Gutting and rebuilding

 

In the summer of 2021, becoming tired of apartment living and wanting to establish ourselves in a neighborhood, we started looking at houses: big, small, too close to the neighbors, too expensive, ugly, less ugly. We kept a careful eye on the market and looked at neighborhoods near and far, establishing one single ground rule: no living on a road that had a yellow line running down the middle.

And we finally settled on ugly.

After finding out about this house from its next-door neighbor via a Facebook neighborhood page, we found the owners there. The house wasn’t on the market yet; but they let us walk through as they sorted, held onto, or tossed the detritus that was the end result of their parents’ life together.

The house had a door in every room, effectively cutting the inhabitants off from each other, if so desired. It had cheap ‘70s paneling and atrocious wallpaper elsewhere. Crying out for replacement, the original appliances stood sentinel as did the window in the kitchen looking out into the garage. Shockingly, the original carpeting lay there like a tired, old, wet dog and didn’t smell much better.

My husband and I looked at each other with the same thought: this house had potential.

We bought it at a price that was way more than it was worth, but that was the sellers’ market speaking. The house was a single story, just the size we had hoped for, in an established neighborhood with lots of trees and big yards, and within walking distance and short driving distance to everything we could possibly want.

Initially, destruction was the name of the game, and the four of us pitched in. Rachel’s boyfriend even got in on the action. Ripping up the carpet that smelled so bad that my granddaughter ran screaming like a banshee was paramount. Ripping out the paneling came next.

We realized the importance of getting an architect involved—enter Nathan. Our son offered great ideas on getting rid of walls and adding new ones. (We would’ve been at sea and our house would’ve become just another boring ranch without his professional help.)

My husband, software engineer by trade/handyman by interest, helped the rest of us in the steady destruction, but he also rebuilt. Steve’s biggest initial improvement was to change all the vents to floor rather than baseboard vents. That was a huge job that even required the repositioning of one of the large wall vents.

Since I was a 98-pound weakling, I contributed in any way I could. While I couldn’t remove paneling, appliances, or cabinets, I could remove wallpaper; wash and paint doors, walls, and ceilings; and, last but not least, line up contractors.

We eventually settled on a contractor who became responsible for the electrical, the dry wall, the carpentry (both rough and finished), and the final bathroom remodel. We found our own contractors who addressed issues underneath the house, all flooring, plumbing, kitchen cabinet and granite installation, and kitchen cabinet purchase (a designer offered her layout expertise as part of the deal). We recently brought another contractor onboard to build a screened-in porch from which we can witness the morning sunrise. And, Steve, always an energetic perfectionist, has been steadily working on the house or yard just about daily since the purchase.

Obviously, there were a lot of steps that I'm not listing, even some contractors I've neglected to  mention . (I'd be happy to talk to you about them if asked.) Suffice it to say that gutting and rebuilding was the most challenging project we’ve ever encountered—well, except for raising kids. And I don't want to downplay the angst we experience in trying to establish new friendships. That's not so easy at our age and with the pandemic still on the horizon.

We bought the house in July, moved in in December, and celebrated our one-year anniversary just recently. We love our house and our neighborhood. We are really enjoying getting to know our neighbors. And, of course, we are excited about living near our kids and grandkids.

Life is never particularly easy, but it can be good nonetheless.

What follows, for the most part, are pictures comparing the before and after of the same rooms. The solid wall of paneling has turned into the wall with two open doorways.

Transplanting is possible with the right frame of mind

Not many people have a chance for a do-over.

But my husband and I did when we decided to move close to our kids and grandchildren. Was it scary? Yes! We were moving from everything that made us feel safe: our friends, our lovely home, our city of nearly 40 years. And while I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, it’s worked for us—one of the reasons being the willingness to take chances. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and plunge in.  

We weren’t too happy about our initial living arrangements: an apartment in a complex on the third floor with no elevator. During the year we were there, I thought I’d get used to climbing those three floors. I didn’t. And I never, ever got used to the people below us who complained to management about our noise. We are, let us say, at an age at which you hear no peeps out of us after 9 p.m., so I found it particularly off-putting when leaving the apartment to encounter the “lady”—she was no lady!—downstairs who accompanied me to the parking lot, all the while cussing at me.

My husband initially thought of the move as temporary: just until covid ended. But in his frequent monthly travels back to the house to check on it, he came to the conclusion that making the move permanent made the most sense. He had retired, and our kids—fortunately, both of them lived in the same city!—and the little ones needed us.

So we sold our house and started looking for another.

Luckily for us, our home went for $30,000 more than the asking price; in fact, we had seven offers in four days. Unluckily for us, we moved from a place with a low cost-of-living to a higher cost-of-living. And it was at a time when it was definitely a sellers’ market.

At first, I thought I wanted to live in downtown Greenville. It’s lovely, so walkable, and very vibrant. The trouble was that many of the houses in our price range were small, ugly, and without any redeeming features. So we looked within a few miles of downtown. We encountered pretty much the same thing. They were a little more affordable but equally ugly. And they were sorely missing two things I wanted: ranch-style living and a walkable neighborhood.

So we looked even farther afield. Our realtor suggested a particular area in a nearby city, a quiet neighborhood that has big lots, an enormous number of large trees, a variety of different styles of houses, and is located within walking distance of lots of cool restaurants and shops. But I was the one who actually found the house. I got on the neighborhood’s Facebook page and posted a request for knowledge of any sales. My future neighbor kindly posted that the house next to her was being prepped for sale. The rest is history.

The house was truly a dump, but that story’s for another day.  

I'm back!

How does one catch up with a blog after being absent for about ten years? What kept me from writing? Practically everything! But it makes no sense. I love writing, whether it’s silly children’s books—which I first wrote nearly 40 years ago as a homework assignment in a writing class—or  serious political commentaries—which I refuse to do anymore. (Politics cause me way too much angst.)

At any rate, here I am back at the keyboard. What happened ten years ago to make my writing dry up (albeit temporarily)? To make a really, really long story short:

·       Serial rejection blew out my pilot light. (But everyone knows you just have to persist!)

·       I got a part-time job as a university adjunct instructor. (If anything dries up the urge to write, it’s a job, gosh darn it.) It lasted for nine years.

·       Skip to the birth of my first grandchild who was located long-distance. (Because of that sweet thing, I was traveling out of town every 4-6 weeks.)

·       My first grandchild gave up her only-child status.

·       Covid hit, and shortly after, my husband retired. (At this point, we moved to help take care of the little ones.)

I could write pages about things that happened during my absence, but I won’t. It’s like trying to catch up with a journal that you’ve neglected for years on end. Impossible! And some things just have to be left out for the sake of – well, boring you.

When I was a senior in high school, I remember three friends and I cruising through town, a common thing to do when time was all we had. But what was unusual about this car ride was that we made up rhymes for the couple of hours we were together. Seriously. Who does that?! But that was fun for me then and continues to be fun for me now—not the cruising part, but the imaginative spark that wants to be turned into a blaze.

So what is prompting me to take up the pen again, so to speak? It’s a realization that life is too short not to do what I’m good at and not to do what I love.

The life of this retiree

My entries have slowed down considerably. There’s a reason for that. I’m retired. And, by retired, I mean busy.

Sure, I read an occasional book. Well, make that seven Steve Hamilton books in eight days. But when I read that many books at once, I feel guilty. And when I feel guilty, I make sure that I clean, prepare meals, call bingo, deliver meals, mow the lawn, and zumba.

Speaking of zumba, I usually attend class three times a week and teach class once a week. On my days off, I zumba at home. Now, I have another zumba possibility in the works—in a city thirty minutes away. And why would I do that?

I’ll be there anyway. I’m signed up for an art class at the Alabama Center for the Arts in Decatur. Offered through Calhoun Community College, art and all other classes are tuition-free (although registration fees are required) for those who are age-challenged and willing to go through the application process (which is easy-peasy; it took them a day to accept me as a student and didn’t cost me anything other than the price of a transcript). The class meets twice a week/five hours a week from Aug. 15 to Dec. 15. I think I’ll be getting my money’s worth since, even with the registration fees, class boils down to less than $1 an hour. I now know that I have a little bit of talent in the arena—mostly drawing faces from photographs—and I want to find out if I can learn the basics so I can become a better artist. On top of that, maybe I’ll unearth a secret talent that will allow me to illustrate my own books.

Because, don’t forget, I occasionally write. Granted, I haven’t written much recently—just a couple of contest entries and some re-writes this summer—but my creativity is just waiting to burst through at any moment. To keep my skill honed, I review children’s books, usually five a month although this month it jumps to ten. I’m not sure why other than the fact that I was anxious to no longer think about the dystopian or nonfiction I was sent.

Besides, I had to get the reviews out of the way to concentrate on my two workshops this week. I need to learn what’s involved in teaching an online course. Athens State University has hired me to teach twenty-five budding teachers on how to connect to their English-as-a-second-language students.

And it’s a good thing it’s online because I won’t have to worry about missing classes when I take a ten-day vacation in September or another week’s vacation in October. And then there are Thanksgiving and Christmas to consider.

A friend asked me recently if I’d like to return to teaching full-time. I thought about it. Really. Who wouldn’t like a steady paycheck coming in for a job they actually like pretty much? On the other hand, who has time to work?

I’m busy.

Wait a Second! (Second Amendment, that is)

After the mass shooting of twenty young children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, I felt certain that we’d make progress as a nation toward stricter gun laws. Certainly, large numbers of people seemed to agree on two things: 1) the need for background checks and 2) limiting a magazine’s capacity.

Unfortunately, there’s been precious little progress. On the plus side, New York acted quickly to become the first US state to tighten gun controls since the school massacre, specifically banning certain kinds of weapons to prevent high-fatality shootings. As of January 15, other states moving toward tighter gun control laws were Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Washington, D.C. already has strict gun control laws.

On July 1, the Associated Press reported on the status of recently-passed legislation going into effect. Concerning guns, most efforts to pass restrictions in the early part of 2013 faced fierce opposition and failed. At least 18 states, including the states of Texas, Kansas, Arizona, South Dakota, Wyoming, Tennessee, Missouri, and Alabama, my home state, shamefully loosened their gun laws. Kansas approved restrictions favored by the National Rifle Association on the use of state tax dollars to promote or oppose gun control measures or to lobby local, state, or federal officials on the issue. Some of the states passed laws to disregard federal laws (or executive order) and, in fact, aimed toward making it a criminal offense for a federal agent to try and enforce the law in their states. To top that, new laws enabled school employees to carry concealed weapons and ensured that weapons be allowed in more public buildings. Alabama passed a law that now allows loaded guns to be kept in the trunk of the car at their places of employment. How long will it take for an argument to erupt, with the disgruntled employee running to his car to fetch his gun? A lot shorter than the time it would take him to go home—the time spent wisely cooling off.

What prompted this entry was a recent promotion, dubbed the Second Amendment promotion, by The Huntsville Stars, a struggling, minor league baseball team. Anyone showing their NRA membership could get in free. What really bugged me, though, was the give-away promotion, the prizes being three guns. True, the guns would have to be picked up at Larry’s Pistol and Pawn, and that in itself was the height of hypocrisy. Those running the promotion knew guns didn’t belong in a stadium; yet, they promoted giving them away. Get your guns here, folks! No background checks required!

Guns. Beer. Stadium. Opposing sports fans. Ludicrous and dangerous. And not out of the realm of possibility.

Fortunately, though, someone killed the promotion. I’d like to think that a greater, sane segment of the public shot holes in the arrangement, but I read (with dismay) the numerous comments in support. What prompted the cancellation, instead, was the governing body up the ladder recognized this particular controversy wasn’t good business.

Isn't it good business to try to ensure that guns don’t fall into the wrong hands through proper background checks? Isn’t it good business to try to limit the number of people killed by passing legislation that limits the number of rounds a gun can shoot? Isn’t it good business to remind people that guns kept in the house for defense often end up with children shooting other children, or the defenders being shot themselves?

Apparently not. It's more important to keep the NRA happy.

One final word: As I understand it, the Second Amendment reads "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

How can something adopted on December 15, 1791, within a short time of our revolution and occurring at a time of continual turmoil, have any relation at all to bearing arms today?

 

(Information gleaned from USA Today, The Associated Press, and ABC News articles)

Versatile if not persistent

I was chatting with a friend the other day, and in the course of the conversation, it somehow came up that I had taken horseback lessons way back when. She said, "You sure have taken a lot of lessons!" I always supplied my kids with lots of lessons/classes but hadn't really thought how I'd applied it to myself. This need for extracurricular stimulation started back in elementary with swimming classes and went on from there.

Elementary:
1) Beginning swimming. I was stuck in that class for three summers until I became brave enough to jump in the deep end.
2) Intermediate swimming.
3) Advanced swimming classes.
4) Piano lessons for about six months (until my parents got rid of the piano right out from under me when I didn't practice).

When I could afford to pay for things myself:
5) Community ed course in Findlay when I was 18--no idea what the course content was.

When I moved to Columbus, exciting choices faced me:
6) Sewing
7) Singing
8) Cooking gourmet foods
9) Ice skating
10) Dancing to African music. (I mentioned before that I had been pointed out as a bad example. Bad, bad teacher!)
11) Ballet
12) Tap (I performed to Top Hat at a luncheon in the OSU grad school hallway.)
13) Modern
14) Jazz
15) Horseback
16) Bowling

When I moved to St. Louis for a short time:
17) Snorkling

When I moved to Springfield, OH for a short time:
18)  Piano
19) A community class with my boyfriend Steve to show him how willing I was to learn about his chosen field of study: architecture. (The only thing I remember about that class is that we discussed Ionic vs Doric columns, and I'm pretty sure I don't know the difference today.)
20) Skiing

When I moved to Madison:
20) Piano again (Did I practice enough? No, I did not.)
21) Tennis (once at UAH, once through private class. Did I ever become good? This is more of a resounding no than the swimming.)
22) Singing again
23) Zumba
24) Drawing (I seem to be finally having some success here despite the fact that I don't practice enough!)

Self-taught:
25) Crocheting
26) Writing

So, anyway, I've discovered that I may be curious but not necessarily persistent with the result that some classes were more successful long-term than others. It's not likely that I'll drown in a swimming pool but may not fare so well in an ocean. Seeing as I cry at the drop of a stitch, sewing didn't really work out for me. Tennis lessons  never really took, either. With my teacher, I seemed to be able to keep a steady rhythm going; but playing with Steve was another matter altogether and other forms of exercise that lacked zig-zagging like mad across a hot tennis court made more sense. When I sing better as Marge Simpson than in my real voice, you'll understand why I don't sing in public. On the other hand, I still use my ham and cheese recipe from the gourmet cooking class, I zumba like a crazy Latina, write like I love it, and draw--if not award-worthy--respectably.

Of course, I've probably left something out, but I'm sure it's made me a better person.

Can anyone beat me with their own list of lessons?

I love to see you smile

Hi, Marge speaking. I wanna tell you about my visit to the church Saturday night.

Those Unitarians sure do know their food.  They served up some scrumptious chili. Here in Springfield, we do love our meat, but I gotta say that the vegan and vegetarian gave a little extra oomph to my beehive. And coming from one who’s been called a hottie—ahem, not bragging, just a fact—I know hot. In fact, the supremely hot chili had quite a peculiar effect on me.  The spice pinked up my skin to the point that it completely obliterated my nice, normally yellow hue.

So, anyway, the crowd was so thick that I had to track Homer down with my bullhorn; no one would’ve heard my sweet voice without it. When I asked him if he noticed anything different about me, he had to confess, “Doh!” Men. And when I explained that I wasn’t wearing my green sheath because he spilled beer on it, you know what he had the nerve to say? “Waste of a good beer.”

There I was in my lovely black, glittery, one-shouldered, yard-sale dress with my hair newly styled to the greatest heights of blue perfection, and all he could think about was his beer—well, until he heard mention of a possible wardrobe malfunction. Then he said, “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for that.” There may be hope for him yet.

As I looked over the crowd, I spotted Steve, the guy from Sector 17 who works with Homer. I said, “Nice guy, we should invite him over sometime.” Homer was noncommittal. I’m thinking he was jealous.

I also saw Barbara and Gary Hitt there. They’ve sent me so many fan letters through the years that I’ve papered my bathroom wall with them. (Thanks for your devotion.)

I have to say that I relished the opportunity of singing a love song to Homer. (Click to see video!) The poor man works so hard at the factory, and Bart does so try his nerves. And, needless to say, Homer’s none too fond of Lisa’s low bluesy tunes on her saxophone, either.

“What would I do if I didn’t have you? Oh, I love to see you smile. Mmmmmm, I love to see you smile. 

 

I mean that sincerely, Homer.”

 

(And to my real-life Homer: ditto!)