February Love Story #4 - Heart and Home

About 30 years ago, I took on a big scale creative project: designing and overseeing the building of a new home. With a growing family, we needed not just more room, but rooms that were open allowing for a better flow of family life. 

We toured many new homes for sale but none of them really felt right. After much thought, we decided we needed to build our own home. We found a plan close to what we wanted and I set about redesigning it. I’d worked in an architect’s office during college where one of my many tasks was making blueprints. This experience taught me how to read plans, how to change plans and how the basic building process worked. 

The biggest requirement: an open floor plan. We wanted the main floor to flow from kitchen to dining to living rooms. We wanted a ‘homework’ and home business desk area. And I wanted a room where I could expand my creative side whether that was drawing, writing or painting. 

Difficult and delightful. 

I enjoyed the creative side of re-designing the plans. Moving a doorway here. Pushing out for window seats in all three bedrooms. Turning the kitchen island around to allow for a downdraft cooktop, stealing space from the downstairs bath for a bigger pantry and reversing the washer/dryer area to give me a laundry room window and sink. 

Staying on budget with surface selections was sometimes difficult. But we did it. Finding colorful countertops, tile for the island and backsplash, carpet, vinyl and wood flooring. Best of all, beautiful custom red oak cabinetry, yes that was extra but worth every penny. 

Many years of love.

My son was 6 and my daughter was 9 when we moved in. With the open floor plan, we’ve been able to be flow and grow with them. Lots of birthday parties, sleepovers, family dinners, holidays, bridal showers have been celebrated here. 

My husband and I have marked many anniversaries and weathered many life changes under this cozy vaulted roof. Jobs. School graduations. Open studio events. Covid. Sheltering our children during life changes. Working from home. 

Now our children’s children play with trains, dolls, puzzles, crayons and paint here too. Our home has moved, changed and embraced it all. 

And now: tears and fear. 

In July, we woke up to a flood in our kitchen caused by a newly installed plumbing valve failure. As usual, we took care of our home: mopping up water, calling the plumbing company and insurance company. 

We had mold. Then we had flooring, countertops and sink torn out. We washed dishes in the laundry room sink(who knew how much I’d need that sink when we built the house). We tripped on 3 layers of uneven flooring. I learned to balance between it all to load and unload the washer and dryer, cook and yes, clean my home. 

Nine months have passed. I’ve lost so much sleep. Crying over the losses. Fearing more damage every time I hear the sounds of water. Angry at how much I have to fight the insurance company over everything needed to try to get my home back to being a home again. 

Estimator after estimator has come to measure and assess the damage. Totals sent to the insurance company are rejected time and time again. We get more experts to explain the situation to the insurance company. Weeks and months go by with rejections or no response at all from the insurance company adjuster. Who, by the way, has never actually come here to see the damage or what a beautiful home we had. 

It’s hard enough to see the heart of my home destroyed by a plumbing company/valve failure. But to be told by a distant insurance adjuster, your flooring which you loved, will have to all be ripped out and replaced, then to not be given enough money to get it done right? 

It’s the heart of my home. 

It’s a labor of love.

It’s no wonder I can’t sleep. 

 

February Love Story #3

It’s another week in February and another way to focus on love. 

Welcome to week three of February love stories where I’m focusing on things in my life that make me happy in body, mind, heart and soul. It’s so easy for me to go through my days in a kind of work haze: to do, do, done and more to do. 

While I love to be busy creating with my hands in clay, I don’t want to forget all the connections I make in and around me that bring peace and joy. And places that open my eyes and inspire ideas. 

Life is a walk in the park. 

I know, since 2020, nothing has felt that way. Right? It’s not been an easy three years, but  even on my worst days when fear surrounded me, my park was there. 

Calm waters waiting. Green grass growing. Peaceful reflections. 

Leaves changing. Geese migrating. 

Deer and fawns running through the woods.

Sun, snow or rain. 

No matter what the weather, I walk. Even when water is dripping down off my hood, there is so much beauty around to see. I’ve seen more otters swimming in the lake on rainy days. And geese landing with a slide across the ice. 

Snow covered tree limbs and bridges.  

Heron hanging out and flying closer to the path.

The best of all medicine: Laughter. 

Yes, even during covid, there were little feet running around the park playgrounds. It’s one of the things that lifted my heart and soul. When schools were closed, the park was open and  children were learning. 

Swinging. Sliding. Climbing. 

Exploring the bridges. And playing in the woods.

Natural inspiration. 

Walking is, of course, great exercise. It’s a great workout for my muscles and my heart. But it also strengthens my imagination. And stretches my creativity, loosens my feelings and brings new ideas to the surface that grow into new pieces of art. 

I love my neighborhood park.

   

February Love Story #2

As I said last week, I’ve decided to take this month to focus on love. I want to remind myself, again, of everything that makes my heart happy, my soul refreshed and my body healthy. 

Love is more than romantic love, it’s the feeling of connection, creation and dedication. Hopefully, it brings peace and joy. But it can also be challenging and sometimes it takes a brave heart and spirit.   

This week’s love story is about art. 

I wasn’t alway interested in art. Truth be told, once upon a time, I was a bookish nerd.  I loved to read and one of my favorite places to go was the library. All those books! Those wonderful little drawers in the card catalog. Flipping through them to research a paper to me, was fun. 

But what I realize now is those books, those words came alive in my mind. I didn’t just read a story, I saw it. The people. The clothes, food, trees, flowers in their world. Their homes and towns and, yes, attics. 

Some of my very first art pieces were wooden boxes with a clay character, mask and, yes, a story. Then came paintings with landscapes and characters which I now realize are called ‘narrative’ paintings. 

For the love of mud. 

Another favorite childhood pastime: playing in the mud. Now, I get to throw it, roll it, cut it out and paint it. Not everything I throw or roll or paint turns out well. Things explode. Crack. Or get trimmed way too much, like last week’s bowl. 

But I refuse to let failure stop me, so this week, I threw a few more bowls. 

Sculpted some new ‘fairies’.  Rolled out a raven or two. 

Clay and words and colors, oh my. 

Some loves never die. 

I am still a big reader. And along the way, I added writing with a career in advertising. So I guess it’s not surprising that my clay always seems to need words along with symbols like hearts and spirals and leaves. 

Even if it doesn’t always turn out perfect. Or get in a show. Or sell. That book-loving little girl, who liked to get her hands in mud, is still happily doing what she loves. 

Everyday. 

Anyway. 

 

February Love Stories

 Happy February!  This month, with Valentines Day, I’m going to focus a few blogs on love. Not the romantic kind of love that our commercial culture focuses on but all the other ‘loves’ in life. Animals. Nature. Activities. Creativity. 

I want to remind myself, this February, of everything that makes my heart happy, my soul refreshed and my body healthy. 

My first love story is about my dog, Darby. 

A few years back, I applied to adopt a Career Change Guide Dog. I’ve loved and trained many dogs in my lifetime and my last sweet dog was my first Career Changer. She was not a pet, she was my pal. Wherever I went, so did she. When she died after a long, loving life I was bereft. 

Finally, after many months, I applied to Guide Dogs for the Blind to adopt another Career Changer. I filled out the application. I interviewed over the phone. And I waited. After 9 long months, I drove out to the Guide Dog campus to see if I was the right fit to be this Career Changer’s new person. 

It was love at first sight. 

He was beautiful. But it was his warm, sweet brown eyes and slightly lopsided ear that captured my heart. I couldn’t wait to take him home. I had a new bed. New bones. New collar and leash all ready for him. I wanted him to be as comfortable with me as he had been with his puppy raiser. 

I can’t believe it’s been 3 years already! Darby is so much fun. He is also silly. Sweet. Playful. Exuberant. And yes, a little mischievous. And I love all of it.

He loves to run and chase balls but he doesn’t always love to bring them back. He’s a big chewer, so his toys need to be extra tough. He loves his daily walk around the lake and park. 

When someone he loves is coming home, he knows before I do. I know now, when he gets up and goes to the door and back to me that someone is on their way. He greets everyone he meets with joyous, bouncy enthusiasm. Sometimes, a little too much, but that’s my Darby. 

Great thanks. 

I can’t begin to count all the ways I thank my sweet Darby’s Guide Dog Puppy Raiser. This woman took a young puppy into her home and heart. She lovingly cuddled, petted, fed and played with him. She taught him to sit and stay and lie down and walk on a leash. She worked with him to learn to be the eyes for someone else. 

And even though he didn’t make it through all the rigorous tests to become a guide dog, he learned from her, the most important lesson: love.  

I want her to know how much I love her sweet, black lab puppy. How everyday I wake up to his sweet face and puppy kisses. And how grateful I am for all her loving care and training that shaped Darby into the sweet, adorable combo of: Tigger from Pooh and Scooby doo. 

That is why I love my Darling Darby(doodle doo).