Not At Home

Pardon our absence. 

Last week we were busy at Vacation Bible School. 

This week we're busy at Marching Band Camp. 

And when we’re not busy with Marching Band Camp, we’re trying to finish the basement. 

Do you know how hard it is to put together a drop-ceiling? Well, then, you ought to give it a try and see how much you like it!

So don’t count on any updates this week. If we’re not busy, we’re exhausted. And if we’re not exhausted, we’re sleeping.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to take a nap.

Reunion Weekend 2016

It was the first time we'd gone on a long trip in two separate cars, but Mary got her license recently and it was time for the kids to prove their mettle with the metal. If you know what I mean.

Six hours on the road. That's a lot of driving for anyone, even more so for someone who's sole experience has been puttering around the side streets of Grand Rapids.

Driving is a very big deal to me, since it is one of the few things I can do with any amount of confidence. (Most people who've been passengers in my car would agree that I have far too much confidence in my own abilities and far too little understanding of the laws of physics.)  It has always been my hope that my children would enjoy it as much as I do. Even so, was a bit nerve-wracking to go on a six-hour interstate trip and not be totally in control.

Deb and Mary took turns driving Deb's car on the trip down; on the way back, Deb's boyfriend, Mason, took a turn as well. And they all did well.

It was much easier, anxiety-wise, when they drove back on Sunday afternoon than when we were all driving down, caravan style, on Friday evening. For one thing, everyone was familiar with the route, having already gone through the requisite twists and turns and last-minute detours. For another thing, I'd seen that they knew how to handle the traffic and the construction zones and the weather conditions, and my confidence in their abilities had increased a great deal.

I was quite proud of them.

That first night, though, it was physically and mentally (and emotionally) exhausting because I wasn't sure what to expect on the road. I didn't have any trouble falling asleep that night. After we checked into the motel.

:::

The reunion was a bit smaller this year, but as I generally talk to the same people each time, and those same people were there this year (except Aunt Susan and Uncle Bob, who were sorely missed), it was nearly the same. We got there in time to set up, we had a wonderful feast (including Doc's famous bratwurst!), we went on our hike to the Wolf Cave (where I, in honor of my brother Craig, did the entire thing by myself and thought about him the whole time), we went swimming (and the water felt sooooo good!), and, to shake things up a bit, we went horseback riding with Judy and Rebecca.

We hadn't gone horseback riding since a million years ago when we took Rachel on her very first horseback adventure. And things hadn't changed much. The horses were just as slow and ponderous, the price was still too much, and we still had a great time regardless.

Because we had such good company.

Afterward, we went over to Uncle Joe's house and feasted (again) on homemade ice cream and cake and pie and other sundry leftovers, watched Ricky and Kenneth flying drones, yapped a mile a minute to everyone who had the patience to listen, and then finally took our weary (but well-fed) bones to the motel to get some sleep.

Sunday morning we went to Denny's to get some breakfast before heading down to the church where Jerry and Naomi attend. We like hanging out with them on Sunday morning and have been attending their church nearly every time we've been down there, so we're treated like old friends by the people we've met down there. It's very nice.

Afterward, we went back to Joe's for some more leftovers (and excellent conversation) and watched old reunion videos from 1995 and 1997 (they had the one from 1989 but I didn't get to see that one) before heading back north to Grand Rapids.

Actually, the girls (and Mason) headed out a bit earlier, since Mason needed to get back early due to his work schedule. I got a picture of them out in front of the tree with the neighbor's dog just as they were getting ready to go:

It wasn't too much later that Cheryl and Adam decided they were all peopled out (which happens quite often to introverts like us) and it was our turn to head north.

Funny that there wasn't any anxiety about not having the kids in sight while we drove, unlike the trip down. But I suppose that's what happens when they've proven they can get from point A to point B without constant directions from the adults. They can figure it out for themselves, just like we did.

So when we all got home that and had our own little 'reunion', it wasn't too much of a big deal, just felt like normal. Boosted my confidence in my kids' abilities, and gave me a reason to just relax.

::

I would really like to relax completely, but there's just too much going on around here. Cars to fix, basements to finish, VBS coming up next week, and then Marching Band Camp the next.

Cheryl was anxious to get the bifold doors up in Adam's new room, so she got them all painted and we hung 'em up, and they look great.

 

Of course, they didn't have the knobs on them when I took the picture -- they do now! -- but the important thing is that they look fantastic and give us a better idea of how the room will 'feel' when it is actually occupied.

I did my part, too, by installing the supports for the ceiling and then putting up some panels. The picture below shows one row -- I just finished another row tonight -- so it'll be a few days before things get finished. And I've got some things to figure out, like how to mount the light and the smoke detector, and how to do the angle-jump where the ceiling drops down below the HVAC vents.

But we'll get there soon enough.

Glacial Progress

You enter the dungeon from the upper room, descending into the depths down the darkened stairway. The light from above is your only guide. You wonder how far down it goes, and it just keeps getting darker and darker. Then the light disappears and suddenly you realize that you are all alone at the bottom of the stairs. And you hear whispering in the darkness:

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

No. We aren't there yet. And there's a million miles left to go. So many things left to do, and so very little time left to do it.

That sums up my feelings about this basement. It's not The Neverending Story; it's The Neverending Project.

We started down this path and we work on it as much as we can and it keeps going down and down and down and I'm not seeing much in the way of progress; and meanwhile life happens and other things get in the way and suddenly weeks have gone by and everything looks just as unfinished and miles-to-go as it was before, and depression sets in, and I just want to go back upstairs to my bed and take a long nap.

Because while the basement needs 110% of my attention, there are other things around the house that need my attention. Like the cars that all need brake jobs and rust treatment and tune-ups and random maintenance (and if ignored for too long, they will fall apart at the most inopportune times); like dishwashers that don't work as well as they used to, and refrigerators whose components are failing (fans and icemakes, mostly), and furnaces that need new air filters and air conditioning units whose coils need cleaning; and lawn mowers and weed-eaters that need repair in order to keep the yard looking halfway decent; and yards full of grass and trees with drooping limbs and flowerbeds gone crazy with invasive plants and driveways cracking from winter ice and a back deck that is so dried up that the steps crackle every time someone walks on them.

It doesn't help that my responsibilities at work have been steadily growing ever since the managers discovered that I know my way around a spreadsheet, so instead of hiding down in the lab and playing with the hardware, which had been my earnest hope, I'm being dragged into management meetings to discuss budgets and schedules and metrics, all the things that drove me crazy in previous iterations of my career.

I really don't want a career. I don't want to sit at a desk all day long and keep track of projects and worry that engineers are spending too much money and taking too much time to create technological marvels; I want to sit at a lab station all day flipping switches and wiring cables and connecting widgets to thingamajigs and watching little LEDs flashing in iridescent colors while the gentle strains of Nat King Cole waft through the headphones covering my ears.

Or lie under a car in my garage with a socket wrench in one hand and a flashlight in the other, pulling bad parts off and putting new parts on.

Those are my happy places, the places where I can feel the anxieties and cares of the world falling off my shoulders, where I can breathe free and easy without any tension tightening the muscles around my chest and neck. Where I can just be.

Oh, there is one more happy place.

In my car.

Driving.

::

Speaking of driving, our latest driver finally got her official license in the mail.

Mary's Official License!

Yeah. She looks thrilled, doesn't she? She'd be more thrilled if she actually had a car of her own to drive. But Ruby (the red Subaru) isn't feeling quite up to snuff lately, and has been sequestered in the garage for a while to undergo front drive-axle surgery. And her annual brake-check. And she's been complaining of a coolant leak as well, which has been tracked to the Idle Air Control Valve (IACV).

Oh, well, maybe when the basement gets done, I'll finally have time to take care of all those little issues, and Mary will have her own car to drive!

::

Meanwhile, one of the weirdest things we've done during this little basement project is moving the door which used to be at the top of the basement stairs, down to the closet under the stairs. Because we wanted to put the glass door at the top of the stairs.

That's all well and good, but this particular old door is very special ... because it is the door where we marked the kids' heights every year.

You can't see it from this picture, but this door contains marks on it for nearly all of the twelve years we've living here in Grand Rapids, marks to indicate each child's height as they got taller and taller (and we got shorter and shorter).

Now this door resides downstairs in the basement, reduced from its former glory to a mere closet status.

But it is the Door to the Closet Under the Stairs. Who knows what mysteries lie beyond that door?

Only the grandchildren will ever know...