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February 10, 2004
We’re in the midst of February, but I’ve already been hit with Spring Fever. Perhaps it could be considered something more like Spring Longing. I am SO ready for spring—for longer days, brighter sun, luminous air, for crocuses and daffodils, green leaf buds and dew, misty rains, and freshness & renewal.
The first manifestation of this spring fever is a renewed passion & intensity for cleaning & organizing! In the last week or so, I have tackled some chores with great gusto and inspiration: cleaning baseboards, dusting tops of doors & picture frames and window moldings, wiping down drawers& relining with fresh lavendar-and lemon-scented liners, washing & line-drying (in the fresh air) curtains, scrubbing floors, cleaning out drawers & closets, organizing paperwork and donating heaps of clothing, toys and other odds and ends to charity. I am most proud of my dazzling wardrobe overhaul. I have refined my wardrobe to such color-coded, style/season-classified, streamlined precision that the simple thought of picking something out each morning brings a smile to my face. I got rid of boxes of clothes (right down to underwear and socks), and what I’m left with leaves me feeling refreshed, lighter.
I finally also got myself some very nice, sexy new bras. If that doesn’t uplift a woman, I don’t know what will! Hana still nurses, but by God, I am DONE with nursing bras!
There are some things in our daily, domestic lives life that are not worth killing ourselves over—and for each of us, those priorities are different. The minutia of daily life can drive one crazy if one doesn’t pick and choose her own priorities. We cannot be perfect at everything domestic, so we must be able to define for ourselves what things are really, truly important for us to give 100% to (I’m referring only to household-related chores—not to other more –obvious top priorities like husband, children, family, work, etc.). You know what things are your own (domestic) priorities because the rewards reaped by those efforts pay off for days or months afterwards via your own satisfaction. Even if the “chores” themselves are a hassle or are tedious, or you’d rather be sipping a by the crackling fire, you’ll know the ones that matter to you because of your fulfillment when they are accomplished.
I, for one, am uplifted by a quest for simplicity in many aspects of my domestic life, by cleaning and whitewashing & organizing & creating order. I love washing, folding and putting clothes in their proper places—I even love to wipe the washer & dryer down, but I despise ironing. I love emptying a clean dishwasher of sparkling dishes, but I hate the rinsing & loading (but because I hate a sinkful of dirty dishes even more, I jump on the rinsing & loading). I get great satisfaction from scrubbing a solid floor, but am not overly fond of vacuuming. I am giddy over simple, fresh, hearty recipes, but get anxious over hunting down exotic ingredients or tackling difficult recipes. I don’t like baking because of the mess it creates. I enjoy polishing & waxing, but dislike dusting. I love grocery shopping and organizing my cupboards, but have to force myself to clean the refrigerator shelves & drawers. I insist that all of my dishes are plain white and my glasses are the same pattern. I do not allow random (mismatched) coffee mugs or glasses to invade my cupboards. I wipe down and polish my kitchen sink with enough frequency to warrant concern. I organize my linen closet by color and cringe when sheets & towels get out of order. I can’t stand disheveled or mismatched towels in my bathroom (that’s not to say they never are—I just can’t keep up with all of Mike’s constant disheveling). Dirty laundry loitering in laundry hampers makes me crazy and so I do at least one load of wash every single day even though the endlessness of it drives me to distraction. I cannot climb into an unmade bed at night--even if it has remained unmade all day (which also makes me grimace), I will make it before I get in it.
Call me anal, but then how do you explain that I can live with crumbs lining the edges of the kitchen floor for two weeks before I get around to sweeping them up? How do you make sense of my complete disregard for the never-ending pile of miscellany (mail, receipts, phone messages, to-do lists…) on our dining room table? How can I live with only washing windows once a year and wiping baseboards only a handful of times a year? I guess it just comes down to what household tasks I get pleasure from. I am not implying that those items I fixate on are right or wrong or better or worse than anyone else’s household priorities…. They are just mine. So Hana—someday when you read this—I beg you to try to understand, or at least be sensitive to my own inherent little housekeeping quirks. They are sure to drive you mad, because I am your mother and that’s just the way those things go.
In addition to the spring cleaning I’ve already accomplished, I still have a few tasks left to tackle: wash windows (I’m just waiting for that inevitable sparkling sunny day that highlights a winter’s worth of grime), have our carpets cleaned, sweep & powerwash the front walk, driveway and back patio, air out and beat out the “winter” rug, and put it away for next fall. We also have a few bigger projects in store, like finishing the bathroom addition (Mike is almost finished adding a second bathroom in our basement—he’s done it all himself—plumbing, drywalling, etc. I must say I am very impressed and very thankful), building a deck off of our second-floor bedroom (Mike added French doors in the fall; now we need something to step out onto, not just air), staining our bed frame (we got a beautiful mahogany dresser from my grandmother, and now our pine IKEA bed frame looks a bit displaced), and lots of gardening projects (plant our summer vegetable garden, create an extensive container garden for our back patio, aerate our compost and distribute, train the new bamboo into place, etc.) As part of my spring renewal I would also just LOVE to buy a new, white/ivory slipcover for my beloved Pottery Barn couch, but given that they’re over $600, it’s probably not in the cards this year. So—we have plenty to keep us busy in the coming months, and I just anticipate the unfurling of spring with such joy.
My beloved Grandma passed away on January 9th. I miss her so (as she would have said). I ache for my mom who has now lost her mother & her father. It happens to most adults at some point, but until now, it had never struck me how lonely and sad it is to be an orphan, at any age. My grandma, above all, had faith. She had so much faith in God and in Heaven. Her kind of faith and conviction is hard to come by, and she is the only person I’ve known (closely) that I admire for that trait. I just don’t know many people who have impressed me with such deep faith while also possessing great intelligence, diplomacy, empathy and tolerance. I aspire to be more like her. She was one of the sharpest, wittiest, most intelligent, most inquiring and most charming women I’ve ever known. She had great style and grace and elegance. She was always learning, always asking questions, always seeking. After my grandfather passed away, she threw herself into taking computer & internet classes at the local senior center, playing bridge with her lady friends, shopping & visiting with her sister Eleanor, attending the theater and the symphony often. She did the New York Times crossword puzzle every single morning. She was always very involved in parish social life at St. Mark’s Catholic Church and was generous with her charity, both financially and in deed. She was a smart & stylish dresser, her home was a model of good taste and panache (the woman used her good silver every single day!), and she had a flair for adventure. She moved to San Francisco by herself after college to work as a chic salesgirl at I. Magnin. She married my grandfather after only knowing him for 2 months and they lived a lifetime of love. She drove to El Paso, TX where she knew not a soul, just days after her wedding to live on the Air Force base with my grandpa. Exactly nine months later she was blessed with a daughter, my mom. Throughout the years she moved with my grandfather, from El Paso to San Diego to Philadelphia to Bellevue and Seattle. Over the next ten years she gave birth to two more children—two darling sons that she admired and adored with unparalleled glee. She traveled the world, exploring Ireland, Scotland, Israel, England, Italy, Alaska, Mexico, and many other far-flung places. She loved to gamble and faced trips to Reno with her lady friends with the giddiness of a schoolgirl. The last month of her life was spent battling chemotherapy and radiation, and she was as poised and as dignified as a person can be under such circumstances. The last night I spent with her in the hospital, she was witty and warm and loving and reverent. She lit up the ICU room, not an easy feat. She left us all sad and grieving, but with the comfort that she was at peace and grateful for her very rich life.
Each night Hana I say the Guardian Angel prayer before bed, which is the prayer my Grandma always had us (“us” being the grandchildren) recite before “night-night” at her house. “Angel of God, my guardian dear, To whom God’s love commits me here, Ever this night be at my side, To light and guard, To rule and guide. Amen.” And each night, I swear that I feel her presence in the room with us.
I have been helping my mom and her brothers begin the difficult task of starting to sort through my Grandma’s house and belongings. She was remarkably organized and tidy. All the same, she lived in a big house for lots of years, and there is a lot inside of it. Tt is both a challenge and a delight to unearth the secret parts of her life…the insides of her drawers, the odds and ends she kept in scrapbooks, tattered, dog-eared pictures, letters from contests she’d won, articles she’d clipped, obituaries she’d kept, grocery items she bought in multiples (she had about 16 packages of taco seasoning-go figure?), treasures she had hidden in the bottom of dresser drawers—notes from her children, my grandfather’s hankerchief, coins from her travels. It all tells such a sweet story of her life.
My grandma had, as I mentioned, a very smartly-decorated house. My mom & her brothers are taking many items from the house, but there are also many pieces of furniture that they just don’t have room for. They are all in the 40s or 50s, and have themselves aquired housefuls of furniture. All of the other grandchildren but me are still too young to own homes, so Mike & I are very blessed as we are getting many fine high-quality pieces of furniture (some antiques). If someone in the family doesn’t take them, they will be sold at an estate sale, so we are trying to keep as much as we can find room for. My grandparents had several beautiful antique mahogany bachelor’s chests that they collected over the years or were handed down through family. Mike & I were lucky enough to receive one, and it is classic and gorgeous in our bedroom. We are also blessed with her lovely dining table and antique, hand-carved (backs) dining chairs. We already collected her brand-new top-of –the-line pillow-top mattress and box springs and brought them to our house. We feel like the king & queen each night, sinking into such a deluxe nest of a bed. We are also going to take an beautifully rose-colored upholstered chair with turned legs of mahogany. We’re still up in the air about a couple of other handsome salon chairs, a cherry bookcase, and two antique gold table lamps. I hope no one thinks its crass of me to be discussing what we’re “getting” from my grandmother’s house. I see it first and foremost as a way to remember her and to keep myself surrounded by things that remind me of her, and secondly as a blessing, to inherit some beautiful family heirlooms.
Mike and my grandmother and my parents and I had talked over the last couple of years about Mike & I possibly buying her house from her. Her house has a mother-in-law apartment in the basement that she & my grandfather kept rented out to various tenants all these years. My grandma’s ideal situation was to move into the MIL apartment, and have one of her children or grandchildren move into the main house. Enter Mike & me. Her house is in a wonderful neighborhood, has stunning views, and is a great house for a family. Not too big, but not too small. Not ostentatious by any means, but very handsome and well-crafted. Anyway, long story short—my mom’s brother John, who lives in Texas with his wife and two kids, is now thinking about moving back up to Seattle to be closer to the family. They are considering buying the other two children’s shares of the house, and moving in. Obviously he has first priority (over us) and so we shall see. I think it will be decided in the next month or two. At first I thought I might feel a little jealous or something with my uncle perhaps buying the house, but I’ve done some soul-searching about it, and I’m really, really OK with it. Most of all, I would like her house to stay in the family if at all possible. Secondly, I would just love it if John and his family could move back up here. Third, I feel very strong that what is meant to be will be. That really sums up my feeling about this whole thing. If its meant to be that we get the house, then it will all work out. If not, then it simply wasn’t meant to be. As I said in my last entry, we’re fickle about the topic of where to live to raise our family. Again, we’re only debating a distance of a few miles (two or three different neighborhoods, all relatively close to each other). We go back& forth endlessly and I know I’m boring my readers (are any out there? Haha) but oh well. We’ve kind of settled on the idea that we won’t move into my grandma’s house, and in turn, we’ve got a renewed passion for living in the city, where we live now. We will need to move eventually, to be sure (our house is small). But we may just decide to stay right in the same neighborhood. Mike & I love to get up on Saturday mornings, put Hana in the stroller, and take long walks through our neighborhood, or other nearby neighborhoods (Seattle is very much defined by specific neighborhoods and the “personas” that come with each). Mike & I think that we would really miss these types of walks, living in the suburbs. You just don’t have the same freedom and ability to walk through 4 or 5 different neighborhoods (and the unique “personalities” of each neighborhood) by simply sauntering up and down the blocks. In the suburbs, its less likely that you will run across sidewalk cafes, fruit stands, bakeries, churches, markets and boutiques. We just love walking to the Grateful Bread bakery or the Sunflour Café on weekend mornings, and then stopping by the post office, the grocery, the independent video store, all on foot. Yada, yada, I’m boring even myself with this topic now. Moving on…..
We went on a ski trip with my parents from January 20-25. We drove up to Sun Peaks Resort in Canada, just outside of Kelowna BC. The mountain hadn’t gotten as much snow as they usually do, but although the base wasn’t as significant as usual, the snow was still light and fresh…the skiing was good. We had a couple of those bright, sunny, blue-sky days that make skiing one of the more magical and ethereal outdoor hobbies. We often skirted the edges of the ski boundaries and found great bowl skiing and some nice leisurely cat tracks. In these places we found solitute and serenity and tranquility. We were the only humanity and the silence & peace was breathtaking. The sun glinted off of the bright white snow, the icicles twinkled, and we just reveled in whooshing and whizzing through the powder.
My brother & I grew up downhill skiing. We both did years of ski-bus (an incredibly fun activity & adventure for a kid each winter weekend) in addition to years-worth of fabulous ski trips all over Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Canada. My dad and my brother are spectacularly impressive skiers. The kind who turn heads as they carve down the mountainside. I am a fair skier, but declining in skill each year as my fear & common sense slowly overtake the daring of my youth! I can hold my own and ski double black diamonds in a pinch...but am more inclined to stick to the more leisurely routes when I have my druthers. Mike only started skiing a couple of years ago but is quickly advancing on me, and I’m afraid I will soon be left in the dust by my dad, Mike and Kyle (my brother)! My mom skis, but doesn’t particularly love skiing, and so we had a perfect arrangement for our trip. She got to spend lots of quality time with her granddaughter while we caroused and explored the slopes! Perfect! We rented a beautiful, new 3-bedroom townhouse in the village, complete with a wood-burning stove, ski-in-ski-out accessibility, and our very own hot tub! It was heaven. Our days generally went like this: wake up early, have a big hearty breakfast, get our ski gear on and head out. Ski for 2-3 hours, come in for a big hearty lunch and a beer, and maybe take a catnap or do some reading. Head back out and ski for 2-3 more hours. Come in, grab a cocktail, hit the hottub, shower, eat a big hearty dinner, walk through the village, play some pool and have a beer at the bar, head home for some dominoes or cribbage or reading, hit the hay. It was just perfect and Mike & I are endlessly thankful to my parents for being able to so generously provide us with such wonderful vacations.
Our chickens are now laying eggs! Well, at least one of them is. For the last couple of weeks, we’ve gotten one egg a day (well, a couple of times they’ve skipped a day), and they are marvelous. Fresh and rich. Mike is thrilled and redeemed (I was starting to think this chicken endeavor would never pay off). Hana absolutely adores the chickens and is in such awe each time she gets to collect the day’s fresh egg. What a great lesson to learn—that eggs (and thus, other fresh, natural foods) come from a chicken—not just the grocery store. We hope to also continue impressing this lesson upon her by cultivating our summer and fall vegetable gardens each year. We planted a pear tree in our front yard recently, and want to plant more fruit trees over time. I would also like to start an herb garden this summer. Last year I grew basil, but I want to expand the repertoire.
I had better go. I have more items on my “to write about list” so I think I will be back soon to continue this. For now, this should do. Hope you are all doing well. Work is keeping me busy and challenged lately (a very good thing—I’m enjoying my work for now!). I rarely get on the computer at home, and since work is keeping me so busy, I can’t promise I’ll keep real up-to-date on my TTM board. I will check it though, and try to respond timely. If you would like to see a few pics from our ski trip, please post your email address and I’ll send you a link!
*Jessica
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