Looking Forward To The Retirement Home!

When I was 18, I went away to college (Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas).  I was given a dorm room and a "Vali-dine" card (Oh! And a whole bunch of pesky books!). 

A Vali-dine card was a wonderful and miraculous thing -- I could just walk into the dining hall, get whatever food I wanted, slide the Vali-dine card through the machine at the checkout, and go eat with all my friends.  It was that simple.  Like magic! 

In my adulthood I've come to appreciate even more than I did back then the concept of a central, commercial kitchen where someone other than ME, plans the menu, procures the food, cooks the meals, and does the dishes!  It takes me back to my childhood where food just APPEARED!

The girls in my dorm and the boys in the dorm across the courtyard quickly came to the collective concensus that Vali-Dine cards were really great.  We also concluded that college would be really great if only we didn't have those pesky classes to go to!  We had our dorm rooms, our roommates, our suitemates, our friends, plenty of members of the opposite gender nearby, and regular  mixers.  We had a game room, a gym, a track, and courts for tennis, basketball, and raquetball.  We had cars, the neighborhood bar (The Bombay Bicycle Club), and all of colorful San Antonio to play in.  It was just those darn classes and all the studying that spoiled the fun.

Then we figured out that the college set-up without the classes is what retirement homes are!  You get the equivalent of a Vali-dine card, someone else does the cooking and cleaning and maintenance and manages all those other annoyimg details, and the residents are free to just PLAY!  Except for wrinkles, illness, arthritis, Alzheimer's, impotence, and a few other downfalls of old age it's just about the perfect world in my eyes!  At this point in my multi-wicked (as in, I burn my candle at MANY ends) adulthood, if classes were all I had to worry about, I'd be tickled to death (though not literally -- because one must watch out for things that end in death because they cut back on time in the retirement home!).

I would LOVE to spend about 30 years (from say 82 to 112) living in the retirement home!  I would read and write ALL DAY EVERY DAY!  And, if I needed a break or new topics or plot twists, I could have play dates with my friends until the writing inspiration returns!

All this makes aging sound so much better to me!  And, if I ever get bored, Mark and I can pretend we're batty and have great fun hitting people with our canes, dressing each other up in funny mismatched outfits, and talking in wacky circles about ridiculous things, repeatedly. 

I know for sure that Mark, whether in his right mind or not, can be counted on to give regular reports on the daily antics of the local squirrel population!  By way of a current example: most recently, he reported to me that he witnessed the bully squirrel from across the street run across the street, beat up a poor, unsuspecting squirrel in our yard, and then retreat back to his own yard!  Only Mark would notice this -- and delight in it!

We have also been known, during a long wait in the doctor's office waiting room, to catch imaginary butterflies out of the air and feed them to each other!  I definitely think we could manage to keep ourselves entertained in the retirement home!

I'd better start taking better care of myself because I have BIG plans for the retirement home and I want to be healthy enough to spend several fruitful and frolicking decades playing there!  In the meantime, I must be very, very careful to stay out of the paths of buses!

Mark and I have been practicing for our senior years!  We have photographic evidence but I can't get the photos to upload at the moment so check back later to see them!

Update

I just read my friend Vanessa's blog and found myself missing my blog SO MUCH! I'm on phone duty at work and there's no time for anything well thought-out but I just wanted to stop in and say hello!

Life has been wall-to-wall 16 hour days for the last couple of weeks. I've calculated that I'll be able to come up for air on June 18th -- unless something else comes up!

So, here's a brief summary of June so far: Sara-Grace turned 9 on the 9th and had a big day, we're preparing for her pool/cookout/slumber party which is tomorrow (the 12th), Matt was bitten by a baby water moccasin but it didn't occur to him to mention if for three days so I think he'll live, I've been emptying two houses and staging two more (half of which are in the next county so lots of driving and long hours away), I have two closings next week -- my first every buyer client and a town house I own myself, the sale of the town house will break the financial log jam we've been in for months (Praise God!), the girls FINALLY got out of school on Monday (June 7th) but I've scarcely laid eyes on them I've been so busy, I got to spend two weekends in Enid which I love, I had an open house last Sunday and another one this Sunday, I have an out-of-state buyer client coming in from South Dakota next week which has required lots of prep work, Mark and I are going to Fort Worth on the 24th for the RV auction on the 25th (maybe even ALONE!), and I'm living for the day (maybe June 19th?) when I can run away to Enid for a stretch and play summer in my little vintage house, start too many projects, write daily on this blog, and maybe even launch my Freesourcefull blog! Whew!

People always ask what I'm doing for the summer. My answer for the last decade has always been "as little as possible". That gets harder and harder to accomplish! But I still want to try!

Happy Summer and stay tuned!

Closet Desires

It's silly how little things can be so big.

I cleaned my closet. And now I am IN LOVE!

Last Saturday held an event that I wait for all year every year. No, not Christmas. Not Mother's Day. Not my birthday. It was the Washington Elementary Home Tour! The annual fund raiser for my daughter's school has taken on monumental meaning in my life. (Scroll back in my blog and you'll find photos from last year's home tour -- don't miss the flying monkey!).

This year, somehow, I became enamoured with closets. Maybe this was because there was only one house on the tour that I truly adored. Or it could be that, as a home tour volunteer for the first half of the day, I was stationed for a time in the "His" part of the his and hers closet/bath in a remodelled 1891 two-story. But don't feel too sorry for me -- this closet had bay windows, a marble shower and vanity, an antique desk, a handsome masculine armchair, and a flat screen tv! I marvelled at the tidiness. I counted the clothing (44 shirts, 8 suits, 3 pair of jeans, 12 pair of slacks, 22 tshirts). I pondered the livestyle. I soaked it all in.

How do people live so meticulously? I have clothes strewn everywhere. I have laundry coming and going and stalled out. I have "outta here" boxes loitering in my tv room. I have outfit considerations hanging around my bedroom like ghosts. And these people have all their clothes lined up in their closets with space between the hangers and not one single lost or hooky-playing shirt anywhere. Granted, they did probably clean like mad for weeks in preparation for the masses of the home tour trampling through their home. Or not. But, regardless, they both inspired and shamed me into spending the bulk of a perfectly good Saturday evening digging in my closet like a prarie dog adding on a bonus room!

Now my closet is CLEAN! And, oh, the wonder! I am in love. I gravitate to it. I stand in the door and soak it in whenever I pass. I revel in it as I dress. I made everyone in the house come up and admire and repeat scripted lines about the beauty of it. Mark seems to understand too -- yesterday he took me into the closet to show and tell me that he has so much respect for what I have done in there that he didn't dare fall short of maintaining it and that I should notice how there were no clothes overflowing the hamper and even his shoes were all lined up!

The joy my closet now gives me is exponentially greater than the sum of it's parts and completely disproportionate to reality. My world could easily revolve around that small room tucked upstairs where my joy now resides.

Skirts now hang at attention in their own shamelessly segregated section. Dresses are grouped by type with all four black dresses united in their own little cocktail party. Jeans do not carelessly mingle with slacks. The back corner holds a glorious profusion of formals including my green taffeta prom dress and the delicious chocolate brown satin dress that I wore to our wedding rehearsal dinner. In the corner of the top shelf is a stack of my grandmother's hat boxes. In a stack of matching plastic shoe boxes are, among others, the shoes I wore to my sister's wedding and the ones that I wore to my high school graduation. Belts have their own basket. As do scarves, socks, purses, and sweaters. Nine matching canvas bins hold sleepwear, lingerie, leggings, swimsuits, and sweatshirts. Tshirts and tank tops all have their assigned places. Luggage fits neatly on the top shelf. Shoes neatly line the rack on the back of the door.

Oh! And the lighting. I replaced the pathetic single bulb "builder basic" light fixture with what I like to call an "antler" fixture. I has four heads that each spotlight their own assigned section of the closet. The room looks like a high-end clothing store due to this exceptional lighting! This is particularly wonderful after a recent spell of NO lighting in the closet due to a sudden, deadly lightbulb epidemic that swept through in the course of a few days leaving no survivors (replacements, being costly, did not materialize immediately)!

A couple of years ago, my darling Tessa (then about 11) asked one day if she could organize my closet. Of course I said yes! She proceeded to color coortinate all my shirts! I loved it so much I have maintained the system and converted Mark's side of the closet as well. I've come to love knowing just where to focus when I wake up in a pink mood or a green phase!

I now delight in hanging up stray shirts --neatly inserting them into their slot in their color section with an almost-audible, satisfying "CLICK". I diligently move empty hangers to the empty hanger section. I even got rid of a bunch of clothes so everything would fit better. Granted, there are still no spaces between my hangers, but at least all the hangers fit! And all the hangers are white plastic and MATCHING! Because wire hangers and mismatched colors are just too imperfect. You knew that, I'm sure.

And now I wonder: why is it such a big deal to me?

At the moment, I have three jobs. I drive children for three and a half hours a day to school and basketball and home -- more on days with appointments or other events. I put in 16+ hour days most of the time. My husband is away on business 85% of the time lately. I'm afraid of my bank account. My dogs still think my commands are mere suggestions. The cats have their own household government. I feel overwhelmed and helpless and stressed out of my mind and, oh, did I mention OVERWHELMED?

And then there's my closet, my little island of serenity. Proof that I can master SOMETHING. Proof that order and peace DO still exist in the world are ARE potentially attainable.

I can now walk around out in the world with the warm, sustaining knowledge that my closet, a thing of beauty and order and deep, deep meaning, awaits at home ready to reassure me that I am, indeed, a success at SOMETHING!

Christine's House

Mark and I have a running debate. We often spar over whether or not selling houses is actually selling -- as in requiring sales skills.

Mark is a natural-born salesman. He could sell ice in the Arctic. I, on the other hand, want to go hide in the house at my own garage sales. I could fail miserably at selling ice in the desert. So, if selling houses really IS sales, I am getting into the wrong business!

I say that you can't sell someone a house -- in terms of being the force that convinces the buyer to purchase. A house isn't an impulse buy. A house is our largest material necessity. No one is going to buy a house on impulse like they buy those shoes or those golf clubs that they end up smuggling into some hiding place in the closet.

A person must find THEIR HOME. They must find the place they want to wake up in the morning and go to sleep in at night and be the backdrop for all the scense that go on in the middle. They must find the place that FEELS RIGHT. My job is just to come up with a list of possibilities and open the doors.

Similarly, you can't go out and find a buyer for a house you're trying to sell. You can try to pull as many people as possible into the house to see it and make the house look as optimal as possible (hence my staging business). But, for the most part, you have to wait for the right person to walk into "their" house.

This week I spent several days with my first buyers: an incoming History professor from Virginia, his wife, and one of their three young sons. They had three days to learn Fayetteville, choose their favorite area, and find a house they wanted.

The first day was a whirwind! We looked at 12 or 14 houses in many different parts of town. They honed in on their preferred area and then we tried to find the most optimal house in that region.

I'll never forget the look on Christine's face the first time we left the house they would end up choosing. She looked like she was in love! I never saw that look on her face in any other house. The love affair was clear enough that I even said to her, "It looks like you've found your house!" Her reply was: "Ssssshhhhh!"

Over the next two days, I watched this couple weigh their options, wrangle over their differences, and wrestle with the financial practicalities of it all. I also watched them make the same decision at least four times over. Christine knew her house.

I just openned the door!

Never Mind...

I was going to write something sparkling and witty and brilliant for the blog this morning -- especially after being rather (ok, VERY) depressing lately with "As She Lay Dying" and all that.

But then I read Heather's blog post for today www.dooce.com and now I'm completely intimidated. She makes it look so easy. Maybe that's why she's #22 on the 2009 list of Best Blogs! That would make sense.

My writing is something I do for myself (I remind that same self). But it would be nice to be semi-decent at it (kinda like semi-sweet chocolate is really, massively spectacular despite the disclaimer-like use of the word "semi", you know?).

Oh well. Yawn...

The Anything and Everything Principle

File this under "Things I've Learned"!

I have learned that, when I don't know what to do about a problem, the best solution is to do anything and everything I can think of -- simultaneously. This usually combines exercise with vitamins with Googling with seeking wisdom from others with prayer with brainstorming with whatever else I can think of. Basically, it's throwing the whole tool box at the problem!

The really neat thing it that it almost always works! You may never know what exactly it was that worked, but something DOES work! It may be one thing. It may be a combination of things. It may be the whole dynamic or just taking an attitude of action. But something usually works! And I love the comfort of knowing that something WILL work. To go from a place of despair to a place of confidence and hope is a wonderful thing! There's something about pulling yourself out of the mire and crawling up onto a rock like a frog out of a swamp that grows our legs and frees us to jump!

My favorite example of how this method worked for me came in response to a medical diagnosis: hypothyroidism. Me? HYPOthroid? It didn't feel like MY body they were talking about. It just felt WRONG. I had the lab re-run the test. Same result.

The doctor wanted to put me on synthetic thyroid hormones FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! I balked at the very thought.

I begged the doctor for time and took to my computer. In the course of researching the thyroid, I happened onto a little phrase that said that the thyroid gland is a calcium receptor. Hmmm...

When I thought about it, I realize that I was drinking a LOT of calcium fortified orange juice every day and some milk on top of that. I calculated that I was getting 4-5 times the recommended daily allowance of calcuim. What if I'm overloading my thyroid with too much calcium, I wondered. I switched to regular OJ and focused my mind on the number I wanted to see on my next thyroid test.

A month later the test came back at the exact number I had envisioned! Problem solved!

A few years later my thyroid levels were off again. I realized that I was drinking LOTS of milk. I cut back on the milk and my thyroid levels went right back to normal again! Like magic!

If you have used the "anything and everything" method or do so in the future, let me know how it went/goes. I want to hear stories!

Perspective

(Warning: This post relates heavily to previous posts so, if it makes no sense to you, that's why! Sorry it's not a literary masterpiece but I'm just where I am today!)


Another important lesson I learned from my mother's death is this: if no one is actually, physically, immediately DEAD or DYING, how bad can it really be?

I spent today estranged from the whole fairy dust principle. I cried my way through church and then wrestled all afternoon with hopelessness and some pretty staunch bitterness at God (among others) about circumstances in my present situation.

I finished my open house, went home, and took to my bed. Turns out God had a correspondence course waiting for me on TV. I don't really know how it happened, but I found myself watching a show about two young college women who were involved in an horrific car wreck. One died. The other suffered a brain injury and significant facial swelling. Their identities were switched at the scene of the accident and their families mourned/nursed the wrong person for over a month.

Who can watch such a thing without trying to imagine how all the parties involved might feel and what it would be like to get a second chance like that? In the course of this mental process of empathy, I was walked, step-by-step to the conclusion I've come to before, to the lesson I've learned before but that is easy to forget:

Really now -- no one is dying here!


Next up: the "anything and everything" principle