Weekend projects

The work of last week was painting the kitchen wainscoting from wood-color to white, which required three coats. Big kitchen = big job. Took 1 - 2 hours per night for five nights plus most of Friday. But hallelujah, it is done. Now onto the wall color. Options were shades of beige, green, or yellow. We've narrowed it down to yellow and so far tried out 7 shades. Think we've now picked a final winner (not the one pictured here, though this one's the second runner up). If things go according to plan we'll start applying the yellow tomorrow night.

HF's big projects this weekend have been a) repairing the overheating van, which he did quickly, cheaply, and nimbly (love the capability of this man!) and b) installing a dishwasher into our kitchen. He is 90% done with the latter, and there will be much rejoicing when it is complete. In addition, he pushed over the way-past-its-prime basketball hoop which graced took up space in our backyard. The wood was rotten and it went right down. We practiced our balance and played on it as a teeter-totter this afternoon, which turned out to be a fun activity.

The nice thing about living in a small town...

After picking up the oldest two kids at school yesterday afternoon, my van suddenly started smoking badly while sitting at a traffic light. I was alarmed - and the person behind me began flashing the lights on his pick-up truck, indicating I should pull over. He was alarmed too. (Note - that's a random web photo, not actually our van!)

When he got out of his pick-up and came to my passenger side window, Carl told me he'd seen the smoke and the kids in the car and was concerned. We popped the hood and found that one of the hoses had a hole in it, and antifreeze had sloshed out around the engine. The car was overheating because of it. We talked through my options - I was only about three miles from home but didn't want to get into a precarious situation trying to get us there. HF was more than an hour away for the day and without his phone. I put my hazards on and continued driving, with Carl behind me as a kind of escort.

I drove as far as a gas station a mile up the road with the car still overheating. There Carl drove on and another kind gentlemen, Danny, helped me pour the antifreeze I purchased into my engine and made sure the engine ran ok. Then he followed my the remaining two miles home to make sure I made it. When I expressed concern for his time (upon his offering to do this), he said he was just "going to be working on junk at home," nothing pressing.

Carl was thirty-something and Danny probably fifty-something. They were both so kind and helpful. They sure scored some big points for the kindness and friendliness of our town!

En route to Virginia

Mouse loves winter clothes

So, the blog remains. After a week of mulling it over and getting input from folks I love and admire (several of whom were commenters here, thank you!), it became clear to me that this is a calm and enjoyable space for me. I capture, I record, I process... and I come out calmer and more refreshed about my daily life. If that's not a snippet of how the Holy Spirit operates in me, then I don't know what is. And in the early weeks and months of being in a new place, I think this little corner of the world will provide me with good pondering ground.

I gave the blog a title adjustment and facelift, and off we go. :)

For today, I'll share a few photo snippets of the transition time the kids and I had for 12 days in New England, just before we dove into our new life in Virginia...

We built snowmen. Here Uncle Mac gives Roo and cousin Sophie a lesson in Massachusetts.

We played games. Here the monkey plays Life with Grandpa in Connecticut.

 We sledded. Here cousins Luke and Naomi show the goose how it's done in CT.

We spied. Nana got the oldest two, especially the monkey, hooked on Where's Waldo. And I mean hooked.

We climbed lions. We made an overnight stopover in Princeton at the MacLeods' and toured the grounds.

(Not pictured) We threw up. Or rather, Goose did. All over herself, her carseat, and her blanket on the first of our two-day drive from MA to VA. Not an event I'm apt to forget anytime soon.

Scenes from the Sidewalk

HF went on a hunting venture with a local friend and fellow Granite Stater, Scott, and they met up with "Uncle Dan" Dibiase from Pasadena. (He and Rebecca had a new baby girl, Elsie, in early December but we haven't even met her yet... Dying to.) On the way home the Landcruiser began acting up, prompting an all-day-Saturday investigation in what was ailing it. HF seems to have fixed it - prevailed against his fear that it was a transmission problem.

On the same day, the starter went on the Scherreis' van, leaving Chuck out front with an arsenal of tools and HF's ramps. Automotive woes on the street...! Photo evidence of the afternoon, which amused me...

(Happily, Kim finished her chemotherapy in early December and now has a much more manageable course of herceptin treatments (once every three weeks) for the spring. She's doing much better, though still very tired, and her hair is even growing back!)

On wine country, car trouble, and "no-body-contact" lakes

Y and I enjoyed an eventful and worthwhile trip to wine country this week... Our children were not the least bit phased to see us head off on Thurs afternoon, demonstrating their comfort with and adoration of their grandparents- an enormous blessing that we don't take at all lightly. Off we drove toward our rustic lakeside cabin in Los Olivos, all smiles till we hit a patch of traffic in Santa Barbara after which our 1997 Subaru Outback started overheating. Badly. Pulled over; waited till cool-down; checked radiator; refilled due to low fluid. This exact scenario was repeated two more times in our 24 hours away which injected some stress and generally put a damper on things, though each time we were sufficiently successful in reviving the radiator to allow the trip to continue. Next week we'll have to deal.

When we finally arrived at 9 pm that night, we found the cabin lovely and quaint, though it was literally freezing till we got the fire going in the fireplace and the space heater working at full blast. Friday we slept in, breakfasted lake side, and took a walk through the woods before heaing off to explore wine country. It so happened that we'd chosen the same day to spend in wine country as the organizers of a massive corporate bike race... so many of the routes we would have driven and destinations we would have hit were closed to us. We managed not to let this annoy us too much as the landscape was gorgeous, the day warm, and the opportunity to poke around without schedule or care felt adequately luxurious to make up for it. It's a gorgeous pastoral setting with rolling hills, open fields, and ample livestock everywhere - very much our scene. We visited Sunstone Winery in Santa Ynez, a lovely rustic spot, and had a wine-tasting there, which was fun.

On our way back toward dinner in Santa Barbara, we stopped the recreation area at gorgeous Lake Cachuma to check out their camping options and various offerings. This lake, like two other nearby lakes we've visited, has a "no-body-contact" regulation whereby humans are not allowed to swim or even wade. However, illogically (to me), boating is both permitted and promoted. The idea is that the lake comes into contact with area water supply so body contact would be contaminating... but, really? More so than engine oil and gasoline waste from boats? I just don't get it. As a born and raised lake girl, I find that the prospect of camping alongside a lake whose water I can't touch - even if I can fish or boat - holds little appeal...

So much for our new transmission

We picked up our van from Concourse Motors this afternoon. J.R., the mechanic who owns the place and had replaced our transmission, chatted with us and explained the warranty to us. The car felt good and we caravaned back to the house. I pulled up into the driveway and parked -- and immediately Y. was beside my window in a panic saying, "What's pouring out of the bottom of the van?" It was transmission fluid... a lot of it. Seemingly all of it. We immediately called J.R. who apologized profusely and promised to send a tow truck over first thing in the morning to fetch it (as the vehicle lost so much fluid, it's not driveable.) We then spent an hour trying to rinse and scrub the huge oil stain off our driveway - since its presence there could be grounds for our loss of security deposit. Feeling like the proverbial straw on the camel's back..

It's been one of those weeks. It seems like we'd just regained our financial footing after the move when a bunch of issues cropped up -- Angus vet meds for mange, allergies, and yeast infection; medical bills for smallscale dermatology issues that cropped up after my sunscreen rash (didn't even know that I had a PPO deductible till these came in); and then, of course, the great Transmission Debacle. Nothing huge - just a bunch of expensive, niggly items with unfortunately concurrent timing. The key is to continually remind myself that 95% of the world wishes they had middle-class American problems like these...

Nothin' like car trouble...

One of our next-door neighbors is a California Highway Patrolman named Bob, or "Sargeant Bob" as we call him. Yes, a bona fide CHIP like Ponch and Jon of old. (Though they just call it C-H-P now and definitely don't appreciate the CHIPS references.) He's a lovely, outgoing, overly helpful guy who asks us at least once a week -no exaggeration - how we're liking Ventura and the neighborhood and if there's anything he can do to be of assistance to us. He offers to watch our house for us if we are even going to be away on a day-trip. Bob is very protective of the street and lets you know it too, frequently peppering conversations with police-related lingo. He's a real piece of work, and we love him for it. He and his wife Lori are having their first baby this spring at age 39, and this is a regular conversation topic as well.

Bob was delighted when I called him this week to ask him for the info on a great, no-frills mechanic he uses in town. The emissions light had been on in our van for more than a month, and last week the 'due for regularly scheduled maintenance' light came on. We took it in to Bob's mechanic, J.R., on Thursday. Imagine our great dismay yesterday when we learned that the transmission is rapidly going and needs to be replaced - to the tune of $3200. That is literally 1/3 the cost of the vehicle, which we bought 3 months ago (and on which we did NOT get the warranty. Naturally.) Unbelievable. The car has 100K miles on it, and and the average tran replacement for a Honda Odyssey is at approx 150K. Our luck with car purchases has never been good, and this one is feeling like the icing on the cake...

Girl without keys

So it didn't take long for us to become California surfers - or Y. at least. He bought a board off craigslist yesterday before church, and he hit the beach in the late afternoon with our neighbor and another guy we'd met at church. Turns out that, though Y. owned a board and surfed at the beach when we lived in Gloucester from '99 to '01, he doesn't actually remember how to surf... though I'm sure it won't be long. He had a good time anyway just being out there.

When I went to load the kids in the van today to head off to our second time at a playgroup I joined ten days ago, I realized it was locked and I'd left the keys in there after church yesterday. Along with the double stroller and the house key. So we were housebound. I was also without internet half the day and put a red sweatshirt in the wash that ruined several other garments. Just one of those days. It seemed somewhat fitting...

There are few things less interesting, I find, than talking about tiredness. So I'll just say that I can't remember ever being as tired in my life as I've been the past two days. While last week I was often grumpy and down, yesterday and today I feel too exhausted even for that. I'm just trying to get through the days. Given the past six months, I know this was to be expected, but still -it's so irritating. Can't I just start feeling normal again and get on with it? (Apparently not.)

"Graduating" to minivan ownership

Well we've done it. We are now the proud owners of a slate grey 1999 Honda Odyssey which we purchased yesterday from Carmax in LA. The process was pretty grueling - two plus hours of me on the phone with Carmax and USAA, who provided our financing, on Monday and a full five hours for Y. yesterday in person at the dealership. Pretty much the opposite of the 'seamless' process that both institutions sell you on, with most of the annoyance coming from the financing side. But it's finally done, thank God, and we got the van home last night. It drives well and, for a nine-year old vehicle, we are amazed at how new it looks since it's spent it's life in a climate that lacks rust issues. So now we number among the ranks of those in the 'American family car' club...

While Y. spent half the day yesterday in San Diego for work-related training, leaving the house at 4:30 AM to drive down with his colleauge, and the other half at the car-dealership, I spent the better part of the day hosting two plumbers in the morning and two electricians in the afternoon to address some issues in our house. All was resolved, and I was pleased with the promptness with which our landlord sent out the troops for service, as I'd only alerted her to them the day prior.

Monday I had the cable guy here for several hours, and this morning our twice-monthly paid gardener (a sweet Asian man named Lee whose service came as part of our house lease contract) arrived to spend his requisite 20 minutes on our tiny lawn and garden.

I was feeling very 'serviced' out after all this, but thankfully my kind neighbor Kim, wife of the fireman, came to my rescue by inviting the kids and me over to hang out with them for an hour in the late morning. Her house is visible in the photo next to ours, behind the van. She'd even picked me up a Starbucks latte just beforehand! Now that is an answer to prayer. She also provided me a printed list of recs for pediatricians when I asked her for recs, which was pretty impressive. Anyway, J. enjoyed playing with the kids (particularly their son John who is nearly five), the first time he has played with other children for two full weeks. And Kim is very easy to be with and not at all overbearing, which I appreciate - especially in a next-door-neighbor who may become a good friend. I really like her... And I felt much better generally after the time we spent there.

West Coast eve

9:30 pm Eastern Time, 6:30 pm Pacific Time, on the eve of the kids' and my departure to the west... Not sure how exactly I'll navigate the time change with the kids after we land, but that's likely something better left to deal with when the time comes.

The truck arrived in Ventura this morning, and Y. and a childhood buddy of his who lives in San Diego unloaded it within a few hours. Now they are moving things around the house and trying to figure out where key items - like the TV remote - may have been stashed. I was less helpful to Y. in this particular effort than he would have liked...

A need-to-do item that we wish we didn't have to deal with right now is buying a second (used) vehicle... Y's first day of work is next Tues, one week from today, and it's in San Diego. We will need the use of a second vehicle by then, whether it's a rental or a new purchase. We typically buy private but have little time and a probable need to finance, so in this case we're thinking probably dealership buy. Would rather not rush into anything but don't really want to spend $300+ on a rental car for a week either if we don't have to. Irritating.

As I start to pack my bags for the plane ride tomorrow afternoon, I'm finding it funny the degree to which I overestimated the down time I would have in the past week. For example, I thought perhaps I'd read a novel or penning some notes, which is a bit laughable given how little free time I've actually had since I left the farm. How typical of me!

How bizarre it seems that tomorrow is actually the day we fly. I realized today that, if we don't return to New England till next summer, it will be the longest time I have ever been away from this area since my family moved here in 1985.