I LOVE Your Grout

Allow me to take this opportunity to publicly say I’m sorry for the times I visited your home and I didn’t gush over your grout. I didn’t compliment your countertops. I didn’t dote on your drop-in sink. I didn’t bask in your backsplash. I apologize. 
 

The unpacking, packing, moving, organizing, tossing, hiding, rearranging, and decision making continue as we transition into our new home. The latest in this adventure is the few remodeling projects that needed to happen to update our new place. Most of these were kitchen related. Now I’m needing to make decisions regarding things I didn’t even know had names. 

I’m not a kitchen girl. I’m not a cooker girl. I’m not a shopper girl. I’m not even sure I’m a girl! In fact, when Doug and I were trying to find a honeymoon destination that neither one of us had been, after many, many suggestions, he said “Maybe we should honeymoon in the kitchen, sounds like neither one of us has been there.” Hilarious… and kinda true. One of the first “gifts” Doug bought for the Anderson Abode was a new stove. My old one only had two burners that worked. I tried to act excited, but before I could stop myself, I asked him, “But where will I put the mail?” 

HGTV exists without me. A makeover in my home meant a new place to pack my suitcase. Now I’m making choices on paint and trim and where my granite needed a bullnose. What? Exactly.

 Niece Jena Beth took my hand and drove me to the granite and tile place. Both of our knees went weak when we entered the door. She said, “This is heaven!” I… said something else. I found a box of rocks to play with while she tilted her head and pondered postage stamp sized tiles that kinda all looked the same to me. The salesman smiled and asked me if I was the mother, I picked up another shiny stone and replied, “No, I’m the home owner.”

Now, let’s talk about travel, and my eyes light up. I’m guessing that there are folks out there that are bit like me when it comes to planning a trip. Open-jaw, all-inclusive, double-double are in my vocabulary. I will gladly take 50 folks to a foreign country to be immersed in an unknown culture, but I don’t want to decide on a light fixture. The good news is we don’t have to be good at everything. We just need to find those that can help us and let them do their magic. 

If you don’t like planning the vacation, be Good to Go with Patti Beth and join our group travel experience where the work and hard decisions are already make for you. You can show your delight by having a good time on the trip and not working so hard to organize it. And I will come admire your kitchen… and tell you I love your grout.

Let it Go

Between my comments here and my much older sisters posts on Facebook, the world knows we are moving. It’s just across town, but the campaign isn’t over and the struggle continues. But I felt I did need to weigh in on one remark that seems to keep reoccurring. I must state, there is a big difference between “hoarding” and “keeping treasures”.  In fact, the Encarta Dictionary defines hoard as ‘to collect and store, often secretly, large amounts of things such as food or money for future use.’ So one can clearly see, the treasures that I have saved have no value, nor did I ever expect them to have a future use. Big difference. Big.
 

Sister and I have read old letters that she mailed to me from college with advice about boys. We found the toy telephones that Daddy would call us and say Santa Claus had been there and to come quick! We read though my mother’s journal and learned “It didn’t rain today.” We found ribbons from corsages, purple mimeographed programs that had our names listed in blurry print. I kept gift wrap from special presents, and even sniffed the glossy white paper I remembered had in it a bottle of “Jungle Gardenia” perfume from my 17-year-old boyfriend.  After almost four decades in a boot box under my bed in my parent’s house, the aroma was more Jungle and less Gardenia.

The purging/lightening/simplifying has been in full force with many bittersweet memories. It feels good to let go. I’ve had many ask if I had lots of travel souvenirs to part with in the downsize. Maybe they expect me to have Ming vases, Deft China, and original art from around the world. I’ve never been a great shopper (my family would disagree, based on the number of boxes they have toted) but I tend to buy books and save maps and papers and piles of miscellaneous that no one wants to look at. I guess I always operated as if I might not ever get to return, so I held on the tiny bits of memories. 

I feel a bit sage as I reflect on my travels, especially when I have the pleasure of taking a trip with new travelers. The desire to make purchases to remember every part of a trip, the t-shirts, ball caps, the refrigerator magnets, the beautiful prints. I love the excitement of the find they experience. I will admit that I’m very happy that we are past Hard Rock Café T-Shirts and that the need to mark my miles with trinkets is declining. This puts the pressure on me to make my memories last with my mind’s eye and more lines in my journal. I like to buy things that can be used up such as soaps, spices and oils. I still take lots of pictures, but they don’t get printed or stay in envelopes with the negatives like years gone by.

Traveling makes us keeper of treasures, even if they are memories. And there is nothing wrong with hoarding memories… especially if you use them again.

Packing with Style

While hot wing sauce was being flung on furniture and Lady Gaga was Lady Spiderman during the Superbowl, this Good to Go girl was still sorting and tossing and packing for the big move across town. It’s taken the whole family to make this happen and we are just in the ‘moving out stage’ and haven’t begun the ‘moving in.’ I pride myself in being the Princess of Packing, but this kind of packing has kicked my crown to the curb. I pack for a three week trip the night before, and I move a 25-year-old household in 2 weeks, the math is about the same, right? The other truth is that I’m packing the “stuff” like I pack a suitcase, and so is Hubby Doug. Two totally different packing styles. Let us compare.
 

If you have seen my “Packing it in” program where I demonstrate how to pack in 2 gallon zip-lock bags or packing cubes, then you know I love an organized and tidy suitcase. I take pride in packing my luggage systematically, and knowing right where everything is. I HATE digging in a suitcase.

Husband Doug prefers a more….shall we say, random style of packing. He opens his suitcase like a box and just tosses everything in. His toothpaste may be wadded up with his socks, while his charging cable snakes around his boots and dress shirts. We have both tried to convert each other to our way, but it’s best we take separate bags. I can’t  be too snarky about his method, because he usually winds up with everything he needs. TSA probably just opens his luggage, drops in the “we inspected your bag” note and zips it as quickly as possible. 

Which leads us to packing up the Anderson Abode. We packed with our own style.  I look for the right size box, and then search the house for like items. Since I don’t know where anything will go in the new place, it seems sensible to have a carton marked “coasters” and fill it with anything that has served as a drip catcher in years past. Doug, on the other hand, will grab the closest empty box, and fill it with anything within reach.  It seems to make sense to him that “front door stuff” would, of course, include car keys, my tennis shoes, last weeks mail, and the Tupperware set out to return to the neighbor. Labeling is optional

We’ve had to do a couple of exploratory searches for items that were needed sooner rather than later. His box is more of a surprise package, then there is my box, marked “miscellaneous kitchen gadgets” , and I can’t really ever see a reason to open that.

When packing, whether in a cardboard box or Samsonite® roller, one still needs to remember the secret is to travel light. It’s all just stuff, and most of it can be bought or replaced somewhere down the road.  The good stuff is the memories. Have a yard sale and let’s travel!

Trash or Treasure?

This world in not my home I’m just a passing through
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.
 

My deep country roots have me singing these Jim Reeves lyrics on many levels this month. Hubby Doug and I are moving. Just across town to a place we can watch the sunset, but I’ve been watching the sunrise in the same place for the last 25 years. 25 years. There should be a law that everyone has to move every decade just so there can be a “purging of the stuff.” For a gal that is Good to Go, I have discovered that I can pack a suitcase and be gone a month and not blink...

But this sorting, deciding, and packing of a household, I’m pretty blank. I’ll blame it on not much experience. My parents were married for 63 years and lived in the same house my dad carried my mom over the threshold. I moved out for the first time when I went to college, but really never moved, just toted a few things to a dorm room and expected my mom to keep my room just like I left it. A couple of college digs in OKC, then back to Groovy Grove. I’ve moved only twice since then. So I’ve got years upon years of “treasures laid up” in closets and boxes instead of “beyond the blue.” However, I’ve discovered lots of gems that I hadn’t seen or used in a blue moon. 

It’s time to downsize, and as the angels beckon me to “let go” and I’ve prayed that I could wake up and have it done. All these treasures - sweet gifts and tokens I would love to take… sadly there just isn’t room.

My friend and professional organizer, Ron, instructs me to ask a series of questions like: 1) Is it valuable? 2) Does it bring me joy? 3) Do I just like it? With those criteria, I’m not even sure I will get to make the move.

Honestly, the most helpful thing I did was watch an episode of “Hoarders”. After that, it was much easier to chunk junk. 

We feel like we have a foot in one house, a foot in another and all our worldly possessions strung and flung between the two. 

The other reason for the song is the sudden loss of our friend, Bob Hudson, in a plane crash last week. A wonderful, funny, healthy missionary doing a world of good for heaven’s sake, and he is gone. Always helpful and giving, he had texted us just a few hours before his fatal plane crash to ask us if we needed help moving. I wish so much now that we had said “yes”, but we were a little embarrassed by our mess. 

Really, this move is a lot like traveling with baggage. It’s best to travel light, to take only what you will need, and don’t haul around a bunch of stuff that is just extra weight. The real treasures of this world are our friends, families and our memories. After all,

This world in not my home; I’m just a passing through.