Playing House

 I have a certain fondness for empty houses.  No clutter.  A person can breath in a house which is cavernous and full of echoes.  But, unfortunately, a person can't really sleep, eat or sit in an empty house.  So fill it we must.
The kitchen, shown here to the left was perplexing.  It is, essentially, a large room with a stove and refrigerator and a small closet-ish room with a sink and a dishwasher.  Initially, I saw this with dismay as I wondered where I was going to store things or chop food.  Once the shock settled I realized that some of my favorite kitchens are those without fitted cabinets and a typical layout.  I love eclectic and unusual houses so I couldn't settle for cookie cutter here.  The kitchen has been the heart of every  

home I have been happy in.  So this is where I wanted to spend most of my efforts.  Food is love therefore the kitchen and dining room must be love factories .. maybe not.  That sounded better in my head. Let's forget that.

Anyhow, I decided to begin my expedition.
I am an avid believer in free and cheap.  Its a passion of mine.  Cheap = happy.  However when it is freezing weather and you don't have the ability to scour the countryside for said free and cheap items, it's time to go to Ikea.  They have an "as is" section which I love to haunt.  Stained display couches, incorrectly assembled chairs, nicked picture frames; like an indoor yard sale for poor quality but very cool items.  After much circling and aimless wandering the solution made itself known.
Exhibit A:

We got a massive island type piece

 Kitchens are so messy and represent so much work.  And yet they are happy places, or they should be.  I was able to save some of my favorite things from being yard saled before our mighty trek to from California and used them to create a happy place for my family to stuff their faces.  Plus, I am a pretend foodie so I need a pretend culinary hub.


The results made me happy as a clam which, by the way can be found fresh up the street if a person has a bucket and a strong desire for good chowder.  When I take the kids to the beach up their we see the clams spitting water.

We are far away from friends and family so I feel a huge push to make our home life as pleasant and inspiring as possible.  It keeps things looking sane even when they feel so very out of control.

"Herban garden"

And for the dining room, we had no furniture at all. We thought about making it a skating rink or installing a swimming pool but decided the downstairs neighbors may be displeased.  Look how shiny the floors are. They definitely won't be looking like that again for a while.  I would blame my three boys but it's really that I am not very ambitious when it comes to floors.  A character flaw of mine.

The room had no lighting so we strung up some lights, bought wicker furniture and called it a day.  Apartment life is not alway my favorite but when I am not allowed to drill, paint or dramatically alter the place it calms my wild imagination and makes me settle for plain and clever.  The light in this house is just delicious.  We are flooded in light all day, a great way to fight those "I'm in New England and everyone is really grouchy and drive like maniacs" blues.  Natural light cures many evils. 

And that's that.

When I grow up.

What did you want to be when you grow up? A better question, do you know anyone who actually became what they dreamed they would be?  Chances are good that most of us did not fill the roles of doctor, ballerina and firefighter.  The truth is that life sort of happens to us and we become what we have to in order to keep afloat.  At my earliest recollections, I wanted to be barbie so that I could wear the beautiful peach colored Barbie evening dress that I carried around with me everywhere.  And have a dream house.  And a corvette.  I still sort of want those things.  Gradually I started to realize that that would never happen so I chose the next logical option,  I would be a paleontologist.  Years passed and I got the leading role in a play and before you can bat an eye I knew that I was destined to life on the stage.  That ran its course and was replaced with a myriad of other professions.

Then I met this family.  A mother, a father and nine (at the time) children.  When I saw that there was such a job as a "stay at home" mom, a seed was planted.  I had no idea that people could do that.  All I knew of women that stayed home was taught to me from cable television and visions of Bon Bons and large pink hair rollers came to mind.  But here was this enormous family with a mom and dad who were fun and interesting and rebellious in the most intriguing, wholesome way.  At the time I was really intimidated by how polite, kind and real these people were but even when I was withdrawn from them I couldn't stop thinking about them.  Years passed and though I had moved to a different part of the state they were still constantly on my mind.  I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted what they had.

 I was seventeen when I realized that for all the big talk about what I was going to do after high school I really did not want any of it.  What I wanted more than anything else was to be a mom.  The kind that does not get a fancy title or wear pencil skirts and stilettos to work everyday.  I wanted to be an earthworm digging, play dough shaping, bread baking, fort making mom.  When I realized this I was standing in the little orchard that was on the side of our house and I stopped pruning the blackberry vines long enough to just soak in the revelation I just had.  Suddenly all of the SATs and the college applications and the "I'm going to get my masters in ..." dissolved and I was filled with relief and profound joy.  I dropped my pruning sheers and felt the most profound peace in such a tangible way that I knew it was from God.  The fog was rolled away.  I knew my calling.

Eleven years later I have three extraordinary boys and hope to have many more.  Granted, the details of my life are different than I wanted and expected.  Instead of living on acres of land in the country I live in an apartment in the city and instead of waking up early to feed the chickens I wake up and blog.  But the essentials are in tact.  I have taught my boys how to open the door for ladies and how to read.  I have taught them when to put the yeast into the bread dough and how to make a paper airplane.  That's really something.

 On days when I am overwhelmed by the screaming, teething baby on my hip and the sink full of dishes I sometimes allow my mind to wander to the what ifs.  What if I had called back that tv producer and taken the roll in that commercial, what if I pursued my writing and photography and went into journalism.  Images of a seamless me without stretch marks and nappy hair, doing interesting things come to mind and make me feel like I settled for less.  I begin to feel sorry for myself because I haven't showered in days and haven't seen another adult in just as long.  Poor me.  Then something amazing will happen.  Jack will take his first step or William will record minutes of silence on his music recorder and then entitle the song, "Ninja song."  Or I will overhear my oldest boy praying when he thinks no one is listening and thanking God for loving him so much.  That's when I remember why I chose this unglamorous and slightly invisible life.  As my dad would say, I am not here to raise children I am here to rear adults.  And that, good friends, is what I intend to do.

I guess what I am saying is that I am blessed to actually be doing what I had set out to do.  I really am.  I stuck to my guns and am really doing this thing.  But I know that there are far more people who are stuck in a job that they did not choose.  This is a tough world.   My very good friend Kristi once said that grown up life is mean.  She's right, life is no respecter or life goals or dreams.  So for those of us who chose our field of work and for those of us who did not, here is a little encouragement that gets me through the rough patches.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Colossians 3:23

 

Teething and Other Disasters

For you two and a half loyal readers, I apologize for my sudden lack of posts.  Look.  My one year old is cutting six teeth and free time is a phantom, a taunting memory of something lovely which is no more.  But to console my avid followers who have felt a sting of purposelessness without my regular posts and who feel as if I have betrayed them to a life without the meaning that comes from reading about my children who like to poop in public (a run-on sentence feels good sometimes) I have a gift.
Bam! A sleeping baby.  Just gaze upon this ball of snuggly sweetness and all will be well.

 

Let us return to the final chapter of the journey to Massachusetts.  I left off with our son's query as to whether we were homeless or not.  It was not an easy question to answer because in the truest sense of the word we were homeless.  We overused the word "adventure" with our kids when referencing our lack of home, job, friends, church, toys, stability ... the boys probably now associate that word with all things unpleasant and uncertain.
We lived in the Bedford Motel many a day and spent those days watching the beautiful fall leaves blow away and our money with them.  The house/apartment/anything we could get our hands on hunt lagged on and on.  Again and again we were turned down.  We drove further up the coast and landed in Salem.  The town of witches.  We drove endlessly until I found a Craigslist add for an apartment for rent.  The price of the rent was astronomical but we were without options.  I called the phone number and the man was extremely friendly and said that he just wanted to take his dog to the pet cleaners to get the poop out of her fur and then he could meet us to show us the house.  Okie dokie.  You do that.  We drove to the address in the listing and found before us a three story black Victorian with a large grey porch and autumn mums all around.  That and the fact that it was way above our budget immediately landed this place in the "way out of our league" category.
I really don't remember seeing the apartment at all because I was so focused on trying to corral my extremely rowdy boys.  They had been strapped into their seats for so long that when they were released it resulted in a cataclysmic burst of spastic behavior.  It was so bad that I could not stop my oldest from sniffing and licking the walls.  They were throwing themselves on the floor, laying on their sides while using their feet to propel themselves clockwise.  Mortified I whispered fierce threats through clenched teeth and could scarcely make eye contact with the guy who was showing us the place.  I had no thought that we could possibly get this place so it seemed as if we were waisting the time of this seemingly nice person who was probably waiting to pick up his dog and wondering what was wrong with our bizarre children.
I fairly ran out when the tour was finally over, ready to brood and stream while furthering our search for a place to live.  Once the kids were lassoed and buckled in and we were ready to drive away I saw that my dark and miserable attitude was not matched at all by my husband's mood.  He was all smiles and hopeful thoughts.  A real bucket of sunshine, which is not the most pleasant thing when one is set on being morose.  He then told me that he thinks that there is a pretty good chance that this place might work out.  At my raised eyebrows he elaborated.  Apperently, while I was busy plucking my children out of the bathtub and trying to stop them from licking the major appliances Andrew was having a very pleasant chat with the guy showing us the apartment.  He told him about Jack's past and why we had moved here and the two talked about life and God and music and really hit it off.  A glimmer of hope began as I saw a chance arising here.  Later that night we heard back from the landlord who said that he was really moved by our story and would really like to just outright rent the place to us without doing any reference calls, he would just need to get a check on our credit and be back with us in the morning.  That was such great news that we decided to call it a night and celebrate by quitting our house hunt early and going back to the motel room.  The next morning we were driving to get breakfast and got the call.  The guy, Charley is his name, called to tell us that he did not get our credit check back but that he did look at the web sight for the church that we had just left and was really moved by Jack's story and by all the work that we had done within the church and just wanted to offer the apartment to us no questions asked.  (!!!!!)  Holy smokes, people.  That was the best news we had heard in days.  I suddenly wished I had looked at the place a bit more because I couldn't even remember what it looked like or how many rooms it had.  We scarfed down our breakfast and raced to the apartment.  We signed papers and handed over gobs of money in exchange for keys to our new home.  Finally, we can rest after our long journey.  The apartment was flooded in light and character.  It was so beautiful that I hated to fill it with our things.  I wanted to keep it cavernous and shining.

Our neighbors downstairs were very friendly and also had two kids and the neighborhood was quiet and quaint.  Down the street was a massive park complete with a small cove and beach as well as a genuine settlement from the 1600s.  Have I died and gone to heaven?
Perhaps not, but we had definitely landed in a much better place than we ever would have hoped for.  We filled the house with our things and found that lacking a couch and kitchen table and any counters in the kitchen was less than ideal so the only logical step followed.  Ikea.  Nuff said.
Moving is stressful no matter the circumstances but the plus is that we get to recreate our living spaces.  Time to make our house a home.