Are There Beehives In Space?

Remember that commercial from the late 70s that went something like … “SOME day is today … at Honeywell”?  I’ve been thinking of that commercial lately because “SOME day has become today … at the home.   By which I mean, the painting we were going to do SOME day, the hardwood floors we were going to replace the carpet with SOME day, the wallpaper we were going to strip SOME day, and irrigation ditch pump that we were going to update SOME day are being painted, installed, stripped and replaced … today (within the next month or so anyway) … at the home.  This unexpected move into “today” has engendered various amounts of grumbling, moaning and arguing debate at the home.

When I say the home I mean our future retirement house.  When I first started telling people about this house I would call it “the house we’re going to move to when we retire.”  That was a mouthful which I soon shortened to “our retirement home” which then became the home. “Yup, goin’ up to the home again this weekend.” 

Lately I've been wondering if I should come up with another way to easily describe this house we plan to move to when we both retire.  The home  triggers an image of silver-haired geezers (if they have any hair at all, that is) shoulders stooped, shuffling from room to room, groaning during their frequent stops to massage a hip, all the while either shouting, “What? Whajja say? I didn’t hear you! Say it again! Whaaaaat?!" or mumbling to themselves about the other dimwits residents.              

Then again … maybe not.

◦

Are There Beehives In Space?

Dear John, You’re Even Handier Than Edward

Ever since we bought a football field of grass I have been trying to convince myself that I do not need a rider mower.  Each time somebody told me I did need one, I had a reason why a push mower would work just as well:

• It’ll be like painting a bridge.  By the time you finish it’ll be time to start again.
• I’m going to be retired.  What else will I need to do with my time?

• You’re going to be old.  It’ll be too hard for you to push a mower. 
• I’ll get one of those fancy self-propelled mowers so you don’t have to worry about finding my exhausted body sprawled across the lawn mower or hear me whimpering for help.

• Your ancient body just won’t be able push a mower for hours and hours even if it IS self-propelled.
• I’m going to be 60 … not 600!  I’m still going to need exercise.  It’ll be good exercise for me.  It’s gotta be better than the evil elliptical.  

The truth of the matter is I was coming up with excuses because I was afraid of rider mowers.  I was 28 years old before I ever even mowed a lawn, and that was with an old fashioned reel mower that made quick work of the postage stamp lawn we had.  That little mower did a great job on the larger lawn we acquired later too.  Just ask Leslie and Abby.  I’m sure they’d love to share their lawn mowing memories.  Once the girls left home we dumped the reel mower graduated to a mower with a real motor.  Dean, as always, had my interests in mind when he insisted on an environmentally friendly, bicep and thigh-building non-self-propelled, electric push mower which over the past 12 years or so has also fine-tuned my cord-dragging/tripping/flipping abilities.

I’ve never mowed with a lawn mower that uses gas and oil.  I’ve never had to pull that cord until your arm falls off to get it to start.  I’ve never had to add gasoline, or change the oil or fill my lungs with exhaust.  When I thought about owning a rider mower, I not only worried I might become a ready-made torch if I spilled gasoline all over myself when I tried to fill the gas tank, picturing myself driving a giant razorblade scared me and kept me awake at night.

Since Dean didn’t think they made an extension cord long enough to reach the end of our property, we were forced to shop for an alternative means of maintaining our field of grass.  I just wanted to quickly get something and be done with it.  Get it over with.  But Ryan came along, asked questions, did some research and saved me from myself.   I finally decided if I was forced to reach outside my comfort zone to a mower with gas and oil and fumes, I might as well go whole hog … or, as it turned out … whole deere … John Deere, that is … Lawn Tractor.  And then I tried to forget we had bought it.  Until a week later when it was delivered and I had to face the realization that I was going to have to get up on that high-backed seat, start the engine … and drive the giant razorblade mow.  So I put it off as long as possible – until late Sunday morning. 

The kid who delivered it had given me a little lesson before he left but he might as well have been writing math equations on a blackboard because my brain shut down in fear as soon as he pointed to the key.  Dean made me read the manual but I might as well have been reading Algebra For Dummies because my brain shut down in fear again as soon as I saw the Safety Warnings.  Finally the time came when I had to either mow or hang my head in shame every time the neighbor moved the sprinkler on his impeccably cut lawn.  So we locked up Angus … Dean went over all the steps with me – again … and after I made him back it out of the garage … I got on … in the front yard (even though I’d explicitly begged asked him to take it to the back where nobody would see me) … started my engine, put down the deck, turned on the blade … and … I went forward …   

I went backward …

 and I sliced off grass with the giant razorblades like a samurai  mowed.   

 You thought I was going to say I got stuck in a bush didn't you? 

 Or tipped over.  Or sliced off a corner of the house.  I wouldn’t blame you if you did because I worried about those very things all weekend myself.  But Ha!  I didn’t.  I didn’t even lose control.   I’m not saying I loved it.  I didn’t.  It still scares me but at least I can hold my head up high; which might not be a good thing if it allows me to see the neighbors doubled over laughing while they watch me, brow furrowed in concentration, a death grip on the handlebars, putt putting along at around two miles per hour.

◦

Dear John, You’re Even Handier Than Edward

Lyle Loves Ponies Too

It’s been so long since I’ve written anything here that I don’t know how to begin so I guess I’ll just jump right in with I thought I broke my nose last weekend.  The second thought that went through my head as I was gingerly tapping at my nostrils wondering when the blood would begin to flow was boy, this will make a great blog post.  Too bad I don’t have time to write about how I was on my knees, hunched over, gripping pliers and pulling at a stubborn staple with all my strength when it suddenly let loose, my fist flew back straight into my nose which propelled me back onto my butt.  But my nose didn’t bleed or swell or even bruise and my nose didn’t break.  So no blog post there. 

I thought maybe I could post about the shape my hand had assumed from ripping out four rooms of carpet and padding, yanking out those stubborn staples and scraping off the glued-on indoor-outdoor carpeting foam from the floor of two rooms, although I wasn’t sure how I could type if my fingers were curled over in the shape of a claw.  But I managed to pry my fingers from the pliers and the scraper and with only a little massaging I was able to return them to their natural positions … or at least natural enough to hold a glass of beer.  So no blog post there either.

Dean made the first mouthwatering homemade breakfast in our future retirement house but there were no fires or spills or burns to make that interesting to post about.

It seems all I’m left to write about is the variety of ways Angus found to stay cool while Dean and I were sweating as we pulled and ripped and yanked and scraped and groaned. 

Well, that and the fact that we have just learned that Angus is not part Labradoodle/part Bernese Mountain dog.  He is part Labradoodle and horse Newfoundland.   12 weeks, 25 pounds and growing.

Now we know why he likes to stick half his head in his water bowl when he drinks.  I can’t tell you how excited I am for the drooling to start.  I just hope I’m not holding a pair of pliers when I slip in it.  On the bright side, if I can train him to lick up his slobbers from the floor I may never have to mop again!

◦

Lyle Loves Ponies Too

Finally ... Central Air!

◦

Finally ... Central Air!

Sleep Is Overrated

Six weeks have gone by since I last posted.  Six weeks that feel like six days or six hours or sometimes even six minutes.  More things have gone on during the last six weeks than normally occur in our lives during a six month period or maybe even a six year period depending on how motivated obsessed and crazed we are I am.  I haven’t had a chance to write over the past weeks because as it turns out, when time is at a premium, sleep is more important to me than blathering on uncontrollably about every little boring thing that happens in my life sharing interesting and comedic events of my life with you.  But I’ve become attached to this blog and even if nobody has missed reading it, I’ve missed writing it.  So even if this post is short, filled with grammatical errors, isn't pretty and lacks entertainment value, today, while my stress level is somewhat lower and my brain is functioning reasonably well on a tolerable (although still not ideal) amount of sleep, I’m going to briefly jot down just what has transpired in the Land of Stilwellian since we I was taken over by an alien being who sucked out my change is scary/take your time/weigh the pros and cons then weigh them again/sleep on it/don’t jump into anything brain and replaced it with a jump into it/storm the beaches/full speed ahead/change everything! brain.

As they say in "Glee":  Here's what ya missed:

•  Ryan accepted a teaching position in Sheridan. 

•  We all jumped up and down clapping and I shouted “I guess we’re moving to Sheridan too!”

• We all spent hours and hours at Leslie and Ryan’s house painting, packing, cleaning, tiling and moving furniture.

•  We helped at Leslie and Ryan’s garage sale where we got rid of parted with some of our junk precious possessions.  

• We spent two days (a week apart) in Sheridan checking out the real estate in preparation for purchasing the perfect house “sometime in the next two years.”  The last house we looked at on the last house hunting day was "the one".   I nearly begged Dean to let me call and make an offer even though it had everything I said I didn't want.  A huge lawn to mow, septic, propane heat, and is five miles from town.

 

Our creek -- running alongside our property

Family Room

Front of House and Dean's "man cave" aka garage

View from family room of part of our 1.5 acres

•   Dean began searching for my brain.

And what's been happening the past six weeks: 

 *  I spent hours talking to “Luke the Banker” … oh, if only I had time to post about my experiences with “Luke the Banker” … oh, how I could go on …

 *   Dean tried to plant a vegetable garden.

*   I intermittently worried I’d jumped into this whole buy a house and move thing too quickly and had moments of fear and panic when my chest got so tight it felt like I might be having heart issues.  I didn't add chest pains to my list of worries though because I'd already learned from my ER visit last fall (when I was worrying about how I'd get us from the airport to our vacation rental in Edinburgh) that chest pains are just my own special reaction to stress.

*   It was hot.

*   Most days I was exhausted.

*   Leslie and Ryan moved in with us.  Our house went from two adults and two cats to four adults, three children, two cats, a salamander and all the paraphernalia, clothing and toys that accompany them.

*  Weeds took over the garden.

*   Pierce got a puppy for his birthday.

Baxter.  Angus' brother.

*  We got a puppy.

Sir Angus Wallace MacDuff (Labradoodle/Bernese Mtn. Dog Mix)

*   Dean intensified the search for my brain.

*  We spent a whole day stringing a fence and building an it’ll-do-for-now gate in the backyard.

*  We took turns getting up at night with the puppy.

*   Myra got two gerbils for her birthday.

*   It got hotter.

*  Our house now included four adults, three children, two cats, a salamander two puppies, two gerbils and all the paraphernalia, clothing and toys that accompany them.

  
*   Myra said she “loves rodents because rodents are small and they scamper.”

*   We decided to use the next two years to fix all the things we would need to fix before selling our own house.

*   I was still exhausted.

*  An electrician replaced a ceiling fan, under-counter kitchen lights and a couple of broken switches.

*   A roofer replaced some missing shingles.

*   Two people gave me bids on repairing stonework on our garage.

*  Abby came home for a week to visit.  Yippeee!!!  She asked why we are fixing everything now when we said we would take care of it over a two-year period.

*   I collected and tried to organize ten inches of paper from "Luke the Banker" and our realtor.

*  We took Abby to meet Jorge in Omaha and visit family in Lincoln.

*  Abby sent in the VISA paperwork for Jorge.  Yippee!  Yippee!!  Yippee!!!

*  Fires burned around Wyoming and Colorado, it was 87 degrees in our house when we returned home from Lincoln and it smelled like we'd lit a campfire in the living room.

*  We got a bid for central air conditioning.

*  We spent a weekend in Denver visiting friends.

*   We drove to Sheridan and closed on our retirement home.

And here’s what’s comin’ up:

 *  Central air conditioning will be installed in our Casper house on Friday (Sheridan house already has it!)

*  We’re still going to be getting up in the night with a puppy.

*   Stonework will be repaired on the garage.

*  A “for real” gate will be built.

*   A puppy door will be installed in the garage door.

*  We will help load up two adults, three children a puppy, two gerbils, a salamander and all the paraphanelia that goes with them and unload them in Sheridan.

*  There will be crying after two adults, three children a puppy, two gerbils, a salamander and all the paraphanelia that goes with them have moved to Sheridan.

*  We will be trying to live in and maintain two houses for two years hoping that what we need or want at that moment isn’t always at the other house.

*  We will be spending as many weekends and any other days we can manage up in Sheridan.

*   I have a feeling we are going to need new tires or a new car or both.

*   Dean's search for my brain will continue.

◦

Sleep Is Overrated

If It Feels Right ...

The last few days have reminded me how stressful buying a home can be.  Since last Friday afternoon my nerves have been tingling and in a nearly constant state of tension.  My heart has been pounding and my chest has been tight because waaaaaay before we thought it would happen we found the perfect retirement home and we are under contract. 

I am a person (so my daughters tell me) who thinks and considers and weighs all the pros and the cons about every decision I make – and then I think and consider some more.  I am not (so my daughters tell me) a person who looks at a house one time, wakes up the next morning and decides an offer must be made … now!  “What happened to ‘we have lots of time, we just want to see what’s out there but we won’t get serious for probably a year’? they said.”  “Who ARE you?  Where is our mom?” they said.  I’m not really sure what alien being has taken up residence in my body, but I do know this – sometimes you just know in your gut when a decision is right.  And even though my brain and body are exhausted from offers and counters and paperwork and texts and e-mails and realtors and bankers … I’m excited because this just feels right.  It feels the same as it did when I found THE wedding dress nearly 40 years ago.  When I saw it I just knew.  I don’t know how to relate it to men other than maybe it’s the same as when Dean laid eyes on my brother-in-law’s pellet grill for the first time, started drooling and hasn’t stopped talking about it since. 

I won’t have any photos of the house until after Thursday when we meet with the inspector to get his (hopefully) glowing report but I can tell you our dream retirement home is on one and a half acres, five miles from town.  There’s a nice deck off the back where you can sit and listen to the creek running alongside the property.  It has the large heated, insulated garage Dean dreamed of and there’s lots of space on the property for his “treasures”. 

When I told Abby we’d seen two deer on the property when we pulled up she asked if Jorge could come and shoot or hunt on “our” land.   Um, no.  Don’t think so.  Fishing in the creek might be an option but deer are in a shoot-free zone.  Her question did get me thinking about hunting though, and since I haven’t had a lot of time to blog recently – what with buying a house and being mentally and physically wiped out – I thought I would share a letter I’d written to my parents about 30 years ago (which my mom saved and labeled Cathy The Hunter) after a hunting experience Dean and I each had.  After re-reading it I decided it was probably just as well Abby got Jorge to the altar before he realized he was marrying into a family with limited no talent when it comes to hunting.

This was just after I cried and just before I pulled out the library book and held it up for Dean to refer to while gutting.

◦

If It Feels Right ...

Poopastrophe

It’s a given that most of us never get around to starting or finishing projects around the house until we find out we’re moving and need to sell our house.  And then once those projects are done we wonder why we hadn’t finished them a long time ago so WE could be the ones to enjoy them, not the people who buy our house.  Now that Leslie and Ryan have found themselves a part of that procrastinating group we all belong to, we have been spending a lot of our time the last couple of weeks helping them paint, tile, pack, clean and finish all those other little projects they knew they had years and years to complete because they were never going to move.

 

And, since we are also planning to move in a couple of years, when we haven’t been helping out at their house, we have been staining the woodwork we hadn’t managed to get around to for four and a half years ...

... because we were never going to move either. 

We’ve all been in pretty high gear for days but recently all of our engines have begun to misfire.  Our gears have been grinding and sometimes we can barely get from first gear to second.  It became obvious we needed to idle a bit.  So today Leslie and Ryan left to spend a night in Denver and enjoy a concert they’d gotten tickets for way before they knew their life would be crazy at this moment in time.  We are keeping the kids while they're gone because Ryan’s parents were busy and we couldn’t think fast enough to come up with a reason to get out of it.  Juuuuust kidding.  If it wasn’t for those kids I wouldn’t be entertaining you with this blog post.  I’d be sitting out on the deck … in my glider, drinking a gin and tonic … listening to the birds sing … waiting for Dean to feed me dinner.   Instead I’m at the computer, drinking a gin and tonic …waiting for three kids to fall asleep ... so I can too.

So……the kids arrived at 9:40 a.m. this morning all geared up in hiking boots, hats, jeans, long sleeves and carrying their special nature bags.  Off we went to the grocery store to buy our nutritious Lunchables and Crackerjacks.  As everyone was choosing between slimy fake turkey, oily cheese and crackers, or slimy fake beef, oily cheese and crackers or slimy fake ham, oily cheese and crackers, I realized  that I had forgotten to bring any washcloths so I went searching for some kind of hand wipes.  But since I never buy hand wipes, and we were in a store I don't normally shop in, I couldn’t find them.  I could have asked somebody but I just didn't feel like it so I decided we’d be fine just wiping our hands on our jeans.  We were going hiking and rock hunting after all.  We weren’t going to an afternoon tea at the Governor’s Mansion.  I had no idea what serious ramifications that seemingly innocent decision would wreak upon me a few short hours later.

Loaded with two small coolers filled with our nutritious lunches, two backpacks filled with extra jackets, water, sunscreen, camera, and water bottles, and three special nature bags, we headed out of town to our destination.  All went well.  We scrambled over rocks, 

discovered amazing fossils, 

helped speed up the natural process,


























 and had an awesome lunch of slimy meat, oily cheese and Crackerjacks. 

Near the end of our adventure Myra got a panicked look in her eyes and said she had “to poop.”  I hadn’t factored pooping into my equation when I chose not to pursue searching out the wipes.  All I had was half a kleenex in my pocket.  Once Myra made sure it wasn’t “full of boogers” she accepted it.  I found her a place near a bush which was nice and flat, had no cactus in sight and left her.  “Be sure to bring the Kleenex back,” I said.  “We can’t leave it out here.”

When I got back to where Pierce was waiting he had the same panicked look in his eyes and I caught a whiff in the air that had definitely not come from the few wildflowers we’d seen blooming.   I took Pierce’s hand and we headed to another “bathroom.”  Myra handed off the half a kleenex to me as she headed back the other way.   As Pierce and I walked I was trying to remember how I’d done this with my own girls years and years ago.  Did I just brace them as they squatted or did I make a triangle of my arms with their little butts pointing through the opening?   I found another nice flat spot, cactus free, and I pulled down Pierce’s jeans and underwear, still not quite sure of my role in this pooping matter.  Then I looked down and realized the whiff had been much more than just a spurt of gas.  Think underwear filled with gooey wallpaper paste.  Only brown. That tiny square of already-used kleenex was not going to cut it.

Squatting was definitely not an option now.  I quickly made a triangle of my arms and lifted him up hoping to contain the thick “paste” globbed onto his cheeks.  I knew immediately that I needed reinforcements.  As I held him up, jeans and overflowing underwear bunched up around his ankles, brown butt pointing through the opening in my triangle arms, I yelled “I need help!  I need help!  I need help!”  Emerson came running.  “I need a plastic bag or a coat or a shirt or, or, or, anything!”  She opened the two backpacks and I saw coats and shirts flying.  One backpack held plastic bags but they were filled with the remnants of our oily cheese and slimy meat lunches.  I wasn’t really desperate enough (yet) to use a bright yellow shirt as toilet paper so I said, “tell Papa I need help!”  She yelled.  “Papa!  Nada needs help!  She needs help!”  In the meantime I looked down at the ground and discovered Pierce had been hard at work and on the ground was, well, more “wallpaper paste.”  As he was calmly propped in my triangle arms, tiny brown butt hovering over the ground, his pants leg dangling dangerously close to everything he’d eaten in the last 12 hours, I continued to yell for help, Emerson continued to yell for help, and Dean hollered back, “Nada can take care of it.”  (Later he told me I “didn’t sound desperate”)

I couldn’t let Pierce stand up because the “paste” would plop down his legs onto his pants.  I needed to get those pants and the overloaded underwear off but I couldn't get them off without taking off his hiking boots first and I couldn’t take off his hiking boots while he was nestled in my triangle arms.   Pierce was completely at ease but my arms were becoming tired and Dean was 50 yards away nonchalantly gathering the coolers and water bottles we’d left when we went exploring after lunch.  Finally Emerson convinced him my situation was becoming desperate and he arrived with two nearly full water bottles.   Dean carefully got Pierce’s boots, socks, jeans and underwear off, and then I tipped Pierce’s butt up as Dean began pouring water and I wiped the brown sticky “paste” from his little butt with my hand.   Yes.  My hand.  Because a few short hours earlier I hadn’t thought we would need wipes. 

So there we were; Pierce was in my triangle arms, tipped up so his little skinny butt was nearly facing the sky, Dean was pouring water on him, I was smearing the “paste” around and hopefully off of him, while girls and Pierce are all laughing.  At least we were in the middle of nowhere.  Two quarts of water later he was clean (enough) and we decided it was time to call it a day.  Other than Myra running into some cactus (which required some miniscule needle extractions), a tree branch (which resulted in a few tears), and a rock, (a few more tears), the walk back to the car was uneventful.  We stopped for ice cream on our way home and nobody even wrinkled their noses when we walked in to the shop. 

It was a day of learning.  The kids learned about rocks and fossils

 and what “going commando” means.   

 I learned never to go anywhere without hand wipes.

◦

Poopastrophe