Time Flies

Time does fly. Sometimes smoothly, drifting along at a leisurely pace. Other times it is like riding a taxi in New York City which jerks, speeds, bumps up curbs, drives on the sidewalk, driver hollering out the window at anyone in his way (yes I had that taxi ride). 

My year since our move to Omaha has been all of the above (maybe not the taxi ride). It was and is a bigger transition that I had imagined. It is positive stress, but stress none the less. 

Yes, we have had a built-in community with our new church. People have been very kind and welcoming. Some just felt like long-time friends immediately. Names are still a struggle; it's a large congregation. Being married to the transition associate pastor helps, and doesn't. There were still some bad vibes and bent feelings from the previous senior pastor. Some of that swirled around like an unruly ocean riptide. Mostly I had only a few tide pools to step around. Still I have to tread water carefully.

Leaving our grandsons in Missouri was at the top of my tough list. I took care of those little guys for five years. My current weight gain I blame partly on my inactivity, no running around with the boys. Maybe our much smaller home also means less exercise. I digress.

Our smaller home has had some major fix-it needs. After a dear friend from Missouri slid down the last steps to the basement, breaking her wrist, we had the old irregular steps rebuilt. We had not discovered the total absence of a waste disposal in the kitchen sink until we were moved in. That is a must have. So our plumber (we've gotten to know him well) figured out a way to cut through the dining room wall to revise the pipes so a disposal could be installed. Old, slow toilets have been updated, now all three. The wood floors have been stripped of carpet and redone. 

Enough. These projects kept me busy keeping track of schedules, and letting in the workers while holding back our two small but vocal hounds. I arranged and rearranged furniture, getting advice from our talented artsy daughter who many times threw up her texting hands because I did not accept her vision. Other times I did, maybe more of those. 

Even after downsizing and getting rid of so many things in Missouri, we still had more culling. My husband's favorite 41 year-old sofa (it was in good shape amazingly) could not make it down the stairs and had to be given away. Same with box springs that would not fit the steps going to our second-floor guestroom. We discovered you can buy box springs in halves, and that's how we solved that crisis. Our decorator daughter helped us unpack, put away, and organize our kitchen and dining room. She also had a box that we filled up with more items we did not have room to keep. I had to prioritize what I had to have, and what went into that. 

To accommodate our essentials in our kitchen, we bought a steel shelf that my husband installed above our dining room-kitchen wall cutout. Our pots and pans perch there, with some hanging down on hooks. My cookbooks and recipe box are on a shelf we installed above a door in our small hallway off the kitchen. 

Our most exciting project was just completed three weeks ago. It is a glorious sunroom addition (four season). We had the old deck torn off the back of the house, and a 13 feet by 15 feet room added.  It has an 11 foot high cathedral ceiling under a peaked roof. There is a deck off the side of it, larger than we imagined. As they say on TV decorating programs, I "shopped" our house to furnish this new room, purchasing only a couple things like a click-clack futon sofa.

Since April I have been transforming our small, blank canvas back yard into flower gardens. Almost everything I planted has flourished, including our River Heritage Birch tree we had planted a year ago. I have never been much of a gardener, just doing bare basics. Now that I have the time, it's my new joy. My late mother, a fabulous gardener, would be proud.

Yes time is fast and full. I am thankful to God for every minute.