The Home Version

Today I am writing the home version of Before the hot water runs out. One of my favorite posts ever about how my brain never shuts down and the crazy places it can go in the time it takes me to take a shower.
Tomorrow was to be the day that my brother closed on mom's house but as things go it happened a few days early. And I didn't know until it was over that it was done. I was sad. Felt like that last trip down to the house by myself to clean the pool was ripped away. I know no one cries over not getting to clean the pool. I have been doing it for about 20 years. But I have added checking the mail and taking out the trash or pulling back the trash cans in the last 5 months since the house has been empty and for the most part the others had stopped going. Last week I had picked up the chlorine jugs to return to the pool supply store and didn't do it basically because it was too sad of a thing to do. So this week I thought it was crazy to be sad over such a thing and returned the jugs and cried. Yes, I cried while returning the chlorine jugs to the pool supply store. Through the years of me taking mom and grandma out on their Friday outings to when it was just me and mom and for this last year it has been me by myself. The guy was very nice as he has always been. He said, "it has been a pleasure to serve you and your family all these years and if you ever have a pool..."

So as I showered today I was thinking: Well, I don't think we could have a pool because of the way our back yard is. It would cost a fortune, there is no access except the gate we walk through and there is a huge oak tree that would hang over the pool if it survived the pool being built. But as long as we have lived in this house I have wished to buy the house next door and tear it down and build an addition to our house it would like our house have big windows and bright rooms and clay tile floors and yes out back have a pool. The house has even been foreclosed on in the time we have lived here but it was not a time that we could have bought it.

While I was thinking all these thoughts and a quote from the end of a movie came to mind. I knew it was one of my favorite movies. My first guess was wrong but after I thought again I knew it was from Hope Floats: Beginnings are usually scary, endings are usually sad, but it is what's in the middle that counts. So when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will."

And today I find myself again at a new beginning and at the same time at an end of a very long run so yes, I am sad. My youngest sister went down to the house for the one last visit and took some pictures which we have all the way. Pictures of how it was and how it is. I wanted one last family picture but it wasn't meant to be. Maybe not as sad as I thought I would be. Which may be a good thing. My heart has accepted what I knew had to come. I always think of a quote from American Pickers, " I just want to buy the piece, not your memories." Because the value you put on something you find to be sentimental is way more than the value of the object. Somethings are never going to be for sale and others will with time be able to be parted with. I have learned through this process that sometimes the person buying the object wants the memories as well but just to know them not to take them and appreciates the love you have for the person that owned the object before them.

The last thing I wanted to do was leave a note for the people buying the house. Again my sister said, she did leave a note stuck to the refrigerator. Just something short saying a really great family lived here and hope you enjoy the house as much as they did.

So here is my letter to the family that now owns the house that I called home for most of my life and then I referred to it as mom's house. I will miss that house but I will always have the memories.

Dear Family,

I hope you have a big family enough to fill all the bedrooms of this house with love and laughter. They don't have to be young children but if they are make sure they get outside and play. There are so many things to see and learn on this beach. They may have to look a little harder with all the condo's and hotels and beach umbrellas but they are still there. The sand and the shells are full of live creatures that are begging to be found. The water at the beach is best in the early morning or in the evening before the sun sets. Usually pretty calm at those times and not as many people out. When the water is calm and the tide is low you can get out to the sand bar and find sand dollars and see other things along the bottom. Maybe even some fish. Be sure to shuffle your feet there are sting rays out there and no one wants a day at the beach spoiled by that. Whatever you do find if it is still alive let it live unless you plan on eating it. The shells are pretty but there are plenty that aren't housing live creatures that you can take home.
We always had a small sail boat another must have on the beach. Once you have explored everything within walking distance you can go further north past the end of the houses and there is lots more to find. A lot less people. The small islands in the bay are called spoils created by the water moving the sand around. Be careful of the weather in the summer a storm can come up out of no where and it will probably pass just as fast but you need to be prepared.
As for at home. The pool has been a great addition even though we never had that luxury as a kid we had to cut the grass where all that concrete lays now. We also had a garden back there. Back under the tree. Mom loved that Spanish Laurel Tree. It drops berries that smell as they ferment but the birds love them so they will take care of most. Don't let them lie at the bottom of the pool. It will stain it. If you get back under that tree and clean out all the over growth don't dig to deep. That was our pet cemetery it was used for the rabbits and birds we had as kids and for some of the cats I had as an adult. They were all great animals and were placed there with love and some even with pictures.
Inside, mom always had a chair in the kitchen so whomever was over could sit with her while she cooked or as she got older so she could sit with whomever was cooking for her. It was always nice hanging out in there. The dining room leads right into the living room to the fire place so you can easily seat 25 or so people for a big family meal if you have enough folding tables and chairs. Mom always kept the folding tables and chairs in the front closet so they were easy to get to.  You never knew when there would be extra people for dinner.
Speaking of extra people. For years the house had an open door policy. Pretty much the door was always open and after we added the pool and there was no door bell on the back door you would just walk in and holler, "hey mom are you in here". If not in the house she would have been outside working in the yard pulling weeds. Be careful you may consider some of the things weeds that she considered to be plants. A weed is just a plant growing where you don't want it. But the yellow flowers that open during the day and grow wild in the yard are called Cuban Buttercups. They grow great where they want but we never had much luck with moving them. The succulent plant under the oak tree in the front yard is referred to as Al's plant. He brought home a little pot of it in maybe 4th grade and it took over out there over the years. mom liked that it was less grass to cut but then more weeds to pull. Under that front window is a row of rain lillys. Those were always mom's favorite. We even have some planted for her at the cemetery. There is also the wild periwinkles again they grow great where they want but don't if moved and the hibiscus near the front door. Mr and Mrs Lindsey planted that for mom oh so many years ago. They were the sweetest people in the world and when you see those beautiful yellow flowers remember the ones that planted it and the lady that loved it all these years.

I know the house needs a coat of paint and a little work but one thing you will never take away is all the love that was in that house. Love for a family and love for the house itself and like everything sometimes you have to let one thing go to take care of something else. So add the coat of paint and some fancy appliances and fill them with food because that house will fill itself with people to eat the food and enjoy the house and the yard and the pool and fill itself with love and laughter again.

Love, Jeanne

Look around the Kitchen

I have been reading a book at night for the last month or so, called "The Big House" by George Howe Colt. About the summer house that had been in his family for generations and the last time back before they sell the house.

Well, ironically this summer I saw it on a table at Barnes & Noble and the picture on the cover made me cry. Not that it looked anything like the house I grew up in, but what memories that 100 year old house must hold. Tonight I read from a page saying how there are things setting places that basically because they were not moved they were left and became part of the house. A simple shell sat on the mantle was an example or even a book used in place of a caster missing from a piece of furniture. Once they are there they become familiar and they stay. Just that sort of thing was the old dining room table that we used as kids until the family out grew it and mom bought a new one on clearance at JCPenney. The old table didn't get sold or thrown out. It was moved to a place where it could be used when we had extra people over or a breakfast table on the enclosed back porch. But over the years mom would bring home little animal statues and and baskets and rocks got carried in or shells and they ended up on the table. It has been years since the table served food. The table has a whole new purpose. It was the place to drop your stuff when you came in the back door or the place the ash tray sat that mom used outside. The ashtray is an old black plastic ash tray that has a notch broke on it and she had asked me years ago to replace. I bought her two new ash trays. Don't know where they are but I guarantee they have never been used and the broken black ash tray continues to be used daily by my brother. See I understand the kind of nostalgia that causes that sort of thing to happen. Why use the new one the old one is working just fine. Same goes for just about everything I look at in her house.

I have written about sorting through things and laughing at things that we have found. I wish we could have done this while mom was alive. I wish she could have enjoyed the memories. But I know just like with me the memories are hard to part with. I know there are things that are gone that mom wouldn't have gotten rid of just because they had been there so long. And this is where I try to sit those things out and see them when I go in and out and to help me either remember the memory that goes with that thing or carry out the door and use it in my own house. Like I have said before I brought home a couple measuring cups. I got rid of my plastic ones and now I have to look to find the glass ones but I have used them and will continue to use them. I am going to do the same with some of the serving spoons mom had or a spatula. I know we have spoke of mom's love for measuring cups but I am pretty sure I never mentioned her love for early 20th century kitchen utensils.

Do you have a butter cutter? I know mom has at least two and one will be coming to my house. Do you have serving spoons with wooden handles or Bakelite handles? I bet I could find at least 3 meat grinders fully intact in the kitchen and at least that many rolling pins if they haven't already found their way to someones house. I could go on and on. Oh I know we just found them, nut crackers and picks. Mom had enough that everyone could have their own for when we had crab for dinner.
The drawer next to the stove is double the size of a normal kitchen drawer and it is so heavy you have to put your hip into it to get it to close and you have to shuffle things around to get them to settle back into place. Once the drawers were all full she took to buying plastic storage drawers which she had at least four on the counter holding the utensils that wouldn't fit in the drawer by the stove.

I would like to say those were the only unusual things in the kitchen but I did not mention the flowered wall paper on the ceiling that was there when we bought the house, Never came down because well it was there and we are all used to it after 40 years.

Will the next person say, "oh my god?"
Yes, and they can take the time to remove it. While they are in the kitchen they will probably want to remove the blue paint that is on the wall behind the refrigerator. When I was about 25 mom went away for Thanksgiving weekend and and the 5 of us decided we would surprise her remove the blue paint from the knotty pine cabinets and walls. Well this was more than a long weekend project but we did remove 80 percent of the blue paint but the remnants of that weekend are still on the wall. Mom was mad that we started, mad that it didn't get finished. Just plain mad. But it was one of those things she had talked about doing since we were kids.

Okay one last thing in the kitchen. The pictures on the refrigerator. I guess it kinda started with the grand kids, A picture of Timmy here a picture of Alex there. Oh every one's favorite Alex picture going down a slide at McKay Park on Mandalay, Smile as wide as the slide. Yellow side, blue shorts and shirt. See it is all here. Not the picture but the memory of it on the fridge. The funny thing is Alex always know as the Angel. Always reminded to keep her halo on straight. Mom would tell her things like that is okay to do with grandma but you really shouldn't talk like that to other people. Mom would spoil all of them bad but Alex she got a lot of mom's attention. So Alex would count how many pictures on the fridge were her versus her brother and when Emily, Ashley and Paul came along well it was an all out war. The kids would see whose picture got a prominent location on a refrigerator that was covered in photos. They would count how many on the front and how many on the side. I would be lucky to be in one family picture and one picture with me and Brian from New York.

Well, I am glad I could show you around the kitchen. And have preserved the memories for those that will come after me.