Coffee Chat: Early Morning Chatter

Good morning!  It's early....Tiptoe on in and I'll pour you a cup of coffee.  There's toast and local honey.  Let's be quiet and speak softly...the boys are still asleep.  I shouldn't want them to awaken before their usual hour which is quite early enough.

I had hoped to talk earlier this week and indeed even began a long post but it seemed to just drag on and on and I deleted the whole thing and decided a fresh start was in order.  There are an awful lot of fresh starts going on around me at present, some more pleasant than others and I confess to feeling much in need of one myself, but it has yet to be my turn.



Mama got moved, mostly,  last weekend.  I love her apartment.  It's full of light even with the shades pulled and it seems roomy.  Katie and Sam saw it long before I did and both raved over how nice it was.  The main room is large enough for a full dining space, a full living space and the kitchen is open and square, but plenty big.  There's a confusing blank space on one wall that might well have held an extra three feet of counter and cabinet space but it works just fine for Mama's little cabinet with a tiny bit of room extra.    She has two bedrooms, a full bath and a generous sized laundry room.

While it's really about the same square footage as her space at my brother's her rooms, and indeed the whole house, was dark and gloomy and the colors my brother used to finish areas were heavy dark colors as well.  Between the shaded windows, with porches shading them still more, and the dark colors light was simply absorbed and created no illumination.  I think this new apartment should mentally refresh her with the natural light.

To say she is pleased would be a gross overstatement but she's not totally unhappy over it all.  Her biggest angst is the letting go of things she does not need.  I had to be ruthless when we were packing up her clothes to convince her to let go of those that were too big.  She wears a 16 in pants and that only because of the knee brace she wears.  She could truly use a 14.  But she had size 18s in quantities.  She'd also moved some of Granny's old clothing pieces.  She had pieces she'd bought and never worn that were too big for her but 'they're new!'  I pointed out they were new perhaps three or four years ago and having a tag all this time didn't justify calling them new now.   We culled her shoes, which was painful for her.  Mama has always had a bit of a thing for shoes and has always had dozens of pairs.  There are shoes in her former house that she won't move nor has she been willing to let us donate although we finally convinced her that someone might love just those very shoes and could actually use them.  In the end we moved a bit over a dozen pairs and she agreed to let go of the heels that she'd like to wear but can't  in favor of the flats and wedges she requires at this time.

Mostly though, Mama didn't pack nor really bother to do anything much at all towards packing until the very last minute.  I think she hoped in the end it would prove unnecessary but it was very necessary as the neighborhood where she'd been living with my brother is a nice enough place but distance between neighbors is more than at the apartment and most of the former neighborhood are working folks who wouldn't notice if an elderly neighbor hadn't been seen for a few days.  With my brother planning to move into a different home, it was really best that Mama find a place better suited to her needs.   I still think she'd have been best  in a progressive living situation but she balked entirely on that score for various reasons.  At least the apartment complex is all single floor dwellings and the neighbors are of a similar age.

And as with Katie, the necessity of making a place a home has a certain appeal and inspires despite the circumstances.  There is something refreshing in a fresh start even if it's not entirely of your choosing that seems to be freeing in a way.

Sam and Bess officially own the land upon which they dwell and have continued renovating the house daily.  They are currently at the point where they can lay down floors and paint the walls.  Then all the cabinets and bath fixtures go in and they can move in.  I think Sam is hopeful to have this done before the first full week of June, but I'm not sure if it will actually be ready quite then.  Still, it will happen in June and that is a time we are all stretching towards in the same way that plants will strain towards the light.

Bess' health overall is strongly improved.  She has had some chronic back pain since Isaac's birth and a new doctor has correctly diagnosed and treated it.  She'll likely have another few treatments but it's worked and that is a huge relief to her.  As well, she had an organic issue that has been corrected and her energy went from barely there to that of a properly healthy not quite 30 year old woman.  What a joy it is to see her now keeping apace of me and then surpassing me!

She decided to go back to work and found a great job.  She'll start towards the end of July working evenings and weekends.  Her plan is to pay off their debt load and finish the work necessary on the house and property.  Her work hours will allow her to be home with the boys and Samuel will tend to them evenings and weekends.

So there that family has too has the chance at a fresh start, in more ways than one.

Katie continues to look for a new job and applies to everything that she sees is open.  She has  babysat for Sam and Bess on the days I was busy, helped Mama a great deal in this move and worked steadily on the house getting it functional once more.   I love having her nearer by and have enjoyed the extra time with her.  She comes out to the house most days and usually has a meal with us at some point.  I'm all too happy to feed her and save her that little expense until she can get employment.   Hers too is a fresh start if it is a difficult one...

I looked about my table last night, with seven of us sitting there and felt somehow it was all vaguely familiar...then it hit me.  It as though time had turned back by almost 25 years and it was my family table all over again, from the one in the highchair to teenagers (albeit now mid twenties to mid thirties) and John and I.  It wasn't an easy time but we managed.  And here we are once again, not in an easy time but managing. But it's not a fresh start for us...it's more like the clock turned backwards and we're where we were once before, a sort of Ground Hog's Day...

 I told Katie yesterday evening as we sat on the back porch after supper, I won't do this again.  Much as I've enjoyed watching the little boys grow and change, much as I love my grown children, I've opened my house more than enough to returning boys (the girls have never come home to stay once they left).  It's been far more difficult this time and that's partly our age, partly John's job schedule demands and how it affects us.  He's putting in a 36 hour shift today and will return home to help me watch boys while work continues on the other house and we'll have Taylor here for a good bit of the day on Saturday while Katie prepares her birthday things.  It's lovely and a bit too much all at once.  It makes clear what I've felt all along, that I am not cut out for living with my children, or for having them live with me.  I am the sort that prefers visits and for a limited time and then everyone goes home once again.

I had a few horrid nights of not sleeping this past week.  It's my usual pattern of sleeping well a few nights and then not at all.  I don't lie awake worrying, have learned over the years to blank my mind and not let committee meetings get started, nor to fret over the lack of sleep itself.  But it's very hard when these nights collide with an early morning rising with John and the need to just stay up because others have early morning appointments as well.  It was just this new year that I resolved I should go back to bed and make a real effort to catch up what sleep I might to improve my own health but this year has proved the one that is the most difficult to do just that.  Not possible when little boys are rising at 6:30 or 7am and parents must be elsewhere or I must go early to deal with Mama's needs.  I felt rather ghastly this week after three nights of no sleep and no time to stop during the day to get any extra rest or even quiet space at all.  Two or three hours is simply not enough when one must be 'on' all day long.  I manage all right the first day or so but by the third I am feeling pain physically and am mentally wiped out.  I became snappish and whiny and tearful at the slightest things.

It was such a day that I had to help Mama in the moving process. She is temperamental at the best of times and we clashed a bit that day which I found even more exhausting.  The mental wrangling to reason with her over things that really should have been common sense issues was exhausting.  When I got home late that afternoon, I could only sit in my chair.  I was just too far gone mentally and physically at that point to do anything more.  Katie was baby sitting that particular day and I reckon it took me two or three hours to get to the point of speaking anything other than a miserable "hello".  And no, I didn't sleep that night either because I was so far drained by that point that it just wasn't possible to rest.  Thankfully the cycle soon switched back to what for me is a normal night's rest of about five hours.  Even last night's storm didn't disturb me for long.

There have been a number of storms in our lives of late.  A mystery illness with my oldest granddaughter than remains undiagnosed at present.  She'll turn 16 in June and is wearing a heart monitor for the month.  There's a suspicion that this might be a genetic thing but no answers of yet.  In the meantime, her mama worries mightily and pray would be much appreciated on that score.

Our pastor suddenly resigned.  He didn't expect to do so and it wasn't, thankfully an issue with the church that caused it, but it IS unexpected and so that's left us all a bit uneasy as we await news of who shall take over and wonder how it will affect us all.

John's step father passed away.

There have been some issues with my Jamberry journey that has me wondering if this is the path to take or not.  I've worked hard but...

And so things go on.   Tighter finances for us all has us straining a bit to cover all needs.  The tensions of having a lot of situations to deal with in a house that is really too small for the number living in it has played it's role as well.  Our lives at present tend to feel very chaotic and unstable and all we can do is wait out this personal set of storms until they are over.

I've thought long and hard about various things.  For one thing, how beneficial storms really are as they often clear out debris and deadwood and wash away grime and dirt as well as refill reservoirs and wells.  And how deadly they can be if we aren't properly sheltered during them.

That led me to think long and hard about how my personal relationship with God has changed. I trust Him more than I ever have...but I'll confess that my morning prayer and reading time has suffered greatly.  On a good day, I might be able to listen to a sermon at some point during the day but that only while attending to other tasks.  I was praying in my car the other morning as I drove to Mama's and asking God why I couldn't find time just now to continue in that same closer relationship with Him that I'd come to lean so hard upon.  This on the heels of realizing that John and I too are not as intimate as we were.  We seldom have time for a complete sentence without interruption...

God reminded me that sacrifice is a hard bit of work.

I thought it over afterwards.  How the Old Testament describes the work of sacrifice.  There was the slaughter, the skinning, the cleaning.   A person didn't just bring the animal to the priest and leave it there. The WORK of the sacrifice was on the person who brought the animal.  The priest merely took the blood and meat and offered it on the altar.  The work, the clearing up of the mess afterwards, was all on the person who owned that animal.

Having grown up on a farm, I have seen animals slaughtered.  I remember the all day long process of killing and cleaning and cutting and packaging and cooking and clearing up after that went on.  It is indeed a huge amount of work even with many hands helping.  Sacrifice is seldom a multi person thing, though I can say assuredly that John has been right beside me every step of the way in this.

And I guess, while it's not something we often think of, this time in my life is sacrificial.  It's a sacrifice to give up the peaceful mornings and the prayer time and study over coffee before beginning the day.  It's a sacrifice to scrape down hard in the pocketbook and provide meals for 3 times the usual number.  It's a sacrifice to give up time I could use on my own home or business and apply it to someone else's home and business.   It's a sacrifice to say "Yes, I'll keep the boys..." when I'm beyond weary already, and to give up alone time and time with my husband and vacation and writing and to have my husband's job demand more of him than ever before and all the other things that are required of us now that are too numerous to name.

But it IS necessary to sacrifice something at some point in all lives.  Like the storms clearing out dead wood and replenishing this time is doing the same even though we can't see it...yet.

We've had ten days of rain with ten more forecast.  No complaints mind, not after years of drought like conditions.  Weather plays a part in all things doesn't it?  Dark gloomy days, too many in a row, are hard to take.  Fortunately we've had the sun chasing clouds away at some point every day.  Katie and I sat on the back porch last night talking and listening to the tree frog call out for more rain and watched the sunset which was rather lovely, with the bob white calling out.  It was lovely.  The stormy weather returned in the wee hours of the morning, but the sky was a little clearer this morning. That tree frog was at it again, though,  calling up more rain...

The last of the blooming season has come.  The pecan trees are dropping the tassels all over the ground so that there is a golden brown carpet underneath and the persimmons have bloomed and been pollinated creating a snowy carpet under the male and female trees.   This should be our last blooms until fall and will officially end our spring though we've a month of it to go.  In Georgia, a long spring is a rarity and we've had a long slow spring this year.  The pansies are still blooming away though they are nearly finished at this point.

John and I went into Lowe's the other day and I stood gazing at all the plants and thought of my many pots which I hope to fill.  It was far too wet to bring any of them home with me though we did buy a golden Hibiscus with a peach colored throat to replace the  coral one that didn't overwinter.  I may start to bring home a six or nine pack of bedding plants and slowly fill pots now.  I noticed the Angelonia came back from last year in one pot.  I've a few petunias that have come up and bloomed from seeds of last year's plants.   I'm definitely ready to get my hands dirty and make outdoors pretty for the months ahead.

And so life goes on doesn't it.  It's always seasonal...and this chat shall have to end.  The boys are raising quite a ruckus.  It's time I slipped back into the thick of things and got on with my day.  I've a busy one ahead.  Things to gather for Katie that I know is wanted for her home.  A short grocery list put in order.  Shopping to do and lunch with high school friend and then rushing home to attend John's annual EMS Week cookout.  I started the day early and shall end it late...but what a lovely time to have had to just sit and chat a bit!