Back Porch Break

A Moving Experience: Part Two

July 29, 2015 by Nancy 18 Comments

In every move there is the physical side and the emotional side. Physically you are dealing with the logistics of the packers, the movers, the storage locker, what can’t be packed, where to put houseplants, pet relocation, etc. Even in a local move, the “to do” lists can be extensive.

Then there is all the emotional baggage. We prepared for the move we made in June out of a house we’d been in for 26 years for the better part of two years. All the fixing up and spiffing up that precedes a move had taken a toll on our personal time and our checkbook. We were ready.

Still, I expected the departure to be wrenching. Every place I looked in that house another memory would wash over me. (Imagine my consolation in knowing that those memories are still with me now although the house is not.)

I’ll never forget seeing our oldest granddaughter Francesca climbing up the steps from downstairs by herself for the first time. Her dark hair was in two ponytails that stuck out on either side of her head. She wore a red sweater with a black Scotty dog on it. As she climbed each step she was saying, “Juice! O’s!” letting me know it was time for breakfast.

Similar memories of visits from all 12 of our grandkids are permanently with us wherever we go. We shipped the stones with their handprints to their parents before the move, but we’ll never be without their impressions on our hearts. And in their hearts, they have so many memories of “Papa and Grancy’s house.” A collection of finds from the family room provided a history of those visits. Behind the bookcase that was too heavy to move for cleaning was one blue Barbie shoe, a marble, an orange plastic Easter egg, some cat toys, a green Hot Wheels car, a wooden block, and one red checker. Oh the fun we had!

And then there were all the gatherings that occurred under that roof! Graduation parties, engagement parties, showers, Bible studies, holiday meals with departed moms, dinner parties with friends…and on and on. God blessed us richly when He provided that home to us and our blended family.

How, I wondered, would I be able to say good-bye not only to the memories, but to the everyday joys I experienced there, especially in the last 20 years when I’ve been working from home and such a part of daily life in that house? I was saying goodbye to the deer who greeted me most every morning, the hummingbirds, the rainbows from the deck, the gardens I nurtured and cared for year after year. I was saying good-bye to the pink sunrise reflections on Cheyenne Mountain, and to neighbors we’d known for so long. It just seemed like too much good-bye. More than I could face.

But the Lord knew that. That’s why He showed us the new house He picked out for us just as we were ready to give up and look for an apartment to rent. We were energized by the discovery of the new house as we patched nail holes and cleaned at the old one. Amazingly, although there had been tears at unexpected times in the preceding weeks, when it was time to get into the car and drive away for the last time, I didn’t cry. Instead there was just a sense of blessing and relief flowing over my husband and me. The words from a favorite praise song came to mind and made their way to the refrigerator at the new house, where a month later even the cats feel right at home: He gives and takes away. He gives and takes away. Still my heart will choose to say, blessed be the name of the Lord.

A Moving Experience: Part One

July 28, 2015 by Nancy 15 Comments

It really happened. A large moving van arrived at our house the middle of June and the men loaded up what was left of our belongings after the two-day garage sale, the bulging boxes shipped to family members, and the donations. Then they took it all away. We moved.

My guess is, you know what it was like in the days leading up to the move. You weren’t there, but you’ve been there. You, too, know the sound of packing tape being pulled off the roll (and the aggravating attempt to find the end of the tape again), the desperation to grab hold of anything even slightly resembling a box, and the last-minute scrawling of “miscellaneous” on the last boxes of stuff that didn’t get packed anywhere else. (Turns out those are the boxes holding most of what you’re looking for after the move!)

Moving out of a house we’d been in for 26 years was a bit unsettling and emotional for us, but we knew there was a plan and we were excited to downsize and begin what we happily referred to as Act 3. Our cats, Molly and Beau, didn’t have the same level of reasoning and understanding, however.

The day of the move they were cloistered in an empty back bedroom with food, water, and litter. When we let them out at the end of the day, they slowly explored the completely empty house. We could only imagine what they mewed to one another.

“Well this is definitely NOT an improvement. What were they thinking? I’ll just jump up on the…the couch is missing!! Oh well, I’ll just hop on the…the kitchen table is gone!! How are we expected to live like this?”

Retrospectively it may not have been the best idea, but we decided to leave the cats alone in the empty house that night since we didn’t have to turn it over to the new owners for a few days. We wanted to get ourselves situated at The Residence Inn, where we would all live for 10 days, before bringing them over. Other than food, water, and litter, all they had was a sundry assortment of toy mice and jingly balls that turned up behind the furniture that was moved. Happy to see their lost toys, they would still have preferred a stuffed chair or a bed with a down comforter.

The next day they were most cooperative about being put into their cat carriers, however. My husband thinks they may have thought they had been left behind permanently and were relieved we came to get them. If so, that may explain how easily they adapted to life in a one-bedroom apartment at The Residence Inn.

“What do you think happened?” Molly may have asked Beau.
“I don’t know. Obviously they’ve had some sort of financial downturn,” Beau may have conjectured.

“Well, at least they kept us. We’d best just hunker down and make the most of it,” Molly may have concluded.

Whatever they were thinking, it’s true that there is bonding in adversity. The cat fights have drastically reduced since the whole moving experience began!

TO BE CONTINUED

Books-a-Bazillion

May 7, 2015 by Nancy 23 Comments

Ah, spring! Time for tulips, green grass, baby calves frolicking in the fields, and spring cleaning! My husband and I have been in the process of downsizing for a while now (or “rightsizing” as we Baby Boomers prefer), so spring cleaning is sort of an ongoing thing at our house. I’ve had no trouble at all sorting through clothes, linens, dishes, pots and pans, and even jewelry. So many items have found new homes or been relegated to the recycle bins. But there’s one problem. Our house is chock full of books, and I can’t seem to let them go.

My husband and I once fantasized about selling everything we own and buying a sailboat to sail around the world. We figured we could generate enough income via the internet to keep the galley stocked, and we could stay in touch with friends and family via e-mail. Only one thing—well, besides the fact that neither of us knew how to sail—was stopping us. What would we do with all our books?

It’s not that we never give a book away, sell a book at a garage sale, or take a stack of books to a used bookstore. We just don’t seem to have done any of those things frequently enough. Hardbacks, paperbacks, pocket-sized volumes and coffee table tomes…our house is full of books.

Even with all the moves over the years, we both still have textbooks from college courses we took in the late sixties. I saved valuable texts like the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the Harbrace College Handbook. He, on the other hand, has texts titled (I’m not making this up) Engineering Economy, Applied Regression Analysis, and Principles of Operations Research with Application to Managerial Decisions, copyright 1969. Now, excuse me, but William Blake will always be William Blake and the tiger burns just as brightly “in the forests of the night” in 2015 as he did in 1967. However, any manager needing advice based on what was known about systems operations in 1969 is probably managing a push broom—if that!

In addition to nonfiction titles and novels, we have a complete library of children’s books. Now I’m reading Dr. Seuss favorites like Hop on Pop, Mr. Brown is Out of Town and The Foot Book to a second generation. I suppose I could forgo the set of 1975 Encyclopedia Britannica Junior (minus Vol. 16, which one of my sons left at school), but I couldn’t abandon Tuggy the Tugboat for the most luxurious sailboat made!

We also have travel guides to every place we’ve ever been or dreamed of going. Those would come in handy on the sailboat, but where would we put them? At least I could toss overboard those for inland locations, like Beijing: An Illustrated Guide. We would need one whole foot locker to hold those classics we plan to read some day, including the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and the Complete Novels of Jane Austen, and another for the books we bought but haven’t read yet. We’d need all the books we’ve saved from foreign languages we’ve taken so we could look up how to ask directions to the post office in every port, and I’d need my full supply of cookbooks in the galley, with titles spanning trends from fondu to gluten-free.

You may be wondering why we don’t just read books on an electronic reader like a Kindle or Nook. Well, we do. But somehow that hasn’t replaced the joy of holding a book in hand and turning the pages one by one.

Although we do own a book titled Sailing for Dummies, I doubt we’ll opt for the sailing fantasy. Far more likely is that we’ll move to a smaller house with a lot less stuff—except for the books stacked floor to ceiling in every room!

The Good News of Easter

April 2, 2015 by Nancy 11 Comments

This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.—1 John 4:9

How astounding it is that the good news of Easter is not just to bring us comfort when someone we love dies, or when we ourselves are preparing to pass over into eternity in heaven. The good news of Easter is that once we believe in Jesus Christ we are already living an eternal life—right here on earth.

If we really grasped this truth, wouldn’t it completely transform the way we live out each and every day? When a friend disappointed us when we needed her most, we’d be able to forgive her much more quickly with an eternal perspective. When we felt our bones creaking as we got out of bed, we’d think of those creaks as the normal shortcomings of temporary housing—not part of our eternal state of being.

I once read a touching account of a family learning to live without the daily presence of their husband and father who died while serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq. The soldier’s four-year-old son repeatedly heard, over the period of a few days, that his dad was now in heaven. Finally he asked the only logical question: “Then why don’t we just go there and pick him up?”

Unfortunately it’s not that easy to physically span the distance between our earthly existence and our eternal home, but we can find great comfort in accepting the truth that we live one life in Christ—whether here or there, we are alive because He died on the cross for us, and rose again from the dead on Easter morning.

Paul wrote in Romans 5:1-2: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. What comfort in knowing we are NOW standing in God’s grace, right in the middle of His will for our lives. No longer separated from God by our sin, we are forgiven through Christ’s death on the cross for us.

On Easter Sunday when we sing our favorite hymns and glory in the truth of the good news of Easter, may we also pledge anew to live every day of the coming year as people who are already living an eternal life. Let’s say along with St. Augustine, “We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song!” Happy Easter!

Excerpted from THE HOPE OF GLORY lesson on “Easter Joy.” So blessed to share it with 7 assisted living residents this week. We raised the roof of the assisted living facility singing “He Lives!”

New and Improved?

March 20, 2015 by Nancy 20 Comments

I realize this blog post may guarantee my listing on the “greatest geezers of all time” list, but write it I must.

Has anyone else noticed that progress isn’t always, well…progressive? Just because something is new on the market doesn’t necessarily make it better or more useful than something that has existed for a long time.

Case in point, the new one-cup-at-a-time drip coffee makers. I’ve been to several gatherings in the past year where 10 or more people are offered coffee and have to queue up to select a choice. Then they wait for the coffee maker to very slowly make their individual cups of coffee. By the time the tenth person in line gets some java, the first three people are ready for seconds. Heaven forbid there is anything else on the agenda for the gathering, because getting everyone a cup of coffee will pretty much take up all the time. And, if I may be so bold to proclaim, no matter which variety you select it ends up tasting like the instant coffee my mother made when she ran out of the real kind.

Have we forgotten the convenience of a coffee maker that makes a whole pot of coffee at once? Not only can you brew as few or as many cups as you need, you can pour exactly as much as you want into each cup. When you want a second cup, guess what? It’s already brewed, and the coffee maker has kept it warm for you in the meantime. Brilliant, no?

Next category: iron-clad cookware. Like many couples, my husband and I succumbed to pressure from the younger generation to get rid of a perfectly good set of pots and pans and go for the much heavier iron-clad variety. Not only did I have trouble lifting a full pot off the stove, I couldn’t understand how it was progressive to have cookware that you couldn’t give a good scrubbing, and couldn’t put in the dishwasher! We gave them away, and I bought a wonderful, lightweight set of stainless steel pots and pans. You can scrub as hard as you want, they all go in the dishwasher, and I can actually pour soup out of the pan without having to grasp the handle with both hands, bend my knees, and count to three before lifting.

One last thing and I will have “geezed” enough for today. I’m not yearning for the friendly grocer who would call all your kids by name, load cans and a bag of flour into a cardboard box, and carry it out to your car (well, maybe I am), but I do appreciate and respect grocery store checkers. I feel that the prices I pay for the items I purchase in a grocery store are set to cover the salaries of these well-trained, competent employees. Not only do I “check out” with my favorite checkers, but “checking in” with them on a periodic basis is a social interaction I enjoy.

So why would I want to self-check my groceries? I’m not good at it, and it’s obvious the machine doesn’t like me any more than I like it. Never once has it asked me about my day or laughed at my jokes. Instead it makes rude comments like, “Strange item in bagging area.” Human checkers are better. After all, God made them, and you just can’t improve on His work!

Letting Go of Luggage

February 17, 2015 by Nancy 12 Comments

I have difficulty emotionally letting go of both cars and luggage. Once I’ve driven a car for 8 or 9 years and it has taken me safely wherever I wanted to go, trading it in seems like such a betrayal. Likewise, it’s hard to let go of a suitcase that’s collected memories like the stickers they used to put on the old steamer trunks.

Yet trading up to a new set of luggage had become a necessity for my husband and me. Even though we didn’t particularly want new luggage, we needed it. No really. We’d already had the zippers on the old set repaired once, and had resorted to using paper clips for zipper pulls. Each bag in the set is pretty well coated with airport grime, the faux leather trim is scraped off in many places, and the linings are ripped and holey. It was time.

I look at the new bag we bought (shown on the right) and it’s exciting to imagine all the places it might go with us as we move into Act 3 of our lives; but I look at the old bag on the left and remember all the places it’s been.

I have so many memories of the old bag laying open on our bed as I struggled through packaphobia before any one of the trips I’ve been blessed to take—often with a cat or two curled up inside hoping to go along unnoticed. That bag has been on numerous trips to visit grandchildren over the last 10 years or so since I bought it on sale at Sears…one of a nesting set of three for about $100. (The day I bought it I never dreamed it would last this long.) It’s carried Christmas gifts, birthday surprises, stuffed animals…you name it.

I can’t begin to remember all the vacations this bag has taken, but I know we pulled it for what felt like miles over cobblestone streets in Venice a few years ago as we looked for our hotel. That may be why the wheels are a bit wobbly. It was also on our 25th Anniversary trip to California in the Summer of 2013. Did it enjoy traveling the Pacific Coast Highway from the back of our rental car as much as we did from the front seat?

Maybe my affection for luggage stems from the fact that, like a long lost friend, I’m always so happy to see it again after a separation. When my bag emerges from the belly of the airport onto the carousel at my destination, my heart skips a beat and I’m silently screaming, “There it is! My bag made it!”

I know suitcases don’t have feelings (well, I don’t think they do!) but just before taking this one out to the donation pile I wanted to stop and acknowledge how grateful I am for all the times it traveled alongside me, showed up when I needed it most, and fulfilled its purpose well. May the same be said of me some day.