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an everyday life

an everyday life

Category Archives: Home Restoration

Sweater Weather

17 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by Janell in Good Reads, Home Restoration, In the Garden, Life at Home, Prayer

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Aging, Bathroom Remodel, Dimensions of Prayer, Douglas V. Steere, Home Restoration, Oklahoma Gardening, Prayer, Sarah Richardson, Snow Storms, Soul Care, True Self

“Prayer demands that we act, and that–having acted in accordance with our leading in prayer–we bear the consequences of our acts, even when we cannot foresee all that they are to cost.”         — Douglas V. Steere, Dimensions of Prayer, p. 84
 
 
IMG_0581AT HOME, CURRENTLY READING: “The Paying Guests,” by Sarah Waters
 

After all the go-go goings defining this long season of Pentecost, I am relishing moments of holy leisure today, the guilt-free sort that arrive on wings of winter chill.

It’s no small miracle the difference a few days can make to one’s priorities and state of mind. Why all autumn long, prior to knowing that there was such a thing as an “ARCTIC BLAST” (“AB”), I’ve been cocooned in an Indian Summer insouciance, preparing the garden for future summers rather than getting ready for the certain reality of a winter that — let’s face it — could have happened anytime.

I put off decision-making on how best to winterize our fountain — whether to store it or keep it operating with a heater — in favor of reworking and expanding large sections of the garden. Rather than taking time to ensure I had paper tape to protect trees most susceptible to sun scald, I instead focused on editing plant material — adding, and relocating plants within my garden… passing along other plants that needed more spacious digs.

So to read how AB ended up catching me off guard could surprise no one… but maybe myself. The day after AB arrived, the fountain was still operating…without its needed heater.  Tree trunks of those normally wrapped were still bare.  And the most prolific tomato plant I’ve ever been privileged to nurture was loaded with hundreds of little green tomatoes… just waiting for someone to take note… and pick, pick, pick.

The gardener shapes the garden and vice versa, but both are shaped by seasonal changes.  Take this winter freeze, for instance.  Before this, I’d never considered how effective winter can be at making things happen.  When a freeze means do or die, it’s time to do.  Which in my garden meant that the fountain heater finally got installed.  The trees got taped.  And a few hours before temperatures dived below thirty-two degrees, my husband and I picked too-many-to-count little green tomatoes, fifty of which have already ripened.

IMG_3057

Winter makes things happen in other ways, too, though often, in less perceptible ways.  In an out of the garden, new growth occurs below the surface of life;  as roots develop for spring growth within the cold, dark soil, something analogous goes on in the life of this gardener, too, as I’m snuggled into some warm and light-infused spot of my lovely home. Like no other season of the year, winter invites me to settle in and get still, it offers me creative space to catch my breath, to rest my tired body and recharge my spirit, to ponder life and my response to life, often with the aid of a good novel or fine film in front of me.

It also gives me time to ponder future projects I may one day undertake.  Last January, my bathroom remodel was the stuff of wintertime day dreams.  I devoted time to study of the space. I took measurements. I made lists of features that I’d like to have in my new bathroom. I considered the ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos of many remodeled bathrooms that appealed to me. I probably overdosed on remodeled bathrooms designed by Sarah Richardson.  But only after pondering all of my wishes and restraints for a very long time did I begin to sketch out possible floor plans.  It took weeks to come up with one I was ready to develop further, to invest time needed to selecting materials and fixtures. Marble tile for the floor.  Ceramic for the tile wainscoting.  Shimmery glass mosaics for the upper half of the shower.  Calcutta Gold Quartzite for the countertop.  A large vessel tub.  Pendant lights.

Buy why bother with words when I can show you the ‘before’ and ‘after’ so easily with photos?

Before.

IMG_1680And after.

IMG_2699

 And a few more, for good measure.

18

  16Most see it as an amazing transformation.  But then, how could it be otherwise? It’s always seems to be a step in the right direction wherever light illumines space and whenever narrow views grow to be more opened.  What’s true for room design holds true for life in the garden and, most importantly, the life of this gardener, too.

Though, sometimes, I do wonder at all the changes that have taken place within me over the span of my adult life. Changes in attitude. Perspective. Philosophy. Changes that have occurred in my spiritual life and in religious affiliation.  My choice in films and novels. My preference in how I furnish my home and dress myself.  My taste in food.  How I once loved eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger…

Why, even the way I perceive myself has changed.  Six years ago, I would never have considered calling myself a gardener, though I did garden a fair amount. So who can say how and when it happened,… I only know that today, I refer to myself as a gardener.  And that life as a gardener shapes my view of the world.

These inward personal changes cannot be documented with the ease of ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos, though they live within me nevertheless…which reminds me that “To pray is to change.”  Like all the other changes that have slowly shaped my present identity, I cannot pinpoint where I first read…and absorbed…these words.  I only know that the saying feels true to my experience.

I pray.

I act.

My actions shape my prayers and my prayers, in turn, shape my actions… until the two blur to become one… and my prayer becomes my action.

In other words, as I often like to say, my life is my prayer.  But unlike Douglas V. Steer, I do not know whether I believe that my prayer… or my life… can really tip the cosmic balance (p. 69 of Dimensions of Prayer) of what will occur without either my prayers or my life.

But who can say what impact our words or deeds might have on the lives of others?

Who can say whether or not that maybe we all tip the balance a little every day?

I only know that, today, I’ve settled into sweater weather.   And that at certain times in my life, I have felt the warmth of prayers spoken on my behalf as much as I do the warmth of this coral-colored, cotton sweater that, today, covers my arms and heart.

Sweater weather!  How grateful I am to be within your seasonal embrace.

Remodel Redux

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by Janell in Home Restoration, Life at Home

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

bath remodel, Childhood Memories, Everyday Life, Home Restoration, Remodeling

IMG_1905

IMG_1909Memories of the first time I walked through my home have washed over me this week…. in small part due to the nearness of my third anniversary of moving here…in larger part, due to the onset of our main bath remodel a week ago.

So what have I been thinking?  Bittersweet thoughts, mostly.  About how starting this bathroom project means that I’ve finally reached the bottom of a very, very long to-do list.  About how happy and fulfilling these last three years in my life have been… whilst fixing and “uppering” this and that.  Even when not actually working on such tasks, I was planning and imagining all the lovely and not-so-lovely details of some succeeding project…one or two rungs down the list.

All this as a way of confessing that I’ve never been happier living anywhere, anytime… and I write this with eyes wide open, at the risk of trivializing all that’s good that has come before.  Who can say where and how such deep feelings are born?  Only that they are, and that sometimes, love and affection for some special person or place or thing… followed almost immediately by a sense of responsibility and commitment towards it…. rises up within us… almost at first sight… often without realizing it till later.

The immense joy felt from the birth of children and grandchildren….is somewhat akin to the joy I’ve felt while remodeling and living in this sixty-three year old house and its surrounding gardens.  It’s as if the love and appending commitment I bear for this home… is weighty enough to live and breathe on its own… very much like children and grandchildren… separate and apart from me.

Surely, the power of such feelings cannot help but redefine and reshape and remodel me… and what I once believed true about myself and my preferences.  How easy tastes can change with times and circumstances.  Up until it happened, I never “in a million gazillion years” imagined myself living in a fifties California Ranch.  Until, that is, my need for a one-story arose.   Until I noticed that lingering for-sale sign, in front of what seemed a well-cared-for buff-colored limestone house situated on a corner.  Until attending its Open House.  Until stepping on the worn marble-tiled floor of the small entry, and hearing for the very first-time, the snappy plop of a sixty-year old spring-loaded screen door closing behind me.  I always wanted to live in a house on a corner, I remember thinking.

“All it needs is a lot of love,” I later told my husband, while walking out the door towards our car.  As I rattled off the many remodeling possibilities on the way home, my husband countered with talk of “paybacks” and “exit strategies” and “economics.” While he spoke of being sensible… of making wise choices… of the do-WE-really-want-to-buy a house only to REDO every square inch of it…. I thought of color schemes… and weighed whether to go retro in style… or bring the place into the twenty-first century, with a small nod to its glorious fifties past.

IMG_1911Economics wasn’t part of the equation… my husband eventually understood.  Somewhere between that sweet sense of nostalgia felt while standing in the small entry… and smelling the not-so-sweet scent of leaking gas from the living room fireplace… I knew I wanted to live here.   It didn’t matter that the house had seen better days…. that much of its fifties fabulousness had been stripped away by previous and (somewhat recent) kitchen and main bath remodels.

Previous owners surely must have imagined their remodel as a step in the right direction…. just as I have with mine.  But what joy I take…. in that no one ever quite got around to undertaking a wholesale remodel of our utility bath.  Would you believe it still has all of its original tile work, including a cute cubby of a built-in shower that reminds me of the very one I used as a child.

Oh, the memories… they do wash over me.

Priming in Advent

09 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by Janell in Home Restoration, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Advent, House Painting, Hurricane Sandy, Hurricanes, Lifetime Guarantees, Preparation, Safe-Rooms

IMG_0414What I recall most about those first months of living on the Texas coast was a lot of talk about hurricanes. Older residents spoke of past storms, like Carla. Younger ones kept eyes more on possibilities circling far away. But when a storm pointed itself in our general direction, everybody talked of little else but the need to make preparations.

I never got the hang of preparing for storms, in spite of living through twenty hurricane seasons. It’s not that I didn’t notice folks covering their windows with plywood. Or that I could ignore all that serious stocking up on gallons of bottled water and flashlights and batteries, while I was off wandering the deserted aisles of the local super store buying everyday groceries. I often felt the fool showing up at the cash register with a loaded cart of perishables while other patrons had theirs full of provisions that any Boy Scout would have been proud of.

I used to blame this shortfall on living too many years near Oklahoma’s tornado alley. Twisters, I imagined, had ingrained into me a different mindset, turning me more into a last-minute responder to warning sirens, of rushing around for the best shelter I could find at a moment’s notice. I suppose I never wanted a storm cellar bad enough to invest in one. And apparently I still don’t; wouldn’t there be a “safe room” in my garage if I really wanted to be more prepared?

But the truth is that I’ve always been a little out of step with the real world and its seasons. No need to look further than my latest home improvement project, where I’ve spent the last few weeks outside painting the trim of my new old house. It’s in terrible shape. By its condition, I’d guess it’s been painted twice in sixty years. At its worst, bare wood is exposed and buckled while the best is alligatored and chipped.

All this adds up to a lot of preparation. Had it been well maintained, I could simply have cleaned the surface and engaged in a little light sanding. Instead, I’m also scraping away failed paint and filling in huge gaps that I’d guess last saw a caulk gun sixty years ago. It’s dirty and exhausting work. Every inch of surface requires a fresh application of primer, before receiving two or three coats of finish paint with a “lifetime warranty.”

I’m not sure whose lifetime that claim rests upon, but I hope it’s close to mine. All that ladder climbing has challenged my knees, especially on days where the wind has whipped around corners going twenty-five miles an hour. The knuckles of my right hand are stiff and swollen. My neck hurts. My lower back aches. But while ibuprofen has met its match, none of the hardships matter. Nor does it matter that my preparation regime is increasing total project time by fifty percent.

It’s hard to explain my need of getting this right. Part of it, I suppose, has to do with my age and the condition of my joints. This may be my only opportunity to do the job myself. But also, it just feels so darn wonderful to paint over a properly prepared surface. The brush simply glides over primed wood. The paint adheres beautifully, while evening out bulges and dings.

Sometimes I wonder what the neighbors think about my unseasonal painting project, bumping into the days of Advent as I have. But oddly, what they think doesn’t matter either.  What’s more important is that I feel in sync with the spirit of this liturgical time, set aside by the Church to ready our spirits for Christmas, since I’m more attentive to my surroundings. I notice the sky beyond the roof, the birds flying south for warmer climates and the squirrels burying pecans in my garden. I catch colored leaves slipping from trees out of the corner of my eye. They fall around me like confetti in a parade. Everything, it seems, in the autumn world around me, is preparing itself for the season to come.

With days grower cooler and shorter, my outside painting is about over for the season. I’m only half-finished, but if I’m lucky, there’s always next year. I suppose another hurricane season must be over, too, though I can’t say for sure without conducting a search. No research is required for those living in areas of high risk. And this year with Sandy, maybe those living in lower risk parts of the country know, too.

The talk in New Jersey and surrounding areas on how to become better prepared is already off and running. Everyone there will be talking about Sandy for years to come, I imagine. It’s good to do what we can do. Though important to realizet we can never adequately prepare for another Sandy or Katrina or Carla. Or Comet and Donder and Blitzen. Or the coming of Christmas, even if Advent were to last from now to kingdom come.

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