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Multigenerational Mom Muses on Twin Toddlers & Twenty-Something Daughters

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our little patch of paradise is coming right along

School is winding down and our house remodel is picking up.

The demolition is nearly done. Floors are bare, surfaces are stripped, and a couple more walls have come tumbling down. Our vision is gaining new light and our faith is coming to fruition!

We walked in the other day while the kitchen wall was breathing its last. It gave me goosebumps to see it fall, like scales, from my eyes.

The space stretches out before us like a prairie, vast and ample. It’s both exhilarating and daunting to think we’re sowing the seeds of our future here.

But it’s not all fertile soil and wide open spaces.

Because there’s the matter of the cramped little cubby of a bathroom off Mike’s and my bedroom that we’re trying to cultivate into a little patch of paradise.

Picture a craggy cranny of jutting angles and narrow crevices.

By blasting the doorway and wall between the separate vanity room and the sort of larger shower-toilet-second sink room, we opened her up.  

Still, she isn’t quite where we need her to be. So we’ve annexed a former game closet off the Great Room and are twisting it into new life as a water closet. 

We’re sliding the toilet into the newly recessed area that backs up to the great room and coaxing space enough to accommodate something along the lines of a wet room, with a stand-alone soaking tub for me and an open shower for Mike.

Sometimes having a vision takes a whole lot of faith. I THINK I can see it???

So we’re maiming closets for a tub — a tub some folks would find it silly for us to even try carving out space for. I saw a question posed yesterday on social media about whether or not anybody truly needs one in a primary bath anyways.

And I say YES.

Yes I do.

It’s how I unwind.

Every. Single. Night.

People love showers. I get it. (Well, I really don’t.) Still, I don’t care if I’m the sole surviving tub soaker on the planet, I need my natural habitat. And Mike needs me to have it. Like I said, it’s how I unwind. And he really doesn’t need to try to live with me all tied up in my feelings. That would be way too harsh a climate.

So.

That’s where we stand after this past week. Several walls don’t… and paint is coming for those that remain. Our little patch of paradise is coming right along.

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Homemade: Now We’re Cooking

Remodeling a home on a strict budget is wicked tricky. Pinching pennies and pleasing our family’s personal tastes is no piece of cake.

To say I’m overwhelmed is an understatement.

Thankfully, we’ve got a couple of builders serving as our master chefs, guiding us through the whole concoction. Cartersville’s own Jennifer and Jeffrey Vann of Native Construction (and their amazing sous chef Tae Henson), are keeping us straight when it comes to ingredients, quantities, and measurements. Without the guidance and support of the Vanns and their crew, this could easily become a recipe for disaster.

Our first order of business was to strip the cupboard bare. Carpets have been pulled up and walls are coming down. By the end of the weekend, the house will have been reduced and rendered and ready to be reconstituted.

Next comes the meat and potatoes of the project: flooring, paint, and tile.

For flooring, we went with LVP – or luxury vinyl planks, for anyone not in the know (I wasn’t either until a month ago). LVP is cheaper and hardier than hardwood (both great qualities for our school-teacher salaries and twin boys’ shenanigans). We selected planks on the lighter side and dredged in warm and cool grains.

The paint for the kitchen walls, cabinets, and great room is Sherwin-Williams’ Alabaster, which is warm as a glass of milk at bedtime. We then found a creamy subway tile for the kitchen backsplash, which we’ll seal in a dark grout for texture and contrast (and to pull that admired-and-anguished-over black matte sputnik fixture into harmony).

So far, easy peasy.

But then came the granite, and I suddenly felt like I was biting off way more than I could chew. The choosing gave me so much indigestion and I really can’t say why.

Maybe it’s because the cleanest stones – the ones that look like massive slabs of vanilla ice cream drizzled lightly with caramel and walnut sprinkles – are well beyond our price range. So many of the others look like the crust of an everything bagel to me — hand tossed in peppery seeds and spices.

And while when it comes to flavor, for me it’s usually the more the merrier — in this instance, I needed coaxed and controlled, subtlety and nuance. And with the help of Araceli at RS Solid Surfaces (our hometown stone supplier), I think we found what we were looking for.

With the texture and depth of a creamy oyster risotto, it’s high caloric content without the high caloric cost. RS Solid Surfaces knew just what we needed to complete our kitchen, and I can’t recommend or thank them enough.

Whew!

Now that most of the major prep work has been completed and the house is cored and ready to be filled with creamy goodness, I’m getting hungry for the finished product… but that’s still a long way off.

Until then, I’ll drink deep from the heady bouquet in our garden, just bursting with big, dense, opulent flavor. I get a buzz just looking at it. My heart is as full as my glass is.

Cheers!

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Here Come the Showings!

This morning, as the mist blankets the ground and the rooster off in the distance sings good morning, I realize there are only so many more weekends where I’ll wake and write on this porch to the magic of Dawn stretching blankets of spun-sugar clouds between her fingers 

Our home goes live today on FMLS — the real estate platform. The random disappearance of our family so the showings can occur will begin – two silly twin boys snagging at our sanity as we try to entertain them without breaking the bank for hours on end. 

This house of ours has been such a wonderful home for us. We came to her when the boys were sixteen months, needing space to roam and room to grow. She has provided that, and so much more. 

I pray she shows well. It hasn’t been easy getting her ready for the world to see. A life well lived isn’t easy to clean up. We’re a cluttered and scattered crew. Full-time jobs and taekwondo and dance classes keep our wheels spinning and our home in perpetual disarray. Then, between homework and showers and Harry Potter read-aloud sessions at night, there’s not a lot of tidy-up time. 

Our lives are what some would call – especially the real estate world — a hot mess. The real estate world has no room for Hot Mess. They need cool, sleek surfaces and calm blank spaces. A house with twin boys has no room for sleek surfaces and blank spaces. This is a paradox that must somehow be overcome.

So Mike and I have spent every stolen second for the better part of a month sweeping legos into baggies, LOL dolls into containers, and stuffing books – SO MANY BOOKS – into boxes. 

And today, for one hot second, our blank spaces and sleek surfaces are shining – and I pray she sells quickly. For so many reasons.

But mostly I pray she meets the family that is perfect for her — a perfectly imperfect family — a comfortably cluttered one, full of growing children ready to build beautiful, messy memories in the shelter of her walls. Because she’s really good at doling out blessings to busy, well-lived lives. 

Let us be a shining, hot mess of an example for you.

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So I blog…

My full-time jobs keep me up to my eyeballs in busyness. Motherhood, teaching, wifedom. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for writing. But writing keeps me true to me. To the spark that makes me, me.

I am a writer. I was born a writer. It’s just taking me a long time to get there. I have a book I’ve been working on for a couple of decades now. But Life kinda took hold of my writing hands and put an Expo marker in them and a whole bunch of students in front of me.

And then Life kinda took hold of my writing hands… and took one ring off them, filled them full with adventures and struggles — and eventually a new ring and three new male hands to hold — all producing lots and lots of real world fodder in front of me.

But just not a lot of time to write about it. And definitely not a lot of time to devote to that book.

So I blog. It keeps me plugged into my creativity and my passion for words. It helps me record my progress as a teacher, a twin mom, a veteran mom, a citizen of this great and currently tumultuous country, and a human.

Blogging is also how I sort through my thoughts — on my past, my present, and my future. It helps me filter and find my way through so many things. To dig deep and sift and sort. I find my kernels of truths. My truths. Sometimes others share them. Sometimes not.

That doesn’t mean we can’t still share. Sharing connects us. Sharing smiles, sharing hugs (some day again soon, I pray!), sharing feelings, sharing stories.

I love sharing stories the most. I love hearing about the events, the small and large, that unspool inside the lives of my friends and family. And I love telling mine.

But I’m shy. And I’m awkward. And feel like I’m hogging the stage when nobody really wants me up there. So I tend not to talk much, especially in crowds.

So I share my stories in my blog. Where folks can choose to read them… or not.

And I share my stories so I can feel like I’m doing what I was born to do, which is write.

So while my I spin crazily through the joys of family and teaching and life, and while I spin crazily through the dark and tangled mysteries of life — I blog.

This is my sixth year of doing so. I’m proud of that. I’ve kept myself disciplined. I’ve paid attention to the details, the tiny whorls and ridges of my life and her events. And I’ve written about them.

And maybe some people feel like its weird, or self-absorbed, or uncalled for, or they roll their eyes or run their mouths about it. That’s their prerogative. It may sting a bit, no lie. But I’m still going to do it. Because the one good thing about blogging is nobody else has to pay it any mind. And honestly, if I’m going to become the butt of jokes, I prefer they not.

But I’m still going to put myself out there.

Because it keeps my spark lit. The spark I was born with. Each of us has one — a spark and passion, a gift created just for us. Whether its playing the piano, throwing a football, painting landscapes, counseling hearts, tending vegetables, decorating interiors, stitching needlepoint… there’s so many tiny gifts we can hone and nurture to keep us healthy and happy.

But some of us lose them along the way. I am determined not to lose mine. I am determined to keep its flame burning, even if what I produce is tiny and seemingly inconsequential. It’s not so to me.

And so, I write. I blog. I put words to screen. I do it diligently. Baby steps. Especially now, while my heart is struggling to find lightness again. While I’m too much in darkness to do much work on my big work. The work I am determined to unearth in the end.

So I blog.

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