Will We Be Ready When the Kids Arrive?

Two steps forward, and one step back. That about summarizes each day. Last week I got all the odds and ends off the kitchen island. It felt great to finally have that space exactly as I wanted it. Then, we got a couch, and rearranged the living room. Odds and ends that had been placed on a table that was no longer in the living room, suddenly found themselves on the kitchen island. And so it goes. Each day, I focus on one room and get stuff just the way I want it. But another room is holding the leftovers. When I work on that room, where do the odds and ends go? On the island. It seems like a never ending process.

By Noon Each Day

We are hitting the final stretch.

Truthfully, I can't complain about how it is going. We are making progress. In fact, I think we are almost there! But then I look at the kitchen island and I think, "two steps forward and one step back!"

In the beginning, unpacking is rather daunting, but moves fairly smoothly. 200+ boxes are stacked throughout the house, waiting, intimidating me, challenging me to pick one! I start in the kitchen. Most of the stuff I unpack finds a home. A few things are relegated to "the pile". "The Pile" holds stuff I'm not sure of. Will it find a home, or will it be set aside for a yard sale?

Two weeks later, my reality is different. "The Pile" would like to have a room all to itself. It is no longer a few boxes, but many boxes. Half of it is definite yard sale stuff. The other half is hoping I will find a home for it. An old friend called my stuff "chotzkes". Larry calls it.... no, we won't go there. But even I admit most of my stuff is trinkets connected with memories.

I am not in this alone, though! Oh no. Larry has his share of stuff. He just has an oversized two-car garage to pack it into, while I have a loft the size of a postage stamp with a small closet.

Then there is OUR closet. That's a whole other story. We've gone from two walk-in closets to one. It's a bit bigger than the ones we each had, but it's not as big as our two. And it is full. One thing we have in common is our collection of shirts. We both collect shirts.

Larry's collection is shirts he can wear to work. He has enough starched shirts hanging in clear, plastic laundry bags, to last him a month. I'm not exaggerating. It was not unusual for him to have two weeks worth of shirts at the cleaners and another two weeks worth packed in a suitcase as he traveled. And his closet was never empty!

On the other hand, I was an elementary school teacher. My collection is T-shirts. I have shirts from all 4 schools I worked at, in several colors, and many with my name on them. Then there are all the 'event' shirts I would want for school activities: Every season, holiday, Patriotic, even theme shirts for social studies units like Native Americans. Don't forget the shirts I need for the Corvette Club, or Nascar Race. And of course my Buccaneer and Steeler shirts. I can't possibly give up my Mike Alstott or Ronde Barber jersey!

Yes, we are both guilty.

And then there are the photos.

Ah yes. The photos. First of all, my dad was an amateur photographer who developed all of his own pictures. While I never learned how to do that from him, I did learn to take a lot of pictures. When he passed on, my sisters and I divided up all of his photo albums, which of course I still have, along with all of my own photos.

Most of all, I learned to love photographs in my house. There are boxes of framed photographs all waiting for a new place to perch. It's not going to happen. And so the hard process begins.

Organizing specialists say the first task is to separate trash from treasure. Granted, in these boxes of photos from over 70 years ago, there is plenty of trash. But there are a lot of treasures in there too. Do I hear Snapfish calling?

Some organizers recommend taking a picture of the object that holds the memory and then giving the object away. As I look at the boxes and bins of pictures I have stacked against the wall, that sounds like it's own type of oxymoron. And I think I'd be a moron to do it!

All of this is just a way of saying that when my kids show up this week (YIKES!) they will find one side of our wrap around porch lined with boxes of stuff for them to grab before it goes the way of all things once desired but no longer needed. And that will be one giant step forward for this person who believes that while history lives in the object, not just in the photo of the memory, sometimes history has to take its natural place in the world. That is, it is history! So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

And the never ending process? I think we ended it! We are UNPACKED!!! In just 23 days!

(Hmm, I wonder if that is a record? It is for me. If Guinness had been here they could have either documented it or at least handed me a cold Guinness as a reward. I think we'll go get a couple and toast ourselves! We did it!)

Farewell Best Friend

I've said goodbye to the warmest, softest, sweetest, furriest, companion I've ever had. It's a heartwrenching day for me, and I want to wallow in it. Instead, I'm going to try to share some of the wonderful memories I have of Super-Shedder, aka  Princess, Fuzzball, Her Highness, Gorgeous Girl, and towards the end... The Poopin' Pup. Mostly she was Miss Maggie.

We brought Maggie home in June of 2000. She was a ball of fur that loved being held. I carried her everywhere. One day we needed a tree to be trimmed and hired Tony to do the work. Tony had a Rottweiler named Buckles who went everywhere with him. Buckles was the best behaved dog I had ever seen.

Maggie harassed him mercilessly. Buckles finally retreated to the wagon where he could escape her jumping all over his head and nipping his heals.

Many years later, Maggie had her comeuppance. A friend went on a trip and we took care of her Shih-tzu puppy. Maggie had no idea what to do as Pepper climbed all over her head, bit her feet, and jumped on her tail. Call it Karma. What goes around, comes around.

Maggie had a few personality quirks.
1) She was terrified of feathers. She would growl and bark at them, and walk around them, but she wouldn't go near them.

2) She had a blankie that went everywhere with her. One time she stole our king size blanket off of our waterbed and brought it out to the family room. I made her drag it back to our bedroom and jump back up on the bed with it.

3) She loved sitting in the recliner with Larry. As a puppy it was cute. I warned him that she would want to do it as an adult. He didn't believe me.

By the time we moved, the recliner was a lop-sided mess. It took her awhile to realize there was no recliner in the new house. She finally adapted to the floor.

4) She loved pizza, but anyone who has read this blog has read the stories of Maggie and pizza.

5) She learned from other dogs. It wasn't until she saw my daughter's beagle sleeping in a dog bed that she decided she would like one. And then after we got her one, it wasn't until Hunter slept in it that Maggie would use it.

From then on, Maggie and Hunter frequently swapped beds or even shared one.

6) After watching Larry get the paper every morning, Maggie decided that would be her job. She brought in the paper every day.

7) Maggie loved babies. Photographs were proof of that. In them she can be seen lying next to the car seat, swing, or bouncer, letting toddlers crawl all over her or just crawl around her checking her out. Her expression in this picture says it all. Peace, love, and joy.

Maggie was truly a gorgeous dog, and I'm not just a proud mama. People said it so often I think she expected to hear it. She may have thought that was her name. My favorite picture was taken in Pennsylvania when she was a year old. The late afternoon sun just made her glow.

She may have been beautiful, but she was all dog. She went everywhere we would take her.

Larry took her fishing and they spent hours in the boat together.

Janice took Maggie to the barn when she was riding Leia. Leia was such a good horse that when Jan went out on a trail if Maggie didn't stay close by, Leia would turn and go back to get her. Maggie loved the barn, the horses and of course their water buckets. Especially the water buckets.

I took her on all of my travels. Of all the places I took her I never saw her as happy as when she was running on the beach at Hilton Head.

Although Maggie was a Retriever by breed, she belied that name. When it came to playing Fetch or Catch, she was more like Lucy in the outfield. She would duck her head if a Frisbee came too close, or watch it go by and then amble over to pick it up. Instead her talent lay in her nose. At a tracking clinic we were told she could have been trained as a tracker for search and rescue. On walks I think that's what she thought she was doing. They could take forever, if I let her. Her nose would check out every deer print, every bush, etc. One time she had her nose buried intently in the grass trying to ferret out whatever could be making that scent! When she raised up her head, she jumped. There was a dead bird lying in the grass 6 inches away.

Through agility training, pet sitting visits with Janice, trips to PetSmart and dog parks she met lots of dogs and one-on-one they were great, but gangs of dogs intimidated her. She much preferred people, overall. At the dog park I could always find her under a picnic table or sitting next to a human getting her ears scratched.

In Florida Maggie would go outside for a half hour at a time to lay in the sun. In Pittsburgh, it took her a couple of years to realize that just because the sun was shining didn't mean it was warm enough to go out and sunbathe. She would stand at the sliding glass doors and stare at the snow covered deck. I'd open the door and she'd take 2 steps out, Stop, and backup into the house again. The sun doesn't come out that often in winter in Pittsburgh. That may account for why it took her so long to catch on to the fact that sun didn't mean Warm!

We have been blessed. When Larry and I got married, my sister gave us a black Lab/Border Collie mix puppy as a wedding present. (She owned the mother Lab.) Headstrong, hyper and full of energy, Poko lived 15 years. Next came a headstrong but manageable and lovable chocolate Lab, Caia. We had Caia 14 years. Maggie, our yellow Lab, has been the most mellow, best behaved dog. She would have been 14 on March 1. In 43 years we have had 3 wonderful, but very different dogs...all Labrador Retrievers.

Right now, there are no plans to get another dog. We plan to travel alot and feel we need to be unencumbered.  But the hole in our hearts won't go away soon. It will remain for days to come. But she gave me 14 years of Life, a beautiful life.. Our dogs have brought such joy. They have been as much a part of our family as our children. Right now, saying goodbye to Maggie is an indescribable pain. All I know is she had a pretty great life for a dog. And I had a pretty great life as her Mama.

Rest in peace, sweet girl.

40 Years Revisited

I've had fun reminiscing over the last 40 years. Some of it boggles my mind like:

10 Houses, 3 States, 7 Communities.

I'd like to just say here, I hate to move! I would have made a terrible military wife. Even though we have lived in 10 houses, once we settled in a community we usually lived in one place for 8 years, and we even lived in our last house for 16 years!

I've worked as an Avon Lady, a pre-school teacher, but mostly as a Children's librarian in both the public library and the public school media center.
Larry has been a Prison Guard, a Cop, but mostly a great Sporting Goods Salesman.

We've always had a dog, but at one point we had 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 large tropical aquariums!
Then came kids. We had 2 of those as well!

When we married we had an oven that could be programmed to come on and go off at a certain time so my meatloaf and baked potatoes were ready when I got home from work. Our TV had 3 channels plus PBS and we had 2 phones in the house. Land lines of course.

Now we have a microwave, Flat screen TV with 400+channels and a DVR (I hope to never have to give that up!). Cell phones have replaced a need for land lines and we have 2 computers to keep us connected to the world.

Our favorite toys were the bass boat, swimming pool, and finally a corvette--when the girls were off our auto insurance!

Just a few of our Favorite Memories
Camping on our honeymoon
Water Skiing on the Alafia, Fishing every body of water in Florida,
Learning to live with Alligators, snakes, but never spiders!
Those annual 3 day drives to the Connecticut cabins and the blueberry farm, with picnics at Mt. Tom or Kent Falls
Watching the Space Shuttle every chance we had
Swimming with the manatees; a once-in-a-lifetime experience!
A Hot Air balloon ride
The Christmas Larry and I gave each other bath towels with similar, but different mallard duck patterns on them
And of course, family dinners ending with the chocolate giggles

So many trips: (How lucky we have been!)
My first view of the Colorado Rockies
Jamaica
Alaska
Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein
Seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time
A House Boat trip on the St. Johns with 2 daughters and 2 friends
Larry's Wilderness Fishing Trip down the Rogue River
The Redwood Forest
My Trip to N.Y. with Jen after 9/11
My Trip to Canada with Jan for Canadian Thanksgiving

(I wonder what the kids will add to this list?)

Is it possible to wrap up the memories of 40 years in a blog?
No. That would be called a memoir and would be at least 200 pages!

All I can say here is that in 40 years we've had some good times and a few, but only a few, heartbreaks. There were ALE HOUSE nights on Thursday's when the week was long and the day had been longer and we were enticed by the $5.00 bucket of beer that awaited us. But more often were the nights we all sat down together for dinner, even if it meant waiting for daddy to come home, and then going to bed as soon as dinner was done.

In 40 years we have had dinners end in uncontrollable giggles only for someone to say "OMG, it's the chocolate!"

In 40 years we have kept in touch over the phone when one parent or another was traveling and:  a child stayed out too late, a horse had to be put down, through broken legs (plural-we have 2 kids), or a computer crashed and "my whole report was on that disk!"

On Sunday we exchanged Anniversary cards. As we read them we realized that although the design of the card was different we had selected cards where the message was identical, word-for-word! It reminded us of the "Duck Towel Christmas" 22 years ago.

Yes, In 40 years we have grown, changed, but managed somehow to stay in tune with each other.
It's been a good 40 years.