Open House, Schmopen House

So we had the Big Open House on Sunday. Here is the number of people who came to see the house: ZERO. Even with the balloons and the ad in the newspaper and the big sign at the end of our street. BUT, all is not lost. I didn’t clean the closet doors with a toothbrush (actually it is more like a dish washing brush, but you get the idea…) or wash down the baseboards for nothing. Yesterday we got a call at 4:30 from our Realtor saying that someone in her office wanted to show our house in fifteen minutes–could we be ready?

Why yes, we could! Because we spent hours and hours scouring the house for Sunday, it would only take about 10 minutes to whip it back into ship showing shape. I was at the library at the time with Sadie and her friend, Taylor, so I called Dan and he was on it in a flash. (I knew there was NO WAY I was going to get there in time–one 5 year old is slow enough–just imagine TWO of them who really think it’s funny to hide from me then run away when I say it is time to go…I needed at least 30 minutes to get them out of the library and into the car…)

A quick side note: yesterday morning (before I had any knowledge that someone would want to see the house later in the day and only give us 15 minutes notice to get it ready) I had the urge to vacuum. What?! I know! Sadie had been eating Cheetos in the living room, and I happened to notice. This is QUITE unusual for me. Normally I just let the orange crumbs lie until they start sticking annoyingly to my feet. But I thought, oh, since we already vacuumed the whole house, all I need is three minutes to make the living room look really nice again. Painless, really. Also, I made Sadie’s bed. Again, unusual. I normally just close her door and not think about it until she’s ready to go to bed again, and then I remember that I should be training HER to be making her own bed, but it’s too late since it’s bedtime, so I just throw it together so her covers can be right when she sleeps. Providential? I think so.

I don’t know what the young couple thought of our house, but as Dan keeps saying during this entire MADDENING process “It only takes one buyer.”

We shall see.

Lost: Motivation

Here’s what I should be doing: getting my house ready for our Big Open House tomorrow. Even after two cups of coffee and a lovely stroll around the neighborhood garage sales, I still can’t seem to gather up my motivation. SO MUCH needs to be done. Over and above  the normal stuff that already makes me cranky (i.e.  unloading the dishwasher…) It is just so painful. You’d think someone was making me staple my tongue.

I feel all this pressure, like if everything is NOT perfect, it will be my fault that the house doesn’t sell. This is irrational, like most thoughts that run through my head. And with a little effort, we can achieve a state of house bliss, but I must say, this house selling thing is getting old. I’m just tired of it.

I’m boring myself with my complaints. Bleh.

Lighting

Here’s my question: WHO puts fluorescent lights in a coffee shop?? What is up? Lamps, people! Lamps or indirect lighting. First of all, there is a glare on my laptop screen. Second of all, have we NOT heard of ambiance?

I am aware that I have lighting issues. ESPECIALLY if it has to do with fluorescent lights. But I also have a problem with unbalanced light (too bright in one part of the room, and not enough in another–like maybe I’m facing a window or something.) I’m just not a fan of overhead lighting. Yes. I realize that there far more legitimate things to complain about (like the foul odor emanating from SOMEWHERE near the coffeshop chair I’m sitting on…GROSS!) Or maybe starving people in the world or global warming or something. It still baffles me how someone would open up a coffee shop without thinking about lighting.

That’s all I’m saying.

“Only” Guilt

So I was talking to my good friend Charlie today about mommy-guilt. She was saying that it comes with every baby. Well I feel plagued with it right now. I mean, simply PLAGUED! I have to keep telling myself that I do not have to be my child’s sister. You know, the one I haven’t provided for her since she is an only child?? I almost have to say out loud that I am not depriving her and that she is not going to be crazy or demented or damaged in any way because she doesn’t have siblings. I do not have to feel bad because I don’t feel like playing with her today. And I don’t feel like making 50 calls to find someone else to entertain her.

Why do I feel so frantic about leaving her alone to entertain herself? I mean, she resists it for sure. She asks me every three minutes who she can call and when she can play with some one. I don’t want to entertain myself, she says. Many times I give in instead of giving her the gift of solitude and imagination. I don’t give her the chance to enjoy her own company, because she resist so. loudly.

So I feel guilty about catering to her need for entertainment, AND for not. For playing with her when I don’t feel like it, and then for saying with an annoyed sigh that I’ve had enough! It’s not my job to entertain you! Which isn’t something she needs to hear, necessarily, but something I need to say to myself. Because I know it’s not my job. But yet I still feel compelled to do it. Then feel angry at myself for not being the mom, and for giving in to my own compulsions. I worry that I’m putting her off and off and she’s going to get this message that I don’t want to be with her. And the truth is, I DON’T want to be with her in the role of ‘playmate.’ Mom, yes. Playmate and Cruise Director, NO. But that’s what I feel like sometimes. LIke I HAVE to be the cruise director–like that’s my punishment for having only one.

Sometimes I wish for a second child just to entertain my first. I don’t want another child to love and cherish and train and get to know as their own person. No. I just want someone there to let me off the hook. Which is why we ARE not having a second child by the way. Because I just want a servant girl at Sadie’s beck and call so I don’t have to fight her off. I get so weary of the battle. So I don’t REALLY want a second child. I want a child-in-waiting who is assigned to my daughter so I don’t have to be.

Of course this discussion always leads to OVERCOMPENSATION. Worrying that I’ll be so busy that Sadie will have to follow me around and talk to my back (i.e my own childhood…) but that’s so irrational. I’m not my mom…and my mom’s not even that person anymore. But I’m stuck there just the same.

(Damned if I do…damned if I don’t.)

There has to be some spacious free place within motherhood that lets me make mistakes. And allows me to be myself and trust my instincts and think of what’s best for Sadie, even if she is protesting madly. I just haven’t found it yet.

Moving Ramble

So it’s just the oddest thing. The way God changes things. I have this vivid memory of sitting in Dan’s office at Houghton in 1997, digging up anything I could find about Siloam Springs, the town we would be soon moving to. I couldn’t surf the web at home, all we could access there was text only. Isn’t that funny? A little over ten years ago, images on the Internet were much harder to come by. Our home computer didn’t have enough memory or ram or the right card or whatever to see images. So I had to use the internet at Dan’s office.

Anyway, I was so hungry to see what my town was going to look like. I imagined my life here, and how much better it was going to be. I wanted to be anywhere but Houghton, and fast. Lots of things I had no idea about waited for me here in Arkansas: a psycho dog, totally cool artsy friends, therapy, graphic design, writing, having a baby, post-partum depression, a breaking down and a building up of my faith, independence, an uncanny ability to grow basil, and the realization that happiness doesn’t just appear when you move away from a place. I have grown so much in eleven years. But never did I think that we’d be heading back to Houghton. Never.

But crazy. Seriously. Even with all of the knowledge I have of that little corner of Western Ny, of the cold and the grey skies most of the time, and the endless winter, and the miles and miles of, well, nothing, I. Want. To. Go. I can’t explain it. It can only be God. And here’s the other thing. I really like my life here. It’s not like I was just aching to get away. I had plans. I really liked my job. I love, love, love my friends. I felt like I needed to escape Houghton before we came here. I wanted to run away to happiness. (Note to self: the problem with believing that I’ll be happy when is that I bring my inner blackness with me wherever I go…moving doesn’t fix the problem) (I need to remind myself of this every once in a while…)

I don’t want to escape Siloam. Truth be told, I want to go to the Aquatic Center this summer. I want Sadie to go to the sports camps at the First Baptist church. I want to see Dana’s baby. I want to be here when Ellen gets famous. I want to go to Shan’s house for coffee and laugh till I am crying at something Trish said. I want to hang out with Tab and talk about boobs and the Holy Spirit and house renovation all in one conversation, while gesturing wildly and guffawing. I want to be a girl scout leader with Deanna and talk for hours. I want to see how our Sunday school turns out. I want Sadie to go to Allen Elementary next year. I want to be around when downtown Siloam finally gets cool.

It’s hard to think about life going on with out me. But I want to feel the loss, you know? I don’t want to just think about what’s ahead, and forget about what is great right now. Because that would be the easier thing. To shut down and move on. But I can’t. I have to feel excited AND sad. Both at the same time. And grateful too–for all of the gifts God has given me here. But also hopeful for the things He is going to do in my life in this next chapter.

I don’t like to think about leaving. Every once in a while I get this flash forward of us pulling out of our driveway for the last time, and I turn the channel QUICK. But I can’t pretend it isn’t going to happen just because it is going to be hard. Sometimes I wish I could just fly to NY in a blink and not have to deal with it. Skip any kind of closure and dive into our new life–as if the last eleven years didn’t happen. But how can I? It’s pretty crappy, this moving.

But deep down, I know we’re supposed to go. And that helps.

Sometimes…

There is not enough coffee in the world.

I’m going to go get some more. I heard they have Starbucks downstairs.

I’ll miss working at JBU.

New House Slide Show

You Get What You Get (though you might throw a fit)*

*Title change: I realized after a thoughtful comment from Marcy that my first title wasn’t quite accurate. So I changed it. Formally, it was “You Get What You Get and You Don’t Thow a Fit.” I think this one is more fitting to the post.

I went to Houghton, NY last weekend REALLY wishing to buy a restored farmhouse built in 1883. We got there, and I got an email from the owner saying they had taken off the market. Much internal drama and conflict ensued. I had dreamed of owning this farmhouse for weeks–even though my rational husband reminded me that nothing was certain, and not to put all of my eggs in that basket. TOO LATE. I was Nancy Drew prowling through the secret passageway that connected this house to the barn across the street which in turn led to a hidden room that once housed ex-slaves on the Underground Railroad. Of course I have no idea if any such passageway exists, but the description of the second-floor screened-in sleeping porch had me at hello.

So instead, we made an offer on the ‘hillside ranch’ in the pictures. But it took me A. LONG. TIME. to readjust my expectations. I’m talking can’t sleep, sitting in the bathroom of the hotel at 3:00am crying, ANGRY at God for not giving me what I wanted. Turns out He gave me what I NEEDED instead. And then He helped me to really really want it. I love it now, and see so many possibilities for it.

The story is much longer, with more drama and resistance and finally peaceful surrender, but the details just might wear you out. I need to mention Dan the Husband Champion at this point, though. About an hour after we looked at and decided on the house in the picture, I started to sulk. He was really excited about the house while I was crossing my arms and hurrumphing. He said “I wish you could be excited about this as I am, but I can see you are having an internal struggle. I’ll let you wrestle it out in your own time.” I love that he said that. He accepted me where I was, and knew that I just needed time to accept this gift we had been given, instead of complaining about what I DIDN’T have. I mean, he could have given me thirty lectures about managing my expectations and how we have never had anything that nice before so I should just be grateful. But he didn’t. He gave me time, and by about 4:30am that morning, I was ready to move in to our funky house, happy and at peace.

We close on June 10th.

Not the pox!

So we’ve been having open houses and applying for loans and having cleaning frenzies, not to mention just having returned from NY where we put an offer on a house, and NOW is the time that Sadie gets the Chicken Pox?! Not that I’m complaining THAT much…at least she’s getting it over with. Here’s my question: what good is getting your kid a CHICKEN POX VACCINE if she still gets anyway??? People say that her case may not be as bad because she had the shot, but I’d like to say that my friend who’s daughter DIDN’T get the shot seems to have a milder case. The two girls are having a pox party as I write this. Since they both have it, her mom and I thought they might as well keep each other company. So they are in an oatmeal bath right now. Poor Sadie was up every two hours last night so uncomfortable. I’m hoping she doesn’t get it as bad as I had it…there wasn’t one ounce of skin showing. I was all pox. I’m talking pox on top of pox. It was hideous.

Anyway, I have a few minutes before I have to clean the house AGAIN. I’m telling you, living in a ‘ready-at-anytime-to show’ house is MADDENING. I’m already domestically challenged as it is (having gone 6 months at a time between bathroom cleanings, and no, I’m not exaggerating!) And now I have to watch EVERY crumb that falls out of the toaster. Though I will say that it’s teaching me some new habits–I’d really like to become the kind of person who notices the squalor I’m living in, and has the motivation to DO something about it. I don’t want to bring my pigpen ways to my new house. Which we will close on at the beginning of June by the way. But more about that later.

We’re showing the house tomorrow, and having an open house on Sunday, and Sadie and Taryn ate blueberry muffins WILLY NILLY at the table and you should see the mess. At least I CARE now.

Moving!

Here’s the REAL reason I haven’t been blogging lately: I’ve known since January 31st that there was a possibility that we might be moving to New York State because of a job that Dan was interested in. For three months now, ALL I have been able to think about is moving back to the Northeast. And I couldn’t talk about it until we were certain that he had procured said job. As I am a verbal processor, all I really wanted to blog about was the waiting, the excitement, the dreams, the possibilities of moving closer to both of our families, and going back to our Alma Mater. (The job Dan got is the Executive Director of Alumni and Church Relations at Houghton College ). But I was sworn to secrecy. So now it’s official. We’re moving to New York state in June. And just to clarify, we will be living in Western NY, NOT the city. New York is a big state. Here is a map.

It’s totally bittersweet. We’ve been here in Arkansas for 11 years, and have people we love so much around us. But it has been hard, especially since Sadie, to only see our families once or twice a year. The minor holidays have been the worst. I get why some people feel depressed around holidays.

So as you can see by my header we’re selling our house. All the work we did over spring break was in preparation for this, and it killed me to not be able to say it. But we’ve painted and rearranged and de-cluttered and you should see our new floors. So tell your friends and spread the word. We need to sell ASAP. We’ll be traveling up to Houghton next weekend for a house-hunting trip (Sadie is beside herself with excitement…she so wants to find a house with an upstairs

I’ve learned A LOT about waiting these past months. And trying to live in the moment. But that is for another post. Right now, I have to straighten the house in case we get a call. I just wanted to give a quick update.