A CABIN UPDATE
I've been vilified for not blogging more often with updates about the cabin. If the complaint came from some average Joe I would shrug it off, but THIS guy...this guy who gave me the "what-for"...for this guy I will bow to the admonishment and comply.
The cabin has ceased to be mostly a construction zone and is slowly, oh so very slowly, becoming a home. We have that toilet (oh how we creatures love our comfort) and that hot shower, and a kitchen sink with hot-and-cold. We have a mattress that sits on top of a bed frame (no box spring but hey, we're mountain men. We don't need no stinkin' box spring) and an installed, unfinished, hardwood floor on the main level. We have a metal pole in the master bedroom closet, on which I have displayed several hangers for hanging up clothes such as civilized people are known to do. I can even put my shoes on the floor and not expect ants in them in the morning.
We have a TV and a RADIO and a BOX FAN, and a PORTABLE AIR CONDITIONER and a WORKING OVEN and a STOVE TOP. If we get too much more uppity we might be in danger of being called city folk, which is quite the opposite of our intention...at least until it's time to cook, or shower, or watch Blue Bloods.
This past weekend we worked outside, the temperature being so nice: a very livable 70 degrees at the peak of the day, while back home, where our house still hasn't sold, it was 92 in the sticky shade.
Oh the pleasure of working outdoors when it's breezy and fresh and mild. Especially when you're trying to roll drippy brown stain onto fascia boards 20' above your head. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been standing on a pea gravel slope that skidded away from me each time I tried to swing that flexible extension wand up. The effort required to get the drippy brown stain roller up to the boards was the same effort that would be required to send it sailing off into the woods. Which is pretty much what happened--or threatened to happen--with each hurl.
Meanwhile the noon sun burned a hole through my retinae.
After I finished staining myself and the boards and after my vision wasn't all purply any more, PW promised me I could do an easier job: digging great big holes with the post hole digger in the dirt banks, where roots the size of intestines snaked throughout. Into these holes I was responsible for planting the chestnut trees and the magnolia. Each of these trees were in 50-gallon buckets that had to be dragged to the holes because I did not have access to a forklift. After the holes were dug 2 hours later, I switched hats and became a one-person water brigade, hoping to give all my hard work a fighting chance.
The blueberry bushes were easier to plant, since they were just 5-gallon buckets and only needed to be planted in full sun on a rock ledge that repelled the spade like some sort of magnet.
I came away with blisters, a pounding headache and some heat-induced dizziness. And where was PW, you may well ask, while I was doing all the work?
In the basement--where it was FORTY DEGREES and flat, with no pea gravel slopes, dirt banks or rock ledges--working on his movie theater wiring.
We're still married and no one killed anyone, so I suppose you could say it was a successful weekend. In addition to cabin work, we met with Father Robert who shepherds a flock of Episcopal sinners--soon to include me and PW--in our little NC town. We were present for the fledging of 3 healthy, hungry Eastern Phoebes. We watched some gorgeous deer run up an embankment as if it was flat land, just in awe of their physicality and beauty. We enjoyed the antics of chipmonks scurrying in and out of rocks looking for fallen bird seed. And we were, once again, treated to the miraculous sight of Blue Ghost fireflies and Lightning Bugs, blinking their mating calls in the inkiness of night on raw land in the mountains, where there is no light-polluting Walmart.
So my dear friend from Peace, if you're reading this--and you darn well better be--thanks for being "this guy" and giving me the nudge. It was just what I needed.
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
I'd like to share something with you that happened Sunday. I'm titling this one, "A Human Island in the Sea of Humanity."
We were driving home from our working weekend at the cabin. "Almost there," PW said with a weary, interstate-battled voice. As we took the exit that leads to our home, traffic on the off-ramp seemed a little heavier than normal for a Sunday afternoon. Then we realized that no one was moving forward each time the light changed.
Usually homosapiens' first impulse is to blow the horn. "What the..."?!--that ugly, knee-jerk reaction we humans put out there when we're just physically spent or frustrated and all we want is our favorite chair and the remote control. But no one blew the horn.
Quickly the scenario came into focus: police cars with blue lights blazing and more arriving, until there were at least a half dozen uniformed officers trying to talk a young man out of throwing himself off the overpass into interstate traffic below.
Each time an officer would approach, the young man recklessly threw a leg over the concrete wall. And each time, my palms perspired and I gasped and held my breath. I could not stop the tears. And I could not stop petitioning God for mercy.
What was he doing there, I wondered. And by that I really mean, HOW did he get there, to the emotional place where this seemed like his best--or only--option? Where were his friends? Where was his family? Surely someone loves this young man enough to keep him in this world? What could be SO BAD that taking his own life seemed better?
I had an overwhelming urge to run to him. And I mean I really almost got out of the car. I felt if I could just tell him some pretty little piece of rhetoric that would make it all better--something like "This too shall pass"--he might not do it. If I could just throw my arms around him and tell him he is loved, and cared for, by me--a perfect stranger--perhaps it would make him reconsider. I wanted to tell him I could not bear to see him in such pain that he would consider taking his own life. And if I can care for you without knowing anything about you except that you have come to this overpass as your best option, then how many others who DO know you would be willing to help you down from the ledge?
But I knew I could not do that. God forbid, I step out of the car and approach the young man, and he jumped. Let the police handle it, I told myself. They are trained for this.
So I prayed through my tears. Traffic continued to back up. The police continued to approach him, withdrawing again each time he threatened to jump. The officers continued to talk to the young man--a conversation which I could not hear--assumedly offering words that would convince him to step down. The police kept attempting to approach him; each time the young man would stand up on the ledge, or throw a leg over the side, or lay down on it, as if to just roll off into traffic below. Each time the officers receded, and the young man sat down. But the moment they made any move toward him, that leg was over the side again.
After some length of time another police SUV drove onto the overpass and blocked our view. I could no longer see the young man. I cried and petitioned God all the more, as if my lack of visual verification meant God was on His own. As if God needed MY help.
Several minutes passed. Traffic began to move, and my mind did the quick math: either he had been wrestled to the ground, or he had jumped. I was out of control by this time, balling my eyes out and praying very, very hard.
Almost afraid to look, I glanced in the direction I had last seen him on the ledge. He wasn't there.
He was in handcuffs in the middle of the street, surrounded by law enforcement. Somehow those professional, trained officers turned a potentially tragic situation into a glimmer of hope for the future.
Traffic resumed. Cars that had been backed up onto the interstate began to creep forward again. Everyone had been "inconvenienced" by this young man's crisis. And yet, I heard not a single horn honk the entire time. I have no idea how other motorists had spent the time when the plans they had were upended, waiting for the police to resolve the situation without harm. For my part, I spent the time bending God's ear. Because that was all I could do. And I believe sometimes that is enough.
I have no clue what brought that young man to the overpass Sunday, or what can keep him off it in the future, but I do know God knows. God knows the plans He has for all of us--plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future. That Sea of Humanity is fraught with things that can drag us under. But there are also islands. Swim toward them, swim toward each other, swim toward our heavenly Father, and pray hard without ceasing.
We were driving home from our working weekend at the cabin. "Almost there," PW said with a weary, interstate-battled voice. As we took the exit that leads to our home, traffic on the off-ramp seemed a little heavier than normal for a Sunday afternoon. Then we realized that no one was moving forward each time the light changed.
Usually homosapiens' first impulse is to blow the horn. "What the..."?!--that ugly, knee-jerk reaction we humans put out there when we're just physically spent or frustrated and all we want is our favorite chair and the remote control. But no one blew the horn.
Quickly the scenario came into focus: police cars with blue lights blazing and more arriving, until there were at least a half dozen uniformed officers trying to talk a young man out of throwing himself off the overpass into interstate traffic below.
Each time an officer would approach, the young man recklessly threw a leg over the concrete wall. And each time, my palms perspired and I gasped and held my breath. I could not stop the tears. And I could not stop petitioning God for mercy.
What was he doing there, I wondered. And by that I really mean, HOW did he get there, to the emotional place where this seemed like his best--or only--option? Where were his friends? Where was his family? Surely someone loves this young man enough to keep him in this world? What could be SO BAD that taking his own life seemed better?
I had an overwhelming urge to run to him. And I mean I really almost got out of the car. I felt if I could just tell him some pretty little piece of rhetoric that would make it all better--something like "This too shall pass"--he might not do it. If I could just throw my arms around him and tell him he is loved, and cared for, by me--a perfect stranger--perhaps it would make him reconsider. I wanted to tell him I could not bear to see him in such pain that he would consider taking his own life. And if I can care for you without knowing anything about you except that you have come to this overpass as your best option, then how many others who DO know you would be willing to help you down from the ledge?
But I knew I could not do that. God forbid, I step out of the car and approach the young man, and he jumped. Let the police handle it, I told myself. They are trained for this.
So I prayed through my tears. Traffic continued to back up. The police continued to approach him, withdrawing again each time he threatened to jump. The officers continued to talk to the young man--a conversation which I could not hear--assumedly offering words that would convince him to step down. The police kept attempting to approach him; each time the young man would stand up on the ledge, or throw a leg over the side, or lay down on it, as if to just roll off into traffic below. Each time the officers receded, and the young man sat down. But the moment they made any move toward him, that leg was over the side again.
After some length of time another police SUV drove onto the overpass and blocked our view. I could no longer see the young man. I cried and petitioned God all the more, as if my lack of visual verification meant God was on His own. As if God needed MY help.
Several minutes passed. Traffic began to move, and my mind did the quick math: either he had been wrestled to the ground, or he had jumped. I was out of control by this time, balling my eyes out and praying very, very hard.
Almost afraid to look, I glanced in the direction I had last seen him on the ledge. He wasn't there.
He was in handcuffs in the middle of the street, surrounded by law enforcement. Somehow those professional, trained officers turned a potentially tragic situation into a glimmer of hope for the future.
Traffic resumed. Cars that had been backed up onto the interstate began to creep forward again. Everyone had been "inconvenienced" by this young man's crisis. And yet, I heard not a single horn honk the entire time. I have no idea how other motorists had spent the time when the plans they had were upended, waiting for the police to resolve the situation without harm. For my part, I spent the time bending God's ear. Because that was all I could do. And I believe sometimes that is enough.
I have no clue what brought that young man to the overpass Sunday, or what can keep him off it in the future, but I do know God knows. God knows the plans He has for all of us--plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future. That Sea of Humanity is fraught with things that can drag us under. But there are also islands. Swim toward them, swim toward each other, swim toward our heavenly Father, and pray hard without ceasing.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Months have somehow slipped past me. I set out to chronicle the work on our cabin, but because of the work on the cabin, I haven't had time to chronicle.
Is that irony?
If this process has taught me anything, it is that builders EARN. THEIR. SALARY. We've been up and down the highway most weekends--being our own contractors--and let me tell you, it's a good thing we're not getting paid to build our own cabin because, frankly, I'm not worth the money.
We've also been packing up the house we've called home for 18 years because we thought someone had finally bought it. Turns out, they wanted some ridiculously expensive and unnecessary improvements which we were not willing to pay for, so they backed out.
And we couldn't even keep their earnest money. What's the importance of being earnest if you can't at least make them bleed a little green?
So, needless to say, keeping this place show-ready for the last 9 months has been exhausting, mentally and physically. There were many days when we'd get advance notification of half an hour that a realtor wanted to show the house and I'd think to myself, "Oh no. I have to put those damn shams on the bed again." Because the house has to look picture-perfect. No mail on the counter (because, really, who gets mail at their home?) No dirty clothes in the hamper. No vividly-colored towels. In fact, everything that makes it a home has to be changed out and/or hidden away. Our realtor, The House Whisperer, told us it needs to say, "I can see myself living here."
And by "here," he really meant "in a magazine." My dining room table has been set with the china and sterling for the last 9 months, as if we are always ready to hose a banquet. I just dust around the plates.
Needless to say, working on the cabin has played second fiddle to selling the house. But I am happy to report that, since my last post, we have installed egg crate panels (don't ask) in the cabin ceiling. On top of that, (because it is NEVER one and done, I'm finding) R-31 insulation. We now have a flushing toilet, with the help of a water hose at the meter. We also have a functional shower with glorious steamy hot water, courtesy of an instant on water heater.
This. Is. Huge. An indoor outhouse and a hot shower? Can I get an amen??
We have installed part of the kitchen counter and sheet rocked the bathroom and master bedroom completely. This is my first experience with sh*t rock, as I have now dubbed it, and I am happy to report that I detest everything about it. It's heavy. It's cumbersome. It's messy and awkward and a purity pain in the fanny, especially on the ceiling. And when you do get it up there and screw it down, THEN you have to tape over all the seams and mud it and tape it and mud it again. In between, you have to sand off everything you put on the first time (if you're me) and then mud and tape again. It's a process that has been very educational though. We've learned that we're hiring sheet rockers to do the basement.
The wildlife has returned since the last post as well. Over the winter we noticed the chipmonks went underground and the few birds that visited were all gray: tufted titmice, dark-eyed juncos, nuthatches, chickadees. But this past weekend our phoebe returned, with her sweet little song of promise that the cold days which encased our little cabin in cloudy mist are behind us. Soon the fireflies will return, and the colorful birds, and the track hoe driver, who will bring a few loads of gravel for our muddy driveway and take all the fallen trees and limbs littering the property. Soon we'll have a door on the bathroom, and also on the bedroom. Soon we will begin laying oak flooring. And soon, we pray the right family will buy our beautiful home. Perhaps they will have a 5-year-old, as we did when we built it. Perhaps they will look at the spectacular view and be so smitten that they will want it in their lives every single day, just like us 18 years ago. Perhaps they will take our place among neighbors and friends, not to replace us, but to develop their own special relationships, making their own memories. I truly hope we are riding this emotional rollercoaster to arrive at the Happy Ending eventually, where we have financial freedom and our dream cabin in the mountains. I hope the folks who buy our home get their fondest desires fulfilled as well. Because this house--this HOME--has certainly been that for us.
Is that irony?
If this process has taught me anything, it is that builders EARN. THEIR. SALARY. We've been up and down the highway most weekends--being our own contractors--and let me tell you, it's a good thing we're not getting paid to build our own cabin because, frankly, I'm not worth the money.
We've also been packing up the house we've called home for 18 years because we thought someone had finally bought it. Turns out, they wanted some ridiculously expensive and unnecessary improvements which we were not willing to pay for, so they backed out.
And we couldn't even keep their earnest money. What's the importance of being earnest if you can't at least make them bleed a little green?
So, needless to say, keeping this place show-ready for the last 9 months has been exhausting, mentally and physically. There were many days when we'd get advance notification of half an hour that a realtor wanted to show the house and I'd think to myself, "Oh no. I have to put those damn shams on the bed again." Because the house has to look picture-perfect. No mail on the counter (because, really, who gets mail at their home?) No dirty clothes in the hamper. No vividly-colored towels. In fact, everything that makes it a home has to be changed out and/or hidden away. Our realtor, The House Whisperer, told us it needs to say, "I can see myself living here."
And by "here," he really meant "in a magazine." My dining room table has been set with the china and sterling for the last 9 months, as if we are always ready to hose a banquet. I just dust around the plates.
Needless to say, working on the cabin has played second fiddle to selling the house. But I am happy to report that, since my last post, we have installed egg crate panels (don't ask) in the cabin ceiling. On top of that, (because it is NEVER one and done, I'm finding) R-31 insulation. We now have a flushing toilet, with the help of a water hose at the meter. We also have a functional shower with glorious steamy hot water, courtesy of an instant on water heater.
This. Is. Huge. An indoor outhouse and a hot shower? Can I get an amen??
We have installed part of the kitchen counter and sheet rocked the bathroom and master bedroom completely. This is my first experience with sh*t rock, as I have now dubbed it, and I am happy to report that I detest everything about it. It's heavy. It's cumbersome. It's messy and awkward and a purity pain in the fanny, especially on the ceiling. And when you do get it up there and screw it down, THEN you have to tape over all the seams and mud it and tape it and mud it again. In between, you have to sand off everything you put on the first time (if you're me) and then mud and tape again. It's a process that has been very educational though. We've learned that we're hiring sheet rockers to do the basement.
The wildlife has returned since the last post as well. Over the winter we noticed the chipmonks went underground and the few birds that visited were all gray: tufted titmice, dark-eyed juncos, nuthatches, chickadees. But this past weekend our phoebe returned, with her sweet little song of promise that the cold days which encased our little cabin in cloudy mist are behind us. Soon the fireflies will return, and the colorful birds, and the track hoe driver, who will bring a few loads of gravel for our muddy driveway and take all the fallen trees and limbs littering the property. Soon we'll have a door on the bathroom, and also on the bedroom. Soon we will begin laying oak flooring. And soon, we pray the right family will buy our beautiful home. Perhaps they will have a 5-year-old, as we did when we built it. Perhaps they will look at the spectacular view and be so smitten that they will want it in their lives every single day, just like us 18 years ago. Perhaps they will take our place among neighbors and friends, not to replace us, but to develop their own special relationships, making their own memories. I truly hope we are riding this emotional rollercoaster to arrive at the Happy Ending eventually, where we have financial freedom and our dream cabin in the mountains. I hope the folks who buy our home get their fondest desires fulfilled as well. Because this house--this HOME--has certainly been that for us.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Life has taken a sudden wrong turn off the road to building our cabin, resulting in the past week being very much like going on that bear hunt I mentioned a few posts ago.
Ever play that game at Girl Scout Camp? It's more or less a lap-clapping group activity best experienced in the dark, in the forest, around a campfire. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace...you know...just going on a bear hunt. Nothing special. When suddenly, you reach an obstacle, such as a stream. "You can't go around it," the group say-and-clap-along goes, "you can't go over it, you can't go under it."
You have to go through it.
Life is like that. And our family is going through it right now.
About a week ago my husband's 83-year-old mother fell down 3 steps and shattered her ribs: 13 breaks in all, not including her collar bone and a vertebrae. Since it happened in North Carolina, she was sent to Wilmington for treatment.
The hospital is top-notch, and she is getting the care she needs. But it's in Wilmington, and her family is not. In Wilmington. So PW and I have been trading off with his sister and her husband, each spending a few days with Mom and a few days back at home.
It's kind of exhausting, and not just because of all the driving. The most exhausting part is actually all the sitting.
There's a lot of sitting in a hospital. Sitting in a waiting room. Sitting in the hospital room. Sitting down to talk with the physician. Sitting in the car when you just can't sit in those other places any longer.
Apparently when you're on a bear hunt, and you can't go around it or over it or under it, you do have another option other than going through it.
You can just sit your butt in a chair and wait.
No one tells you that at Girl Scouts, and as soon as I'm done sitting, I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to National Headquarters.
Tomorrow it's our turn to sit again, and my sister-in-law and her husband can go home and stand up for a few days.
The campfire Bear Hunt version of the game encounters many obstacles on the way to finding that bear. Life is like that: full of grassy savannas to snake through, rushing rivers to cross, oozing mud to get stuck in, and dark, dank caves to scare the poo-poo out of you. And when you reach your destination your only option sometimes is to re-trace your footsteps, over and through and around and under all those obstacles you encountered on the way there. Back to health, and safety, and normalcy.
The Hospital Bear Hunt version sometimes seems just as scary and daunting. Both versions of the "game" require courage and strength and determination. Yes, the Hospital Bear Hunt does require plenty of seating for those who are tracking that elusive bear, but the moral of the story is the same, whether you're hunting bears over a campfire or over ANOTHER cup of bad hospital coffee:
"Let's not go bear-hunting any more."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_ShP3fiEhU
Ever play that game at Girl Scout Camp? It's more or less a lap-clapping group activity best experienced in the dark, in the forest, around a campfire. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace...you know...just going on a bear hunt. Nothing special. When suddenly, you reach an obstacle, such as a stream. "You can't go around it," the group say-and-clap-along goes, "you can't go over it, you can't go under it."
You have to go through it.
Life is like that. And our family is going through it right now.
About a week ago my husband's 83-year-old mother fell down 3 steps and shattered her ribs: 13 breaks in all, not including her collar bone and a vertebrae. Since it happened in North Carolina, she was sent to Wilmington for treatment.
The hospital is top-notch, and she is getting the care she needs. But it's in Wilmington, and her family is not. In Wilmington. So PW and I have been trading off with his sister and her husband, each spending a few days with Mom and a few days back at home.
It's kind of exhausting, and not just because of all the driving. The most exhausting part is actually all the sitting.
There's a lot of sitting in a hospital. Sitting in a waiting room. Sitting in the hospital room. Sitting down to talk with the physician. Sitting in the car when you just can't sit in those other places any longer.
Apparently when you're on a bear hunt, and you can't go around it or over it or under it, you do have another option other than going through it.
You can just sit your butt in a chair and wait.
No one tells you that at Girl Scouts, and as soon as I'm done sitting, I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to National Headquarters.
Tomorrow it's our turn to sit again, and my sister-in-law and her husband can go home and stand up for a few days.
The campfire Bear Hunt version of the game encounters many obstacles on the way to finding that bear. Life is like that: full of grassy savannas to snake through, rushing rivers to cross, oozing mud to get stuck in, and dark, dank caves to scare the poo-poo out of you. And when you reach your destination your only option sometimes is to re-trace your footsteps, over and through and around and under all those obstacles you encountered on the way there. Back to health, and safety, and normalcy.
The Hospital Bear Hunt version sometimes seems just as scary and daunting. Both versions of the "game" require courage and strength and determination. Yes, the Hospital Bear Hunt does require plenty of seating for those who are tracking that elusive bear, but the moral of the story is the same, whether you're hunting bears over a campfire or over ANOTHER cup of bad hospital coffee:
"Let's not go bear-hunting any more."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_ShP3fiEhU
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
I just "celebrated" another birthday. I say "" because it is never, ever a celebration for me. Even as a child I hated the attention. Mom would plan a party and I would get a nose bleed. But while the steady progression of time is a definite downer for me, I do enjoy cake. And the only time I get my favorite--Piggly Wiggly white cake with lard icing--is September 17.
So there's that.
We waited until last weekend to "celebrate" at the cabin with our daughter. Poor kid...she knew the mood de jour would be all "I look like the crypt keeper." As if that wasn't bad enough, she also knew she was signing up for a working weekend, hanging tongue-and-groove boards under the roof. But she made the trip anyway. With the three of us, we really made headway sealing up the roof overhang. And she made the crypt keeper happy.
Also on the cabin to-do list: installing, taping and mudding the master bathroom green board. The taping and mudding was my job, and I did it extremely well. I really like doing it; the paste is easy to apply with a spatula, and it reminded me of the white icing on my birthday cake.
Unless you've lived without sheetrock in your bathroom, and I pray that you have not, you will just have to imagine how wonderful it is to have even the modicum of privacy which a bit of sheetrock affords. Some may think green board is just for protecting walls from moisture. Some may even think that its sole purpose is providing a vertical surface to hang wallpaper. And these thinks are true. But in the wee hours of the morning, when my dreams take me to watery places where the sound of H2O comes crashing against my subconscious, it is beyond description how nice it is to pee into my Luggable Loo (a $20 gray paint bucket with a plastic toilet seat and lid) behind a REAL WALL.
No door. Not yet. And the rest of the bathroom is wide open. But there is a private corner that is all mine, at night.
Also on our punch list last weekend was finishing the grouting between the master bathroom tiles.
Most of this work had already been done on a previous trip, but there was a small space that still needed grout squirted in the seams. The grout comes in a tube and is applied with a squirt gun. You just squeeze the trigger and grout magically goes into the seams between the tiles. It's a little messy; grout spills over onto the tops of tiles and needs to be wiped with a damp cloth, but it's fun. Like Play-Doh, only thinner, stickier, and available in decorator colors. We chose Pearl Gray. Doesn't that sound rare and special and like something you could make jewelry out of? I kept calling it Battleship Gray which PW kind of liked, being a Navy man.
But when I finally stood up to survey my work, I found a lot of Battleship Pearl Gray smeared like cancerous patches all over my legs, fingers, elbows, cheeks, and everywhere else I scratched without thinking. Maybe more on me than on the floor. I can't be sure. What I do know is that I needed a bath. Besides the Navy-Doh, my sweaty corpus was dusted with saw from the aforementioned tongue-and-groove work. Yes, a hose shower from the frigid well water was just what I needed, but definitely not what I wanted.
I think PW took delight in my extra grubbiness because as a birthday surprise, he got an instant-on shower sprayer.
Make no mistake: It is NOT a shower. There is no privacy, and you have to bathe outside in your bathing suit. If you want to wash your hair, you must lean your soapy head over the railing and hose off all that lather onto the red clay below. But the hose water, hooked up to a propane tank, is deliciously hot coming out of that Ritz-Carlton-esque shower head.
I felt like a queen. A queen who finds spiders in her jammies at night, but a queen nonetheless.
So this weekend when we return to Cold Mountain, we will have a dried-in bathroom with still no working toilet (just my trusty bucket.) We will have green board up and ceramic tile down. We will have a good portion of the soffit work complete with a good portion still left to do. And thanks to my thoughtful husband's birthday gift, we will have hot water.
And that, my dear friends, at this point in my aging life, is reason to celebrate.
So there's that.
We waited until last weekend to "celebrate" at the cabin with our daughter. Poor kid...she knew the mood de jour would be all "I look like the crypt keeper." As if that wasn't bad enough, she also knew she was signing up for a working weekend, hanging tongue-and-groove boards under the roof. But she made the trip anyway. With the three of us, we really made headway sealing up the roof overhang. And she made the crypt keeper happy.
Also on the cabin to-do list: installing, taping and mudding the master bathroom green board. The taping and mudding was my job, and I did it extremely well. I really like doing it; the paste is easy to apply with a spatula, and it reminded me of the white icing on my birthday cake.
Unless you've lived without sheetrock in your bathroom, and I pray that you have not, you will just have to imagine how wonderful it is to have even the modicum of privacy which a bit of sheetrock affords. Some may think green board is just for protecting walls from moisture. Some may even think that its sole purpose is providing a vertical surface to hang wallpaper. And these thinks are true. But in the wee hours of the morning, when my dreams take me to watery places where the sound of H2O comes crashing against my subconscious, it is beyond description how nice it is to pee into my Luggable Loo (a $20 gray paint bucket with a plastic toilet seat and lid) behind a REAL WALL.
No door. Not yet. And the rest of the bathroom is wide open. But there is a private corner that is all mine, at night.
Also on our punch list last weekend was finishing the grouting between the master bathroom tiles.
Most of this work had already been done on a previous trip, but there was a small space that still needed grout squirted in the seams. The grout comes in a tube and is applied with a squirt gun. You just squeeze the trigger and grout magically goes into the seams between the tiles. It's a little messy; grout spills over onto the tops of tiles and needs to be wiped with a damp cloth, but it's fun. Like Play-Doh, only thinner, stickier, and available in decorator colors. We chose Pearl Gray. Doesn't that sound rare and special and like something you could make jewelry out of? I kept calling it Battleship Gray which PW kind of liked, being a Navy man.
But when I finally stood up to survey my work, I found a lot of Battleship Pearl Gray smeared like cancerous patches all over my legs, fingers, elbows, cheeks, and everywhere else I scratched without thinking. Maybe more on me than on the floor. I can't be sure. What I do know is that I needed a bath. Besides the Navy-Doh, my sweaty corpus was dusted with saw from the aforementioned tongue-and-groove work. Yes, a hose shower from the frigid well water was just what I needed, but definitely not what I wanted.
I think PW took delight in my extra grubbiness because as a birthday surprise, he got an instant-on shower sprayer.
Make no mistake: It is NOT a shower. There is no privacy, and you have to bathe outside in your bathing suit. If you want to wash your hair, you must lean your soapy head over the railing and hose off all that lather onto the red clay below. But the hose water, hooked up to a propane tank, is deliciously hot coming out of that Ritz-Carlton-esque shower head.
I felt like a queen. A queen who finds spiders in her jammies at night, but a queen nonetheless.
So this weekend when we return to Cold Mountain, we will have a dried-in bathroom with still no working toilet (just my trusty bucket.) We will have green board up and ceramic tile down. We will have a good portion of the soffit work complete with a good portion still left to do. And thanks to my thoughtful husband's birthday gift, we will have hot water.
And that, my dear friends, at this point in my aging life, is reason to celebrate.
Monday, August 20, 2018
What we didn't do was get mauled by a bear.
It rained Thursday night and when we awoke the next morning we received our first confirmation that there really are bears in them thar woods. Everyone keeps telling us about them but up till now, it's been like the Loch Ness monster: a fictitious thing that you sometimes think you WANT to believe is out there, but you can neither confirm nor deny their existence based on the evidence.
And so you go on with your life. But just to be sure, you don't go swimming in Loch Ness.
We now have bear evidence. A surprisingly large mud cast of a paw.
Does this mean we should give up hiking? When we vacationed in Alaska, we didn't let the threat of bears bother us. We did take precautions though. We made sure we didn't get between a mama and her cub. We kept our distance in the Kenai River where they fished for salmon. And we wore bear bells while hiking. And talked really loud. We did our research and knew what to do if/when we encountered a grizzly.
This situation is no different. Forewarned is forearmed. No; strike that. Forewarned is for keeping your arms.
So I googled "What do you do if you see a black bear?" Presented below are the ACTUAL steps they recommend.
Number One: Stop what you are doing and evaluate the situation.
Too late to stop what I'm doing. Number One IS what I'm doing, and it's trickling down my leg this very minute. And evaluate the situation?? It sounds like the bear is receiving his mid-year performance assessment. If that's Step One, I think the committee that came up with it should at least start the sentence with the prepositional phrase, "If you haven't already been mauled,..."
Number Two: Identify yourself.
"Me human."
To which the bear replies, "Well you were," and wipes his mouth with his paw. "You now lunch meat. Burp."
The rest of the steps seem kind of moot at this point. But just in case you're ever in the situation:
Number Three is: "Speak in an appeasing tone." You know, something like, "good bear."
Number Four is: "Back away slowly, preferably in the direction you came." Who needs to be told to not walk TOWARD the bear? I want to know what this person is doing in the woods AT ALL.
And Number Five is: "Walk, don't run, at all times keeping your eye on that bear." Because walking backwards in the forest is the best vantage point for watching your intestines spill out.
I truly hope to see every living thing that calls Cold Mountain home, from the turkeys and chipmunks and birds and mice and bats to the wild things that roar their terrible roars, and gnash their terrible teeth, and roll their terrible eyes, and show their terrible claws like in Maurice Sendak's children's book entitled, Where the Wild Things Are. I welcome you all. And I do hope to see the bears.
But maybe from the porch.
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
I'm calling it low-grade depression.
Like a C- on the paper you turned in, thinking you did pretty all right, only to be told that your hard work was not even really average. My depression is like that; nothing spectacular or eyebrow-raising, which, actually, makes me more depressed to think about. If you're going to do something, do it really well, right?! Be the best depressed person you can be!
This is my life we're talking about though. Not a school paper. And I'm tired.
The house has been on the market for 3 months now. We've lowered the price several times already and are struggling to understand why somebody has not snatched this jewel up.
We've gotten comments like: "I love the floors!" and comments like: "The floors are a definite drawback." Some people say it's not big enough. Others say it's too large.
OK. I get that people have different tastes. But this is our home. This is The House where we had Easter egg hunts when the kids were little. This is The House where we hosted Hillbilly Halloween and I put on a most-embarrassing clogging demonstration for 2 of our closest friends. This is The House That PW and Lisa Built, if you'll pardon the reference to Randolph Caldecott's poem. And the rest of you egg-timers out there shopping for your dream home just need to get a clue.
Of course even I can hear the masked anger in my low-grade depression. But it is also pure exhaustion.
Do you know how difficult it is to keep a home in "show" shape? Especially if you're the kind of person who thinks a nice layer of dust actually protects wood surfaces? I've been on my knees a lot, and not all of it has been in prayer. Sometimes you just have to get down in the weeds and we've had 3 months of constant weeding.
Meanwhile, work on our other home continues. Yea! More work! And this time, there's no indoor toilet!
We're making progress though. We finished the electrical wiring on our last trip. That means we're ready for a major inspection, which should take place this week. All the framing is done, and the septic tank is in. This weekend we'll be sealing around windows and staining the exterior logs. It's hard work, but rewarding.
After all, I do love a story. And stories are like a bear hunt: you can't go over it, you can't go under it. You have to go THROUGH it. (Cue Girl Scout campfire...)
We're certainly going through it. But years from now I will still remember the "High Five" PW and I gave each other when every single outlet had been wired and stripped and clipped and rolled up in its respective little blue box, ready for the critical eye of the inspector. I will remember my husband's wide grin when he told me, "We make a great team!" I will remember sitting in my bathing suit on a folding chair in the rain, letting Mother Nature rinse the layer of dirt and sweat off me. I will remember watching the Perseid Meteor Shower in a moonless midnight sky at our place on Cold Mountain where there is no light pollution. I will remember PW and I saying simultaneously, "A SHOOTING STAR!" I will remember the cute little mouse who currently keeps us company, and the neighbors who beep their horns and wave to us. I will remember the first male goldfinch at the feeder, and the hummingbirds that buzz the tops of our heads on their way to the nectar we put out. And those crazy, retarded black and yellow bees with helicopter wings that we have yet to identify.
And I'll remember the family who comes along--finally--and in God's good time, and buys our precious home. And I'll remember, even though it hasn't happen yet, how we sat across from them at the closing table, listening to them tell us how much they love our home, and how afraid they were that we wouldn't accept their offer. That thought, more than any other, raises that low-grade depression to at least a B+.
Like a C- on the paper you turned in, thinking you did pretty all right, only to be told that your hard work was not even really average. My depression is like that; nothing spectacular or eyebrow-raising, which, actually, makes me more depressed to think about. If you're going to do something, do it really well, right?! Be the best depressed person you can be!
This is my life we're talking about though. Not a school paper. And I'm tired.
The house has been on the market for 3 months now. We've lowered the price several times already and are struggling to understand why somebody has not snatched this jewel up.
We've gotten comments like: "I love the floors!" and comments like: "The floors are a definite drawback." Some people say it's not big enough. Others say it's too large.
OK. I get that people have different tastes. But this is our home. This is The House where we had Easter egg hunts when the kids were little. This is The House where we hosted Hillbilly Halloween and I put on a most-embarrassing clogging demonstration for 2 of our closest friends. This is The House That PW and Lisa Built, if you'll pardon the reference to Randolph Caldecott's poem. And the rest of you egg-timers out there shopping for your dream home just need to get a clue.
Of course even I can hear the masked anger in my low-grade depression. But it is also pure exhaustion.
Do you know how difficult it is to keep a home in "show" shape? Especially if you're the kind of person who thinks a nice layer of dust actually protects wood surfaces? I've been on my knees a lot, and not all of it has been in prayer. Sometimes you just have to get down in the weeds and we've had 3 months of constant weeding.
Meanwhile, work on our other home continues. Yea! More work! And this time, there's no indoor toilet!
We're making progress though. We finished the electrical wiring on our last trip. That means we're ready for a major inspection, which should take place this week. All the framing is done, and the septic tank is in. This weekend we'll be sealing around windows and staining the exterior logs. It's hard work, but rewarding.
After all, I do love a story. And stories are like a bear hunt: you can't go over it, you can't go under it. You have to go THROUGH it. (Cue Girl Scout campfire...)
We're certainly going through it. But years from now I will still remember the "High Five" PW and I gave each other when every single outlet had been wired and stripped and clipped and rolled up in its respective little blue box, ready for the critical eye of the inspector. I will remember my husband's wide grin when he told me, "We make a great team!" I will remember sitting in my bathing suit on a folding chair in the rain, letting Mother Nature rinse the layer of dirt and sweat off me. I will remember watching the Perseid Meteor Shower in a moonless midnight sky at our place on Cold Mountain where there is no light pollution. I will remember PW and I saying simultaneously, "A SHOOTING STAR!" I will remember the cute little mouse who currently keeps us company, and the neighbors who beep their horns and wave to us. I will remember the first male goldfinch at the feeder, and the hummingbirds that buzz the tops of our heads on their way to the nectar we put out. And those crazy, retarded black and yellow bees with helicopter wings that we have yet to identify.
And I'll remember the family who comes along--finally--and in God's good time, and buys our precious home. And I'll remember, even though it hasn't happen yet, how we sat across from them at the closing table, listening to them tell us how much they love our home, and how afraid they were that we wouldn't accept their offer. That thought, more than any other, raises that low-grade depression to at least a B+.
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