Not a Relaxing Summer - Again

Here we go again!

Summer 2016 - my last summer session at Ivy Tech.  I was retiring at the end of the summer session. I was teaching one small class of ENGL 112 at Rochester, a class that really shouldn't have run because of numbers, but it did because Gloria pushed for it.  I saw it as justice for having to teach a large class a few summers previous and receiving the same pay as I was for teaching the small class.  I knocked myself out for that large class, grading all the time, not enjoying the summer at all, and spending all of my time in the sunroom on the laptop. 

I was also nervous during that summer semester.  I had to clean out my office.  That was traumatic enough because I really liked being the professor and having my own office and office hours and my own phone and it was fixed up really cute.  But it was just a room and it was time to clean it out and move on.

When I found out I had to work an extra week before my official end date, I was crushed.  I really did NOT want to do that.  I was told I didn't have to go to the meetings in Indianapolis, the first faculty meeting in Kokomo, or the school meetings.  I was told I could work at the Logansport campus and prepare everything for my last Adjunct Orientation and just check in with Kevin each day.  Kevin told me just to stay at home, but I am not one to just do that and feel good about it.  Dad raised me to be honest, to show integrity, and I stayed every minute I was supposed to until the last day. 

It was a little sad watching everyone else prepare for fall classes and I wasn't. It was sad not being able to chat with everyone because they were too busy with their own meetings and prepartions.  I felt like I just didn't belong any more, and I really didn't.  I had been replaced. I was finished there.  I was retiring.

Summer 2017 - Mom died on May 19.  The heart valve replacement surgery was December 15 and she had not returned home from that, being in and out of the hospital, going to the rehabilitation center, and finally Chapel Hill Retirement Home in Canal Fulton.  I knew she would not be returning, so I had started to clean out things, little by little, while she was still alive.  The refrigerator.  The piles of newspapers and magazines by her chair in the living room.  The piles and piles of junk by her chair in the dining room. Canned goods.  The pile in the corner of the kitchen.  But after her death, the real work began to clean out the house, take things we wanted to keep, and prepare for the auction. This meant that we spent most of the summer in Ohio.  I really felt like it was our 'vacation home' without the vacation part of it.  We would go for a week, come home for a week.  Return for a week.  Come home for 10 days.  Return with the kids.  Come home for a few days.  It was exhausting.  It was necessary.  It gave us the opportunity to know Melanie and Bryan and the girls better, to visit Ryan and Jen and the kids, and to experience some new restaurants and discover ice cream!  When the auction date came, August 28, I was more than ready for all of it to be over.  Our final trip there was during the Wayne County Fair week.  We haven't been back since.

Now...Summer 2018.  What we thought might be a more relaxing summer will find us moving to a new house.  I am not regretting the decision, and I think it will be a good move for us.  But going through all of our things, deciding what to take, what to pitch, what to donate, and what to sell at a yard sale---here we go again.  Cleaning out. Packing up.  Lifestyle change.

Life is a series of changes.  We go through various seasons in our lives, all of them different from each other.  Yes we have lived in this house for 42 years and we have done so much to it to make it our own.  But we can do the same for the new place.  We can just do it a little more quickly because it is just the two of us and we have more funds at our disposal.

Yes we have memories in this house.  But it doesn't matter where we are, the memories will remain.  And we can make new ones in the new house.

Many people reach this same stage in their lives and downsize.  However the house we are moving into has more room - for family gatherings.  Since Gary's folks are gone, it is falling to us to host the large Siemens family get-togethers.  Mike, Angie, and Nick need a place to stay.  We can provide that.  It will be easier for our small Siemens family to gather also.  More room to spread out.

And finally we will be closer to the girls and the kids.  Some people have mentioned that when they retire, they look forward to being a couple, to letting their children live their own lives apart from them, and seeing the grandchildren often, but not frequently. One fellow teacher warned me to be able to say no to Megan and Hilary since if we didn't, we would be babysitting all the time.

I don't see it like that.  Family is important to us.  It is important to our girls.  We help each other. We support each other.  I know that both Megan and Hilary treasure the time they spent with the grandparents and have so many memories from the farm, the insurance office, and from their attending each and every concert, program, game they were in.  I want to do the same with Landon, Tessa, Cooper, Owen, and Lynnlee.  I want them to be able to stop by, to spend the night, to work on their animals, to come over and bake cookies, to help me plant flowers, without having to plan an hour drive each way to do so.

No, it won't be a relaxing summer. But it will be one of changes.  And that is what our lives are all about.

The Search Has Ended!

Gary and I have been searching for a house.   Yes, we like our house now.  We have worked hard and long to make it into the house that we really like.  But during the past year we have realized that we are spending too much time in the car, driving to and from Pyrmont and Frankfort.

Now I know that we don't have to attend all of Landon's baseball games or that we can say no when asked to babysit for Lynnlee and Cooper.  I know that we (meaning me) did not have to volunteer to take Cooper to pre-school every Wednesday which meant spending every Tuesday night away from our house.  

But that is what we do.  We help out our girls whenever we can.

My folks did not help us with anything when the girls were growing up.  Granted they lived in Ohio so it was hard for them to come to ball games or to babysit at all.  But they NEVER attended anything that the girls participated in except one beef show at the Indiana State Fair.  I will not be like that.

Also Grampy and Grammy never missed a concert, a program, a ball game, or a church program.  The girls spent so much time there  - before school, after school, in the evenings if we had school activities or meetings, on weekends.  As a result they were very close to their Siemens grandparents.  I want that too with our five grandchildren.

So the search was on.  

Requirements:   master bedroom and bath; air conditioning; larger kitchen and dining room; sewing room; country setting; outbuilding for 4-H animals; 2 bathrooms minimum; garage for parking inside

The real estate market is hot right now in the Lafayette area.  Properties are listed, shown, and sold very quickly.  We needed to act fast if we found one we liked.

Monday/Tuesday last week it happened.  The process was a little complicated, but the time was very quick.  It was listed on Monday, we saw it on Tuesday morning, we made an offer on Tuesday evening (countered twice), and we agreed to buy by midnight Tuesday.  Quick?  You bet.

Wednesday we returned with Rebecca, our agent, the girls and families, and Karen and Clay to see the house again.  Rooms were measured.  Ideas discussed. House and buildings more closely scrutinized.

Since then several things have happened.  The inspection will be on June 3 at 10:00 a.m.  We went to Lowe's to look at new washer, dryer, stove, refrigerator.  We have checked out carpet and gotten both an estimate and established a timeline for purchase.  We went to Star Furniture and found a couch and loveseat we liked for the living room (and we are putting the other two couches in the family room).   Hilary and I went to Home Depot for paint samples.  I bought a shower curtain and bath rugs for the master bathroom.

Closing in June 25.  Since we are leaving on June 5 for Michigan for a week and since Father's Day weekend is also Jill's wedding, I know the time will fly by. 

I  have to admit that at least once a day I have had the feeling of "What did we do??? Can we get out of it????" running through my mind.  But then I go upstairs and know I won't be able to sleep because it is like an oven up there, even with both windows open and the fan running.  Plus today we picked up Cooper and Lynnlee in Delphi, went to Royal Center, went back to Delphi to return them to their folks, and returned home.  All told - 130 miles and 3 hours on the road.  Just today.  Living 5-10 minutes from Delphi would really make a difference!

More updates to come as the time approaches to move.  This is exciting!!

Mark It Off the List!

Yesterday I had the pleasure, the fun, the sense of accomplishment when I crossed "Clean out the bathroom cabinets" off the  master 'to do' list for 2018!

Yes, I have a master to-do list.  I wrote it in my 2018 notebook which contains a conglomeration of things.  Including the 'to do' list.

First thing on it, actually, was 'clean out the bathroom cabinets.' 

Why?  Because things were shoved into them and pushed to the back.

Because when anyone opened the doors, things fell out.

Because when I needed something, like a new thing of deodorant when mine fell apart while using it one day last week, I couldn't find it and I knew there was one in there.

Because the bottles of shampoo that turned out to be conditioner were taking up space.

Because who really needs three curling irons?

Why was I keep the electric shavers that had no use anymore and hadn't been used for many probably 25 years or so?  (and I had forgotten they were even there until Gary pulled them out).

That is why it was a major undertaking.

We started by setting up the long folding table in the dining room.  I pulled out a laundry basket full of stuff and started to sort it out on the table.  A bag for trash.  A bag for Goodwill.  A spot on the table for things I wanted to keep (at least until round 2 of the clean out process).

That was going well.  Then Gary came home.

He took the little stool that was Dad's into the bathroom and started pulling things from the top shelves.  I didn't even remember keeping all of the holiday towels that were rolled and placed so nicely in a basket. And where did all of the kitchen towels come from?  Why were they in the top of the bathroom closet anyway?  Who knows!

Slowly but surely everything came out.  Some things were just naturally tossed in the trash bags.  Old OTC medications.  Old prescriptions.  Those razors which didn't work anymore.  More than half-empty bottles of lotion.  Sample packets of creams and lotions and eye stuff.

Some things went easily into the Goodwill bag.  Some towels that weren't needed anymore for anything, not even rags.  Avon Christmas candles.  Bottles of Brown Sugar Fig lotion and shower gel- a scent that I used to love but that I can't use anymore because of the memories it elicits.   A cute giraffe toothbrush holder for kids.  Candles that were just burned enough to get the wick off but not wanted anymore.

All of the baskets were washed and dried.  All of the remaining items were perused again, thought about, some tossed.  The remaining things were sorted and organized and placed into baskets.  Everything fit too!

Gary found a couple of rolls of shelf paper in the laundry room that he cut and used to line the 6 shelves.  At this point it didn't really matter if it matched or not, even though it was all the same color!  I just didn't want to go somewhere to buy new shelf paper and destroy the momentum we had established.  And who cares anyway?  No one.  Not me even.

After all was said and done, we had all of the baskets, except the long narrow ones, filled and back on the shelves. We even cleaned out the cabinet above the toilet and the shelves behind the mirror and re-organized those items. All of the extra bottles of lotions and creams from upstairs came down to the cabinets.  All of the OTC medications left on the table or on the kitchen counter were back in the cabinets.

But the best thing, other than all of the neatly organized baskets and extra room in the cabinets, was what was leaving the house. 

Three bags of trash.

Two bags of Goodwill donations.

One bag of things to re-distribute to either Hilary, Megan, or Amanda.

And all of that felt SO good.

Plus the huge swish of the pen as I marked off "Clean out the bathroom cabinets" off the list?

No better feeling of accomplishment!!!

It's Been a While!

I have been too busy to post aything.  I have thought about it though.

What has been happening?

Spending a lot of time in Carroll and Clinton Counties is what.

Taking care of kids during field trips, doctors' appointments, meetings, and get-aways.

Going to 8U baseball games.

Looking at houses.

Nail appointments and a little shopping.

Life as we know it.

But it is all good. 

Right now I am sitting in my recliner, catching up on computer stuff, listening to Hilary laugh.

Yes, Hilary is here.  Jan asked us to go with her and Erin to an event that the Uptown Project is sponsoring at our church.  It will be good for us to go to something without kids, that we don't have to plan, and to just enjoy some time.

Then tonight I am going home with Hilary. Gary is already there.  We will spend the night (as we have several times in the past few weeks).

Tomorrow morning we are looking at another house.  Neither of us is really ready to move.  However, if we happen to find a house that we feel is the 'right one' then we will move on the decision.  No desperation.  No 'what are we going to do? We have to find a place to live.'  Just looking and praying and if it happens, it does. 

Then after Megan comes home from school to take charge of Cooper and Lynnlee again tomorrow afternoon, we are going to Gatlinburg.

Gary said he could tell I was excited about this trip.  Why?  Because I didn't say, not once, that I didn't want to pack, that I didn't want to go, that I wished we were staying at home.  I am ready to leave for a few days. I want to go someplace where I can just be. 

And I am excited about going to Gatlinburg.  We know our way around.  There are restaurants that we really enjoy and some sites that we like to visit.  We also feel comfortable there. 

Plus as much as we enjoy traveling with Clay and Karen and other family, it will be nice to just be by ourselves so that we can eat just one meal a day if we want to.  Or we can drive into the mountains and take a picnic if we want to.  Or we can go to a late movie or to a matinee or to see the Hatfields and the McCoys if we want to.  No schedule.  No wondering if someone else is hungry or wants to eat or not.  Just relaxed. Just us.

When we come home on my birthday, we will need to hit the ground running again. Our yard needs to be mowed now, so it will be even more ready in a week.  The yard at The Farm will need attention too.  Our flower beds need to be weeded and new annuals planted.  I need to clean up the sunroom so I can sit out there in the mornings.  Plus we have a full schedule again (although not quite as full as April) of watching the kids and going to ball games.  Busy all the time!

And I really wouldn't have it any other way!

I love our family.

I enjoy the time we spend with the kids.

I am happy that Megan and Hilary ask us to help out.

But I also like time at home, doing what I like to do for me.  Quilting, reading, knitting.  Sitting in the sunroom. 

Life is good.