There's No Place Like Home

Sometimes things just fall into place.  I'm sure it's accidental, and hardly ever happens, but when it does... it feels SO good.  The Township called to let me know that the permit for my front porch has been approved.  Most of the snow melted today, and the rest of the week will be warm, so my son will have perfect weather to begin building.  While we were waiting Joe and I painted the master bedroom walls and trim and took down the old, mangled metal venetian blinds on the windows.  We replaced them with soft white honeycomb shades.  I even rearranged the furniture and hung my 'Gone With the Wind' framed movie poster above the bed.  Everything is warm, clean and fresh.  It's starting to look like a woman lives here again.  ME.  I think I may actually be falling in love with this house now.  Ray's house.  OUR house.  And I'm starting to feel like I'm finally... home.

The Last Frontier

It took me all weekend, but I finally cleaned out Ray's bedroom.  I am no doubt permanently traumatized, but I survived.  I had to do most of it while he was at work on Saturday and watching the football game with friends on Sunday.  I foolishly attempted to coerce him into helping me go through his drawers on Saturday night, but he had a story behind and a reason to keep every piece of junk in that room.  I soon realized that with him assisting me, we'd never finish.  Even after he returned home from watching the game, he started poking around the trash bags I had filled.  "You didn't throw away anything important, did you, honey?", he asked me numerous times.  "Nope", I answered truthfully.  Unless of course he thinks he'll need more than 20 pairs of shoe laces, 500 packets of eyeglass cleaner, 16 rolls of dental floss, about $2 in Mexican money, hundreds of batteries in assorted sizes, and thousands of rolls of film...  But I guess he DOES think that or he wouldn't have saved them all in the first place.  The scary part is that he knows exactly what he has and where it is.  At least he DID know.  Now... we'll be like every other normal couple who is in an extremely happy, fully satisfying, and totally committed relationship.  HE won't be able to find a damn thing... without asking ME first. 

All I want for Christmas....

'Todd' kept me waiting in the zoning office for 20 minutes when I went to see him.   He was busy denying someone else's permit, no doubt. Suddenly... there he was.  The man who had occupied most of my thoughts for the past 2 months.  He didn't look evil.  In fact, he was hardly more than a boy.  Probably half my age.  But he held the future of my front porch in his hands.  I didn't know whether to kiss his ring or smack his little face.  He told me that if I was planning on "just replacing the rotted wood from the old porch, and using the pre-existing footers", then he would approve the plans.  I was stunned.  Why couldn't he have done this for me 2 months ago?  I didn't feel guilty lying to him, because if his office had given the previous owners of Ray's house HALF the trouble they gave ME, then their old porch never would have been approved in the first place.  Actually, there are no pre-existing footers.  That's one of the reasons the porch was collapsing.  So I looked right into his baby blues and without ANY trace of hesitation I told him the lie he forced me to tell.  'Todd' approved my plans, and I almost danced down the hall to the next office where I now had to get approval from THEM.  The lady behind the counter assured me that HER office would approve the plans by Wednesday.  Then my son could start to build it.  Of course I'm not waiting until Wednesdy.  We have to get those cement footers into the ground before it freezes, and it's supposed to be warm all next week, despite this weather that we're having right now.  Ray's flight to Utah was canceled and he decided not to go skiing after all.  So we are going to tackle that bedroom.  It's completely filled with stuff... his, mine and ours.  Not to mention his ex's, my ex's, his ex's father's, my kids, the previous owner's...  But I now have a plan.  If we aren't going to use it REGULARLY, if it would cost us money to replace it if we didn't have it, if it doesn't make our lives easier or happier in some way, THEN OUT IT GOES.  I was going to do this while Ray was away... but I'll just have to do it with him here now.  Ray is no match for me.  Afterall... I had three kids!

Let It Snow! For about an hour!

It snowed last night and we woke up to find our house surrounded by a winter wonderland.  I have to admit it looks beautiful, even though I am not a big fan of snow.  But Ray is.  He is a skier... the 'extreme' kind.  Which means he will ski off the top of most any mountain regardless of the danger.  He's very good though, so I don't worry too much.  He once thought about trying out for the US Olympics.  Me?  I'm lucky if I can walk out to the car through the snow without slipping and breaking an arm or a leg.  Maybe even my own!  Taking a bath is enough danger for me.  Ray is going skiing with a friend tomorrow and he won't be back until late Tuesday night.  I am going to take this opportunity to finish the bedroom.  When you live with a pack rat your only hope of throwing anything out is when they are away.  And one of the days that he'll be gone is trash day!  How lucky can I get?  The exterior front lights were finally delivered and my son put them up yesterday.  They look great but I think 100 watts is a bit too bright.  The wood for the front porch is just sitting in the driveway all wet and covered with snow.  For a few minutes I fantasized that I had 'Todd' chained to that pile, freezing slowly in his underwear, trying to fend off stray cats and gophers.  I'm smiling at Christmas Carollers as I slowly roast 'Todd's' chestnuts on an open fire while he screams, "OK!  I'll give you the permit!  Build anything you want!  PLEASE!"  It was so... gratifying!  I guess we shouldn't have had that wood delivered before we were sure the township would approve the plans.  But I think I'm starting to wear 'Todd' down...  In fact I'm heading over there right now to see him.  Wish me luck! 

Be afraid. Be... very afraid.

I have always loved trees, so it's been a pleasure living directly across the street from a park. But today was my first actual experience with raking leaves.  Before today I thought of this as a 'fall tradition enjoyed by those lucky enough to live among trees.'  I now realize that it's... a curse.  It's not colorful fall foliage dancing merrily to the ground, signifying the end of one life cycle and a prelude to the next.  Oh no.  It's Mother Nature having a temper tantrum throwing millions of tree droppings to the ground, reminding us that our work is never done, and the better your harvest the higher the price will be at the end of the season.  The Township where we live sends a truck out twice a year to vacuum up leaves that residents have raked into neat piles at their curbs, making it unnecessary to scoop them into plastic bags. No matter what else is going on in your life you have to take out time to go and rake up the leaves.  It's not a task for anyone with an anger management problem.  The leaves continue to fall as you rake them.  Just as you clear one area a gust of wind blows your neighbors leaves over onto your property.  Nor anyone with a Type A personality either.  You could easily become so immersed in such a raking frenzy, that before you knew it you'd find yourself on the other side of the State, still raking.  But... I found something in Ray's shed.  A very powerful, electric... leaf blower.  Once I got the hang of it, I was almost as powerful as Mother Nature herself.  Able to whisk piles of leaves away in a split second, corralling them like a cowboy rounding up his cattle.  I could even blow away dust and debris from the driveway!   Maybe this magical and mystical tool has other uses?!  I could open the hatch in my car and simply blow all the dust out the back instead of using the vacuum!  The house!  I could dust an entire room in seconds!  Direct it all to the front door, into the driveway and back into the park where it probably came from in the first place!  Yes!  I will finally be... the master of my domain!  I am like a Super Hero just coming out of a telephone booth.  Be afraid dirt.  Be... very afraid.

Cheap and Gaudy?

Ray and I have had our first serious difference of opinion.  He does not like my 3 foot, light-up plastic Santa that has been adorning every one of my entryways since all of my children have been toddlers.  He even went so far as to say that he thought my Santa was "cheap looking and gaudy."  Now this is the same man who has a pair of bright white plastic hands, palms open, on a base that sit on top of his TV to hold the remote control device.  Nothing cheap or gaudy THERE!  But I love Ray.  I'm trying to remember that he never had any children and he doesn't get all warm and fuzzy when it comes to any activities that involve Santa or any kind of stuffed animal.  Except for that teddy bear of his that I accidentally threw out!  We'll NEVER be able to forget THAT now, will we?  I have kept myself busy though.  The outside lights finally arrived and my son put them up for me today.  The wiring was screwed up (what a suprise) and it took us about 2 hours to get all three up and working but they look great!  It's actually so bright out there now that I don't even need to plug in my plastic Santa.  Ray said that he found him lying on the side of the house last night when he came home from work.  Sure.  Sure he did. "The wind must have blown him over", he told me.  So he picked him up and carried him into the house "for safekeeping."  I put him back out there tonight where he stands under those bright lights, ready to greet yet another Christmas with me.  This year he'll delight my baby grandson like he delighted my kids when they were small.

Only this time... I started a new tradition that I'm sure I'll continue each and every year from now on... I filled him with some bricks and tied him to the hose bib!  And when we finally build that porch he's gonna have at least 2 light up reindeer standing beside him! 

Ho-ho-ho! 

Deck The Halls!

My daughters moved completely out of their apartment over the weekend.  They are now living with a friend who already had furniture of her own so they really didn't need what I had.  Since Ray had his own furniture too, my bedroom, kitchen and living room stuff is now being stored in my ex-husband's garage.  It's odd really.  He got all of our marital furniture in the divorce, and now everything that I had to buy once I was living on my own is now with him, too.  If it wasn't for the fact that I was planning on giving that new furniture to the kids anyway, I think I would be having a major anxiety attack over this.  Not having to pay for a storage facility helps a little too, I suppose.  I did take all of the Christmas and holiday decorations, wall hangings, silk plants and flower arrangements back to Ray's house though.  I didn't want my ex's girlfriend to confiscate any important stuff like that.  Although I won't have to help the kids pay the bills anymore (which is a relief), now there is so much stuff piled up around here I have to make pathways for us to walk through.  I don't even know where to start.  I'd love to be able to hang my Christmas decorations around the fireplace, but I guess putting away all of this stuff so that we can get out of bed without tripping and go to the bathroom without climbing over boxes to get there would be more important...  Wouldn't it?  Yes.  It would.  I should just wait until next year to decorate.  But...  Christmas only comes once a year you know.  This mess will be here forever.  What's one more month?  What if I'm not even living next year?  Life is short they say.  Of course, my life might be even shorter if Ray comes home and sees that I just decided to decorate instead of putting my stuff away.  Then I'd never get to put my Christmas stuff up.  Hmmm....