home – Page 21

Intentionally speaking often leads to…

Published on May 5, 2015 by Mae @ RainydayinmayLeave a comment

Sometimes my brain only makes sense to me, and sometimes I have the most honorable and best of intentions. There are times when these things play out in my favor. Then, as I’m sure we all know, in our own ways, there are other times…

My life, lately, is an other time…

After we lost the first house we were trying to buy, back in November, along with our savings, things looked a little bleek. What we needed was a time of respite to regroup and plan, but what we had was a lot of pressure from several directions, pretty much no money and even less time.

Some people do their best functioning under pressure. I may not be one of those people. At least not this sort of pressure… We ended up in a mortgage plan that wasn’t what we felt remotely comfortable with, in a house we weren’t at all excited about and with even more pressure heaped on our shoulders because of all of the renovation work that needed done NOW. Then, just when we thought we could breathe for five minutes, we learned that we had every major appliance breaking, water heater and well problems, furnace issues, a sick daughter and the list goes on and on.

That cliché’ statement about how God doesn’t give you more than you can handle? It’s bologna. I reached the limit of what I could handle months ago, and I shut down. I wasn’t my best self, I wasn’t myself. My blog sat quiet, my life sat quiet. My marriage became a conversation about money, parenting struggles and home repair.

It’s frustrating when you do the right thing and it blows up in your face. Like trying to be there for your ailing parent by creating a home for them. Like giving your landlord six months notice because it’s the nice thing to do. Good intentions are great, but they are not certainties that things will work out. Was it a mistake to offer to bring my mom out here? Probably. But what was the alternative? We haven’t learned the answer to that. We’ve had the worst eight months of our lives as a result of trying to do the right thing, and the end isn’t in sight. Our sixteen year old has not been exempt from what she has lost/sacrificed as a result of this mess and yet we keep going because, well, what choice do we have?

We desperately need that ten grand we lost last November, and are sort of fumbling through life, trusting and trying not to worry…

And so, my brain made sense to me and my intentions were good when I accepted a job that had me working weekends and a weekday or two. The shifts were doable, and it was temporary. I would make nowhere near the money we needed, but it was money. With Chw traveling, often weekends are our only time together and this was a devastating development but we agreed (together) that the ease of some of the financial stress may be the balance of the lack of time. I went in to the job being assured flexibility when I needed it, and knowing that in return weekends would be a given. I was prepared for that. What I was not prepared for was the belittling when I needed to put a date regarding Gen’s school schedule (three weeks out) on the calendar so I wasn’t scheduled. Every time something like that came up, it was an issue. Then, as fate would have it, I was side swiped by a woman pulling out of Target.

Anyone who has had a car accident knows what follows… Adjuster meetings, physical therapy appointments, auto body shop appointments, etc. And then I thought, what about physicals? Dental appointments? Repairmen scheduled at my house? It would be stress forever, and I would be continually disrespected and insulted every time I had to be a mom or, God forbid, take care of myself… So, I quit. Which was both really sad because I had fallen INSTANTLY in love with the company and was excited to be there, and a tremendous relief because the amount of anxiety/stress that dealing with my boss had caused was so unhealthy.

It was after my decision that my husband said he didn’t want me to work outside of the home. But, the money. And then he shared the stress it put him on to imagine juggling everything that I take care of, and trying to manage our lives while he’s traveling, not to mention how we’d never be able to visit our out-of-town daughter and her family, (something I hadn’t even thought of). So, the reality is I need to try to make MORE money from home. Work HARDER at home. This completely overwhelms the crap out of me, and so my knee-jerk reaction is to look the other way.

And seriously, I’m not going to lie, I was really looking forward to interacting with adults out there in the outside, on a regular basis. Ha…

But anyway, my point with this harrowing story is that life is not the way our agenda bullet-points it out to be, and sometimes that really sucks, but it’s also ok. Are we happy about this mortgage nightmare? no. But, we ended up loving this house. Though I’m not a fan of living in a reno zone, I absolutely love what we have done. And do you remember wayyyy back when I shared how Gen HATED the prospect of our house and how she would never have a friend over? Well she is so surprised by how much she loves our house that she brings it up quite often. It’s home. It’s a work in progress, but it’s home… If we knew, a year ago, what we know now, would we do things differently? Yes. But I think we’d still want to end up sleeping under this very roof so we’ve got to trust at least something is headed in the right direction…

A rubik’s cube, gofer and a goose walk into a bar…

Published on April 28, 2015 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

Have you ever taken on a project, felt like you were finally making some progress and then the world came crashing down around you? Me too. And Chw… Quite literally, actually, poor guy! Amidst his demanding work schedule and our absolutely crazy work schedules that we’re trying (albeit a little unsuccessfully, it feels) to mesh together, we try to get projects done with the house. There are so many though and we are so overwhelmed that I’m afraid we aren’t accomplishing anything. It’s a one small task done, three major repairs needed sort of thing. Case in point, over the weekend he decided to paint our half bath. It’s a small room that really only needed paint, a new faucet and new flooring. In comparison to the rest of the house, this is all very simply… We picked up a great little faucet, have paint and are going to go the cheap flooring route because, honestly, we’re tapped and that’s just the way it is. So, there’s my awesome husband, post primering this complicated and tiny room when he notices a soft spot in the ceiling. He touches it, thus spending the rest of the day buying drywall (and to think we’d gone SEVEN DAYS without a trip to Home Depot! Another record broken!), re-drywalling the ceiling after taking care of the water damage and finding the source. An entire weekend of work and the room sits, unpainted… When will we have time to tackle it again? Who knows.

Have I mentioned here, that I’m going back to work? I’m pretty nervous and excited. It’s been pretty nerve racking balancing my schedule with Chw’s and throwing Genny’s regular babysitting schedule into the mix. I’ll still need a work from home schedule for writing so it’s kind of like I’m managing the schedules of four people that don’t fit together in any way at all. Super fun! It’s all just until may windfall comes in though, then we’re retiring somewhere warm, sandy and tropical. That should be any day, I’m guessing… Since I refuse to live in the land of pink unicorns and rainbow slides though, I’ll keep on trying the Rubik’s Cube of our calendar and renovating this old house one centimeter at a time. And oh yeah, now that it’s nice out we’ve actually seen what our yard looks like and it too needs a ton of work. Discouraging, to say the least. (though the giant gofer who lives under our deck seems quite happy with things.) *Note to any gofer familiar readers: He’s adorable but will he hurt my dogs? Should we get rid of him? If the answer to this is yes, is there a non violent way to do this because he is adorable, BUT we are practically roommates…

Speaking of gofers… We have lived in “city” for far too long, I guess. (even though we’ve never actually lived in a real city where dogs poop on concrete and stuff) Living on a lake is a whole new bit of amazing. We love the sunsets over the lake, (until the trees bloom and we can no longer see the lake anyway) and the geese coming in to the lake have been amazing! Every day feels, sounds and smells like camping except we have a full kitchen, comfy bed and shower. It’s fantastic. Every day we see fat squirrels, bunnies, hundreds of birds. (and of course, our friendly gofer tenant) I’m really looking forward to a lazing morning of tea and reading, out on the deck, as soon as the Cube aligns enough to make it so.

that one time at my surprise pity party…

Published on April 1, 2015 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay3 Comments

There are a dozen-hundred things mulling about within my brain. It has been an awfully long month of march. Emotionally exhausting things which I, to tell you the truth, hadn’t expected to take their toll on me emotionally.

For one, while I knew that it would be challenging living in a partial renovation state, I underestimated how utterly exhausting it would be. When we work on a project, or bring some-little-something to the state of completion, I am elated. I feel a calm wash over me and a reaffirmation that we can do this. As my husband jet sets off to yet another business trip, and I’m here surrounded by boxes, tools and equipment though, this defeat rises like bile. It isn’t that I want it done right now, as much as I just want something done. Some space that is finished. Some area where I can drink it in and take solace that we’ll get there…

Then there is love… Though it’s not love, nor is she pretending it is, for which I am glad. My youngest has a crush. It’s months upon months old, but it has reached a dramatic climax over these past few weeks and emotionally I’m wiped out. Young hearts are being shaped and molded and her heart is special. She has certain struggles that others might not understand… Going through this has been so much more difficult than I’d expected.

I’m so far behind on a work deadline that I laugh and joke about my *insert air-quotes here*deadline because honestly I just want to curl into a ball and cry about it. I’m taking on another work project that I’m so unbelievably excited for, but I’m just a ball of ooey-gooey something over all of it… It is the right thing to do. Both are. They are my Best Yes decisions… But I’m not sure how to get from here, (here= complete unorganized, overwhelmed and unsupported chaos) to there.

And of course- I’m so lonely. I desperately miss, not so much Idaho home (though the restaurants and boutique shopping here do not compare) but my people… I miss my people. March marked two years here and I’ve made a few surface connections. I am so not a surface relationship girl. Having a birthday and realizing that if I were to want a party (I didn’t), there is no one to invite (again) is a pretty crappy feeling… I want to be happy here. I love our house. My husband so completely loves his job. My youngest is likely as connected and adjusted as she’ll ever be. I want to not be sad for me, but it creeps up on me. My birthday month was really hard for that reason.

Then lastly, there is the whole birthday thing. I’ve never loved them. Not really. Not mine anyway… My preferred celebration is dinner with my husband and kids and time out with friends. So when neither of those can happen (I really, really miss my other two kids too) and my husband KEPT asking me what I wanted to do- I had nothing… No input, no opinion. Nothing. What I wanted to do was work from dawn til dusk on the house so the day sped by and we accomplished something, but he was only really home for a couple of days and that wasn’t fair to him. I realized, as I turned 39, that I have a list of things I want to accomplish before I’m 40 next year. I thought I’d share…

1) a getaway with my best friend. (so needed!)

2) complete a 5K. (either walking or running. Jury is out on whether my knee can run.)

3) speak in public. (even if it’s simply giving a toast or testimony)

4) do something that absolutely terrifies me. (ha! Other than speaking in public.)

5) become a regular at a restaurant, coffee bar or bookstore.

6) chase my dreams (career wise) without fear, this year.

7) travel somewhere I’ve never been before.

8) have a weekend away with my husband.

9) learn something new. (skill)

10) try hot yoga.

11) Make a new friend.

12) take a photo everyday for a year.

13) Take Gen to the DIA. (I love it there, but she’s never been.)

14) go to Mackinac.

15) get a new tattoo.

16) find a volunteer job.

17) make homemade ravioli.

18) can a season’s worth of produce.

19) get my passport.

20) write down my fears and then begin working on confronting them.

21) learn how to build a fire from scratch.

22) ride on a train.

23) mother/daughter weekend with my girls.

24) 40 random drinks or meals bought for 40 strangers.

25) go skydiving.

26) host a dinner party. (I used to do this all of the time, back when I had friends. LOL)

27) get to know our neighbors.

28) repurpose a piece of furniture.

29) publish a book.

30) get a new wedding set.

31) acquire a ping-pong table.

32) play real tennis, even if I’m laughably awful.

33) take 365 walks.

34) read 40 books.

35) see a concert of someone I really, really love.

36) see a Broadway show that I’ve never seen before.

37) attend a conference.

38) spend time with all 3 of my kids- together- and have family photos done again.

39) ride a horse (it’s been since my early 20’s)

40) make someone’s life consistently brighter/happier/more joy-filled/less stress-filled.

The moral of my March, and what I learned is that I don’t want to be sad about the sad things. I want to learn, love and grow. I learned that even when life is beautiful and there is a lot to be grateful for (and there really is) sometimes circumstances will be a little unpredictably sad and catch me a little off guard… but a new day, (or in tomorrow’s case, a new month) will come and brighten the prospects a little bit…

luck & home…

Published on March 2, 2015 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

This house adventure we’ve been on and made me introspective. Buying an older home, (built-in the late 60’s and needing quite a bit of updating) has been at times frustrating and consistently enlightening. C & I’s relationship with homes has been a bit lackluster. We were ideal renters for years, always being the ones who kept the peace, paid on time, cleaned up after ourselves and left places nicer than when they became ours. Our first adventure into home ownership tragically came to an end about 6 months after we signed the papers. We were young and this had been a personal transaction between family that came with strings which complicated things greatly. In the end, it was easier to give the home back. Though I loved it a bit, those months had been so full of sad and our marriage was coming to an end. It was time…

After our reconciliation we stepped up our rental game and renovated a beautiful home in New York for a landlord. It was an absolutely fun experience which tragically resulted in a job transfer out-of-state as the reno came to a close, so we never got to enjoy the home we had poured our hearts into. After moving we went into an apartment complex where the manager actually said “You guys are dream tenants, people like you don’t exist.”

It was after that lease that we explored the buying route again, and we got so lucky! We bought a beautiful condo in a beautiful development. We had amazing neighbors and loved absolutely everything about it. Nothing went wrong, decorating was a dream… And then the economy crashed and our fixed mortgage came to an abrupt expiration. You know the tale by now, so many were telling it- the value had dropped and no one would refinance. No condo is worth a four thousand dollar monthly mortgage payment, nor could we have afforded even if it had been worth it. I still, eight years later, cannot look at photos from that home.

We rented again, jaded and broken. Our property management company loved us. The owner of the house we rented constantly asked my husband to do improvements because he knew C was capable and he liked us staying there. When we transferred to Michigan in 2013, it was fast. We’d had so much of a life in that little house, it was sad to leave it. Last year when we visited, we drove by and it was a wreck. The landscaping destroyed, the pergola a wreck and trash everywhere. Sad. I wanted to climb out of the car and lay a hand on its siding, to apologize for the abuse it had seen after the love we’d given it. That house had held our love and laughter; it had held family…

Buying again has been terrifying and exhausting. Plus, I’m so tired of moving… This house though, from day one has decided to set itself apart. Things have gone wrong from the beginning. We’ve replacing plumbing, water lines, every faucet, nearly every appliance, some electrical stuff and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This was ALL unexpected. I’d wanted my tiny budget (which we well over exceeded) to go to pretty things like paint and art. Once a renter… Ha! I guess you could say, so far, we’ve been unlucky. But, if you think about how lucky our rental reno went (and then we had to move), or how lucky our condo adventure was, (and then we were unlucky and lost it) maybe this unluck is our luck. Confused? Me too… I think it’s the stress and endless amounts of money pouring out that has made me dizzy and delirious…

In all of this sleepless chaos, stress and such though, I thought I’d share a bit of how our February went…

– I haven’t been to the gym once.

– I threw my back out. (true story.)

– I have moved more boxes, packed and unpacked more stuff, cleaned (DEEP) more stuff than ever in my life.

– I didn’t need to go to the gym.

– Moving a ginormous dinosaur fridge with your husband, at 10 o’clock at night can actually be a really funny thing.

– My husband is the hardest working man I know. He’s incredible.

– Parenting is HARD. Parenting in stressful situations is a million times HARDER.

– We moved in the WORST weather imaginable (with injuries to prove it). It’s a great story now, but BRR!

– Home Depot is somewhere I spend far too much time.

– In fact we went four weeks without grocery shopping while making seventeen emergency trips to Home Depot.

– Spotify keeps me sane.

– We switched from Comcast cable to Direct Tv. The customer service has improved a bazillion times over, but we REALLY miss their on demand service.

– We have had no time to watch TV, but we realize this anyway.

– Even the small changes we’ve made, since most of our energy has gone to moving, cleaning/painting the rental we moved out of, or the unexpected repairs are amazing! We LOVE this house!

Now that it’s March, we see a light at the end of the tunnel, and some form of normal coming… Resuming podcasts are insight and I’m thrilled! Any reno peace of mind, encouragement or wisdom to share? I’m also open for distraction to, don’t get me wrong…

Sleepless in Michigan…

Published on February 9, 2015 by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

My husband, God bless him, is a perfectionist. To say that he likes things done well, would be an incredibly major understatement. The man likes things done well, exactly how he would do them, done by him. The problem with that, when you are taking on a huge number of home improvement projects in a tiny amount of time, is that he realistically can’t do everything…

After a week of some rather tense moments, frustration going around and him coming down with a violent case of the stomach flu, I finally talked him into allowing me to help with paint & primer. Even after he conceded, we didn’t accomplish half of what we needed to by last night. It was with major disappointment and frustration that we put our tail between our legs and left the house for the evening, realizing due to scheduling and work stuff we will not be able to work there again until this weekend…

Every moment we’ve spent there, we’ve grown more in love with the house itself. We were hit with a huge snow storm last week and the way nature is there, and the views from our windows really inspire me. Even Gen has said the house is “growing” on her, but honestly I suspect that’s because she sees it changing and realizes maybe we aren’t crazy after all. Despite all of this though, it has certainly been one of those one step forward, three-step back-journeys…

-install new faucet, hosing is wrong. Buy new hose, another piece is missing. Return to Home Depot for that piece…

– replace kitchen light, need a mount kit. Go buy mount kit, need another piece.

– replace kitchen hardware, mid replacement there is an issue with drawer faces and the majority of the screws. Back to HD. (pretty much every story ends with HD.)

– remove curtain bracket to prepare for painting, bracket is bolted into wall, turns into huge hold. Back to you-know-where to buy more patching stuff.

– remove a built-in that turned into a multi-day project. (we had allotted a few hours.)

– hot water heater is bad. Former owners “fixed” it as per inspection, but it’s not fixed and the hot water isn’t usable.

– new fridge was delivered. Measurement for space we were given was wrong. It does not fit. We have to tear out and rebuild cabinets.

– most of the walls are curved.

– there was a bug infestation in the basement.

– we had a cabinet in the kitchen which wouldn’t open, turns out it was a “fake” cabinet with a metal back. Very weird. Had to remove that. VERY challenging.

– throw in the stomach flu, lots of paint, rollers, removing chair railing that was unnaturally attached to the wall thus taking the wall with it, (hello HD and MORE patching stuff), lots of repair/service people and the removal of lots of wall paper and this summarizes the last 11 days.

Hard, tiring and we are all so sore… BUT, it’s coming along. We’ve done little bits in every room because every room needs lots of work, so I don’t have anything too exciting to share yet (photo wise) but I’m putting up little things on instagram…

Keep us in your thoughts! It’s been a (mostly fun) journey, that’s just getting started… Chw keeps responding to every new issue with “I don’t know how to take care of that”, to which I say “then we shouldn’t have bought another house, eh?” ha ha… Wish us luck!