packed up the U-Haul (twice!) and moved two states over.  I've lived in Maryland, Virginia, and now Delaware.  Now I can say I've lived in each state of the Delmarva peninsula (Del = Delaware, Mar = Maryland, Va = Virginia, get it?).

I decided in February to move to Delaware, so Peter and I spent more than 4 straight months getting the house ready to list.  As I said, there were 17 years at that house.  17 years of 4 kids, 2 adults, numerous pets, and tons of stuff (more on that later)!  I'd had house to-do lists for years, so I knew there was so much to do.  For one, the dining room floor needed redoing.  Yikes!  Don't bring in your plants for the winter and put them on a rug with only a garbage bag underneath - doesn't work:

Also, the kitchen needed a major overhaul as it was yucky when we got there in 1996.  Here's the window seat, which turned into a dog bed for Tucker and Eddie, then Roxie, and now Watson:

The "seat" is actually plywood covered with leftover carpeting from a basement re-do and is sitting on the floor.  I love that you can see several iterations of the kitchen underneath it.  Yup, I had once painted the kitchen (and the family room) that bright blue!  Then it was green, now orange!  And the window sills have the remnants of Roxie who would lie there, looking out the window and chew when she was stressed.  She was a rather stressy dog.  And you know how everyone always hangs in the kitchen when you entertain?   I would always cringe when someone (against my urging) would sit there.  It's like curling up in the dog bed!

So that space definitely needed work.  Lots of spackling, sanding, painting!  And then the other BIG thing was the master bedroom bathroom.  I'd been wanting a re-do for years, but the final push came because the little built in seat in the shower, which was tiled with 4" tiles, had rotted out.  It was disgusting, couldn't be cleaned, had little creatures crawling around.  Disgusting!  Did I already say that?  Well, it was.  Here it is being ripped out:

And here I am tearing down the rest of the tile:

That was my first time ever demolishing anything.  It was a blast.  Early in our relationship, Peter said he'd help take this project on.  He'd totally renovated his home and had the expertise and the TOOLS!  Nothing like a guy who knows what he's doing and has the right tools for the job.

Later I'll tell you more about my year with a plastic walled, deconstructed shower, and the bathroom contractor hunt, but back to what needed doing before moving.  I called a realtor friend and asked her to walk through the house and see what else I needed to do.  Here's that first list:
                 

(looking for that photo-L)

The checks and circles are from May, so you can see what I'd gotten done.  Of course, that was just the FIRST list.  There were many more to come (inside, outside, garage, attic!) but I was finally ready to list the house in July, only a month later than when I'd hoped.

And all the hard work paid off because, thanks to a booming market in Fairfax and a well prepped house, the house was on the market only four days and I got six - count 'em 6! - SIX! offers!

So the story of my move begins.  More later.  I'm just so proud to have a post with photos.  John and Sherry, thanks for the inspiration!

Blatant Rip Off

One of my latest obsessions has been the blog Young House Love.   John and Sherry are a young couple who love all things home and share their DIY projects, home ideas, party ideas, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  I love their style, their thinking, their vibe.  So here's my blatant rip-off of what they're doing - but from the perspective of a fifty-something.