Posts filed under ‘The House Project’
A Message from Heaven
Since I started cleaning out the house back in November to begin my long-drawn-out saga of renovations (stay tuned, it’s almost done!), I’ve uncovered many treasures. I’ve found everything from old family photos and baby books to greeting cards and letters to antiques from my grandfather’s old general store and butcher shop; I even found locks of my Mama’s hair from when she was a little girl, but there was one very simple thing I found that reached right out and grabbed me by the soul. It was a piece of paper, a torn, yellow Post-it note stuck to the green lamp on my mother’s desk. It was a message from heaven.
As I was plowing through never-ending clutter, to make way for the renovations to begin, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of papers and knick knacks my sweet Mama held onto, there was a moment where I felt utterly and completely defeated – okay, there have been many of those moments throughout the process and I’m sure there are many more to come, but this moment was a defining moment.
A conversation with myself ensued, along the lines of “what was I thinking, buying a house all on my own … you can’t do this … you can barely take care of yourself!” My heart ached, my head spun, and all I could do was cry. I sobbed for the loss of my mother, the loss of my father and all the responsibilities I’d gained with those way too early, completely unfair, life-changing losses. Sadness, frustration, confusion and anger that had built up inside me let loose like water breaking through a dam and traveled from the tips of my fingers, the tips of my toes, the pit of my stomach, and the hole in my heart to explode in the form of tears.
Then, I looked up, and there it was. The torn, yellow Post-it note with a message in my beautiful Mama’s Catholic School Girl handwriting.
It was a message from heaven. It didn’t stop me from crying, but it changed the source of my tears. This message was meant for me; it was sent for me at precisely the right time. Whether she’d written it down years before after hearing the line on an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” or delivered it from heaven above that day, she knew exactly what I needed, just like she always had.
I keep that message from heaven in my wallet, stuck to the back of my driver’s license so that it is always a part of me. Now that the house is almost finished, I plan to frame and place it somewhere I’ll see it each and every day. Because sometimes it’s the things that we fear the most in life that we actually need the most.
10 Things Every (New) Homeowner Should Have
In no particular order …
- A snake …because plumbing problems are a bitch and ya just never know when you might need one.
- A screwdriver … I highly recommend the interchangeable all-in-one kind. Handy for putting together Ikea furniture.
- A hammer … this one is multi-purpose driven. Firstly, for putting Ikea furniture together, secondly for hanging pictures, art, etc. and thirdly for beating the crap out of something or someone when you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into by becoming a homeowner.
- A plunger … see reasoning for number one, this one, although, is for more minor situations.
- Baking Soda and White Vinegar … these ingredients are wonder workers! Use ‘em to make your own cleaning solutions, in recipes AND to periodically unclog drains so that you do not have to use number one or four too often, which will inevitably have you using number three.
- A dehumidifier … this helps to suck up the dampness in the basement after a flood and just in general; especially helpful if you have an old house.
- An emergency route to the closest Home Depot … my car is pretty much set on auto pilot to go there; it’s a saving grace and when you’re not there for an emergency it’s kind of like a Disney World for the homeowner.
- Phone number handy for United Rentals … when certain projects or emergencies call for more powerful machinery than what you have on hand United Rentals is a great resource. From electric snakes to concrete mixers and more. **Warning – you may have so much fun with these adult toys you may be tempted to buy one of your own even if you really don’t need it.
- Good Friends and Supportive Family … you NEED these people in your life to put up with you and all your dramatic, frantic, neurotic, whining so that you don’t internalize it all and self-destruct.
- Hard liquor … when the hammer just doesn’t do the trick this comes in very handy for making cocktails or drinking straight up to get yourself hammered (try a Screwdriver perhaps ). Also good for disinfecting wounds, your own or those you’ve beaten the crap out of with the hammer and for liquoring up your friends and family in order to thank them for and/or to get them to put up with you.
HAPPY HOMEOWNING!
Under the Not So Tuscan Sun
So, there’s an American, an Irishman, a Russian woman and a Caveman … no this is not the beginning of a joke, this is the group of people that are actually working on my house. Okay, so the Caveman isn’t really a Caveman, it’s what I like to lovingly call my nephew who is currently sporting long locks and a beard (a mod hippie of sorts), while tearing apart my stairwell and upstairs hallway. It’s like “Under the Tuscan Sun” except the people working on my house are not Polish, I’m not renovating a house in Italy, and I am definitely no where near the caliber of Diane Lane. BUT it is a great group of people that are helping me make my house a home, I am renovating a house where something new is uncovered everyday (including buried electrical issues that make the guys shake their heads in total disapproval), and I am a woman,all on my own, taking on a house that is testing my patience, perseverance and faith (even if I don’t look like Diane Lane).
Every good home has character. My friends might say that there’s already a character living in my home – hee hee – which is very true. But I think that the people who help you transform your house play a part in shaping that character. They’re kind of like ingredients. Very important ingredients in the recipe for a happy home. Without the right people, the house would be like an ordinary cupcake without frosting … booooorrrriiiiinnngggg! A cupcake needs icing, and sprinkles and sometimes a yummy surprise in the middle! Character. It’s all about character.
A month ago I thought I’d never find the right people to make it all happen, and then poof, like magic the right people are sent into your life to set the gears in motion. Thankfully, somehow, these wonderful characters found me! It started with a conversation with a friend and the next thing you know work began to build the house’s character so that this character could have a happy home to live and entertain in (because I won’t be able to afford to leave it after its all done)!
It has been less than two weeks and they are already starting to put down the tile floor in the kitchen. After the first day on the job they had the kitchen pretty much gutted, and at that point there was no turning back. Moving quickly is good, not just because it’s getting done faster, but because it gives me less time to hem and haw over each little decision and less time for my agida to completely knock me out of commission sending me into in a corner of the dust-filled house curled up in a ball rocking back and forth and hiding from the world, in which case these guys and gal are also serving as my therapists … a whole ‘nother post!
There are days I wish I was in Italy, sitting in a piazza drinking wine and eating gelato with that hot hunk of a man Marcello that Diane Lane nabbed in the movie, but for now, I’m here, trying to enjoy and make the most of my journey Under the Not So Tuscan Sun.
Heart of the Home
I have officially been a homeowner since October 20, 2008, and since then I have been slowly but surely attempting to make it my own. And now, nine months later I am going in for the kill … that’s right … dun, Dun, DUN … renovating the kitchen, which in my family has always been the heart of the home. 
No matter the occasion, everyone always ended up in the kitchen – standing around eating, drinking, cooking, telling others how they should be cooking, washing dishes, telling others how they should be washing dishes – and here I am getting rid of all of it … wait, do you hear that??? Yea, that would be the screeching sound of my Catholic guilt!
As the layers have been peeled away over the past week, old memories have been brought back to life (they even found a newspaper stuffed in the wall with the insulation from 1970). The cheese doodle orange walls that my sweet Mama chose in the ’70′s (yeah – we were totally hip and with it), Daddy’s old tools from the dedicated ”tool drawer” (about a gazillion screwdrivers of all shapes and sizes, there just in case, cuz ya never know…), and layers and layers of flooring (some more hideous than others) that used to vibrate as my brothers’ rock bands would play in the basement below.
Oh, it is definitely exciting to be making the kitchen my own, but nonetheless, the guilt is there. It hits me, firstly, when I wonder what my parents must be thinking as they watch over me. I imagine my father is at a bar in heaven somewhere enjoying a Boilermaker with the boys and muttering something a
long the lines of “What the hell
are you doing to my kitchen,” and come to think of it, there has been a whole lot of thunder and lightening lately, no doubt messages from my father! Secondly, well, secondly is kind of a combo of the issue of the money I’m spending and the purging of all the “things” - certainly a result of growing up with a mother who had lived through part of the Depression era. I still feel guilty only blowing my nose in a tissue once before throwing it away. I can only imagine what she thinks of the 25 yard dumpster in the driveway that is filled to the brim, and there will probably be another one to fill soon with more “things” from other parts of the house.
But, despite the guilt, I know that I’m doing the wrecking with all good intentions. The most exciting part of it all is looking forward to the finished product and being able to have all of my family over – for Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthdays … or for just a good ‘ol plain cup of coffee and conversation – because a house is not a home without family, and the heart is not full unless it can be shared with others.
Digging Deep
The house ...
It’s kind of like golf. I never understood why people enjoy golfing so much. Trying to hit a little ball with a big club seems stressful to me, but I’ve been told that it’s actually the opposite. Because you focus so much on hitting that little ball there’s no room for thinking about the horrible day you had at work on Friday or the people that seem to take pleasure in attempting to make your life miserable. When I’m out in the yard digging up dirt and planting new life, it’s refreshing; it’s peaceful. It’s the beginning of a new chapter.
- … becoming a home
And as I work steadily in the yard infusing new beauty to make the house my home, I am at peace enjoying another side of me, of life, and beginning a new journey. We all have our own way of digging deep, and though it might be scary to face all of it – the good, the bad and the ugly - this crazy circle of life would be incomplete without it.
I have always enjoyed digging with my pen to explore the colors of my soul, and now I will take pleasure in digging with my shovel, my pick, my rake … to further discover the beauty and the peace of what lies ahead.
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As I drove into work this morning thinking about writing about my new found hobby, I thought of one of my favorite poems by Seamus Heaney called “Digging” which inspired me to write this post. For those of you who are not familiar with the poem, I’ve included it for your reading enjoyment:
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.
-Seamus Heaney (1939-)
from Death of a Naturalist (1966)
All Grown Up & No Place to Go …
My mother used to tell me, “It stinks to get old,” and now I know what she meant. Okay, so I’m not really old, and she said that to me at a much later point in life than where I am now at the age of 32, but when did I suddenly grow up and have to make so many decisions and deal with so many hassles? Within the past month I have been on the phone with doctors and lawyers and accountants – oh my! I just want to click my heels together three times and be five years old again at home with my mother and father.
A couple of months ago I was diagnosed with MRSA. Yep, that’s right, the “super bug”. And of course, yours truly would end up getting it. I used to always tell my Mama “I’m a freak of nature,” and she would either say “you’re not a freak of nature, I didn’t give birth to freaks of nature” or (lovingly) “yes, but you’re my freak of nature.” Poor Mama had to put up with all of my crazy neuroses.
Anyway … the MRSA was treatable, thank God, but of course I had some crazy side effect caused by the antibiotics and I became a prisoner chained to the phone waiting for a call from the doctor – for more than 24 hours! Mind you, when I initially called I had a fever of 102 degrees - wouldn’t ya think that warranted a call back within at least, oh, let’s say eight hours?!?! Why is it that doctors can get away with not calling you back promptly or with having you sit in the waiting room for an hour only to have the nurse then call you into an exam room to wait another hour before the doctor actually sees you?!?
Then there’s the lawyers. I am, perhaps foolishly, in the process of buying the house I grew up in. The house I lived in until I graduated from college and then recently for the past seven years after moving back for what I thought would only be one year. With real estate transactions, comes lawyers. Some good, some not so good, some God awful. I am lucky that my lawyer is good and personable and reliable, and I am lucky to have her on my team. On the estate side of it all however, well, there dwells one of the attorneys that falls into the God awful category. And it’s horrible for everyone involved – in this case, seven siblings and their spouses. “Oye vey,” as my far-from-jewish father used to say.
Then there are the accountants. Again, here I am lucky. I have a good guy on my side. An Italian, Staten Island (by way of Brooklyn) accountant. Badda boom, badda bing … and things are good to go. However, when you have to deal with transferring 401k funds from former employers to a new IRA account to do your best to make sure you are financially secure for the future, things get messy and the paesan’s badda boom, badda bing magic doesn’t work so easily, he gets frustrated with the idiots on the other end of the phone and in turn so do you!
Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the wondrous mortgage broker, which would fall somewhat under the accountant/number cruncher umbrella. Now, the one in my situation, well, she’s a doozie and I could write an entire post on her alone. All I can say is, do you have to take tests to actually hold that position? Because somehow, I don’t think this one did. That, or she cheated or had her husband (he’s a God awful lawyer) take the exams for her. And is customer service just not a requirement in this industry? I would think, especially in times like the ones we are living in now, these creatures would work a little harder to keep clients and potential clients a little bit happier.
The worst part of it all, is that when the craziness reaches new levels I can’t just go and tell Mama and Daddy about it. Not that they could fix it or make things go faster, but they would listen to me and humor me. I can call my brothers and sisters, I know that. I have lots of wonderful people in my life that have listened to my freak of nature ranting more often than they probably bargained for. But it’s not the same.
It’s kind of scary actually. It’s like living life without a safety net that has been there since you were born, and then suddenly, when you weren’t looking, it’s been pulled out from under you. Not that it always catches you per say, but it reminds you when you do hit the ground to, as my Mama would sing, ”pick yourself up, brush yourself off and start all over again.”
