The joys of home ownership

When Erik and I were first married and living in a parsonage in Montana, all we wanted was our own house.  We watched HGTV constantly and talked about what our first "real" house would be like, and what we'd do to it.  Then we got our opportunity.  When we were called to Beloit, we had a long weekend to find the house we wanted to buy.  This house was cute, had many features we liked, and would fit all our furniture.  We moved in nearly 10 years ago and quickly repainted several rooms.  Having black or dark teal baseboards in the upstairs bedrooms didn't particularly agree with us.  The previous owners must've been especially fond of dark teal.  It was everywhere - front door, shutters, trim, wallpaper, even the bathroom carpeting.  Plush carpeting?  In a bathroom?  That didn't last long.  Over the years, we've done a great deal to the house - new siding, new windows, a new shower. We installed a fireplace, French doors to the bedroom, water softener, and a bathtub in the master bath.  We replaced flooring, appliances, garage door, and replaced the deck with a patio.

We've had our share of home-ownership issues.  In the last year alone, we've had raccoons in the attic, a branch that knocked a hole in our roof, (leaving our bedroom ceiling a lovely leak-brown color), a broken water heater the day before Easter, and a leaky floor in our basement.

As I've mentioned, we must have bad appliance karma.  We're on our 3rd washing machine and 3rd dishwasher.  In 10 years.  Our brand new dishwasher was delivered 2 weeks ago.  It looked shiny and beautiful...sitting in the middle of our kitchen for 2 weeks.  It didn't fit in its space.  What?!  It's standard size, so it's not that we bought a behemoth.  It turns out that when our kitchen was remodeled, years before we arrived, folks cut some corners.  Apparently, when you install cabinets, you leave an inch between the cabinets and the counters, to allow room for the dishwasher.  And since the old dishwasher was slightly shorter, they didn't see the need for that.  I expected that we'd need to replace the counters or at least cut out the countertop over the dishwasher, and replace it with butcher block.  But our handyman first tried cutting out the tile floor in the dishwasher gap.  No good.  He finally brought in a friend, and they detached our counters and put in the 1-inch space, put the counters back, and trimmed it out.  Not a job that elicits, "Oohs and ahhs," from people, but at least the dishwasher is in its eternal home, our dishes are clean again, and my dishpan hands can be a thing of the past.

I've breathed a sigh of relief and hope we're done with endless handyman visits and major complications for a while.  Wait...I hear scratching in the attic.  We'll just pretend it's the home ownership fairy, doing a healthy house dance for us.  Yeah, that's it.

Maytag Mutiny

I think I was meant to live in simpler times.  My (our) history with household appliances is rather tragic.  I don't know what it is, but we have a tough time keeping appliances as long as they should last.  When we moved here, we bought a front-loading washing machine.  It died after 4 years.  We bought another.  It died 5 years later.  My parents tell me that they've had their washing machine almost as long as I've been alive.  What do I do to jinx our washing machines?  I haven't put any pets or children in there, nor do I wash bricks or rocks with any frequency.

The garbage disposal whimpered to a low hum in the last year, so that was replaced around the same time as the washing machine.

The day after Good Friday (a rather busy time of the year for us), our water heater died.  It was pretty clear that it wasn't going to be raised to new life with Jesus that Easter morning.  Nor did it die to save the world from sin.  Instead, its death inspired sinful and colorful words on that already stressful Holy Saturday.  Luckily, some saints from our congregation helped Erik to install a new one, so we wouldn't have to go without hot water on Easter morning.                   

And now the dishwasher is dead.  Not dead, exactly, but close enough, unless you ascribe to the philosophy that if something is merely touched by water and soap, it's clean.  Our dishes are most certainly not clean.  Spoons come out looking so much like they did when they went in that we could probably identify who used it last, by the lip-marks in the thin layer of yogurt on it.  The wash cycle seems to only make leftover food cling more stubbornly to the plates, rather than washing it off.  And transparent glasses are now translucent at best.

We bought this new dishwasher about 7 years ago, when our dishes weren't getting very clean.  After we got it, we noticed cloudy dishes.  The repairman said, "The dishwasher can only do so much.  What you really need is a water softener."  So, much to my husband's chagrin, we got a water softener, which makes him feel slimier in the shower and leaves his skin feeling softer afterwards.  Oh, the horror!  :)

A year ago, tines started breaking off the lower dishwasher rack due to corrosion.  Argh.  I called the company to order a new rack.  Get this - a new dishwasher rack would cost over $200.  What?!  We said, "We'll deal with a few broken tines."  But now, it looks like we'll not only get a new rack, but a whole new dishwasher, unless we want to spend $300 for a new pump, in addition to labor costs.  And it won't arrive quite in time to do dishes for Sierra's birthday party on Sunday.  Yeah, that's about right.

Here's hoping our appliances are done being drama queens for a while.  I like meeting new people, but I'd rather not meet any more plumbers or appliance installers for a long time. 

No limp fish!

I met Ted Sprinkman about 25 years ago.  My friend Susan wanted to take tennis lessons from him, and she asked if I'd want to take them with her.  So one Saturday morning, her parents drove us to the tennis club, where we expected to significantly improve our skills.  I had a new racquet, and I was all ready to show Ted my stuff.  He walked up to me with his hand extended.  I shook his hand as I told him my name, and he groaned.  He shook Susan's hand and groaned again.  He said, "Put your racquets down.  You won't need them for a while.  The first thing I'm going to teach you is how to shake hands."  Susan and I rolled our eyes.  For the next 10 minutes, Ted did just that.  "Put your arm straight out.  Grasp my hand firmly.  Webbing-to-webbing.  No limp fish handshakes.  Why are you looking at the floor?  I want eye contact!  Always look the person in the eye when you're shaking their hand."  Susan and I thought it was the biggest waste of time ever.  What did this have to do with tennis?  But then Ted said, "Tennis is about mental strength as much as physical ability.  You start a match shaking hands, and in that 5 seconds, you communicate whether you're confident or not, and you can learn the same about your opponent, just from their handshake.  So what do you want people to learn about you when they shake your hand?  Do you want them to think you're insecure, weak, and apathetic?  Or do you want them to see your confidence, strength, and passion for life?" 

At the time, I thought Ted was kinda lame.  But as I grew up, I learned that he was absolutely right.  We communicate a great deal when we shake somebody's hand.  By a simple handshake, we can communicate confidence, professionalism, forgiveness, warmth, compassion, gratitude, or we can communicate the opposite of those things.  The choice is ours.

It was my first year as a pastor, and I was preparing a group of confirmation students for Confirmation Sunday.  I'd walked them through the service, and I lined them up in the Narthex, where they'd be greeted after the service.  Knowing that teenagers aren't always well-schooled in etiquette, I told them to be prepared to shake hands, and to be gracious to the people who came to congratulate them.  I shook one student's hand to demonstrate.  He looked at the floor as he put his limp hand in mine.  As I opened my mouth, Ted Sprinkman flew out, "No limp fish!  And I want eye contact!"  I quickly reigned in my inner tennis pro and gave all the students a handshake lesson.  "Grasp the person's hand firmly...no limp fish...no bone-crunchers...look the person in the eye...be prepared to shake lots of hands...smile...your cheeks will stop hurting eventually."  I remember at least 3 sets of parents came over and thanked me.  Since then, every time I do Confirmation rehearsal, I give the kids a handshake lesson.  They look at me like I'm lame or slightly crazy, but I'm hopeful that someday, they'll get it, and they'll realize "Crazy Pastor Jennifer" wasn't quite so crazy.

Ted Sprinkman would be so proud.

Anonymity

I'd stink at being a famous person.  There's something inside me that doesn't want to be well-known.  Every week, one of our worship services is broadcast on a local cable channel in town.  Not everybody has that kind of cable, so our audience isn't all that broad.  I'd guess if we had an Our Savior's Broadcast Fan Club, we'd be nearing the teens.  But every now and then, I'll meet a stranger who has seen me on TV.  I can't tell you how weird it feels to hear, "I watch you on TV!"  I didn't major in broadcasting, I didn't sign up for game show, nor did I agree to appear on some reality show.  I just went to seminary.  They don't teach about local access cable fame in seminary.  No lessons on choosing the right lipstick so you don't look like death warmed over on TV.  No classes teaching you to tolerate the sound of your own goofy voice coming through TV speakers.  No advice on how to gracefully and subtly tell your acolytes to stop using their cinctures like lassoes because the greater Beloit cable audience can see them. 

One of the happiest days of my life was the day we got a different kind of cable, so we could no longer see ourselves on TV.

Sometimes I'm able to forget that people who I don't know, might know me.  That is, until I'm evaluating my mayo options in the grocery store and a strange woman walks up to me and says, "Hi Jennifer!  How are the girls?  I'm so glad your husband is better.  I watch you on TV every week!" 

Sometimes I really enjoy being anonymous.  I love going to a shopping mall and being fairly confident that nobody there will know me.  There's a strange kind of freedom being somewhere where not a soul knows you.  The girl at the pretzel stand has no idea if I'm a pastor or poker dealer or a barrel rider.  The man in the shoe department has no clue that I can't fit all my shoes in my 3 shoe racks.  The woman at the card store hasn't seen my successes or my failures, on camera or off.  I can truly be nobody, and I like that.  It's like hiding, in plain sight.

Don't get me wrong.  I cherish the gifts of community, of being "where everybody knows your name."  I think it's what many of us love about being part of a church.  There are people there who know us and care about us in ways that nobody else does.  I love that church people ask me how Sierra's liking 3rd grade and rat out Scarlett when she's hiding in the library with a bottle of grape juice from the communion fridge (this only happened once, by the way).  I like being known within my faith community, because I know people care about me there, and I care about them.  Our knowledge of one another is relatively mutual, which is different than the one-sided relationships with our cable fans.  I'd love to know the people who watch me on TV as well as they seem to know me.  I respect celebrities, who deal with this on a grand scale every day.

I love what I do.  I love my congregation.  I love that we're able to reach people who can't or don't come to church.  But I'll probably always think it's a little weird that strangers know me.  So I guess when I want to be anonymous or not be noticed, I'd better find an actual hiding place. 

Banana Angels

A few weeks ago, I told you about my difficulty in quickly preparing myself for Scarlett to go to school full-day, instead of half-day, as we had expected.  I believed it was very important for Scarlett to be in a structured classroom environment with other kids, but a big part of me still wanted her home with me, at least for part of the day.

Then Scarlett got sick.  It started with the croup and likely turned into some other kind of virus.  She had a terrible cough and a fever that went on.  And on.  And on.  It only got scarily high a couple times, but it was persistent.  We had sent her to school for half a day the first week, thinking she was better, but when we got her at lunchtime, she had a fever again.  So we started realizing she would miss most of her first week of school.  We never anticipated she'd miss her entire second week of school as well.  Her fever just wouldn't let up, so she got to know the Nickelodeon and Disney Channels' line-ups really well.  She played lots of games on the computer.  We read oodles of books.  We played many games.  We made bread and jello, just for fun. 

And I suppose, in an ironic Murphy's Law sort of way, I got what I wished for.  I had Scarlett home with me, for 2 whole weeks.  Erik and I took turns staying home with her, with some help from friends.  But each day, I wondered what she was missing and whether the kids in her class would even care when she came back.  I had mini-meltdowns about her not being able to go to school, just like I'd had mini-meltdowns about her going to school a few weeks earlier.  Be careful what you wish for, right?

The doctor was pretty concerned about how long this supposed virus was lasting, so she ordered some tests last week.  I'll spare you the details of the experience of holding a 4-year-old during nasal flu tests and blood tests.  In the end, everything seemed normal.  And finally, 3 days later, Scarlett's temperature had gone back to normal, and she started to look like her normal perky self again.

I think I knew Scarlett was all better the other day when she was eating a banana for breakfast.  She had peeled down the sides and was shaking the whole thing up and down.  I asked what she was doing.  She said, "Look!  It's an angel!" as the flapped the banana peel wings.  I asked, "What do angels do?" to which she replied matter-of-factly, "They fly around.  And they watch over me."  I smiled at my imaginative daughter and her fantastic banana angel, and thanked God that she's finally well again and able to go to school. 

I'll handle it just fine, because when I start missing her, there's a whole bunch of bananas I can peel to watch over me too.

FOMO

It's been a tough week.  I mentioned last week that our 4-year-old, Scarlett, got the croup on the day before school started, so she missed the first day of school.  I was excited to send her to school on the 2nd day, but when we picked her up after lunch (to ease her into the school routine), she had a fever again.  The fever continued all week and all weekend.  I didn't think there was a chance she'd miss any school this week, and it's turned out that she's missed every day.  When we saw the doctor on Monday, she said it was likely a slow-moving virus.  Other than a cough, she feels pretty good, so she's her usual good-natured self, just unable to go to school.  She'll head back to the doctor today, and hopefully they can give us some hope or some kind of treatment to bring her back to her healthy, happy, active self.

I know Scarlett will be okay.  I just don't know when, and it's driving me crazy.  She's a bright kid and one of the oldest kids in her 4-year-old kindergarten class.  So I don't worry about her missing the academic part of school.  But I keep thinking about how her classmates all know each other's names now and have made friends in the 2 weeks she's been gone, and she's been cooped up at home. 

A friend introduced me to the term FOMO, which stands for "Fear of missing out."  I think we all have FOMO attacks every now and then.  I remember as a kid, having to go to bed while my parents had friends over.  I'd lie in bed, listening to their muffled laughter downstairs, wondering what fun I was missing out on.  Sometimes, I've gone to events I wasn't particularly interested in, just because I feared that something interesting would happen, and I'd miss it.

Scarlett's been a real trooper.  Though she knows she's missed a lot of fun things in the last 2 weeks, she doesn't complain about missing school or swim lessons or Sunday School or Kids' Club.  But I think I've got some FOMO on her behalf.  I wonder what her class is doing each day, the things they giggle about, the routines they're getting used to while she gets better acquainted with Elmo and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  I wonder which kids will be her friends when they finally get to know her.  I know in a few weeks, this frustrating fortnight will be just a distant memory.  I pray she returns to health very soon, because I can't wait to hear the stories she'll have to tell of all the new friends she's making at school.  And after she's back at school, I can deal with FOMO for different reasons.  :)

Best-laid plans...

"The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray."  Incidentally, that's from a Robert Burns poem called, "To a Mouse."  That's right, you've come to the right place for useless trivia.

As long as I'm on useless trivia, here's more.  We learned in a tour of London, that long ago, when folks were condemned to death there, they were put on a wagon to be delivered to the site of their hanging or beheading.  On the way, they were allowed to get off the wagon to enjoy one last alcoholic beverage.  If they rejected their last drink, the guard would shout to the driver, "This one's on the wagon!"  So apparently, the terms, "on the wagon" and "falling off the wagon" come from that colorful time in British history.

But back to the best-laid plans.  Parenting has taught me that best-laid plans oft go astray.  You buy a kid a fancy toy, and she'd much rather play with the box.  You put your baby in a fancy dress to show her off, and she poops through it all, causing you to put her in a stained sleeper from the diaper bag.  I've spent the last month trying to quickly get used to the idea that Scarlett would be in school full-time this year, rather than just during the mornings.  It's been a little tough.  But I finally came to accept it.  I prepared myself, so I knew exactly what to expect.  So Monday night, I went to bed, prepared to get up early, get Scarlett dressed in her new school outfit, take her first first-day-of-school picture on the porch, standing next to her sister, then I'd take my baby to school for her first day, after which I'd cry, then I'd go to work.  But best laid plans...

Scarlett woke up 10 minutes later, gasping for air.  She was crying and sort of croaking, and we couldn't get her to settle down.  We did the hot steam thing, but in the end, I took her to the ER at 10:30 p.m.  By the time we arrived, she had settled down, though her breathing was still labored.  The ER folks were wonderful.  They gave her several treatments, and she was finally able to breathe without so much difficulty.  The Dr. said it was probably the croup.  What?  Other than a slight sore throat before bed, she'd been fine.  The Dr. said it can come on fast.  "Fast" is an understatement.  So as they treated her, I watched the clock hit 11:00 p.m., 11:30 p.m., 12:00 a.m.  And I started to see my best-laid plans unravel.  Even if she was all better by the morning (highly unlikely), she would be much too exhausted to go to school.  It started to hit me that the first-day picture wouldn't be what I expected.  Sierra would again stand solo on the porch, while Scarlett's new outfit still hung on her closet door, her new backpack hung on the coat rack, and Scarlett laid on the couch.  I'd have to explain that she would miss the first day of school, I feared her disappointment, and I realized my disappointment that there would be no first-day-of-4K stories that night.

But in the end, everything went okay.  Scarlett spent the day healing, and Sierra had a great first day.  My expectations and plans had gone astray, but as they say, "Life is what happens when you were making other plans."  And today, Scarlett stood on the porch in her new outfit, her new backpack threatening to topple her little body over, and a big smile on her face.  When her teacher came outside to get her class, she jumped up and down with excitement.  I think her first day will be even better than she expected, because she had one more day to get excited about it.  And maybe it's easier for me, since I had one more day to prepare.  So now I need to figure out how to spend some extra hours in my week.  But I don't think I'll make any firm plans soon, because we know what happens to those.