Who knew...

If you had asked me 8 months ago what I would have been doing the last few months, who would have ever known what my answer would have been?  Certainly not me!

In the past 7 ½  months since Steve left this earth, I seem to have been one busy person.  I’m not sure I have followed one bit of the advise that is given to a grieving spouse.  You know the sage words of wisdom, “Don’t make any major decisions for at least a year after one’s spouse has passed away.”   Well, I seem to have greatly colored outside the lines in every way possible. Call it scribbling if you wish, but at the moment, each of my decisions has seemed to make perfect sense or at least be justified.  See what you think…

Who knew that I would be the new mother of a 9 year old Wheaton terrier, Lucy Belle?  Lucy B has made me laugh, she has frustrated me with her “sleepy bladder,” her ability to escape a 5 ¼” fence opening when her head is a full 5”, her desire to jump in the car with me, or anyone who happens to drive by so that she can hang her adorable mangy head out of the window while her tail swipes me in the face with each happy wag.  

This darling hunk of hair has given me so much joy since I adopted her in September that nothing she could do would lower my attachment and love for my furry child.  Who knew that in almost 8 months I could spoil a dog rotten to the point that she is now making most of the household rules?

Who knew that almost 8 months ago this home flopping domino effect would have taken place.  Brooke and Jared moved into a new home in November causing me to buy their house early.  I came back from a New York trip in December, to find a telephone message from old neighbors that smoothly enabled me to sell our home with the greatest of ease and begin remodeling my now almost, new home...who knew?

Who knew that I would buy a 1970 Chevy C10 sidestep truck because Steve and I had always talked about owning a truck, a new truck, and yet we never actually bought one, much less a 44 year old truck?

Meet the Dovie Lea

Now on this note, I would like to make a few personal observations.  I realize that in 8 months I have bought a 9 year old rescue dog, sold my wonderful home and bought a 44 year old truck.  I understand this is far from “normal” for a widow, not to mention, I have made trips to Santa Fe, New York and Israel in the last 7 ½ months and am planning a trip to Costa Rica in the Spring...this is simply bazaar behavior.  

I see all of this clearly and realize I’m maybe, a bit out of control.  There are, however, some widows (really hate that word) that might instead of buying said dog, house, truck spend the same amount of money on say a face lift, or perhaps a boob job, or whatever it is women do to try to make themselves feel a little better about their crummy situation.  

Now, don’t get me wrong, whatever it takes to get someone through this ruggedness is fine with me as long as no one gets hurt in the process, I’m not casting stones here.  I’m simply saying that instead of having people come up to me and say, “Wow Janet, you look amazing!”  They might find themselves saying, “There goes that crazy old widow woman driving around in that rattly old truck with her shaggy old dog hanging out the window...What’s up with her?”  Who knew?

Lucy Belle loves The Dovie Lea…she will sit in it for hours

Who knew that to continue the domino effect of house shuffling Brent will soon own his own home in Austin?  How convenient for me!  In all my downsizing I can now hand down all my “stuff” that will not fit into my new home to my children...this way I really don’t have to part with any of my treasures.  Who knew? 

Who knew that life without Steve could continue for me?  There were many days I feared that I couldn’t live without Steve.  How could I ever laugh again?  How could I ever find joy when so much joy had been robbed from me?  How could my life continue?

Harper & Harris with their buddy LB.  Who couldn't find amazing joy here?

Do I wish for my old life back?  In a heart beat, but that is not my call so I have chosen to go with this crazy flow, roll down the windows of my ’70 Chevy, let my 9 year old dog lap in the fresh air and move forward...who knew?

Lucy after 4 hours never budging from this spot

With all my love,

Janet

Esther 4:14 "Who knows but that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this...?" 

Holes in the wall...

I’ve been taking down all the things that Steve and I have hung on the walls of our home for the past 12 years that we have lived in this house.  Each item I release from the wall, leaves telltale signs of who had hung them, Steve or me.

I can’t really say we had walls full of “art”, as that would be a grave exaggeration.  Instead, what I will say is that we had walls full of eclectic pieces that had meaning to us for one reason or another.  Many of the reasons were, that I found something strangely quirky and thought, “Let’s hang it on the wall!”  Steve would always grimace and question my sanity, but once hung would kindly go on and on about what a cool find it was.  Some examples: an old broken fluglelhorn that Steve had found in a ditch in his younger years.  I found it stashed away in the attic and promptly hung it on the wall.  An old Mexican door that I found at Bazaar Sabado (a benefit for SAMA), I thought Steve was going to clobber me, but in the end, it hung in our dining door and he loved it.  

Steve's Fluglehorn

St Michael Door from Mexico

Other things:  Quilts and hand hooked rungs that Steve cleverly had me stitch heavy industrial velcro on the back and then he staple gunned the rough end of the velcro to the wall and voila, wall hanging, neat and tidy!  An Italian ceramic lion head and sort of bowl that I had had grown up with forever, we hung it and filled it with wax apples...very fun.  Assorted metal pieces, one of a man looking through a telescope, one of the word “Joy”.  This was hung by Steve with great care.  Steve never wanted nails to show, so on this particular metal sign he had attached magnets to the back and then odd little hooks to attach to the tiny nails.  Joy simply floated on our wall!  I could go on and on, but you “get the picture,” right?

My metal man...just because

Garcia blown glass flower

So last night I spent the night taking down most of our wall “art”, and we had a lot.  As I took each piece down I could immediately tell if I had hung them or if Steve had.  I can vividly remember buying something and bringing it home and hoping, okay maybe even praying, that Steve would be playing tennis or golfing so that I could hang the said piece without so much of a “to do.”  

You see, Steve and I were so very different on so many levels.  He was a detail man.  He was driven and purposeful and liked to think and ponder and deliberate before taking action.  I, on the other hand, will just grab a hammer, a handful of nails and start banging away until the said piece seems to stay in place.  Sometimes they did and sometimes they fell flat on the floor, but Steve’s pieces never budged from those walls.

So here I am, Saturday night 7:00 p.m. taking down our wall decor...fun stuff.  It took a few pieces before I started smiling, then got a little teary, remembering so clearly the history of the hanging of the pieces and how we/Steve would calculate hanging them to death.  Steve with molly bolts, levels, tape measures and blue tape in hand and me standing by like a nurse in the OR handing him:  drill, phillips head screwdriver, stud finder, hammer...it was serious business.  

The holes in the wall tell the story.  Steve’s holes are deep and sound.  Mine...well my holes had multiple little holes all around one big hole where I would place a nail and move it, and nail it just a little to the left and stand back and look and remove it again,  and re-nail until the wonky piece would fall out of the wall.  Finally I would wait for Steve to come home so I could admit I had bought yet another weird but wonderful piece of wall paraphernalia, watch him moan and groan and then go through the exasperating task of hanging, only to gratifyingly hear him at the end of each episode say, “Man, that looks really amazing!  Good work Janet.”

Steve's Holes

My holes (for one hanging)

So I spent my Saturday night remembering each of those episodes.  I remembered us getting short with one another. I remember times when I would get mad because Steve didn’t like where I wanted to hang it, I remember things that Steve said were just simply too heavy to hang, in other words, “No.”  

Oh, I would take every one of those seconds back now.  To hear and be able to argue over hanging something stupid. To be able to watch Steve’s incredible mind work as he so easily hung a difficult, often impossible piece with such precision and ease.  To be able to do a simple task like hang something on the wall with someone you love and laugh about it in the end and have him tell me it was a great idea.  Oh, those holes in the wall, they will forever remain holes in my heart, and I love every one of them.

Sure, Steve and I were different on many levels, but oh we were like one person on all the higher levels.  We could read one another like a book and even better, we understood what we were reading.  We often laughed about how very similar we were and how we were the only people that knew it. 

I’m thankful to have spent my life with a man who was so like me in so many ways, yet one who was so foreign from who I could ever imagine being that I was able to learn and grow because we chose one another.

Yep, I will always have my holes, and I will cherish every last one of them.

Much love,

Janet

  

2 Timothy 1:3-4 ”I thank God for you—the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. I long to see you again, for I remember your tears as we parted. And I will be filled with joy when we are together again.”

The truck scripture has been found...

After reading the last blog post, Lynn sent me an email.  She had searched through the Bible and found this verse to be the most appropriate concerning my truck issue.

I thought it, and her added revised version were blog worthy...

"So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him."  Exodus 14:6

 Too bad it doesn’t say, “So she had her Lexus made ready and took her stuff and dog with her — and lo, everything fit!” 

I want a truck...

Yep, that’s what I said, I want a pick up truck.  An old, beat up, reliable truck.  Why?  Because I am so tired of trying to squeeze oversized things in my smallish 4 door sedan.  

In the last week I tried to put 3 new barstools that I had bought into my car.  I thought I could fit one stool in the front, one in the back and one in the trunk.  Wrong.  I took 2 back and ended up with one in the front and had to make another trip with Cindy and her Tahoe to buy the other two.  

My one barstool (now 3)

In past years I can’t tell you how many plants and shrubs and small trees I have maneuvered into my car.  They have hung out the windows, they have stuck through the  sun roof.  I can’t believe I haven’t had a wreck in all the times my car has been so overstuffed that I can only see what’s right in front of my windshield.

The last straw has been this never-ending MOVE.  There have been at least 3 days that I have had to go to Walmart or Home Depot and BUY boxes.  Now, for those of you with SUV’s or trucks or large cars this is an easy task, but try shoving unbendable cardboard boxes into the backseat of a small car (because I have 2 baby car seats in my backseat and the boxes are too long to fit into the trunk) makes you want to rip your arms off.

Two days ago I had gone to Home Depot and BOUGHT 10 MORE boxes.  The wind was blowing and I was fighting the boxes, the rolling shopping cart and the back seat of my car until sweat was soaking through my clothes. Did I mention it was about 50 degrees outside?  I had one foot under the wheel of the shopping cart so it would roll away from me and crash into a nearby truck, I had one hand on the top of the stack of boxes that the wind was trying to pick up and carry away like Dorothy’s house in the Wizard of Oz, and the other hand along with my hip and head were stuffing boxes into my now tiny car like I was trying to fit pieces into a jigsaw puzzle.  I’m ready for a truck.

Now, let me rant about buying boxes for just a moment.  No longer can one go to HEB (San Antonio’s ONLY grocery store) to pick up their left over boxes.  Oh no, now when you politely ask the manager they will tell you, “Oh sorry we crush all our boxes immediately.”  Couldn’t they just hold some back and I would come at a convenient time and pick them up?  “Sorry, we crush them immediately.”

So I begin cruising the isles of HEB every time I’m there.  When I spot a stocker with boxes on their cart, I circle them, stalking them until they have 4-5 empty boxes.  Then I make my move.  “Would you mind if I take those boxes off your hands?”  The shrug and I fill my cart, buy an item or two, get a raised eye brow from the checker and off I go to my miniature car to finagle my prized free boxes.  I want a truck.

My stalking boxes

Now, you would think Costco would be a perfect spot for boxes.  After all they have that large metal bin full of all sizes of boxes.  So I go with high hopes of not having to pay $1.50/box, but oh no, Costco cuts off the tops of their boxes and then cuts big U’s in the side of them, no use to me at all.  I give in and go back to buying my boxes.

I know you are thinking, so big deal, what’s a few boxes?  Well, for some crazy unknown reason the other day I counted the boxes I have already packed (remember I still have 3 weeks more to pack).  I have, to-date packed over 200 boxes.  I know call me crazy, call me a hoarder, tell me to purge.  The sad thing is I am purging, I’m purging like crazy, but I simply have stuff.  I admit, I’m ashamed at the amount of stuff I have accumulated and can’t seem to part with, but what I hate worse is the amount of money I have had to spend on boxes...do the math, it’s horrible.

My store bought boxes

Which brings me back to my need for a truck.  With over 200+ boxes filled with stuff it is more than obvious I need a truck.  How else will I be able to accumulate more stuff without a truck?

Here’s my dream truck.  If anyone that can help me find something like this truck, well, I would happily help you haul your stuff too!

Just picture Lucy Belle sticking her cute head out of the window!

Much love,

Janet

P.S.  There is absolutely no scripture I can possibly think of to go with this entry.