Category: memoir

“Up North” Mayo Clinic

Shirleyjdietz7 Comments

Right away, let me say that if you have to get sick, this is a really good place to go.

We left my brother’s home near LaCrosse early this morning and in a little over an hour we were in Rochester, MN. The clinic and its hospitals are the focal point of this small city and it is fairly easy to navigate. There are people waiting in every parking lot and in every lobby to answer questions for newcomers like us – they are used to doing it and because they have developed good systems things went smoothly for us.

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Campus map… a lifesaver, and, of course, my phone GPS.

I was amazed that we drove to the 9th floor (top) of the parking garage and were headed back down again before we found an empty spot, and at such an early hour. There were rows of sturdy wheel chairs at curbside for anyone not inclined to walk, good signage that was easy to follow. This stuff is so important! Knowing where to park, and where to go for appointments is one of my main concerns in going to a new place.

There were no long lines and no extended waiting periods! We might run into this later on but today was extraordinarily good in that respect. After check-in we were helped by a appointment specialist, Mr. Smith and put into an exam room to wait for our doctor, Dr. Jones. “Smith and Jones” jokes were exchanged.

Dr. Jones got a detailed report from Dennis. He seemed to be a good listener and made notes as we went along through the exam. He wasn’t a white lab coat doctor which I thought was interesting. He had a nice, expensive looking wool tweed suit, longish curly dark hair, and a trimmed beard. He gave Dennis quite a few tests as he talked with him and at the end announced that he had mild cognitive impairment, maybe borderline dementia. We knew that, but it was nice that someone else actually noticed it too. He is in favor of finding out why.

Not too long after the evaluation, the husband had his brain MRI, with and without scary sounding contrast medium. Very nice professionals conducted this testing with very little wait time. Mom and I had time to eat a light lunch while this was going on. We were done and on our way to the motel before 3 pm. The accommodations are clean, comfortable, adequate.

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They don’t have an extra chair anywhere in the facility for us to each have one, but they do fold the towels really well (cute).

We rested, had a “comfort” dinner at Olive Garden and are back in our motel ready to get to sleep early.

Dennis was supposed to have a PET scan tomorrow but because it was not yet authorized, they postponed it until Thursday afternoon. I’m hoping the insurance will cover it because Dr. Jones said it was probably the most definitive test and will show whether he has normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or Lewy body dementia (LBD). We need to get authorized for this one and that is our prayer for this visit.

The lumbar puncture will take place on Thursday morning. The neuro-psych evaluation was scheduled for next Monday but we are going to be waiting for cancellations the next two days and hoping to get it done this week. It’s a nice enough motel but not where we want to live for that long.

Other appointments the doctor felt to be necessary were another sleep study and an ophthalmology work-up. Those can be done later in October – we will come back for them.

So far, so good. Thank you to all who have prayed for the success of our trip. It is going as well as can be hoped for.  We are in fairly good spirits.

“Up North” People

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Meet “The Sisters” who are part of my extended up north family. Michelle, Susie and Judith are three women who have been near and dear for years now. Susan and Judith started out life in Vietnam but were adopted by a kind lady who was in government service. Michelle was the lady’s biological child. These three sisters have lived in several parts of the globe growing up. They have a delightful accent which is hard to place because it’s from all over. Even they don’t know what to call it.

The sisters have resided in Hayward for about 20 years, running a child daycare business in their home and various other jobs. They happily participate in any community event they can manage to get to. They especially did not want to miss the upcoming annual hospital picnic.

Michelle was talking to Mom, planning our Saturday outing together and in addition to the picnic, she wanted us to spend time at her house and also go out for dinner. Mom tried to say no because she doesn’t like to plan more than one “event” per day.  But as Mom says,  Michelle, who is only 91 “has more energy” than she does so dinner ended up in the plan too. (Michelle is amazing. She wants to cruise the Panama Canal next year. She has more energy than I do!)

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Does this look like the perfect picnic. Yes.

Our first event, the hospital picnic, was a genuine, small town, delightful event. I’ve never lived anywhere else where hospitals had picnics. The hospital personnel were great hosts and were giving out free health information at the welcome tables (the colonoscopy pictures were “to die” for…). They had a raffle and I won a prize, which happens almost never!!!. The food was really good. Games, music, pie and ice cream. Perfect.

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Judith, Susan, the husband and Mom at the hospital picnic!

Keeping the Christian sabbath on Saturday is routine for the sisters and they love to spend it with family and friends. We joined them this Saturday after the picnic, at their house. The sisters are gift givers and our family has been blessed many times over with their generosity. Sometimes it’s a chocolate bar, sometimes it’s a basket full of delicious food, or a book. They always think of something and today was no exception. We came away with so much! But I will tell you the really remarkable thing. Like most people I am more comfortable with reciprocal gifting, but I would not be able to keep up with Michelle, Susan and Judith. They truly give without expecting things in return and they do it to make their love evident. Their joy in giving makes me feel loved.

We went out for dinner. We waited a few hours, hoping we wouldn’t still feel stuffed from the picnic (didn’t work), and went for Chinese food. I don’t know how we happen to have a Chinese restaurant in Hayward – somehow it always seems a little out of place in this land of lumberjacks and Nordic skiers – but it is a welcome break from McDonald’s. Michelle does not have dinner out without treating everyone to dessert as well. We finished off the evening with a trip to Dairy Queen.

Michelle
Judith
Susan

An eventful sabbath day with the Madison sisters left me knowing that Hayward is blessed to have them. This is not the last time they will appear in stories here. Some people fit so gracefully into a small town, a town that still has hospital picnics and Dairy Queens, a town with three stop lights and a park with a giant Musky, a town “up north”. Just sayin’…

 

 

An Ordinary Day Up North

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Is there such a thing as an ordinary day? I would call September 6, 2018 a fairly normal day as it had its share of minor crises and busyness, but nothing earthshaking. It was a good day, and I will lay it out before you for the sake of meeting my writing challenge (something every day in the month of September).

 

6 am, rise and get coffee, morning talk with Mom as we watch the sun come up. World problems get discussed, and solved.

7:30 am, I’m worried about some papers I can’t find for the husband’s medical file and spend time looking through boxes in the 6 x 12 trailer where our extra things are stored. It seems I am always looking for something, but this time, no find… I walk the short distance to my brother’s business, Apple Awards, and find him in his office. He is busy but is glad to talk for a few minutes.  It is so good to be close to this part of my family!

8 am, Back at our condo, the husband is up earlier than usual. I tell him he must get his own breakfast because I’m going to help Mom do her shopping in town. We might be back before he gets it done, but it is good for him to fend for himself when he can.

We buy bread at the European bakery in town. They do not use yeast and the fresh loaves are beautiful to look at. It’s early and we find parking right in front of the store – wonderful.

Off to Walmart for some groceries. Mom has a recipe for soup that needs some vegetables. I am proud of myself for remembering a return that I have. I trade in the wrong connector that I bought for the husband’s TV earphones and buy the right one. We finish grocery shopping. This is definitely the time of day to come to Walmart. No crowds to fight.

10 am, Mom is chopping vegetables for her soup. I hook up the husband’s earphones with the new connector. He now can watch and listen, leaving us in blessed silence.

10:30 am, I am compiling a double stack of the husband’s medical records to take with us to doctor’s appointments. Tomorrow he meets a new primary care provider and coming up on Monday, he will be at Mayo Clinic. I am thankful the copier works.

11:30 am, My phone did some updates last night. I’ve tried several times to make calls this morning and my cell phone refuses to hold the call. I’ve forgotten about it until now when a call comes in and I realize I can’t received calls either. I jump in the car and visit my good friends at Verizon. I’ve been in so many times lately that I’m recognized immediately. The rep smiles, reboots the thing, and it works. I knew that. I go home feeling stupid but, hey, I spent no money there, so no complaints.

12:30 pm, We eat Mom’s soup, which is quite good. The husband and I spend some time talking about our house that hasn’t sold, our daughters, our upcoming trip to Mayo. We talk to God about all this and more.

2:30 pm, I have an appointment with Pastor Chad at the church we’ve been attending. I like to feel known and since we are new in town, an introduction is in order. We talk for an hour. I get permission to come in and play the piano when it’s not in use. I miss my music outlets and enjoy the sound of the piano in the large, empty sanctuary.

4:00 pm, On a whim, I stop in to check on an old friend. She hasn’t felt well so I haven’t seen her since coming to Hayward. She’s out weed whacking in her yard so I know she’s better. We hug and stand outside talking. It’s a beautiful day and we both love being outside.

5:00 pm, More prep for our trip to Mayo. I fill out online forms for the husband and make a list of his medications. I sort through all the vitamin bottles and parse out his pills for the next three days doses.

The husband, Mom and I eat our supper and I clean up the kitchen.

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6:00 pm, Mom and I take the nature walk around the pond. Mom’s been doing this for about a week now, trying to regain some strength in her legs. We see a white tail deer ahead of us in the meadow and I am able to get its picture before it runs off. It is a little cooler every evening now and we wear jackets. Definitely getting to be fall.

7:00 pm, Coming back to the house, we meet my brother in his truck and talk for a minute. I decide to go around the nature trail a second time with my sister in-law Mary Pat and nephew Evan and Scruffy the dog. It’s nearly dark but we see something strange in the pond. It looks like a snapping turtle may have killed a duck and is slowly trying to submerge it. Life and death in the wetlands leaves us feeling a little sobered.

7:30 pm, Sunset as we walk back to our houses. Days are noticeably shorter. As usual, I stop multiple times to take pictures. Can’t get enough of the gorgeous views.

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8 – 10:00 pm, I wander around the house, putting things away, knitting a few rounds on my project, answering texts and emails and watching some TV with the husband. Thinking and planning for tomorrow. Realizing I haven’t written anything today – oops. It’s a challenge for sure.

10:30 pm, Realizing this is not the most inspiring post but I hold to the theory that in order to ever write something good, a writer has to write a lot of bad things too. Time to sleep.

 

Have you ever gone through the exercise of remembering and writing down your day’s activities? How did that go for you?

More Reasons

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September 5, 2018

Here we sit, early on Wednesday evening, at the local Perkins. Hayward is not a big city. It has been a town of about 2300, give or take a few, ever since I was living here as a child. Of all the common chain restaurants, only Perkins, Subway, McDonalds and Dairy Queen have survived. Because Perkins runs a special on Wednesdays, allowing seniors half price off select meals, we have been here every week since our move. It is Lois and Wendell night.

Meet some more of my “up north” family. Mom was blessed with siblings Pearl, Donald, Olive, Ervin, Wendell and John. They were spread out over enough time that the younger ones, Wendell, Mom and John were almost like a separate family. Their brothers and sisters were out of the house and married, leaving the threesome to be companions to each other. They are the survivors in the family and strangely enough, they all three have ended up here in the communities they know and love.

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On Wednesdays, Wendell and his wife Lois drive into Hayward for shopping and appointments. They are usually done around 5 pm and give Mom a call to join them for dinner at Perkins. They have become overly familiar with everything on the senior menu. The waiter jokes with them like they are old buddies and seats them at the same table most every time. Even the husband and I have entered into the rituals. I know to close the blinds so light from the setting sun doesn’t shine in Lois’s eyes and we all know not to order the grilled asparagus and that the blue cheese dressing is homemade and really good.

Wendell has been a schoolteacher for much of his life, which would explain his love for books. As he neared retirement he went into the paperback bookstore business and actually built a store next to his retirement home in the nearby town of Stone Lake. Stone Lake is even smaller than Hayward – you can drive through it in less than 30 seconds.

However, I have always thought of my Uncle Wendell as having a secret love for farming.  I remember him coming to help my mom and dad on their farm when I was a child. I think he would have sought this line of work had it provided enough for a living. As evidence of this secret love, my uncle of 80+ years still has a tractor, which he enjoys driving, that is, up until a couple of months ago.

Thin, wiry, agile for his age and indomitable of spirit, Uncle Wendell was out with the tractor one day when his daughter and granddaughter were visiting. I have heard them say they felt guilty for what happened since it was because they were there that the tractor was being demonstrated. On the other hand, had they not been there, it might have happened anyway and the outcome could have been much worse.

Although I have seen semi-demonstrations of what happened, it’s difficult to visualize and has an aura of the near miraculous about it. Standing on the tractor, near the one who was operating it, my uncle reached forward for one of the levers, lost balance and tumbled off – under the moving machine. He was, however, on the roll and managed to somersault through and out the other side. He got up, dusted himself off and with help, walked to his brother’s house where he was whisked off to the Emergency Room. Consensus was that it was better not to give details to Lois, who did not witness the event.

Of course, she eventually got filled in since it was hard to hide the broken shoulder, bruised ribs and back brace that he wore for weeks. He was not allowed to drive during this convalescence which was quite an irritation to him, and when the brace was no longer needed he joked about being released from prison. Now that he is better, he is again driving the 20 miles into Hayward for our Wednesday rituals. Did I mention that he is indomitable?

Nevertheless, Uncle Wendell does not drive long distances and even last winter when I visited I was “hired” to drive them to a doctor appointment in Ashland. Aunt Lois is a good match for him in spirit but she has vision problems and relies on him in many ways. The two of them are looking ahead at what difficulties winter might give them and asking God for wisdom.

Well, it seems perfectly clear to me that I am “up north” to help mom, but also to help the whole family in whatever way I can. God puts us in family groups because there is safety in numbers and how wonderful it is when we can help each other in practical ways. And because it is the way God works, there is benefit for both the helpee and the helper. I get a bit protective of the elderly people I love and don’t mind sounding bossy. I’m encouraging them to move closer for the winter and let me drive for them on the longer trips. We will see what they decide.

Concluding, this seems like one more good reason why I am supposed to be where I am. It seems wonderful to me and I’m glad to I have a part to play, just sayin’…

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Another reason for being here, someone has to use all these coupons we’re collecting.

 

 

One Reason for Being Here

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20180904_1813045661508336183345620.jpgSeptember 4, 2018

This is not the first time I’ve come in Mom’s room and found her horizontal surfaces covered with stacks of old letters, poems, pictures and memorabilia that she’s sorting through. She puts items that go together in zip lock bags ready to be offered to the person most likely to be interested in them.

 

“Do you think anyone will want to read these letters? They have a lot of family history in them, but I don’t know how to contact any of the people anymore.” 

It’s habit with me to think of Google for anything I don’t know and I suggest she plug in some names and try it. She pulls out some faded black and white photos on thick cardboard with finely scalloped edges. They are Christmas cards from three different years picturing a family.  In one, parents, four children and dog are sitting, close together, on the floor in front of a fireplace. The room is darkened and light from the fire is glowing on their faces and casting shadows behind them. The father and his son are wearing suits and two of the girls have matching dresses. The mother is in shadow except for the top of her face and she is smiling. She wears glasses. They all look peaceful, happy as they gaze at the flames.  Handwritten below is “A Merry Christmas from the G. Wesches”.  I wonder who was taking such artful pictures back in 1950. 

Another one has the children lined up in order of height and age and this one is signed by the parents and the names of the children are listed. They are Harold, Geraldine, Patricia and Alice Jean. I pick up my smartphone and plug the name Harold Wesche into the search bar. Mom explains that these people were not relatives but the family of a local doctor in her hometown. The doctor made house calls and impressed her as being such a kind man – and one who sent cards to his patients at holiday time.

 The search engine comes up with over 100 records of this name and as I look at them I find one who is 82 years old – that would be about right. The website gets to work collecting and verifying information on Harold. I know they are going to charge something at the end, and that we are not going to buy anything from them, but the small paragraph they give us for free does help Mom remember. He is the Harold in the Christmas picture. She remembers more.

There was one summer that this family vacationed at Meyer’s Log Cabin Resort on Round Lake. Mom’s friend Donna was asked to come with the family to help entertain the children. They let Gwen (Mom) come along to keep Donna company. This was quite a treat for both Gwen and Donna to have a week at the lake. The Wesche children were cute kids too, so it was not an undesirable responsibility.

One day the parents took the children with them on an outing. Donna and Gwen were given the day off to do whatever they liked at the resort. They decided they would take a boat ride. They went out into the middle of this fairly large lake and felt very adventurous.

This story interests me because Meyers Log Cabins was less than a mile from the farm where Mom and Dad went to live after they were married six years later. I grew up visiting my friend Barbara Meyer and swimming in Round Lake at that resort. I have never heard of Mom’s experience there and she said she would not have thought to tell me of it if the Christmas pictures had not been found. She is still trying to pull out the end of the story from the memory bank. 

“I don’t know what we did but it might have been something that made us feel a little guilty. I think it had something to do with hot dogs. Maybe we took more of them than we should have…” I laugh, because Mom still loves hot dogs.

“Do you think it might not be good to dig through all this stuff, all these memories from so long ago?” she asks.

I tell her I think it’s okay, and the truth is I think it’s a gift to remember stories from the past. It’s an opportunity to think of people, to wonder about them, and especially to mention them in prayer. It is never too late to care, to look for someone, to possibly even get in touch with them and tell them a story.

So, if Harold Wesche or any of his family reads this story, Mom wants to know if you’d like to have these pictures of your younger self.  If not, I will keep them to remind myself of one of the reasons I am glad to have come back to Wisconsin to do life with Mom. I want to hear more stories that I’ve never heard before.   

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Labor Day “Up North”

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I’d be interested to know what Labor Day means to you, besides a long holiday weekend, if you care to comment. I had to look it up, and as the article mentioned, it is a strange holiday with no specific rituals attached. I tend to think that all important holidays have deteriorated into excuses for eating and parades, but this one actually did start that way. Who knew?

I will tell you one feature of my new life “up north” that has to do with labor. I often think that I have inherited a few work genes (not work jeans) from my dad and his love of machinery. One of his jobs in his later years was mowing the fields and yards around the Par Place condominium development. I live here now and the grass is still growing and needing to be mowed.

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I have not yet named this fine machine but I will have to since we seem to be getting intimate.

A couple weeks ago my brother gave me a lesson on the lawnmower, knowing how much I miss mowing grass at the oneacrewoods (in Florida). What could be better than a oneacrewoods? How about a 20acrewoods? I don’t really know how big this property is but it took almost five hours of mowing today and I didn’t do it all. It is a neatly planned development of condos, most of them are duplex but a couple are single houses. In addition there is my brother’s yard and the area around the barn. Last but not least there is the nature path around the wetlands which is kept mowed short for easy walking. Much of this property used to be a golf course, so there are some fields and open areas to mow as well. When it’s all done it looks absolutely beautiful.

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Part of my brother’s yard used as a soccer field (before I mowed it).

I’m also given pretty free reign to weed the flower beds and berms, use the trimmer, and other yard tools as needed for various projects. There is a diesel Gator for hauling tools and brush and a zero turn mower that is probably twice as big as my Toro down south. All of this pleases me very much and helps me feel at home. Yard work has always been like therapy for me so I guess I’m going to be getting emotionally healthy, at least until winter sets in. And on the subject of cold, guess what? I was outside working all afternoon and never broke a sweat. That’s right, it’s not 90 degrees and humid.

The nature path, nicely mowed

So, happy Labor Day to all! May your labor be satisfying and balanced with a sufficient amount of rest. That’s what is happening here in Hayward, “up north”, because I’m going to start a fire in the back patio fire pit and sit around having supper with my family. A good day…

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Up North: September Challenge

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Okay. I’ll admit I’ve been a little quiet about our new life “up north”. I think it’s a mild form of shock, if there is such a thing. I can hardly believe I’m really back living in Hayward, thousands of miles from Florida, on my grandfather’s farmstead, in my Mom’s condo.  I’m trying to find a place for myself (and the husband) up here and it takes a lot of introspection. Introspection wears me out. “Worn out me” tends to revert to endless games of spider solitaire (confession time), jigsaw puzzles (hours spent here), thick paperback novels (three in the last two weeks), and occasionally, just sitting and looking out the window. Anything except writing.  After all,  these are stereotypical retirement activities and am I not retired now?

Haha, no, not really.

There is plenty to do up here – real work, including writing. For my own sake, I need to exercise some discipline and record the journey (that is, life) in this new place. Writing should be a daily activity, a joy, a relief, a healing outlet and a way of sharing. Thirty days hath September, and each one shall be recorded in some fashion. If I can do it in April, (A to Z in April) why not now?

In defense of jigsaw puzzles, I need to explain. Each time we finish, Mom says “Did you take the picture? Of course, I do, although I don’t always post them here or on Facebook. There is almost always a puzzle in progress in this house. We know the kinds we like, the kinds we agonize over and won’t choose to do again. We have different methods of hunting for pieces depending on the puzzle. We have special Styrofoam boards on which to lay out the pieces, and we now bag up the edge pieces separately when we put them away. These are the fine points.

The value in all this puzzling? I can think of three benefits. First, it does make us think about so many things. Color, shape, texture, direction, recognition all have to register and be in operation to get a puzzle from a pile of pieces to a picture. Secondly, no matter what stresses we have been immersed in before or after, the time spent doing the puzzle is a break. We concentrate, get engrossed. It clears our minds and emotions.

Thirdly, probably most important, it is time spent together. We don’t always talk, but often we do. All kinds of things come up as we sit there, knowing that the other person is not in a hurry, not going to rush off somewhere. We probably don’t solve any world problems, but that’s not to say we couldn’t. Who knows?

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So here is our last puzzle. We liked it because there were no parts so hard that we got stuck. We were always finding pieces, 1,000 of them to be exact.  We will probably be doing puzzles more as the days get colder and there is less to do outside. We have a whole stack of them waiting, thanks to our friend Sandy who traded with us.

I’m just sayin’ there are a whole lot of worse things we could be doing with our leisure time, here “up north”.

And I may actually write about some of them this month. The plan is to share life, the small and the significant, the joy and the pain, the awe and the awful… here it comes. 

Up North: Louie’s Landing

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Meet my brother Bob!

At our recent family reunion I had the happy opportunity to see all of my four brothers. In my “book” each one of them is talented, super relational and fun but each also has one or more claims to fame.  Bob is known for his motorcycle rides. People line up for them. There is no better way to see this beautiful country full of lakes and woods than to go with Bob on a motorcycle ride.  It was my turn and off we went.

As we got off the main highways, I realized that my knowledge of the area was limited to, well, … the main highways and what was lined up on the sides of them. I have no excuse for this. There are so many otherbeautiful roads and Bob knows them all.

 

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I thought it was kind of cool that I could get a pic of me in the mirror. I am easily entertained.

Much of this area “up north” has been affected by glaciers in the past. The way I understand it, the glaciers gouged ravines and as they melted river valleys were formed. Rocks were dropped here and there. Deposits called moraines formed hills. Small lakes are everywhere, along with some of the larger spring fed ones. The trees are awesome and much of the area is National Forest. The economy is based largely on the tourists from the nearby cities who come for fishing, boating, water skiing, hiking, biking and riding their ATVs. There is room for it all.

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Fuzzy, yes. We were going fast. 

I love trees and this northwoods is covered with hardwoods and spruce and white pine. The smaller roads are winding and tree covered, perfect for motor biking. I enjoy Bob’s bike rides (and biking in general) because I can feel the air going from warm to cool as the road dips into a hollow. I can smell grass when we pass a field with cut hay. I even appreciate the smell of new asphalt on the road.  Everything is experienced differently when I’m not encased in metal and glass. It’s true that there is less protection on a bike, but the roads are not crowded up north and we do what we can to be safe riders.

We took one of Bob’s favorite routes past Spring Lake, and east of Hayward on County Highway B. I’m giving specific directions in case you want to go there some day. We eventually came upon this sign.

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Evidently, in addition to elk, there have been moose in this area, or maybe the lake is shaped like a moose, if that is possible.

Arriving at Moose Lake, I discovered that one of Bob’s favorite places was Louie’s Landing, and that he was in the habit of stopping there for nourishment. We got off the bike and went inside to have lunch.

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It is a beautiful lake. This one is formed by damming a river, creating a flowage through a valley.
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The landing has been here on Moose Lake for years. Pictures inside show the original building and its additions.

We were slightly early for lunch so while the grill was heating up we had milkshakes and talked with the waitress and a customer. The hamburger I had was perfect, one of the best I’ve eaten. Sorry, no picture. But I did take a picture of the wall behind the bar and all the entertaining signs, typical of an area where people come to hunt, fish and get back to outdoor living.

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For me, the whole experience of getting time with my brother, seeing his favorite places, and having a new perspective on my home area made this a super enjoyable morning. You probably aren’t going to be able to duplicate my experience but if you are ever visiting Hayward, Wisconsin you might want to stop in and have a hamburger at Louie’s Landing. The milkshake was good too.

Introspection

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The world has gone a bit surreal, and I’m not quite sure where to place myself in it. Thirty one years ago I left Hayward, Wisconsin for life in Florida. It was a completely new life in every way. Now I am back, but again it is a new life in nearly every way. The actual “work”of moving is done so now I have time to think about what has happened. Introspection is a mixed blessing.

We arrived last night, like we have for many vacations over the years, after a long drive, suitcases in tow, with plans to catch up with family members and visit childhood haunts. The surreal part is that we won’t be packing up again in two weeks for the trip back to Florida. We will stay here and see the seasons change, make new friends, start new routines, and settle in. Instead of calling Mom every morning I will meet her in the kitchen as we get our first cup of coffee.  Instead of cleaning my own house and taking care of the oneacrewoods, I will be looking for ways to help others with their homes and yards.

For months, this change from one life to another has seemed so far off and so slow in coming that it was hard to believe it would happen at all. “If you ever get here…” Mom would say. I would reassure her that the “challenge of the week” would be met and that we were making progress, but honestly, I had moments when I cried and felt like I couldn’t do it.  The most valuable thing I learned from it all is that I should not spend a lot of time looking at the large picture – it can be too daunting viewed as a whole. One day, one step at a time is all that I was designed for. Each small accomplishment should get its full measure of satisfaction and celebration. One by one the hurdles got crossed and now I am sitting at the end of the course wondering how I got here. Once again, the passage of Time has created a miracle, a change.

I learned about home improvement, about hiring painters and contractors and overseeing projects. I learned about getting medical and financial records in place and ready for a move. I learned about selling and buying trucks and what goes into the making of a good trailer. I learned I had friends. I learned that hard things become easier when I pray about them and decide to trust that I’ve been heard. I learned that some things must be waited for and are beyond my control. I learned that having even one concrete task that I can do is a comfort and a blessing – get busy and do it – then look for the next thing.

The house in Florida has not sold yet, but we joke around saying we are homeless, because the house is empty and our “things” are in storage. Instead I’m going to remember that my goal was to be with more of my family and that has come to be.  If “home” is where my people are, I’m not homeless. Instead, I’ve come home.

 

More to come, because this is going to be interesting, a new page. Just sayin’…

Truck/Trailer Girls

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I have learned so much during this move, and haven’t had time to write about any of it! Stay tuned for a full confession in the next few posts. 

Trucks and Trailers

I’ve had enough of them, but I dare not complain because there is more to come and I depend upon them. They are a part of moving. Graceful acceptance is in order.

I’ve totally lost track of how much I’ve recorded in my blog so this is a quick summary of events. I sold my car which reduced us to a one truck family. We traded that truck for a more roadworthy model and it is slightly smaller than the Silverado, but it’s still a truck. I am a truck girl for the time being.

The other truck in my life is the one that brings and takes away my PackRat container. It has been in our yard, struggling to turn around and get in position, four separate times now. The last time was last week when our fully loaded container left on its way to North Carolina. I had been packing it for three days with all those things that will someday go in an unfurnished house or apartment. According to instructions I was not to exceed 6,000 lbs. but it had been a long time since I had weighed any of my furniture or belongings (never). As I shoved the last heavy box of flatware over into a recliner, stuck high on a pile of book boxes and marble slabs, I had a bad feeling about the weight. I shut and bolted the door anyway because the driver had called and was only five minutes away from picking it up.

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This was how it looked on Day 2 of packing, before the real challenge began… And yes, marble slabs. Don’t ask.

I innocently asked the driver how they weighed the containers and he pointed to a scale gauge on the lift. His words, “we’ve been taking a lot of overweight loads lately but the limit is 8,000 lbs. because the lift can’t handle more than that.”  Honestly, I went inside to pray while he hooked it up and took the container up a few feet. God was listening – it was 8,000 lbs. and he gave me a thumbs up and took it away. I’m still marveling.

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There it goes, all 8,000 lbs. I can breathe again.

Don’t think our house was empty at this point. There were boxes and piles of objects unloaded from the furniture all over the house. All these things were destined for the nice, new 6×12 single axle trailer that we had just purchased to go behind our new used truck.  I don’t want anyone to think that I did all this container and trailer loading by myself. I did enough of it but had excellent help from several friends who know how to lift, carry, stack and tie. Because I am not at all superstitious, Friday the 13th, was my departure goal. We had been given some guidelines in gauging the weight on this trailer too which I forgot about until it was too late. I have to say it was another tightly packed box by the time we finished.

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The husband prepares to embark. It was raining.

We made it to North Carolina! Several large items in the trailer were for my daughter Julie who lives in Greensboro so the day after arriving I unpacked the trailer. With Julie’s help we reorganized and reloaded my trailer – and then unloaded and reorganized her trailer. She is even more of a truck/trailer girl than I am. Her trailer is twice the size of mine, so is her truck.

What remains for us (me, the husband, the truck and trailer) is the 18 hours of driving to our destination in Wisconsin. Gonna be such fun, right? We are going to be very familiar with each other by the time we’re done… just sayin’.