Category Archives: Life in general

Solid ground

Posted on August 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

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It’s about to be fall… at least here in the States. Friday Night Football. Saturday Soccer (and rugby in this house). Weekday school and weeknight homework. People back in the office after vacations (try as we may, no matter how old we are, there is a tendency to follow a school calendar when it comes to levels of busy-ness).

Our summer was dissected by our move – everything until July 1 (Happy Birthday to me!) was getting ready to leave our home of ten years in someone else’s hands and everything after  that was turning this new house into our home. There wasn’t much time for “down” time but we still found it in the midst of all the ever-loving boxes (anyone want to come and finish unpacking for me – the wall is still hit).

I welcome the start of the season because it brings cooler temperatures and an abundance of new things (plus apples, pumpkins and an excuse for Saturday morning donuts – nothing goes better with fresh apple cider). The biggest deal is, of course, back to school – a new teacher, new classmates and (for this year) a new school. It’s exciting. It’s slightly anxiety-inducing. And it is busy. Oh so busy. But I say that about every season. Start of the new year? Busy. Spring with spring break and end of school. Busy. Summer vacation: still working, but fitting in vacations, out-of-town visitors and a multitude of fun plans. Busy. Fall (see above: busy). The holiday season* from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve? BUSY. In summary: Life is busy. It is ever-changing but always busy. Busy is always around, it just changes outfits.

My point – because I do have one: something (or someone?) is always always around. If you need some solid ground upon which to gather your wits or a respite in any size storm (even a drizzle) – look to God, cast your cares on Him. God is God; He is a rock – your rock and my rock. He is never too busy. He never changes. Forever and ever. He’ll get us through.

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*Note: Costco had their Christmas stuff out last week. In mid-AUGUST. That seems a wee bit premature.

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Posted in Faith, Life in general

Monday Musings

Posted on August 19, 2013 | 6 comments

ememby_Monday_Musings

  • Two weeks from tomorrow Liam starts second grade. I am equal parts excited for him to start at the new school, more than ready for the enforced structure of a school schedule and incredulous that summer is almost over.
  • After 90+ degree days in July, August took a turn toward the fall temps and I have been in heaven. Sleeping with the windows open and hanging out on our deck in the evenings without breaking into a sweat. Love.
  • My brother and his family were up visiting from Texas the last two weeks (on and off at our house, then my niece’s summer place with the whole family, then back to our house) – it was the thing we’d been looking forward to all summer and also allowed us four days at the beach. I’m sad it’s over now… I’ve got nothing big on the horizon planned for the fall (though I know we’ll still be busy because that’s life  – cue Frank Sinatra).
  • I made the mistake of drinking a Crystal Light with caffeine in it early yesterday afternoon which meant I could not fall asleep last night (because I am old). I made the most of that bit of unfortunate-ness by finishing a book I was reading (the second in the Divergent series – they are making the first one into a movie which I am almost positive I will enjoy more than Twilight and perhaps as much as the Hunger Games – if you like young adult fiction about dystopian societies, then I highly recommend the books), and handily I was still awake when the alarm in the boys’ room went off at midnight (Liam came in to woefully tell us he had “accidentally set it for midnight” and then I couldn’t find Jack because I had missed walking by him in our room in my rush to turn the stupid alarm off) but sadly I had just fallen asleep when Jack decided 2:00 a.m. was a good time to be awake (“I just can’t sleep mom, let’s cuddle”). I finally returned him to his own bed around 3:30, could not get comfortable for ages, kept envisioning someone breaking into our house and finally nodded off in the wee hours of the morning only to be woken up by Liam throwing open our bedroom door and telling me it was time to get up. Jack curiously wondered why I was still sleeping… um… All-in-all, not my favorite night of sleep – I miss the days of having infants when I could just nod off at any minute and would have no trouble falling back asleep after multiple wakings in the middle of the night… I mean, I was sleep deprived, but at least when given the opportunity, I could actually go to sleep.
  • There are no less than three baskets of folded laundry in our house at any given time. The minute I think I get all of the laundry done, I find new things that need to be washed – there has to be a name for this phenomenon, which is also related to finding ANOTHER dirty dish just after you have started the dishwasher. [Really, I think this phenomenon is called “life.”]
  • I had to put a baby jumper together last week for work so I could write the instruction booklet for how to put it together. Nothing looks less like you are doing actual work than putting together a child’s toy in your office. I momentarily felt a little sad I didn’t have a child to put in said bouncer/activity thing, and then I realized that having a baby would mean I’d be starting this whole whirlwind again and with Jack turning five in February, I feel like we’re finally getting out of it… like, perhaps things just get more manageable from here – or, at least a different kind of crazy that perhaps I can deal with… at some point the children start listening without my yelling my directives at them, right?
  • In a bit of small-worlded-ness, my friend, Stef, who moved back to the Cleveland area, lives just across the street and down from, Carla, a friend I went to high school with… what are the odds?
  • I have high aspirations for myself this coming school year… that I will have it all together and pay attention to the school calendar and always send Liam with the things he needs on the days he needs them. I also completed back-to-school shopping on Amazon… my favorite place to shop for all of the things…
  • One of my coworkers is in France for the month of August and another is in Switzerland for an anniversary trip… nothing makes one feel less exotic than looking at the places other people are… Simon reminds me that I have been to Australia and Kazakhstan (true enough, but I am not currently in either of those places and Grand Rapids, while cool, is not at all European, an area I have never traveled to).
  • How long do you think people will give me grace for having unpacked boxes around the house? I have lost the momentum and incentive for getting things unpacked. At this point, I would like to hire an organizer to finish what needs to be done, but I am not going to do that so instead… someone offer me a coffee or a night off from the kids and in exchange, I will keep unpacking. (maybe)
  • I LOVE fall and cannot wait to see our backyard as the leaves start turning. We are surrounded by trees on three sides and it is going to be lovely.

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Posted in Life in general, Random

Wednesday Randoms

Posted on July 24, 2013 | 3 comments

ememby_Wednesday_Musings

  • We have not been to the beach yet this summer… I’m hoping to remedy that this coming weekend, or at least in the month of August… then we’re going to make up for it by going ALL THE TIME
  • Simon has made our bed every day since we moved. I have not made my bed since I moved out of my parents’ house (which is only a slight exaggeration – bed-making is just not on my list of priorities, like ever)
  • We have yet to turn on the invisible fence for George and he has not yet tried to run away – though we do believe he has peed in the basement a couple times (I’m actually hoping it was George and not a relapse by the phantom pee-er)
  • I hosted my first get together at the new house last week… which was happy and sad because the get together was to bid farewell (or see you later) to my dear friend, Stef, who has now moved to Ohio. (I don’t want to talk about it. I am in denial and plan on staying there for a while.)
  • I also made sticky toffee pudding which I have always loved but never made because every recipe I found called for dates and I could not believe that something I loved so much actually included dates. I was wrong. It was delicious and something I will make again and if you come over to eat it, forget I told you there were/are dates in it because you will truly not notice – just ask my very picky husband who has eaten it multiple times (warmed up with vanilla ice cream).
  • Speaking of delicious, Sandy made a latte cheesecake for the party and oh my heck… freaking delicious. Like, inconspicuously try and lick the plate, delicious. And practically a health food since it was lower fat and made with Greek yogurt.
  • Summer has sort of killed my social life – people are always out of town on vacations or hosting visitors – they need to get back into the routine of school so I can have people to hang out with again. Come on people.
  • Our new satellite TV account allows us all the premium movie channels for three months so I’ve been getting caught up with/hooked on a bunch of new-to-me shows: Dexter, True Blood, The Veep and Newsroom. Newsroom is from Aaron Sorkin and it is fabulous – by far my favorite of these series options. It is brilliantly written, superbly acted and does for the news what The West Wing did for politics… if you can, you should watch it.
  • We are making new habits at the new house, for example… our mailbox is at the bottom of our driveway instead of up by our house so each afternoon, the boys run down and collect the mail; our yard also plays regular host to tiny little frogs that I feel like should not be in our yard if they are going to have a good shot at survival so when we find them, we “rescue” them and carry them across the street to the pond; and on Friday afternoons/evenings we go down to the river and the boys have a swim (if you ignore the highway overpass that goes right by us, it’s rather idyllic and honestly, the highway is just a constant noise – not like the stop and go/honking of regular street traffic – so it’s easy to ignore).
  • We’ve also gained some less favorable habits of NEVER letting mom sleep in and often trying to climb into bed with mom and dad in the middle of the night and standing on the coffee table (we had kept our coffee table in the basement of the old house since Liam was a baby). Not a fan.

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Posted in Life in general

This Old House

Posted on July 23, 2013 | 1 comment

I still find it hard to believe that someone else is living in my old house. That it is someone else’s house now. I feel like once we left it, our house ceased to exist and in a way, it did because it’s NOT our house anymore, it’s their house.

I have not been back there since we drove away from it two weeks ago but I drove by my friend Sarah’s old house yesterday (she moved two days after us) and it made me wonder what was happening at the old house, almost enough to want to drive by, but instead I look up the new owners on Facebook, hoping they will post pictures of their new home.

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I’m so glad we got to have one final meal there – well, the boys ate while I packed up the remaining items. I’ll miss the coved ceilings, the hickory wood floors and the lilies we planted over the years that come back to greet us every summer. But we took the most important things with us – the people that made the house a home – my boys (and George) are all I need to make me happy (and often frustrated as all get out).
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We put so much into that house in the last ten years:

  • central air
  • new garage door
  • new roof
  • repainted the entire exterior
  • gutted and remodeled second floor, complete with addition of a full bath (and she ended up taking the clawfoot tub that has lived in our garage the last 4 years – you can see it in the picture below)
  • new appliances (all but the stove/range)
  • brought the grass back from the dead and added many plants around the yard

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But the house also gave back so much more that cannot be quantified by money or time:

  • my first house – Simon was the second person to ever visit
  • our first home together – the place we exhaustedly (and happily) returned to after International trips, marathon road trips and weekends at the beach
  • a place to bring both our babies home to (Liam came home in the bright heat of summer, spending his first month swaddled up next to me in the one air conditioned room in the house; Jack came home a month earlier than expected, on an unseasonably warm day in February to a newly-remodeled upstairs that our friends moved us into while we were at the hospital having a baby)
  • location for a couple family holidays (I SO look forward to catching up on my hosting duties now that we have a house big enough for it)
  • play dates, birthday parties, backyard BBQs, girl’s nights with my friends, soccer-viewing on Saturday mornings
  • a home filled with much laughter, few tears, unforgettable memories and endless warmth (and not just before the AC was installed)

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I have so many memories in each room, and despite the negatives that come with an old house, I remembered none of those as I took one last walk through the rooms. It served us well, just like the new place will do in the coming DECADES (because we’re not moving AGAIN if we can help it, have I mentioned that?), but we outgrew it long ago.
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The new house is such a blessing to us, made possible by a sudden shift in the housing market and money left to us by Simon’s mom and dad – it will be their on-going gift to us for years to come and though they won’t see it physically, I know they are watching us and sharing in our joy. I cannot wait to share the new place with you – I just need to finish unpacking and my desire to unpack dwindled once I got the kitchen in order but we are nearly there – give me another week (or five) and I can share the final product with you… once we can actually park in our garage :). In the meantime, if you are local, please stop by for a visit and if you are not local – plan to visit soon! We’d love to have you and start adding to the memories of this new home.

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Posted in House, Life in general

Fer dumb

Posted on July 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

I hit myself in the eyebrow with the car door this morning. Wait, that sounds stupid. Let me try again. I opened the car door into my face this morning. Nope, still not a winner. I am a grown up who apparently can’t judge adequately when it comes to how much space she needs to NOT harm herself with a large piece of metal. [I did this before over a year ago on the opposite eyebrow and sported a bruise for two weeks and the point of impact still hurts if I press on it hard enough (so I do try to avoid pressing on it but I did it just now to test it the truthiness of my last statement).]

This recent incident happened two hours ago and it still hurts, has swelled a bit and grown a lovely red mark. I tried to take a picture to show you but a close up of my eyebrow revealed that I am way past due for some eyebrow waxing (it also revealed a wiry, gray hair). [On a related note, I met an aesthetician at the wedding this past weekend and someone asked her if she ever judged people who come in to get waxed and she said, “Everything is just another body part to me, that is no different than an elbow…” Which is both comforting and amusing when you think about it. And then we determined that a new code for a bikini wax, was getting your elbow checked out.]

We are supposed to be getting a cold front coming in sometime this weekend, which is sweet since it was already in the 80s when I drove to work. I HATE hot weather, it makes me grumpy and sweaty – two things I do not like to be.

My hope for you this weekend is that the weather will be how you want it to be (unless you live in GR and like it to be hot, then I hope you are disappointed) and that you won’t damage yourself with large metal objects you are in control of. Amen.

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Posted in Life in general, Random