This week in the garden… Memorial Day 2012

I anticipate that this will be my last garden update from Illinois. Here’s what’s blooming around the house this week…

Another altar in the world…

Adventures in moving

As I hinted in the last post, my family has essentially moved to Pennsylvania. Originally, the timing of the move was necessitated by the scheduled closing date for our house, combined with the requirements of my job at Argonne. When the house closing fell through, it made the early move date unnecessary, so we were frustrated. Nevertheless, we have spent the last four days moving, and only the essentials remain in our house in Illinois (so that I can stay there through the end of the month).

The last four days have been a blessing in some ways. A whole bunch of friends and family helped with the packing on Saturday:

• My dad spent the entire week with us, doing odd jobs and entertaining his grand-daughters.
• Ordinary Spouse’s mom, brother, and sister-in-law prepared food for all our workers. They also helped us pack the moving van and clean the house.
• Her brother (packer extraordinaire) coordinated the loading of the moving van. Nothing shifted on the trip to Pennsylvania.
• Tons of church and neighborhood friends helped with packing (or played with the girls while the packing was happening).

The packing was complete by early afternoon. Once the house was clean, we left for OS’s parents’ place in Goshen, Indiana (in order to break the trip into more manageable bits).

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Driving a 26-foot moving van was a new experience for me. Shortly after we got on the road on Saturday, I was dismayed to see the oil pressure gauge fall to zero. (“Oh, please let us not have to unpack this van and repack a new one!”) I dutifully called the UHaul help number and was relieved (and amused) when they said, “If you really had zero oil pressure, you’d know it. Keep going.”

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Sunday was the big day of driving. I was happy to have Oldest Daughter as my co-pilot for the day, and I think that she was excited to be sitting up high in the truck. We left Goshen early, about an hour before Ordinary Spouse and my father, and managed to stay ahead of them the whole day. At one of the rest areas in Ohio, I realized that we had been running the air conditioning on the truck, rather than the vent. That did wonders for our already poor gas mileage. I think we averaged about 8 mpg on the first tank of gas, but managed closer to 10 mpg on the second tank.

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Once at Laurelville, we unloaded a little stuff from the back of the van, but left most of it for Monday. We were glad to have a room in Laurelville’s Solarhouse, so that we didn’t need to dig out bedding for the night.

On Monday, all went well. A bunch of my future co-workers joined forces to get the van emptied out. But our piano presented a difficulty. Going in one door would require carrying the piano up a rocky path for a distance – not realistic. Going in the other door meant going up a flight of steps that was only wide enough for one person. Also not realistic. So what to do?

Gene, the director of facilities and grounds, decided to take the railing off of our deck and to get out the big toys…

A wrench in the plans

Our transition to Pennsylvania seemed to be going so smoothly. Packing was well underway. Job and church obligations were being wrapped up in Illinois. I was counting the days until the move, the house closing, and the last day of work.

And then about two weeks ago, the house sale fell apart.

The house appraised for far less than the agreed-on price. The buyer’s financing would no longer work, but there seemed to be possibilities for saving the deal. But those didn’t work out. But there were other options, and the deal was back on. And then in one stunning and brilliant display of confusion, the buyers’ agent said that the buyers wanted the house and were pursuing alternative financing at nearly the same time that their attorney said that the deal was “null and void”.

Ever since, I’ve think I’ve been going through the stages of grief. The anger bothered me the most…

• Anger at the appraiser for doing a bad job (which we shall not be discussed here);
• Anger at FHA appraisals for not having an easy way to challenge them;
• Anger at the people who could challenge them for being unwilling to do so;
• Anger at the buyers’ agent and attorney for confusing messages and apparent lack of concern;
• Anger at our agent and attorney for their inability to help save the deal;
• Anger that my family had planned our move date to accommodate the deal and that we’d now be needlessly apart for two and a half weeks;
• Anger at myself for being so angry.

That last one was the most significant. Life goes on. My family is healthy. We have food and shelter. We have love. We don’t lack anything.

And yet, it took me days to feel anything except the anger. (And fear. I guess there was fear, as well.)

I really didn’t like that side of me. It felt ugly. And I hated to admit my weakness. During that struggle, I was reminded of the classic spiritual discipline of asking oneself, “Where have I seen God today?” I confessed to one of my friends, “Sometimes we only observe God in God’s absence.”

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In the midst of all of that, we traveled to Laurelville for the spring gathering of its association members. It was a trip that we would have made, even if we weren’t moving there. Jane Hoober Peifer was the featured speaker for the weekend. I was too distracted to remember much of what she said, but at some point she spoke about anxiety and gratitude. Sometimes when fear is too great, we have to take small steps. We remind ourselves that God has given us what we need for this minute… or maybe this hour or day. And when we have learned that, we can begin to think about the week or month. Eventually, we can rest fully in God’s care. I’m trying to do that now. So let me conclude by with some gratefulness…

• At the darkest point in all of this, one friend (the one to whom I confessed God’s apparent absence) didn’t try to rationalize things or to cheer me up. She simply heard me and gave me a hug.
• This past weekend, my family packed our things (with lots of help from friends) and moved everything to Laurelville. Being there helped me put things into perspective.
• In the last couple of days, our house has gone back on the market. Already we have a showing for today and another for tomorrow.
• One of the children from church made me a bracelet as a going-away present. She gave it to me last Saturday as we loaded the moving van. Last night, I returned to Illinois from Laurelville in order to finish my work at Argonne. In a moment of depression as I moved about the house that used to be my home, I encountered the bracelet. Like a hug without words, it reminds me of the love of my community.

Small glimmers of hope that help me to move forward.

I’m surrounded by love.

Transition doings and happenings

Our lives are full of transition things right now, and some of it is getting fairly stressful. But here are some of the more enjoyable happenings…

A few years ago when we moved a couch into our basement, it took our entire small group to get it through the doorway (with the door frame removed). This time around, Ordinary Spouse and I didn’t have too much patience and we simply forced it out. On the way, however, Lexi tried to convince us to leave it where it was…

She scooted right up to the top and wouldn’t budge…

Maybe we’ll have to create a new climbing toy in Pennsylvania.

In other news, we’ve had an outbreak of beauty at our bird feeder – a scarlet tanager and an indigo bunting. I’ve been at work both times, but Ordinary Spouse and the girls have been spotted them. I’m especially glad that Middle Daughter (our bird expert) was there to see them.

The pictures are a bit blurry, but still quite stunning. It’s funny that we’ve never had either of these birds before this year, and now they both arrive within two weeks of our move.

And this past weekend, we were out to Laurelville for their Spring Gathering. This is a trip that we had planned a long time ago – we’ve regularly attended these weekends in the spring and fall for many years now. However, since we were there, we had the chance to see our new home and to finalize some of the details of my employment. Here’s our home…

And here’s the view from the porch outside our bedroom…

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

- from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

Back to the blog!

Nearly one month ago, I blogged about the job offer that I had just accepted. And after that dramatic announcement, the blog went nearly silent. A post about the weather. And an apology. And then nothing for over two weeks. But today when I left work, I took a long, deep breath and felt like the current chapter in this story had nearly come to an end.

Three months ago, I scheduled my busy time at work for this past week. The “busy time” includes the days when I often work late, and occasionally even work around the clock. I failed to realize that it was also the week between Palm Sunday and Easter – precisely my busy time for church, as well. And of course, I hadn’t foreseen that I would be in the middle of a career change and trying to sell a house and prepare for a move from Illinois to Pennsylvania. So in the last fifteen days, I have…

• Been at work fourteen days, including one 48-hour on-call period;
• Been worship leader for three different services;
• Been song leader at two other services;
• Worked to get our house on the market last Wednesday.

Because I was at work, I didn’t have to herd the girls in and out of the house for nine different house showings. Ordinary Spouse did that (and everything else needed to keep our home going and presentable). She’s amazing.

But when I left work today, the craziness of the last two weeks was in the past. My work responsibilities are nearly complete. The Good Friday and Easter services were very meaningful, I think. And the most astounding thing to me: after three days on the market, we have had a very generous offer for our home that we’ll accept tomorrow. In this housing environment, I never expected anything like that.

And so tonight, I’m filled with a deep sense of gratitude and thankfulness. Amen.

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I believe… when I close my eyes to sleep at night, it’s good to say, ‘Amen.’

- Carrie Newcomer

Loving the winter weather

Check out the “winter” weather that we’re having in the Chicago ‘burbs…

And the extended forecast for the following five days…

You may say, “Ten day forecasts are worthless.” I reply, “I don’t really care, since we’ve already had a few days of bizarre (“unseasonably warm”) weather, and it’s technically still winter until next Tuesday.”

And I’m liking the fact that our flower beds should look nice when we’re trying to sell the house. I just hope that we don’t have a late frost.

This week in the garden… Leap Day edition!

Apparently, this is becoming a tradition… 2010, 2011, and now 2012. I provide an update on our flower bed on the last day of February.

Actually, it turns out that we’ve had such a mild winter in the Chicago ‘burbs that I could have provided the update earlier – a week ago or maybe even two. I almost walked out of the house this morning without taking the requisite pictures, but at the last moment, I grabbed my camera. Without further ado…

It’s all the usual suspects, you know?

And look at the weather conditions this morning when I left for work…

But I’m reminded that we are currently in that muddle of time between winter and spring. Since mid-day, a cold front has rolled through, the temperature has fallen from a high of 60 °F down to 35 °F, and we have winds gusting to 45 mph.

Ah… such is the midwest!

Countdown to Cambodia… 4 days

It may be hot and sunny in Phnom Penh, but winter is approaching in Illinois. The leaves are falling off the trees, and if I want the city to pick them up for me, I need to have them out on the curb Monday morning. There won’t be any yard waste pickup when we get home from Cambodia in December.

So I spent the day raking and mowing and bagging…

And our friendly junco came to watch…

Tonight I need to go take care of some shopping, and then it will be time to get packing. It won’t be long now!

This week in the garden… 11/11/11

Yesterday, we had the first snow flurries of the year. Last night, we had a hard frost. So imagine my surprise this morning when I stepped outside and saw this:

We’ve got clematis blooming in mid-November!

Happy 11/11/11 everyone!

This week in the garden… 10 September 2011

It’s been a while since I’ve tried to capture the garden in pictures. This morning we has a really heavy fog, and this was the sight that inspired me to take my camera outside…

And while I was there, I decided to record some additional views…

Top to bottom, left to right:

Four varieties of verbena

Yellow and scarlet mums, hibiscus (blooming all summer!), purple lovegrass

False dragon’s head, climbing roses, black-eyed Susan

Lots of sunflowers, anemone

Hmm… (a little help?), our resident chipmunk under the rain barrel

If the gardeners out there would care to identify that plant in the last row, I’d appreciate it.

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And here’s a little video of the spider. (Well – actually it’s one of its relatives.) Is it an orb-weaver, Dad?