Silencing the Background Noise or Why I Blog

While kids and weary husband sleep, I sit at the table and peck through chapter by chapter. I copy the author’s words to help me remember, to help me teach.

I strain for the discipline to just finish the last two chapters, but thoughts buzz. Ideas repeated here and there during the day hum for the moment they can be completed. When is that moment? It’s now, when the silence of the night gives ear to their music.

I decipher the purposeful notes and realize daily multi-tasking dulls my focus. My children too easily become part of the background noise. Walls press in, so I must press out. I need new perspectives.

Today three of us lingered at the window. Flocks of birds visited our feeder. We watched the juncos bounce around nibbling spilled seeds. Their black suit coats contrasted with the white snow. Finches of gold and purple brightened the dead lilac bush.

The fourth person here, my son, glanced out, flipped through books, and started asking:

Can we make a suet feeder? Can I make a bird bath? What about a brush cover?

My active, imaginative son always wants to do. I want to bundle up and hibernate until spring. Instead, I make the effort to listen and gather supplies.

Then I pause, before sleep, to capture a moment to help me remember, to help me teach.

What helps you be a better mother and teacher? What do you do to stay focused?

Inexcusable

I should know better by now. The hint of an upcoming article haunts me. Series take me so long to complete, they can’t be called sequential at all. A better explanation is that eventually my ideas find a way of escape.

My intentions are the best. In fact, they are so good they get sketched out again and again like a draftsman crafting a castle. I know it’s hard to believe, but I am a bit obsessive.

For instance, my homework assignment for the past three weeks has been to compile a notebook on Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. I’m supposed to take notes on the five elements of literature in each chapter: setting, characterization, plot, style, and theme. Simple enough. Unless you’re me.

I took six pages of notes on one chapter! This book is for upper elementary grades. Would my twelve-year-old son write that many notes on one chapter? No way!

Needless to say, I’ve realized the error of my ways. Homework for this week was much easier and less time consuming. See, I can relax. Really, I can.

When our computer dubbed, somewhat affectionately, Frankenmachine died, I took deep breaths to calm my heart rate. And as soon the twitching stops, I will be fine.

Our antique laptop dubbed, somewhat affectionately, What is that! is just what I need to slow me down. Because it would be inexcusable if I had the chance to overwhelm you with all my ideas at once.

The House God Gave Us: It’s Paid For!

While we were at camp, I asked a friend if $40,000 houses ever came on the market. He laughed. So did I, but someone told us they were praying for that very thing. I admit I sort of laughed at him, too. It was outside the realm of normal. I never expected such a thing to happen to us twice.

Instead of driving around with Dylan hunting  for our next home, I could only scan the internet. My dream house faded as the desire to be with my husband expanded. Two weeks after Dylan left for Idaho, I begged him to come back, but he announced a new job.

I made it two more weeks before I lost it again. By that time, Dylan had put in an offer on a foreclosure. A bidding war ensued, so we thought we were out of the running. Before my plea was finished, Dylan announced our winning bid of $39,900!

Stunned, I tried to mesh my emotions into what was about to be reality. How could we fit 5 people into 888 sq. ft.? I convinced myself space was overrated anyway. I just wanted to be with my love.

A few days later, the ring of the telephone ripped apart my new revised plans.

We can’t get a loan, because I’m employed through a temporary agency.

No way around it. No alternatives. We decided to wait and see if one of the people tramping through our finally finished Texas house would buy it. I was just getting ready to lower the price, when an offer came. A full price offer! If the deal went through, we would have enough to pay CASH for our ugly, tiny foreclosure.

Closing dates overlapped by one week, so we asked for an extension. I held my breath until I saw Dylan at the airport. Then nothing else mattered. Tears rattled my composure as I collapsed in his arms. Little ones crowded around our legs giggling hysterically.

It was all an act of faith. We didn’t know until hours before closing whether the deal would go through. We finished packing the moving truck in the rain. The phone was shut off, power was next, and still we waited. The buyer came for the final walk through. She almost skipped it, because of her frustration.

Our suitcases were the only thing left in the empty, echoing house. Dear friends came to help, but there wasn’t much left to do except try to avoid the depressing thought of how far away Idaho was from Texas.

When we pulled out, I noticed mud smeared on the front of the house. The kids must have put it there while playing. I wanted to jump out and clean it off, but there wasn’t time.

We were on our way to Idaho, a caravan of Deckards who were already home because we were together.

Next in this series: How does a family of 5 fit in here?

The House We Hoped For

We began the hunt as winter came to close. Every weekend our family of four piled in our auction-find Hyundai and cruised neighborhoods. Our eyes roved for red arrows pointing to abandoned houses. Pulling up driveways and surveying the possibilities became a routine that lasted for months.

Reality hit hard. The loan we were approved for was more than we could afford. As the loan officer plugged information into her computer, she laughed and said,

Oh, I can get you into a lot of trouble. Remember you are the ones who have to make the payments.

Yes, we knew that well. When Dylan and I married, we decided to base all of our financial decisions on Dylan’s income alone. We wanted to keep our options open, so our plans reflected the desire for me to stay home.

There wasn’t much in our price range. Even the $90,000 houses needed a lot of work, and for that payment the space needed to be move in ready. If we did find something that would work, it was under contract. So we gathered our hope and kept driving.

A For Sale by Owner sign compelled us to stop in front of an ugly house on a corner lot. It was a drab brick red with a lattice-wrapped porch hanging off the front. A ceiling fan with large globe lights was the focal point. I mentally noted that could be easily replaced with something less obtrusive. Because the place was obviously empty, we peeked in the front window. The entry was a long narrow room with doorways on both sides. The walls were cheap wood paneling. The floor was mostly covered with stained, white vinyl squares. Very drab, very uninviting.

Meanwhile, our son gazed at a hastily-painted, yellow plywood tree house in the backyard. He wanted to live here. He prayed that we would move to this house. I was not even interested. Then I found out the price: $65,000.

Our first tour was hard to stomach. The kitchen floor was three layers of dirty ripped linoleum. Cupboards were white with blue shreds of latex paint trying to cling to the oil underneath. The garage was full of junk, and there was nothing to heat or cool the house except an assortment of ceiling fans.

As we listened to the owner tell us about the toilet backing up when it rained, the true issues surfaced. I concluded he had a buyer at one time, but the house wouldn’t pass inspection. Then I heard,

If you take it as is, I’ll sell it to you for $40,000.

Dylan said he’d be in touch, and we walked quietly to the car.

As soon as the door shut, I blurted out,

We need to jump on this!

I was scared. We knew nothing about fixing houses. I could clean and paint, but this house needed more than a brush of color. It needed a furnace to keep our kids warm in the winter and an air conditioner for the blazing Texas summers. The septic had issues. Did that mean the plumbing was suspect, too? What about the cracks in the mortar? And the bathroom where the toilet had fallen through the floor? Was that really fixed?

A few friends with rental property assured us it was fine. Other friends wondered what we were getting ourselves into. I later heard,

When you said it would be nice I believed you, but I sure couldn’t see it.

And it was nice, eventually. That is why I took so many pictures. I knew I would need to be reminded that the sore muscles, sheer frustration, and inconvenience was worth it. Dylan had sent me pictures of our new house in Idaho…(to be continued)

Homestead

When I mentioned how much I like old farmhouses, my husband said, “Oh, that’s what we have!” He’s funny. Our new house doesn’t have the charm I referred to.

The Homestead

The jerry-built shed is nothing like an old barn. Very few items date back to the time the nearby canning kitchen was in operation: a couple of doors and the window over the kitchen sink. Those items are my favorite. They remind me of simpler times.

Times when people stored a harvest in the cellar for winter. Times when large closets weren’t a necessity. Times when families huddled indoors for long winters. Times like we are having right now.

Our tiny, ugly house is slowly being transformed from the inside out.

The cellar isn’t full, but boxes of potatoes are stored and green tomatoes are ripening. Our bedrooms don’t have closets, so we keep only the clothes we really wear. The kitchen and living room are now a fresh shade of yellow and new carpet was installed today.

After Dylan hacked out two walls in the bathroom, we hung a curtain for a door. It will be replaced and that space made more functional. Books will come out of boxes and our routine of learning will resume.

This 1920 house was beyond my vision. I walked through imagining. Ideas completely clouded over by the last room. The choke came and my silence said it all.

Falling asleep that night, I mourned and felt so foolish. The house we left in Texas wasn’t pretty when we bought it either. It was bigger, but not pretty.

Tears in the night evaporated in the morning. Friends came to help us. Lots of friends who unloaded our moving truck and tore off paneling and brought food. Laughter came with them and then I knew this little place would become home.

(Photos to come.)