Throwing Out The Bomb

Hubs is working late tonight.  I don't even know how he is going to make it home awake. He left at 4 am and here is is 945pm and he is still at the hospital.  But.  He has two days off in a row.  Two days to sleep in.  And MOM is going to be here, too.  We actually get to sleep in and get a date.  Feeling super blessed. 

So we bit the bullet and are having a cabinet company install new cabinets and counter tops in our kitchen.  Our old stuff was actually being held together by duct tape in places.  It just wasn't worth paying to fix it when it wasn't much more to get new stuff that is much nicer.  No more water damaged particle board.  And did I mention that I don't have to do the install?  Holy Buckets.  You have no idea how much pressure that takes off a mama. 

The guy came out to measure today.  He got lost.  His Garmin couldn't find my street.  I love that.  He was nice and made me feel all awkward when Little Lady woke up and he told me she is beautiful like her mama.  I don't do compliments well.  Unless they are from Hubs.  Those are good.  But he was really nice and kept telling me how beautiful and smart my kids were.  And he said "You have two kids?  A boy and girl?  And they are perfect!  What a perfect family!"  And I smiled and said yes.  And I felt the daggers for just agreeing.  But who really wants to get into it every.single.time?  I love my Jameson.  But talking about my dead son can just kill me sometimes.  The shock, the look, the pity and sorrow.  Sometimes it's just too damn much for me to take.  So I just smiled and said yes.  Because it was easier. 


And he kept measuring.  And we talked about if we could squeeze in a bigger sink.  And he was amazed that I took down a few walls all by myself.  And it made me feel like a good role model for Little Lady that her mama can knock a wall or two down in her flip flops in her spare time.  I want to raise a strong woman.  Hell Yeah. 

And we were doing so good.  He was at the front door.  Saying good bye and complimenting the kids again.  The guy was seriously impressed with my family...he was a very nice and professional guy.  And we almost made it.  And then Little Man just throws it out there.   "My brother is dead.  He died when he was three.  And we all  miss him. And Little Lady never knew him because she is just one and it's sad for her so we have to tell her about him." 

My groan may have been audible.  I couldn't look at the guy.  Just at Little Man.  I could only look at him and smile and nod and shake my head with the grief and the knowledge of how important it is to always tell J's story.  It is one of the first things he tells people when he meets them.  He just wings it out there, not getting the bomb he's throwing out.  Or maybe he does get it and that is why he needs to throw it out and away from himself.  It is a grenade that explodes daily for us.  Hourly.  Jameson is gone.  It defines who we are.  And he can't meet someone without making sure they understand that definition. 

It defines us all.  Every second of every day.  My son is dead.  Little Man's brother is dead.  Little Lady's brother is dead.  She never even knew him this side of Heaven and this will define her life.  It won't be the only thing.  It isn't the only thing for any of us.  But it is HUGE.  If you don't know that part, you can't even begin to know anything about me.  And I sit on the side of the pool at swim lessons and I feel like I have a neon sign over my head saying "my son is dead;" not because I wear the sadness, but because it created such a profound change in my existence.  There is NOTHING not changed from his sickness and death.  Nothing.  I may have carried some things over, but I am a different person.  Completely.  We all are changed.  And we SEE so differently than most of you do. I can't even put it in words, but what I see and live every second is such a different world than it was when J was still here.  And it defines every thought.  Every action.  Every interaction.

When J was dying I used to pray that God would take it easy on Little Man.  I hoped with all of my heart that it wouldn't be this hard.  That after time he would not miss him like this.  That his heart would heal.  Because this brokeness is a pain so excruciating I would never wish it on the devil himself.  And I so prayed and hoped that my living son would heal and not know it like we do.  But he seems to feel the grief and sadness just as much.  He just doesn't have the words.  Ahhh.  I can't put into words the feelings I have right now.  It is too much to bear -the pain of J's death coupled with the pain I see in Little Man and my inability to make anything right.

Oh how it defines us all.  

I need to believe that there is a greater good at work in this.  That this grief is at work in us all and it will make the world a better place.  I need to believe that.  I need to believe that I see differently and behave differently and that it makes a difference somehow.  I picture the way waves can grow in the water and need to think that this can be like that.  That maybe we are defined in this way in order to help define something bigger than ourselves.  I need this belief like I need to breath.  His death has to have been for more.  Our pain has to be for more.    Somehow this all has to be for more. 

Blessings

Wow.  That is about all I can say about the kindness of my neighbors.  My neighbors have been rallying around us after reading this blog and I'm overwhelmed by the generosity and caring.  I've never known neighbors like this before.  Its really amazing.

They have been bringing us food and fireworks and stopping by to say hi and asking if they can watch the kids or help us paint.  It's so nice.  And wholly unexpected.  Hubs and I are so grateful, but at the same time, we feel bad about it.  We are not receivers by nature.  We like to be givers.  So it feels weird to be on this end of things.   And it feels like we've been on this end of things ever since J got sick.  I'm really trying hard to balance my independent-I-can-do-everything-on-my-own-even-if-it-kills-me-spirit with my gratitude here.  I'm soaking up the love and feeling not alone at all.  And really looking forward to reciprocating once we aren't so crazy.

And I've absolutely decided that cat pee and construction are worth it to have such awesome neighbors. 

I think God put us here for many reasons and we are just beginning to realize the blessings He has in store for us.  I think back to the Set Apart Conference I attended in the winter and Ann Voskamp's talk.  She talked about God's love for us and how he doesn't just sit back and love us from a distance.  He is a God who relentlessly pursues us.  He chases us down to love on us.  Radaph.  We just have to let Him do it.  I feel relentlessly pursued right now. 

And I no longer feel like we are in crisis mode.  We have a good plan and a good timeline and a working kitchen sink and dishwasher.  For a few days this was the only working sink in the house because I had to rip out the water damaged sink cabinet in the kitchen and do some mold remediation in the wall.  Which is always a fun thing to do at 4:30 in the morning. 

I told Hubs I felt a little like a Seinfeld episode.  And I'm really grateful for the temporary set up which allows me to wash the dishes in a real kitchen sink.  

And the other big bonus is that my mom is coming out in a few days to help.  MOM.  There is not a better word right now.  I am so excited to see her and show her our new home.  And I'm so excited to have her here to keep Little Lady under control while I paint and get a bunch of stuff done. 

And now I have to go and take care of the crisis of the day, which is the finding of Little Lady's blankey.  I know we had it at nap time yesterday and we haven't gone anywhere since..it has to be in this house somewhere!!! Thank God she actually slept without it last night. 

I hope your day is full of blessings!

Failing

I just the spent the past hour trying to screw 20 screws into the ground.  I couldn't find the the little thingy that holds the screw in place and I was trying to finish something.  Anything.  And screwing 20 screws to hold some of the new sub floor into the cat-pee-no-more closet floor seemed like something.  But it took me a freaking hour to do it. As screw after screw kept falling down and then stripping and I had insulation in my hair and nothing about this should-be-easy-task was easy, I was at the end of my rope for the day.  It shouldn't be this hard.  None of it should be this hard.  But it is all hard.  It seems like everything we start turns out being a billion times harder than it should be.  Every single project has snowballed into something worse.

I can do hard things.  I can do hard things well.  With grace.  With beauty, even.

But as I was trying to screw these screws into the floor in my closet, there was no grace, no beauty, and no well.  I was cursing and yelling at the floor.  At the screws.  At the screwdriver.  At my inability to find that handy little thingy that goes over the end of the drill and holds the screw in place to make this job easy.

And I thought about how while I can handle and do hard things, I'd really rather not.  And the statement that I've made for years about how most things in life that are worth anything are hard just seems so hollow to me.  Because my life before Jameson got sick was easy....comparatively...and that was SO worthwhile.  I'd give just about anything to have that easy back.  And the labors I had with pain meds were just as worthwhile as the natural births.  And if I had to do it all over again, I totally would have had the epidural with Little Lady.  And at the end of the day I'd still have my baby but without all that needless pain.  I can endure.  But I don't want to if I don't have to.

And as I sit here writing this, with insulation stuck in my hair and a house that is so disorganization and chaotic that I don't even know where my socks are yet, I just want to burst into tears.  I keep praying for perspective and I keep thinking about how all those people in 3rd world countries would die to have my cat-pee, construction-zone house and here I am, acting like a spoiled brat because I don't want to do hard things.  I feel like a spoiled, whiny brat just writing this.

I'm just so tired.  I'm tired of the chaos of it all.  And the failing at everything.  Because right now, I'm failing at home improvement as I can't get anything done.  I can't even screw a freaking screw into the damn ground.  And I'm failing as a housewife.  My cooking has been few and far between, I am so behind on cleaning and laundry and it is all a mess.  Everything everywhere is a mess.  And I'm failing at being a good wife as I give Hubs a list at the end of his insane days, where he gets up at 4 am and rides a bike to work to save us money and works a 13 hour day and rides home to get a marginal-at-best dinner.  And then he still plays with the kids and talks with me and helps with the clean up.  And he doesn't complain at all about how he only gets 4-5 hours of sleep a night and does it all again the next day.  And I'm failing as a mother as I put them in the front of the TV for hours every day while I try to get something and anything done and don't.  And I yell too much and say no too much and we don't go to the parks or play enough.  I'm failing epically as a mother right now. And I'm trying to find a job and that isn't going well either.  I am a big failure right now.

Sigh.  I know this will pass.  And maybe someday I'll look back and say it was all worth it.  Maybe I'll learn patience and balance and my kids won't be too scarred for life.  Maybe someday we'll sit around the table and laugh about the time we lived in the cat-pee house and mom poured bottle after bottle of peroxide on the cement floors everyday and watched the splatter marks bubble up.  And how she still can't use a drill right.  Maybe. 

All I know right now, is that I wish there was an epidural for anarchy.

Teal and the Blues

Tuesday was Hubs' one day off for the next two weeks.  So naturally, we woke up to a pond in the kitchen.  Since we didn't already have enough going on.  Apparently the ice maker line had a little pin hole leak in it.  It wasn't so little by the time we got up.  Luckily, the serious damage was contained to just the sink cabinet, which I will be ripping out today.  I have to find a replacement cabinet for our 1979 one.  Hahaha.  Just for fun, I went to a kitchen store yesterday to see how much it would cost to replace all our cabinets.  That was fun.  It was all so very enticing, except that with beautiful new ones, I wouldn't want to paint them.  And I'm actually so hell-bent on having a teal kitchen with red barstools and a yellow door that I seriously want to turn down new cabinets.  And since it's not really in the budget anyway, I might as well. 

After we mopped up the kitchen with every unpacked towel we own, we left and went to the beach.  It was a little chilly, but stubborn me was insistent on wearing my swimsuit anyway.  I was the one making sandcastles in a swimsuit with goosebumps upon gooosebumps all afternoon, if you were there.  It was a nice break from the heatwave we've been having at home.  We found a whole bunch of broken clam shells.  All pearly and blue.  I collected a gallon ziploc and am going to wash them really well, break them up into teeny little pieces and put them into my homemade bathroom concrete countertops.  I can think about my brokenness every time I wash my hands. 

And today is the 4th of July.  We are going to try to play a little more than normal today.  And after Hubs gets home from his 13 hour shift, we are going to see fireworks and do sparklers and have as much fun as we can cram in before we all fall over from fatigue.  We need a little more fun because the ache has been so great.

Little Man talked about Jameson all day long yesterday.  About how much he misses him and how much he wishes we were closer to Heaven.  I overheard him telling Little Lady about her dead brother. And how he hopes she doesn't get sick and die, too.  He's lonely without his best buddy.  And while we've made a few friends here, I haven't been doing a good enough job of taking them out to the parks every day and seeking out more buddies for him.  I need to work on some balance with the home improvement and the everything else.  Because really, that has been it since we've gotten here.  And all work and no play is making Jack a little crazy.  Mom, too. 

So we are all kind of blue this week.  Missing Jameson.  Missing family.  Missing relaxation.  Missing Daddy and realizing just how long intern year is really gonna be. 

We'll stay afloat, though.  I'm going to rip out a sink and some drywall this morning  before the kids wake up and then we are off to have fun.  And maybe go to Lowes.  Because everyday is hardware store day. 

Happy 4th of July!  We are going to add some red and white to our blue and make it a great day.  Aw come on, that was awesome.  I just needed a little cheese to go with the whine.  Yes, yes...I really do think I'm funny.  I hope you all have a great day and awesome fireworks tonight! 

Day Off

We took a day off. 

Hubs gets one day off almost every week and instead of tiling floors or wiring outlets, we went hiking.  It was an ambitious hike for the kids, but they did really well, for the most part.  Little Lady was not happy in the Ergo.  It was too hot and squished and she couldn't see around me and was super frustrated about all of it.  I see an upgrade to a Kelty pack in the near future.  But I digress. She wanted to walk a lot, which was slow going for us.  Little Man was okay with that; he rocked the hike, but it was exhausting for him.  It was a round trip 5.2 mile hike with 2500+ elevation rise.  So proud of him for making it!  The views were spectacular and well worth the effort.  We could see mountain ranges, the Columbia River Gorge, abundant flora and fauna.  We were particularly taken with a phantom orchid, but the poison oak really got our attention.  It was everywhere, but we were careful.  No itchies here, Praise Jesus.

It was such a good reset to hava a day away from the house and the work, to relax and get to know our new state.  And it was awesome to go on a real mountain hike.  

And now it is all back to business.  I'm sitting at the computer reviewing instructional information on projects, looking over Pinterest for the billionth time, cruising around on Craigslist looking for steals.  

Does anyone else think Craigslist is hilarious?  The things people post on there!  And the way they advertise them!  Come on!  My favorite posting was listed as a "Space Couch."  Maybe you are wondering just what a space couch is?  Maybe you're thinking it's a super high tech frame, with sleek lines and extreme comfort.  Well, you'd be wrong.  A space couch is a cushioned bench.  I kid you not, it is an airport bench.  Looks just like one I slept on in Seattle's airport 5 years ago when I was 6 months pregnant with Jameson.  It is just ridiculous the way people advertise.   As if anyone looking for a couch is going to see that and think "Yes!  This is the couch I have been waiting for!"  People and their silly false advertising.

Luckily for us, Craigslist isn't the only thing around here with some false advertising.  Our friendly oregano-borrowing neighbors just happen to be a contractor and architect.  They came and checked out our wall that we want to tear down and said it is not a load bearing wall, even though they put in some crazy studs.  So we are back on track to rip it down....sometime.  We are in slow mode, but that is okay.  I know it will all get done at some point.  The only problem with having an architect and contractor walk through your home offering suggestions and help is that they tend to give all kinds of good advice.  So we are also taking out a few more walls and maybe a closet or two.  Nothing like adding more to the already heaping plate.  BUT, the good news is that there really is no rush.  The cat pee is gone, the really broken things are fixed, and the rest can just be a little ugly until we get to it. 

So if you come over to our ugly house, feel free to tease us about everything but the dining room lamp.  Because I'm seriously keeping this bad boy. 

I thought it was hideous when we bought the house, but it has grown on me and I've kind of fallen for it.  It suits me and my quirkiness. 

Now if only I could find that orange leather couch to go with it.  I was cruising Craigslist before we moved to see what kind of couch options we'd be able to find on our budget and someone was selling this beautiful sleek, modern, orange! leather sectional and I've never wanted anything so badly.  Of course it sold in about two seconds and I've been ruined.  Everything else from here on out will be settling.  Alas, the dangers of of window shopping.  For now, the bright red futon will have to do. 

My children are still sleeping.  We moved to the West Coast and I naturally thought we'd take up earlier bedtimes.  But no.  We have all become night owls.  Little Lady won't go to sleep before 9 pm and she sleeps til around 10am.  This is very, very strange.  Little Man is about the same.  I no longer have the ability to sleep in; too many years of adulthood and motherhood have trained me and my internal alarm clock goes off between 5 and 7 every day, no matter how late I was up knocking down lava rock fireplaces the night before.  At least I have time to get some stuff done in the mornings! 

And get things done, I should.   I hope you all have a lovely day.  We are in a heatwave out here.  Our house has no A/C, so we bought a kiddie pool and have beach days planned! 

Just for fun, here are pictures of the fireplace demolition!  I really got to get my aggressions out on this project!

Crazy. Busy. Both.

Wow have we been crazy.  And busy.  But mostly crazy. 

We've moved to Oregon.  It took three days to drive out here.   Hubs drove the huge U-haul with the dogs in the cab and towed one car.  I drove the other car with the kids.  The trip was long, but everyone did well and we survived.  Little Lady's favorite past time in the car was to tattoo her body with markers. The first night when we rolled into the hotel at midnight, she was covered head to toe in blue marker.  After her morning bath it looked like she was bruised everywhere.  But it kept her happy, so I was totally cool with it. 

We arrived at our new house around 10 pm two weeks ago and crashed hard core.  The next day we explored our new space.  It is awesome.  We are on this hilly, quiet road, with trees and blackberry bushes and birds.  And at night we can hear a pack of coyotes howl. It is so cool. 

The house itself is a bit of a fixer upper.  Blue carpet everywhere.  Well, not anymore.  We already ripped it out of the bathrooms...can I get a huge EWWW for that one?!  Yeah.  And then we discovered the nightmare.  Cat pee.  In the closets.  In our bedroom.  The staircase.  The basement storage space.  It has been terrible dealing with cat pee!  We've had to rip out carpets and walls and subfloors and insulation.  And nothing cleans it.  My gut desire was to dip my entire house in bleach.  And then I read that cat pee is full of ammonia and mixed with bleach can produce mustard gas.  Nice.  And sanitizing the areas doesn't get rid of the smell.  We tried so many enzyme cleaners people swear by.  They either don't have good noses or they didn't just buy a house with a 20 year string of peeing cats.  The only think that worked was literally ripping everything out and then kilzing the area.  I love Kilz.  Love.  Can't say I feel the same about felines.  Trying really hard to not loathe the entire cat population of the world, but right now, I'm on the fence.  Sorry if you are a cat person. 

Our house is a construction zone and complete chaos.  We are living on sub floors, the fridge is in the middle of the kitchen while Hubs repairs the sub floor behind that.  One bathroom has been gutted and waiting on me to finish painting the cabinets and Hubs to tile the floor before we can reassemble and start on the other one.  We haven't been able to unpack any clothes since all of the closets are recovering cat pee areas.  We ripped down the 15 ft lava rock fireplace yesterday and have exposed cinder block and insulation as our living room view.  We started to take down  a wall in the kitchen, but it turned out to be a load bearing wall, so we are stuck with bare studs until we can come up with a backup plan. There are ladders and shop vacs and hammers and circular saws adorning the tables and counters and hallways.  It is terribly chaotic.  And we are probably in over our heads.  It feels like a young love, two kids just starting out and learning as they go kinda thing, except that we've been married 11 years and there's not much learning going on, just a lot of cursing and head shaking when things go awry.  Well, I suppose we've learned a lot about cat pee.

And Hubs just started working 80+ hour work weeks.  I'm not quite sure what we were thinking taking on such a big project when we have no time to do it ourselves and no money to hire someone else.  At least it is clean.  And I say that subjectively.  Because dealing with all of these projects makes it ridiculously difficult to even thinking about doing normal stuff, like, say, dishes.  Or cooking.  Or remembering that I put a bleach load in the wash three days ago and I might as well just bleach it again since its still there.  And of course there is drywall dust covering all of the unpacked boxes scattered everywhere.  But every surface of this joint has been bleached, santized, Kilzed...  It may be messy and chaotic, but it is clean. 

So that's that.  For the past two weeks, we been crazy busy.  Or just crazy and busy.  I think they probably both work. 

So far the people of Oregon are super friendly.  I've met a few nice ladies at the park and one neighbor who has kids the same age as Little Man has already swapped phone numbers and brought over rice krispie treats.  And tonight they asked to borrow oregano.  I feel honored to be liked enough to share spices.  Plus, now I know who I can borrow a cup of sugar from when I run out.  Another neighbor brought over a book for Little Man and some awesome composting bags for us and wants to have a Welcome to the Neighborhood party for us. Its really awesome.  I've never lived in this friendly of a place before.  I feel very blessed. 

And very tired.  I can't get anything done with Little Lady awake, so project time has been nights until about 2 am.   I am so in love with my coffee maker.  Still. 

Well, I'm running out of gas and I have a few more cabinet doors to sand and wipe down so I can start priming in the morning.  But I'm sure I'll be back soon.  This move has been great, but meeting all new people means a lot of sharing.  Which is good, but hard.  And it makes it feel fresh and raw all over again.  And we all miss our Jameson so much.  More on that later; it is late enough already tonight.   See you soon!

The Pull

It feels like we have been moving for months.  Because for the first time in my existence, I didn't procrastinate.  Instead, I started packing packing us up weeks ago, knowing that it would be much easier this way.  And it is easier now that we're down to the wire, with less than a week until the truck comes.  And I maybe have 6 more boxes that need to get packed.  The last load of rugs is in the wash.  We are down to camping dishware and a suitcase of clothes.  It is nice to not be stressed this week that there is so much to do, because there isn't.

But having everything packed up and living with boxes and ugliness for such a long time takes it toll, too.  Especially at the tail end of school.  Little Man is supposed to bring games to school one day, books another, toys for a classroom garage sale....  At first I would sigh and unpack a few boxes until I could find what he needed, but I drew the line this morning and told him sorry, it's all packed up and I'm sure your teacher will understand.  He is such a good kid and he really does roll with life rather well for such a young man.  But this move is taking its toll on our Little Man.  He's worried about making friends, sad about leaving friends behind, missing his grandparents, sick of having all his stuff packed up.  It's been too much for him, I think. 

Yesterday, we took some old greenware pots that I made years ago on my wheel and never fired, and we threw them in the driveway and watched them shatter.  He threw them with all him might and then went and stomped on all the pieces big enough to break more and ground them into the asphalt.  And then we took the hose and watched the red clay run into the street until it was all clean again. I wish his anxieties and fears could all be broken and washed away that easily.  It was a good release, a good reset for both of us. And it worked in the short term. 

But I can tell he's still hanging by a thread in some ways.  This morning, Little Man was talking about how much he is missing his brother.  He was talking about how awesome Heaven is and what Jameson is probably doing on this fine day.  And then he just threw it out there and took my breath away.  My first grader looked me square in the eye and told me he can't wait to die. 

A part of my heart shattered on the kitchen floor and I had to work hard to keep my cool. He went on to say that he likes Earth and he wants to live long enough to have kids, but he wants to die when his kids are 12 so he can finally be with Jameson again.  Ahhhh. 

We have all been given an amazing gift through losing our Jameson; the three of us he left behind all have our hearts and eyes on Heaven so completely that we long to go there.  And that is a gift!  To see it and want it and know that we will have it someday, that is a gift.  In that sense, the hole in our hearts is a gift. 

But the other side to that coin is the pain and loneliness that comes with that loss.  The pain so great that my seven year old looks forward to dying.  He feels that desire to push the fast forward and just be done with it all just like I do.  Let's just get this part over-with and enjoy eternity and let's just do it now. 

I get him.  My Little Man, who doesn't seem so little when he talks so big.  It's hard to be here.  There is a greater pull, a yearning we cannot ignore.  And it makes it hard.  To just live.  Just to be.