captains log

day 11 in the Trailer That Could. major catastrophes averted, most internal cosmetic details shaping up, slowly. plumbing has been fixed, tho the bank account has been properly stormed. the mystery *odor* is now a thing of the past. toilets are flushing, clothes laundered, and the family reports a joyful adieu to paper plates.

door finally in bathroom. now private moments can indeed return to our regularly scheduled private moments.

as soon as its fabricated, one day soon, an actual window in place, in master bedroom.

nasty garbage dug out from under back deck: check. *trailer trash* has literally and finally all been taken to the dump. 'only took 7 borrowed truck loads to accomplish. rip in butt of pants: even bigger.

pounds lost: many. (woot)

phone service and internet officially up and running. our captain reports she may yet survive.

captain: oh-so-tired.

rain, rain...go away

i logged on this morning and abbie had sent me a *lemonade award*, which tickled me to death, i hafta tell ya. it made me genuinely smile. big hugs go out her way, and i'll be by to pick up my award soon, i promise!

this morning, its pouring the rain here. typical for tennessee in the winter, tho unlike my beloved seattle, the rain here makes it rather difficult to Get Things Done. you've got inconveniences to deal with, such as mud. but after the last few days i've had? i think i'm physically incapable of letting these little things bother me anymore.

i'd planned to take several car-loads across town, during the course of the day, today. which will now prove significantly more dirty and time-consuming, seeing as how i can't back the car up in the yard or i'll be mud-wrestling eleventeen thousand pounds of fiberglass, rubber and steel.

:sigh:

these are the days when i really really wish the camcorder wouldn't have fritzed out. like last night when we virgin carpet-layers got busy with a box-cutter and some strange angles. at one point, jason was laying up under the padding as i tried to blindly guide him in the right direction. or yesterday afternoon, when i spent 23 frustrated, sweat-soaked minutes trying to stuff 180 sq ft of carpet padding in my neon, when the floor person plainly told me i could. let me tell you what. i did finally conquer that sucker. but not before i'd given the guy sitting in his car, shoulders heaving from laughter the whole time, a good show. and certainly not before i'd given one final heave and busted the hind end out my once-upon-a-time favorite jogging britches, now covered in paint and flooring adhesive with the butt ripped out.

it is my most sincere hope that they had parking lot cameras and that i was able to entertain the whole of lowes flooring department, for i evidently have *sucka* stamped on my forehead.

chalk one up for my husband tho, who failed to see the injustice of the situation, upon my arrival *home*, instead sauntering over with a "roooowwwr. easy access? kinky".

or then there's the handy-man that took a week to come out, mind you, only for me to overhear him with his buddy, "gotta love these $100 mansions", before i found out our water line is busted, and neither one of us was laughing.

i've been properly humbled, trompled, and quite literally, ripped wide open, over the past week. gimme your best shot...."trailer trash"? bring it.

because its all kind of funny, now. and because despite all of that, i've not yet been defeated. which i chalk up to Gods grace and a wicked bad sense of humor. also, its hard to remember the last time i bathed, properly. which i'm convinced has something to do with my chutzpah. because when you're dirt-caked, its kinda hard to look you straight in the eye & take you too seriously. especially when you can see polka-dotted underwear when i turn around.

and because its been so frustrating and difficult and yet we've had so many unexpected blessings in the proccess.

take the carpet we finally wrangled last night. this coworker of jasons' had been let go in the last lay-off spree. and out of the blue one night last week, called jason and asked if we could use some carpet. turns out he does remodeling on the side and was helping a neighbor to put down hardwood floors. he wasn't sure of the dimensions but we were welcome to it if we wanted it. he didn't even know we were moving. the carpet was in pristine condition. absolutely beautiful. even smelled wonderful. and it was exactly enough to cover both bedrooms.

'seems like every time we've turned around, there's been something else...another unexpected expense. and yet, even then, we've had little blessings. i was slobbering over the border i'd love to have in my kitchen and wondering how i'd afford curtains too...seemed like a want, rather than a need. i'd have to pick one or the other. i'd found the perfect valances that would match my primitive *theme*. a pale green gingham that were so beautiful. but each one cost $15, so i'd moved on, and googled how to make valances out of bedskirts. it was a silly pipe-dream i've not shared with anyone, not even jason. he's been so busy with the important stuff around there, that aside from getting my blessing on the trim color, we've not sat down to discuss trivial things like decorating. yesterday afternoon, i'd just got back with another car-load and stopped in at my inlaws to grab a drink of water when linda jumped up and told me to hold on a minute...she had something for me. out she came with a bag, thrusting it into my arms, saying if i didn't like them, it wouldn't hurt her feelings...i could exchange them for something else. but as i peered inside, my heart melted in a puddle right at my feet and i could feel the tears coming on. for inside, were 3 valances in pale green gingham.

you know, its so true what they say..."when it rains it pours". quite literally, today. but its so true, also, that these million tiny frustrating and overall insignificant moments are also the most precious and meaningful. not the destination, but the journey there.

eye of the heifer

so while sitting down to enjoy my egg sammich with hot plans to hit the blog circuit this morning, i managed to twist something rather peculiar in my back. nooo. couldn't happen whilst i've been tearing up floors or packing and heaving 50 lb boxes. but sitting down to feed. its fitting, no.

in the off/on 10 years i've lived in the grand state of tennessee, we've never had snow like we've had yesterday and today. bella has never once experienced the joy of a *snow-day* until today. and in those on/off 10 years of praying fervently for snow, i've never been more annoyed than i am today.

i suppose the spasm in my back isn't helping. as is the bank, holding my precious *big money*, crippling my well-intended plans to Get Stuff Done! nope. instead of thoughts of snowmen and hot chocolate dancing in my head, i feel stuck. imprisoned, even. with 11 days left to pack and get the heck out of dodge, one might imagine i'd be thankful for the interim. because once a little hint of warm weather sneaks in, it'll all be about the trailer again, and i'll be doing the mad dash to keep up with both.

*sigh*

i sat down yesterday at the computer and bawled thru this awful, horrid post that i've since decided not to share. noone wants to hear my blubbering. lets just say that tho a bunch of packing eventually got done, yesterday was not very pleasant. i suffered from a headache just shy of a migraine for most of the day, while bella played under-foot and i cried with every new freshly filled box i taped up, wondering pitifully why i'm so far away. why it seems so often that i have to take a step back. why so many have so much. and why we fight so hard for what we do have, only to have so little. and then to have that taken away.

i share that, not in a shameless plug for sympathy, but because i need to show i'm a little human sometimes. that some days, i don't do so well at the 'keepin on'.

in a couple days, you'll never know we had snow. maybe i can finally get the water turned on at the other place and hopefully/prayerfully, the handy-man coming over can fix what ails the 20 something year old furnace. the bank will finally & begrudgingly give me access to my moulah and i can do things like pay the handy-man, and shop around for things like silicone putty and carpet remnants and a stove, oh my!

but today, just today, i'll take a breath and remind myself to keep on keepin' on. and america will too, on this all important day in history. i'll remind myself that the littlest things matter the most. that i'm blessed beyond measure and that i'm grateful for those blessings. that i'm not, nor do i need to be any bigger or better than anyone else. that maybe, if i can show myself faithful in a trailer, some day i'll get my big campground with my farmhouse on the hill.

this post today, from the archives of jen lemen really rejuvenated me:

even if you are not perfect
even if you don’t know the answer
even if you are horribly confused
even if you can’t make anyone feel better
even if you don’t know how to make yourself well
even if you made a mistake
even if you don’t know how to be
even if you are ashamed
even if you are hopeless
even if you don’t quite fit in
even if you are scared
even if you are lonely
even if you shouldn’t be having such a hard time right now
even if you don’t think so
even if you haven’t found your place yet
even if you aren’t proud of yourself
even if no one has really seen you before
even if you don’t know what to do
even if you try too hard
even if you’re disappointed
even if you don’t really like yourself right now
even if you are beyond good advice
even if you don’t know how to cry
even if you think this post must be meant for someone other than you.

I hope today you will look up into the sky and then all the way down to your feet. That is the earth you are standing on. She is holding you. She is sending you all the love she has in her heart. She is there for you. She will not let you go.

and today, thats the way i choose to feel about God. He's holding me. sending me all His love. not letting me go.

baby steps, america. one foot in front of the other.

batting a thousand

i feel like i need to dust off the ol' blog around here. this, as well as my other journal has been sorely neglected and i'm going thru blog withdrawls from all of you as well. :sniff: there are so many snippets i've caught here and there as i've jumped online when i can...entries i want to comment on but time hasn't warranted. sophie gave me the most wonderful christmas present over on her page (you're so awesome!) and i feel very much like that old lady with the cats that doesn't get her christmas letters sent off til MARCH.

i promise to get with it one of these days. TRUST me when i tell you we've got things to talk about. but somehow, in effort to avoid the crippling depression i went thru last year at this time, i've managed to kick into overdrive on some real-time issues. all of which, might i add, have been completely unexpected and particularly uncomfortable.

last night, for instance, i got to be video-taped in a sworn statement as the witness to a crime. and then i got to take part in my very first line-up. let me clarify ~ i wasn't in the line-up. i got to pick people out of a line-up. yah. it was all very hard-core with just that hint of cagney & lacey type feel. never a dull moment here, kids.

this morning, i'm struggling abit with a little something i like to call motivation. for the past week, when i wasn't at work, i was still working. i've talked briefly in the past about our struggle with money. mainly the lack of it. when my schedule was changed, my hours were cut. then when jason's company hit the economical crunch, his hours were cut as well. thankfully, his position has held tight thru a lay-off and then firing spree, as recent as yesterday. but all combined, it works out to 8 days of lost pay per month, between us. which hurts, my friends.

we'd barely settled in from the holidays this new year when we got a really big wake-up call, which called for a change. when your rent and utilities demands 3/4 of your monthly income, its time to talk turkey. we don't live beyond our means. but when you begin to live to work rather than work to live, it puts your *means* in perspective. pretty darned fast.

so the path this is taking us on, has become an adventure of sorts. wildly spontaneous, often unpleasant and groping about completely blind. i feel very much like a naked vole on space mountain, to be honest. how's that for a visual.

yet, surprisingly, as scary as it could be, as dirty and exhausting as it has been, in just the last week, its also been a very joyful experience.

we have until the first of february to be out of our current rental. my tree street dream with the enormous space and the pristine location, aside from crack-head neighbors. we're moving in to a trailer. right next door to jasons parents. for free, minus lot rent. but free, for a myriad of reasons, my friends. a myriad of reasons.

there's a great story behind all this. there really is. despite the truck-loads of trash and the pulling up carpets and flooring. despite the no heat, despite the sore, aching muscles. the even greater story is that somehow, despite how awful this could seem, God's been so awesome and gracious. and as each obstacle has been faced, head-on, Gods' provided a solution. just right for us. i can't begin to tell you how discouraged and yet optimistic i've felt, over the past week. its been such an undertaking. and i've been so blessed by the multitude of little miracles that have popped up when i've least expected it and certainly didn't have the strength on my own, to deal with it.

there's so much to do. and very little time, money and know-how, to get it accomplished. but we will. God never opens a door without walking you through it.

someday soon, i'll be able to drop by more often. but for now, good thoughts and prayers, yah?

every crooked stitch

here's a little excerpt from bella's christmas chorus. she's the red sparkly one up on the left.

good to be back, kiddos. life, as i know it, anyway, is slowly returning back to some semblance of normalcy. my sparkly one goes back to school tomorrow, after nearly a month off. and i think i'm gonna miss the little buggar. she actually did a first this morning, and slept in, just a little. i woke up to her whispering in my ear, in all seriousness,

"mama. maaaama. mama. guess what. bandit's getting his taters took off today, poor guy."

bandit is the rescued pound kitty that my mother in law got as a present for bella and promptly kept at her house when we found out. and what i felt was most amusing about that little exchange this morning, is that i feel like i kinda understand what the poor guys' going thru. sometimes, i feel like i'm on the dawn of having my "taters took off" and all i really have time for is a quick breath before walking thru those doors.

y'know, as the new year approached this last week, i found myself in a kind of surreal state of mind. for the first time in years, not making a list. not planning a party. instead, my thoughts were scattered; my heart full. full of options and possibilities, decisions and choices. a little bit of uncertainty. maybe some dread. full of a contented anxiousness, if you will.

'still reeling from the overwhelming warmth of a thousand tiny memories that color the pages of my past few weeks....still basking in the luxury of sleeping in, and sleeping off the jet-lag as *life* as i know it, was not yet fully a reality til i went back to work this weekend. and then, ohhh, how it returned with a vengeance.

on the "flight of miraculous wonderfulness", otherwise known as the denver-to-knoxville connection that went off without a hitch, i snagged an old copy of Good Housekeeping and read this article that really hit home. i encourage you to take the time and read it, when you catch a minute.

just the night before, on jasons 30th birthday, sacked out in a super 8 by the airport, i'd laid awake watching one of my favorite musicals of all time: The Sound of Music. i'd tuned in just at the part where all the von trapp children trek over to the abby in attempt to convince maria to come back. not allowed in and terribly dissapointed, they return home empty handed. their visit did not go unnoticed, however, as the reverend mother decides its time to have a heart-to-heart with the passionate and willful maria, who admits she's torn between her devotion to God and yet also to this man, the childrens father, whom she's fallen in love with. fast forward to the good stuff with the cheesy song and the smooching under the moonlight and the confessing their undying love for eachother and whatnot. he asks her what the reverend mother said, and she says:

she told me you have to find your life.

today, i find that i've been actively searching for a life that in large parts, i lost, somewhere along the way. that looking back is often neccesary; even healthy. but that staying anchored in the here and now can be a hard but oh so important and rewarding part of your journey. and that finding your life will always be a sort of work in progress.

i actually lost weight during the holidays, thanks in part to the hustle and bustle it takes to help keep 4 children and 7 adults happy, healthy, entertained, fed, and overall satisfied in cold weather and a 2 bedroom trailer. i couldn't have done it without my sister. and don't worry. with all the goodies left over, my fanny is finding ways to compensate for any fat-loss.

our boxes of treasures arrived from home this afternoon, via UPS. and as we dug into them, i found myself just overwhelmed with emotion, bringing me back to christmas morning and all of us crowded in the living room in our christmas pj's covered in a blanket of wrapping paper and smiles.

despite the stuff ....the filler, that accompanies any family gathering, this christmas was beautiful.

kim and dustin will understand what i mean when i say there's so much i'd like to say, but i can't. and maybe i never will. but i think, if possible, my most favorite day of being back home at mom & dad's, aside from christmas, was moving the living room out to put the new carpet in. it was aggravating and dirty and frustrating and time-consuming. but in the midst of all of that, we had fun. and we shared a closeness. a closeness thats been stunted before. by words and people and places and things and circumstances and all those things that get in the way. but that day, we shared a closeness that's been a long time in coming ~ in many ways continuing to come. and i think its an awesome thing, when you have the presence of mind to catch the meaning and appreciate the lesson of a moment, when your'e smack-dab in the middle of chaotic dysfunction.

i'd planned and planned some more, down to a precise schedule and budget, prior to embarking on our little holiday adventure. and beginning @ 7 am on the 19th, i think i literally heard God chuckle and shake his head with an "oh, katherine. you're so naive. buckle up", as all my hard work dissapeared like a fart in the wind. due to catching the tail-end of some pretty nasty storms, chicago welcomed us in like the weird aunt gertrude in a mumu and red lipstick, who never.lets.you.go.

and so we spent the next 10 hours trying to wriggle free of her greasy clutch. if i never see chicago again, it will be too soon. no wonder oprah has problems. i've been thru o'hare many times but this one took the cake. wall-to-wall people. standing room only. and delay, delay, delay after cancellation, cancellation, cancellation. perhaps you saw the karaeoke on fox news? mm.

so how we actually got home was so far-fetched you wouldn't believe me if i told you. but i will, cuz i know you're a sucker for a good story. leaving out the multitude of details, including ol' flo making her visit halfway thru the day, i'll share the skinny. my dad is a truck driver and was up towards ohio when we arrived in chicago around noon. by the time the last flight took off @10:30 friday night and we were numbers 22,23 &24 respectively, on the standby list that didn't get squeezed on, dad was on the outskirts of chicago. so we took a taxi to a truck-stop and rode the rest of the way into nebraska on an 18 wheeler. i don't know when i've ever been so happy to see my dad. he was santa in disguise.

nothing in my *plan* went according to plan. nothing but getting to the people i love. and tho i had a couple momentary and obligatory melt-downs along the way, in the big scheme of things, getting to the people i loved is all that really mattered anyway. it was the reason we spent 10 hours in the chicago airport and 8 more on a truck. the reason that we dealt with and overlooked and laughed and cried and smiled sweetly and soldiered on.

this visit back home was cathartic for me. its hard to believe its been nearly 3 years since our brief stay and then our choice to come back yet again to tennessee. 3 years since divorce was mentioned. 2 years since my rape. 1 year since my breakdown that led me to this road of healing.

that i'm still kicking...that my marriage has survived...that my sanity isn't in a million tiny shards around my feet, that God forgives and forgets and holds me ferociously to Him either way, i find miraculous. the strength and the courage and the joy that He's led me to in the darkest, most unlikely places, is amazing. and tho the lessons continue, i'm more grateful than you could know, to be right here, right now. for me, thats an enormous step.

as of this moment, my life is in a major upheaval. the knowing whether to stay or go, is a little unclear. jason and i have a really crucial meeting this afternoon that i feel will answer some questions but most likely raise others. afterwards, i have an interview for a 2nd job. and for all my questions, i don't know any of the how's or why's. but i'm choosing to believe and trust, that the answers will come, as they need to.

so right now, i'm gonna re-watch this and borrow a little joy.