Coffee Chat: Fresh Paint

Hello loves.


Do come in and have a hot cup of coffee.  There are butter cookies and dark chili chocolate to go with our cups of warm brew.  I've got the windows open on the sunny side because it got a bit stuffy indoors yesterday but if you get a bit cool, I've put out afghans to warm knees or shoulders.



I am tired this afternoon as well I might be.  I do enjoy working, but I enjoy most of all the settling down to be comfortable when work has been done.

The housework was finished when I went out to the shed this morning at half past nine.  It was not in my plans to work on the shed today but it was so cool and sunny, and I don't mind a bit working outdoors if it's pleasant.  I'd thought to finish the washing of railings and rafters but it was too cool to be playing with cold water.  So I went to the shed.   I set aside about a half car trunk of items to donate and cleared off one shelf.  I have a bag of trash from the garden corner as well.  The shed is a fright, truly it is, with stuff here and there and everywhere and plenty of dirt on the floors.  Still it was rather nice to go out and get that task started at least.  My goal is to completely empty one of the shelving units so we can remove an old rickety wooden entertainment center sort of thing that is far too deep to be suitable for storage that sits far in the back, as well as a dishwasher we were given five years ago that I fear will be worst for wear at this point.

Before going outdoors this morning I took my lists of  projects and purchases I meant to make and removed three items from each.  I've bought the three items needed and we've completed three of the projects.  It was pleasant to see that without paying much attention I'd already begun knocking items off those two lists.  I find often enough if I've made out a list my mind is just naturally focused on the items upon the list and they get done.  I just need to revisit it now and then and mark off the things done.  It's very satisfying to mark things off a list.

I think it was that which inspired me to walk around outside my shed and feel to see if the wood was dry.  It was, so I grabbed the paint bucket and roller and I went to work.  Now both sheds have been painted.  There's some cutting in of the grey paint to be done on my shed and the white trim to be done on both.  If weather allows this week, the cutting in and trim should all be done.   

I've decided when I'm all through I shall do something to decorate my shed door.  It isn't a 'she' shed but it is mine and I would like to make it pretty.   I've tentatively started planning a tiny garden about the shed.  I have a glimmering of an idea of what I might do to dress it up a little with flowering plants about it.

I shared earlier this week that  John and I took a short vacation.  We've been going on vacation once a year, mostly to the beach,  for 17 years now.  We couldn't afford to do this when all the children were home, but we've managed to go most years since Katie turned about 9, I think.  

Our  very first vacation as a family was a week in Panama City Beach in a two room "suite" at a hotel that was quite old and musty and a grand two stories high.  Of course there was a kitchenette and I cooked three meals a day for a family of six  It was the year JD graduated high school  We decided to vacation on $500  and I laugh now to think of it but we did it!  

During that vacation, John insisted that we'd eat out at a nice restaurant and chose one that was very nice.  Ridiculously nice, when you consider the contrast with where we were staying, lol.   I was stunned looking at the prices on the menu.  John looked at the five of us and said "Order whatever you want."  My children, who'd grown more than accustomed to eating bean burgers and super starchy stretched out casseroles, all ordered lobster and steak dinners.   We might have been poor but those kids knew what quality food was on a menu when they saw it. 

I was aghast when John's prime rib came to the table.  It was the size of a  roast and would have served four meals for us six with my most minor stretching methods.   The children's plates glistened they were so clean when they finished eating and then they asked for dessert.  John told them to go ahead and order, which they did.  Swimming makes appetites all out of proportion and they'd been swimming every hour they could.
   
John didn't finish his prime rib, leaving a good three quarters of it on his plate.  I whispered we should get a doggy bag  and he motioned to the waiter and told him we'd be right back, but to please bring the ticket, then he took my arm and we stepped to the front of the restaurant just out of sight of the children.   

I watched as the kids finished eating their desserts and saw one of the boys reach over and pick up the bill.  All three of the teens put their heads together to look at the total and their eyes widened as it was laid back on the table to await John's return.  Katie was just four and didn't care what things cost.  Our meal that night was as much money as we often had for a full month of groceries if we were lucky.   John had been squirreling away cash to cover the costs of this fabulous meal and it was and is memorable even yet.   We've never again had such a lavishly priced family meal though we've had nice ones.  

And no, we didn't bring home leftovers.   That was why we'd slipped to the front lobby.   John gently but nicely reminded me that while it's good to be frugal, one must also acknowledge that there are times when frugality is the means to an end.  A sort of kiss on the forehead for all that frugality can net you, if you see what I mean and a letting go of the fear that there won't be enough in future, which was, frankly, a lesson I needed in those lean days.  

I've been thinking about that fact a lot of late.  I'd rather gotten in a tither over the idea of having less money to operate our home and fretting over how we'd manage it with rising costs here and there.   Just before we left I had several things of an immediate nature pop up that had the potential to make us struggle but  I refused to even think of the worrisome things while we were on vacation which is why I never did sit down to write out a plan for the year ahead.  Each time my mind would take up a worry, I'd stop myself and say "God will take care of this."  "God will take care of that."   Now I can't say that all things have been attended to just yet, but don't you know that three or four things have already been dealt with and all have worked out just fine!  I expect the rest will work out as well and as time comes nearer for retirement days we will discover just what and where to cut back.

We were discussing things on the way home Sunday morning.  I swear to you that I was fully able to lay every worry aside but Sunday morning the very moment I woke all those worries took up a roosting spot in my brain and cackled away.   I told John about how quickly they had come in, as though they were well aware we were no longer on vacation and therefore could have a free for all inside my head.

We went grocery shopping yesterday and on our way home, John asked, "Did we stick to budget?"  Well my goodness, why don't men ever ask about the budget when you're not flat out of things and have been mentally marking less necessary items off the list because you know you're over budget?  I've been doing very well budget-wise of late and not once has he asked if I was on budget...Well as it happens we weren't on budget!  Truth is I was wondering if I couldn't go through the fridge and freezer and plan an extra week of meals to soften the blow we'd just made to the budget, lol.

I answered him truthfully that we'd not been frivolous but we were a bit higher than usual and I was already planning how to offset it.   And again I recalled our conversation on Sunday of how we'd had more than enough.  I'd sacrificed some of our vacation money for a need and told John we'd just trim things down a bit.  When we arrived to check in we were given a discount that saved us a full night's stay.  That was more than enough to cover our grocery purchases.

So on Tuesday when we were discussing the grocery budget  I turned to him in the car and said, "John, you do realize we've managed to feed three households off our pantry and freezer and grocery budget this year?  Do you realize that?  And yet I daresay that only once were we really over budget!  My goodness, how have we done it?!"

So yes, I shall trust God with it all.  He seems to be far more aware of what we can do than we are!

I hate to admit that I had anything but pure pleasure on this trip.  It was easy and relaxed and not one anxiety attack at any point while we were gone.  I did however lose two or three hours to a spate of tears.  It started with  a bit of an upset which started over something silly.  It was a misunderstanding, one of those male/female communication errors which we all know can be a bit like speaking two languages at times with no common words or gestures to guide the way and one of us deaf, though I shan't say who.  I talked it over with John and was all prepared to let it go.  And then I sat down to read my book, A City of Bells by Elizabeth Goudge.

I related in my last Iced Tea Chat that I'd dreamed it was time to stop mulling over the past, that there was nothing of value left to sift through.  Well in reading the book I stumbled on a passage in which Jocelyn had set up his drawing room with all his school pennants, regimental photos, etc.  When Felicity protests that it doesn't suit the house, he makes the statement that it all reminded him of a bit of his past that he liked.  "One can relax in one's past.  One hasn't got to do anything about it any more..."

I sat there stunned a bit, because there's truth and grief in that sentence for me.  When I mull over past things, it's generally to do with my parents or brothers.  There's a load of hurt in my past that I don't and won't share but it's there and it has colored my life a shade or two darker than I'd like it.  I long ago reconciled myself that I'd never have the sort of family relationships with my parents and my surviving brother that I'd like to have.  The bits of my past that I like mostly center around John and the children, or about Granny.  I expect I like genealogy so well because there's no hurt or doubt in long dead relatives as there is so often in my living relations.

That realization that I seldom feel comfortable in my own past, that there was indeed nothing to be done about, coupled with that silly upset and a grief over a situation in my present  that I really hadn't wanted to face but knew I must,  was my undoing.  Tears began to roll down my cheeks.  I was determined not to upset John who was engrossed in tv so I quietly got up  and went out to sit on the balcony in a hidden corner and cried and cried and cried, silently, but sobbing to the point of not being able to catch my breath.

It seemed to me that my life from that moment back to the very beginning was nothing but an endless loss of some sort, a giving up of what I wanted because I was told I couldn't have it or didn't deserve it or because someone else didn't like it, or  uncontrolled  situations that weren't mine to wrest control over, or due to financial obligations, etc.  I can't really explain it all without sharing it all and it's too much to share but it was a massive letting go of a great amount of grief altogether.

Unfortunately John did catch me crying and no, really he didn't understand it all, but he did understand the part where he was responsible for the minor grievance the day before and that led to a greater further misunderstanding and I was just overwrought enough to not be able to sensibly sort it out but only cried harder still.  Later, I went to him and asked him to snuggle with me and let me talk it out more sanely and it was settled between us, fully and wholly.

So I laid down my past and grieved over the loss of it and at the same time understood more about myself than I had before.

At age 59, I am increasingly aware that time is fleeting.  Long lived though my family may be, there is no knowing what day or hour death will come for any of us.  And while I am not morbidly aware of my life span, I am aware that there's likely not as far to go as I've come thus far.  If I shouldn't be wasting time digging about in the hurtful, hateful things of the past trying to 'fix' them up for today, then I also haven't time to waste not setting proper boundaries in my present.

This is a bit harder to explain but it has to do with my  tendency to give and give and give to others.  That sounds mighty vain doesn't it?   Well, it isn't vanity, I promise you. I am not at all Mother Teresa-ish, but I do have a tendency to focus more upon what you might like than what I'd like.  It's the way I am wired because of my early life.  My role as peacekeeper, as one who serves and of whom a great deal is expected for little reward and who has little concern for my personal desires has to some extent allowed others to be a bit lazy in their own selfishness.  I don't think it's a natural role on my part.   

Oh dear this is a sticky patch of explaining but try and hang in there with me.  

I'll borrow a title from last week's post... I often alter the pattern to fit another even though the item being made is meant to fit me.  This is all well and good but I do believe everything in this world is meant to be in balance and I am not.  I have allowed others to cultivate selfishness when they would have been better people for being more giving.  Because I am so unbalanced I've thrown others off balance.   Good people who are kind and caring and loving but who have acquired a certain laziness about stretching themselves to give up their own likes now and then for what I might like...  Is that clear as mud now?

Well I'm not blaming others.  I'm blaming myself.  I'm saying that I really need to be more aware of what I need, to work harder at giving voice to what I want and expect, instead of assuming that I must meet all of the needs of another all of the time without any consideration at all to how I am bankrupting my own mental, emotional and physical health.  I am saying that I've been wrong to allow others to knowingly forgo simple courtesies.  I am saying that I often have expectations that others are completely unaware of, not as reward or payment but simply because I, myself, am so willing to give sway to another's wants and I am frequently and routinely disappointed to discover that indeed they have no idea or no intent of meeting my needs however small they may be.

And I think it very telling that we'd not been home 24 hours before I had my first twinges of anxiety...

Let's just say that I came away from  this vacation without making any plans but very aware of things I mean to do to make my life happier for me.  

For 59 years I've lived in homes where I've not been welcome to paint the walls.  Seriously.  John simply doesn't want to paint, but I do.  In previous homes, painting wasn't even an option except builder's beige.  But this house is my house and I've done my best to make it a reflection of who we are as a couple and of our tastes as a couple...but not on the wall colors.  When we talked of putting in flooring we'd agreed that I would paint the walls.  John changed his mind.  "The walls look just fine..." he said and that was that.  And here I am living with walls with a dated pattern that was out of style when we bought the place.  I don't want garish colors on my walls.  I daresay I might even go white in the living area, but I have wanted a blue bedroom my whole life long.  I mean to have the walls painted before the next year is finished.  In every room, but the music room and that I will leave to John to paint or not as he wishes.

I am going to get focused once more on having flowers and pretty landscaping in my yard.  Flowers make my heart sing.  They do truly.  I love flowers and I love having them in my home and yard.  When we first moved here and I had a teen aged boy about the house, I had muscle behind me, lol.  Sam was all too willing to dig up flower beds and we had some lovely beds near the patio and in one or two other areas.  Once he left home,   I have sort of half heartedly played about working around a portion of the house but it's not even half done.  I know it will be a great deal of work.  I know that I will have to do it all on my own, because when I even mention it to John he always says the same, "I like it the way it is."  And so it's been for 23 years.  I won't spend the next 23 wishing I had a pretty yard.  If I want it, I'll have to create it.  I'm good with that.

I'm going to make it a point, when asked where I'd like to go to eat, to say where I'd like to go to eat.  And if the person asking says, "Nah...I don't want that..."  I won't give in every single time.  I'll actually insist I go where I want to go now and then.    I'm going to do things I haven't done because another didn't care to do them.  I'm going to return to other things I enjoyed that I let slide, because I got lazy, not because anyone disliked me doing them.  There's music I love to listen to but don't, books I haven't read in a long while, piano to play and little kindnesses I could do for myself, but haven't  because I haven't even been very nice to myself these past few years.  It's not about me becoming selfish but about remembering what I need to tend to myself.

Does that make sense?

So here I am this evening with thoughts of paint and plans to create and love my home.  I've watched the sun slowly fade into a lavender sky and seen the moonrise...So I think it's time to say good evening and we'll talk again soon.