Anniversary

Roughly one year ago, we began renovations to Zeb's room. It was a disgusting, grody mess: filthy walls made of textured plaster in an odd vertical stripe pattern that was impossible to clean; 80 year old hardwoods with holes, warps, slivers, glue and staples sticking out; and a tendency for harboring wasps in the windows. I remember my husband saying this to me last October, "Worst case scenario: it'll be done around Christmas." Famous last words.

My angst regarding the long-drawn out mess of this renovation has subsided. First, because I'm less sleep-deprived then when we began a year ago with a 6-month old baby. Second, because all my frustrations were not actually getting me closer to a finished room; and third, because it was damaging our marriage. So sometime early this year, I resigned myself to whatever fate renovation had in store. Don't get me wrong, I still fan the flickering DIY flame in my husband. He is a plodder and his momentum often gets sucked out by life (or a broken nail gun). Naturally, I try to urge it back on occasion.

In honor of this wretched anniversary and the roller-coaster of emotion this renovation has caused, I give you a recap of all we've accomplished. And when I say "we", I really mean Matt with the occasional help of friends. He's bore the weight of the actual doing while I bore the wait of a house in continual chaos.

First, he tore up the old hardwood floors. He found hundreds of acorns, a petrified rat, an old sock, really old wiring and other assorted grossness. After a good vacuuming, he surveyed the floor joists and the wiring which ran from the wall socket to the ceiling fan for the living room below. Obstacle one - the fan needed rewiring. None of the connections were done properly. This involved cutting out a part of the wall in the living room below. Then, he had to do some bracing of the floor joists to keep the new floor from squeaking as bad as the old one did.

Along with this, he discovered that the walls needed fire-blocking. Our house was built with the same beams running from 1st floor all the way through the 2nd floor to the roof. Which gives you one big wall cavity and that's super bad for a fire. So he had to put wood in the wall cavity to close off the space between the first floor wall space and the second floor wall space. This way, if there's a fire in the walls, it has to burn through the wood before it can get into the wall on the second floor - severely slowing its spread.

So, months later: floor demo done, fire-blocking done. Re-wiring done. Bracing the floor joists done. insulating floor space (for sound proofing) done. Sub-floor done. Some of the wiring problems extended into the wall, so they had to remove drywall for one wall and the corresponding wooden planks (similar to shiplap), and re-wire. There was no insulation (it was an exterior wall), so insulation had to be cut and installed. Then the wood planks reinstalled and new sheet-rock. The second wall, they pulled down the sheet-rock, discarded the old insulation. Obstacle two: Matt discovered a leak in the window which had rotten out the window frame. (By now it's around Christmas time). Matt had to remove the widow and re-build the frame around it. Then, of course, cut new insulation and sheet-rock for the wall.

The third wall held another obstacle, one that I had my suspicions about but Matt was unconvinced until there was evidence he could no longer deny. A huge wasp nest. This wall was half in the attic and half exterior and a hug hole in the corner of where the wall met the roof was letting wasps in behind the wall (and they were finding their way into the room through the window frames). He removed the nest, plugged the massive hole, reattached some of the flashing he had to take off where the lower part of the outside wall met the roof of the back-half of our house. Then of course, there was wood planking he had to take off in the process and put back on, then insulation, then drywall. The drywall hasn't been fully plastered at this point.

The last couple months, he's been working on installing the new hard floor. Besides the laborious process of measuring and cutting wood pieces to fit, he's had a series of set-backs with nail guns. (Well, that was after a set-back when his compressor (or the one he was borrowing?) died). He's now the happy owner of a new air compressor. He actual has a nail gun also but its the wrong size for the edges of the room, so for the past couple weeks, he's had roughly a 6 inch perimeter around the room where he hasn't been able to finish laying the floor.

So that's where we are. The rest of the floor needs to be laid. Then the drywall finished patching & sanding, then comes painting. Then baseboards, a new ceiling fan, and that should be it. Technically, the new hardwood floor should be sanded because some of the edges aren't flat, but we might just throw an area rug over it for now. All this, of course, during the one or two days a month that Matt has to work on it. At two years old, Zeb will finally have a nursery, ahem, toddler room.

I'm hoping it will be done by this Christmas :D

My before pictures are not very good.

Rose

I wish I could remember the name of this rose bush. Matt bought it for me and neither of us wrote it down :( It has a lovely fragrance and it's bloomed wonderfully. The way its canes arch leads me to think it might be a climbing rose. It blooms on new wood so that's not helpful (well, actually, it at least rules out "Pearly Gates"). Right now, I'm thinking "Aloha". It has more purple undertones than a pure pastel pink like "New Dawn".  Sigh. Maybe one day, I'll know for sure. I asked my husband for another rose bush and he said, "Will you ever have enough?". I responded immediately with "No!" and then offered an offended observation, "I only have three!". Seriously, dear, three is not very much at all. :) Well, technically, I inherited some knock-out roses on the north side of the house, but I think knock-outs are ugly, they have no heritage and no scent!, and I barely give them the courtesy of calling them a rose much less including them in my tally.

 

My son is so serious some times. He gets that from his father. But I love that side of him. This picture was taken at a birthday party. I think he was longing for cake. :)

Motherhood and Grieving

Shortly after I gave birth to Z, I joined a group on facebook made up of roughly 2,000 mothers. In between posts about car seats and smash cakes and sleep regressions were unforgettable sober pleas from mothers who had lost their children. Please learn to properly buckle a car seat. Please learn the signs of daycare abuse. Please don't put blankets in the crib. Accidents. Suffocation. Abuse. Death.

 

I'm no stranger to death. I've been to the burial plot many times. Years ago, I acquired an acute sense of my own mortality and I doubt it will ever go away.

 

But now I carry something more weighty. I don't bear it as easily or as naturally as my own: an acute sense of my son's mortality. Even as I type, I realize that to struggle with this is, in itself, a privilege. How many of my dear friends, coworkers, family, have lost their child before even bearing them?

 

I often read notes and memes challenging me to cherish every moment. I don't need this reminder. Almost every night for the past 15 months, as I nuzzle his face, swaying him in my arms, I've drank in the smell, the feel, the weight of his body, insisting the sensations imprint on my soul like concrete. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and love for him. My heart soars with the joy of all that he is to me.

 

And then come the prayers: begging, pleading prayers to let him live. To let me see him graduate high school and get married and even if I'm not here to see it, to let him live it. I never have a good reason why God should do so. I'm not worried about reasoning. Who knows how God orders the world? So I just beg. And often cry. I'm not afraid. I'm aware. Aware that every moment with him could be my last. I grieve that possibility.

Am I grieving a truth or a lie? Am I grieving unnecessarily?

Truth that death is the ultimate and constant culmination of our inherently fallen world...
Lie that there is no rest or peace for a good future or a God loves us and gives...

I think about a woman who lost her son at 7:45am this morning and how every April 1st, she'll say to herself, "he would be this old today" and how, 20, 50 years from now she'll still be thinking of him and longing to hold him and her arms will ache. And that ache will be imprinted with concrete so heavy that her soul will buckle for the rest of her life. And I grieve.

I've been grieving since the moment I first held him in my arms. Since the moment I joined the ranks of women whose body has brought forth life no matter how temporary. Since the moment I first understood. There is no choice here.

To be a mother is to grieve.

Easter

My little cutie, the light of my life, hanging on while I run my morning data processes. If I have to work an outside job, at least some of it can be done with him by my side. In a time when mothers are losing children, from Pakistan to Yemen, I'm more grateful that words can express. No mother anywhere, whether my friend or my enemy, should lose a child. But there has never been a time when this is not so. That time will be in heaven. Come quickly, Lord. But, if you must delay out of mercy, to save more, then give me strength to wait.

Winter Bouquet #2

Last night we had a freeze (24 degrees F). I think we've only had one or two so far. So I cut almost all my Iceberg Rose blooms and the sage blooms and brought them inside for a pretty bouquet that is more springy than wintry. But that's what you get in Texas :).

My husband was browsing the web yesterday and found this really cool flower farm in Australia. This is my dream. I maintain that it can be done with the 2ish acres surrounding our house. But first we'd have to own that acreage. :) My husband's fear is that one day he'll wake up and there'll be no room for his beloved vegetables. It could happen, I'm sneaky enough, haha!

In the meantime, perhaps I should try a flower-cart. My friend Jonathan rides around on a motorcycle sidecar selling coffee (check this out). It's amazing. I'd love to go all Vintage Paris style and have a mobile flower-selling business. I just have to convince my husband :p

 

Winter Bouquet

The weather here in Dallas has been so unusual (tornadoes!) this winter that our poor plants are confused. Here is a bouquet taken from our yard where holly bushes have berries right next to blooming roses. Purple sage is flowering along side white petunias. I'm nervous for Spring. The plants might be flowered out! But it does make a nice free tablescape for our New Year's Eve celebration.