Last I found myself driving home from my parent's all by myself. I had driven the Cherokee since the car seats in there are easier to remove than from the Jetta. The kiddos would be staying a couple of nights so their carseats needed to be installed in Babu's car. It was originally planned as a family outing...then Sean ended up stuck close to home all day on call due to stupid people playing with explosives. So, I made the most of it and enjoyed my rare hour alone.
Radio doesn't always come in out on country roads so I pulled one of the CDs out from the visor and, with a quick glace to see what it was, I put it in the player. A burned CD simply labeled "Country". In our house that could mean anything from Hank Williams Senior to Patsy Cline to Johnny Cash to George Jones, Willy Nelson, Sugarland or Miranda Lambert. Our musical tastes know few boundaries.
I knew the song from the first bars...and then the opening vocals were enough to make me roll over like a dachshund...
Jon Bon Jovi could sing the phone book to me and I'd melt into a puddle. A lot of times cross genre music couplings fall flat and come off like a cheap pr trick. However, Bon Jovi and Willie Nelson? Genius. They didn't do so bad with Sugarland either. Then again, see my remark about the phone book. I was a Willie Nelson fan before it was the cool thing to be. My music collection in boarding school was a thing of mockery...Willie, Johnny Cash, Kenny Rogers, Led Zeppelin, Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue, Billy Joel and the Eagles. I didn't care. I also had posters of motorcycles up on the wall while others had cute little "hang in there" kittens dangling from branches. I was mocked for a lot of things in school...but at least I had great music to console myself with.
"Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground" will be song/played at my funeral (if there is one). Ironic, isn't it? Growing up I never gave my wedding any thought, but I have funeral plans all written down. Not too ironic, I suppose...I've always been more Tim Burton than Garry Marshall.
Wee girl woke up this morning and declared that not only was she going to use the potty, she was going to wear underwear! Very well.
I moved her potty into the kitchen, put her in a pair of cotton training pants and tried to keep her contained in the playroom and kitchen--the only areas in the house that do not have wood floors.
Meanwhile, I occupied myself in the kitchen...sorting and re-organizing cabinets. Remember the ceiling fan incident?
Fill in the old screw holes, touch up the paint and no one will ever know there were supposed to be doors on those cabinets. At least, that's what I'm deluding myself with. We decided to remove the doors on the other set because it just looked lopsided otherwise. And very much like someone just forgot to put the doors back up.
My original de-cluttering idea was to box up non-frequently used items but turns out I was much more successful at actually throwing things away than I had thought I would be! My long suffering husband endured multiple rounds of, "What is this? Have we used it in the past three years? Seriously? You're asking me to keep it? Really? That's what I thought. Trash." He loves me.
And the girl? Soaked her first three pairs of underpants but then she got it! A little dribble and she'd go running for the potty. It took us almost two years before we had consistent success with her brother. I don't ask for much...but I'd like for her to be out of diapers in less than two years. Considering the success so far, I don't think we'll be anywhere close to that! Sweet. We could use something going smoothly for a change!
When you inform a typically morning slug of an almost five-year-old that he's headed to the beach for the day...he gets dressed and brushes his teeth without being asked to do so.
Having spent the previous three hours being pummeled by the surf...Jacob will nap on the way home. His sister? Revived by a 20 minute cat nap, chattered the entire return trip.
Following the past week and a half of our lives, we're bruised but not broken. Beat up but certainly not beat down.
A day at the beach--even with it's almost four hour round trip drive--was exactly what we all needed.
Sometime ago...somewhere in the last fifty years...this old house received a kitchen makeover. They enclosed the side porch and enlarged the kitchen. Makes for a very open and airy space--part of the charm we fell in love with. However, they failed to add insulation in the ceiling--the only portion of the house not shaded by the massive oak--and the walls. The kitchen becomes an oven throughout the late spring and summer.
Today, we installed a ceiling fan over the the main stove/counter/island area. First making sure that the blades cleared the crown moulding. And it felt amazing! Wonderful cool breeze over me as I started work on supper. Then I opened the upper cabinet by the stove. We...um...forgot to check all clearance issues.
We've discussed various cabinetry remodeling. It was just further down the list then other things. Meh. Plans are fluid when one is the proud owner of an 80-year-old home!
We now have delightful open shelving cabinets. Very airy. And very revealing. There's a reason most kitchen cabinets have doors. But rearranging the contents of our kitchen cabinets is far, far simpler than shifting the light/fan fixture over another foot.
With the exception of a few short periods of time, there has always been at least one animal in my home. Mainly dogs--there have been five very special doggies throughout the years--but there's also been a few cats here and there.
Ten years ago, following a year of semi-nomadicness, Sean and I found ourselves back in a position to adopt another pet. Since he was going to be gone at least half the year, the choice of pet was left up to me.
After a few visits to the local ASPCA I kept coming back to one kitty. A 3-year-old black and white short hair. The day we moved into our apartment Sebastian T. Cat moved in with us. He slept curled up around my head until the day we brought home Jacob...apparently, kitties do not share their humans well with others. But he adjusted to life with not just one short human, but two. One of his favorite nap spots was under Jacob's and then Kyleigh's crib.
We were always made aware of changing temperatures by Sebastian's choice of sleep spots. Winter...on our bed, sometimes under the covers but usually just curled up in a ball at the foot. Summer...at the back door in the sunshine, or in a window if one was open.
Three years ago he was diagnosed with feline diabetes. Twice a day insulin shots and special diabetic management food made a huge differences and we believed he'd hang around a little longer. A couple of months ago we noticed a decline. His medical expenses have never been cheap but with Kyleigh's medical bills rolling in, we were faced with the heartbreaking choice to end his treatments. Over the course of the last several days he has steadily gotten worse. He missed Dakota as we all have. We had already made the appointment at the vet for this morning. Given his demeanor yesterday, I was actually surprised that he made it through the night last night.
This morning we sat down with Jacob and explained that Sebastian wasn't going to be coming back. He understood. There were tears. Sebastian and Dakota have always been a part of his life. It's been a hard week on us all.
I was with him at the end, watching his eyes as the pain left his little body.
Happy Birthday, Daddy! Enjoy the new mountain bike--it goes well with the medicare card!
*A cake that's decorated in all words?! Yeah...so not my idea. Way too much stress for a dyslexic. The only way I was able to get through it was to ignore the words and just pipe the symbols. But the expression and exclamations made it well worth it!
