Eleven years ago, we got married for the fourth time.
That sentence sounds like the setup to a joke, and honestly, we’ve both earned the right to tell one. We’d each learned a few things along the way—some the easy way, some the “well, that was a choice” way.
By the time we met, we’d both been around the block a few times. But we met at just the right time. When we fell in love, it was just us, full of hopes and dreams and a world of possibilities. I didn’t know exactly where those dreams would lead, but I had a feeling that as long as I was with you, I’d end up someplace good.
We both feel blessed that our paths crossed when they did. Maybe God sent us. Maybe we’d finally learned enough to recognize our best friend when we found them. Either way, it has been so right.
We’ve raised kids, weathered the usual bumps, and now that we’re both retired, we spend a whole lot of time together. Happily, it turns out he still likes me even when there’s no workday to separate us. Most days.
Last year brought the biggest hurdle yet: cancer. He was there through all of it—steady, loving, and right beside me, even when I’m sure I wasn’t the easiest person to be beside. I don’t have fancy words for what that meant. I just know I never had to face it alone.
Eleven years in, I’m still grateful I get to do life with my best friend. Apparently, the fourth time really was the charm.
Happy anniversary, Richard. I love you. As long as I’m with you, I’m someplace wonderful.
Hubby’s oldest child, Senior S’kiddle to me, is getting married next month.
In our excitement, we offered our lake home as the location for the rehearsal dinner. A low country boil for 35 people.
A “casual” outdoor affair.
I am learning that “casual” is a word that leaves out a great deal of information.
Like how many people with power tools will need to invade your house and your sanity before “casual” begins.
When we made the offer, we had not even fully moved in. There were still boxes to unpack and plenty of improvements we had put on the back burner when this was just our weekend place.
Apparently, the back burner has now been turned up to HIGH.
First, we needed a shop.
You might reasonably wonder what a shop has to do with a rehearsal dinner.
In our case? Everything.
The contents of the old shop were taking up space in the house and around the grounds.
All that stuff needed somewhere to live that wasn’t where our guests were going to eat.
Preferably somewhere that made this look like a lake home instead of a junkyard.
The tree guys cleared the trees that were narrowing the driveway and taking up the space we needed for parking.
The next crew put in drainage and a retaining wall so the future shop wouldn’t float away.
The concrete guys broke up the cracked concrete and poured newer, better, bigger concrete for the shop and extra parking.
Then… nothing
A quiet week or two while the concrete cured.
Have you ever waited for concrete to reach the proper degree of concreteness?
There is not much to report.
I looked at it.
It looked pretty concrete to me.
Apparently, it needed to be more concrete.
I waited some more.
When it was finally baked to perfection, the shop builders arrived.
Then the electricians.
Then the insulation guys.
Then the air-conditioning guys.
And finally, hubby and I could move all the stuff into the shop.
Mostly hubby.
I helped as much as I could.
Well, as much as I was asked to.
It seems that at four foot nothing, with T-rex arms, I am not the first choice for the heavy-lifting team.
But the stuff was finally out of the way.
We were making progress.
Sassy, however, was having a terrible time.
Every arrival brought another round of barking, crying, and hiding.
Strangers in the driveway. Strangers around the house. Strangers making loud noises.
And just when one group left, another arrived.
As far as Sassy was concerned, we had developed a serious security problem, and Management kept letting it in.
Of all of us, she has enjoyed this process the least.
I’m fairly certain she is keeping a list of trespassers for the police report she intends to file.
Management will be named as an accomplice.
Meanwhile, the inside of the house was getting attention, too.
New wiring downstairs and an absolutely fabulous new mirror in the master bath brought more guys.
Plumbing issues brought more guys.
Even the shower doors required their own special guy.
Between all of this, hubby was not so quietly replacing the kitchen cabinet doors because the hinges were on the outside. And the knobs were turned the wrong way.
I did not know that was such a faux pas.
Apparently, we had been living with inappropriate hinges and sideways knobs.
Thankfully, that situation has been addressed before company arrives.
Once the shop was finished and filled, work began on the retaining wall around the house.
But first, a tree stump had to come out and the rose bushes had to move.
Then we discovered that the original garden area had been filled with plastic, metal, and assorted other things instead of proper fill dirt.
That was a surprise.
Not a good surprise, like finding money in a coat pocket.
But not a dead body, either.
Somewhere in between.
So there was more digging, proper drainage, and actual dirt.
No plants yet.
We will get to that ourselves.
There was also the beautiful stairway hubby built from the house to the dock. That deserves a post of its own, so I won’t give too much away here.
But between those stairs and last year’s deck repairs, we had a lot of raw wood.
Enter the painters.
The boss of this crew is a woman – the first female craftsperson in our parade of arrivals.
She and her assistant made all that raw wood look like it belonged in a magazine.
Sassy still wants them prosecuted, but I would hire them again.
Once everything was properly stained, we looked up and realized some tree limbs hanging over the deck needed to be cut.
Of course we did.
So those guys came.
Sassy filed another complaint.
Once she recovered from the sky falling down.
Finally, the original concrete guys returned to tackle the broken concrete on the lake side of the house.
In just a few days, they replaced the crooked, cracked mess with a beautiful paver patio.
The kind of patio where one would entertain guests.
Casually.
Those few days, however, felt like years.
Jackhammers do not improve with prolonged exposure.
Somewhere in all of this, I had cataract surgery.
I am now two weeks out, and despite all my misgivings, it went very well.
For the first few days, I could see nothing but light out of that eye.
I don’t know what made me think I would come out with immediate 20/20 vision, but apparently I was planning a miracle.
Still, in the grand scheme of our current life, the surgery has been a mere blip.
Which is quite a statement, considering how much worrying I did beforehand.
Next week, someone is coming to rescreen the screened-in porch.
Then hubby and I can do the planting.
And the power washing.
And whatever else we discover needs doing before 35 people arrive for this casual event.
Hubby has a two-page list.
So if I haven’t been writing much, now you know why.
Every time I think we’re finished, hubby checks his list.
Apparently, we are not finished.
We are happy that we get to be such a big part of Senior S’kiddle‘s wedding.
We look forward to having everyone here to celebrate the bride and groom and this new chapter in their lives.
I admit that a wedding deadline has done wonders for the home-improvement schedule.
By the time everyone arrives, the tools will be gone and the plants will be planted.
Sassy will be away on campus, which is probably best for everyone’s criminal record.
And if someone looks around and says, “What a lovely place for a casual little get-together,” I will smile.
But apparently there is a significant difference between moving your stuff and finding somewhere to PUT your stuff.
We moved from a big house with a bigger shop to a smaller house with a smaller shop.
We brought everything.
Okay.
Not everything.
We downsized.
We were actually quite proud of ourselves.
If we found something and neither of us knew what it was, what it did, or what it might conceivably be used for sometime in the future, we threw it away.
Ruthless.
And if we discovered we owned five of the exact same very useful thing?
We sold two.
Sometimes.
So really, I don’t know what more could reasonably have been expected of us.
It turns out moving to a smaller house is considerably easier if you own less stuff.
We discovered this approximately three weeks too late.
George Carlin once pointed out that everybody else’s stuff is sh*t, while your sh*t is stuff.
I understand this now on a spiritual level.
Because for the past month, Hubby and I have been opening boxes and having conversations like:
“Why do we have this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do we need it?”
“Probably not.”
“Can we throw it away?”
Absolutely not.
It’s our stuff.
And apparently our stuff is very important.
Even the stuff we haven’t seen since 1999.
Even the stuff we forgot we owned.
Even the stuff whose original purpose can no longer be determined by modern science.
So we shuffled stuff.
Stacked stuff.
Reorganized stuff.
Bought things to hold stuff.
And, in a particularly impressive display of human stupidity, moved stuff out of the way so we could make room for other stuff.
But today, I am pleased to announce:
THE BOXES HAVE BEEN SORTED.
Every single box in the house has been opened, examined, judged, and dealt with.
Mostly.
There are, of course, a few boxes clearly marked:
MY STUFF
HIS STUFF
IMPORTANT STUFF
and the always useful:
STUFF WE ARE NOT CURRENTLY PREPARED TO MAKE A DECISION ABOUT.
But those boxes are now semi-neatly organized in a large storage closet.
