Moving Day

We moved in midOctober

Our moving crew consisted of one 26 foot truck and five men. With our two storage units and the condo itself we had to deal with two entrances/parking spots and one elevator. Incredibly for both entrances there were ideal parking spaces for this huge truck. This doesn't happen very often in downtown Kirkland. The weather was also very good. We had about 80 boxes the day we moved. The next few days I packed another 10-15 with clothes and kitchen items we moved ourselves.

Our old place

We had seven of these metal racks on wheels. They were full of our journals and books. The movers decided to use the truck's lift to put them into the truck. 

In a small condominium storage space is important. Our condo came with a bonus. In addition to the usual 4'x6' storage space on the left we have a 7'x17' storage space. That's an AMAZING amount of space for a place in downtown Kirkland.

first came the furniture

then the boxes - we had a double line of boxes the length of the living room, 3-4 boxes high

picture from Joe's chair - he asked the men to move some of the boxes so he could see through to the TV

The fun continues!

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 Our across-the-hall neighbor moved in the same week we did. His stuff arrived in a POD. It was fascinating to watch the process. Check out this video posted on YouTube.

I'd be interested in who invented this "podzilla" and how he/she came up with it.

Our kitchen looks like it exploded

so does the living room

the last load from our old place

The missionaries came over to help rearrange the various components in the master bedroom closet

last box ready to be unpacked

living room is "done"

turn around and you see the kitchen isn't quite done

The work continues

We're Moving!

We're moving - just a few blocks from our old place - still in Kirkland.
We're excited about our new home. 

Here's what's been going on.

Rogelio & Jose spent over a week preparing, painting, and cleaning up our place. 

We shared a bit of our story with them & asked them to paint happiness into our home. 

They did.

Day 2 of the job - everything masked, covered, spackled, sanded 

- or whatever needed to be done before the painting could start

We had EVERYTHING painted - walls, ceilings, woodwork

Finally finished

Lots of cleaning to do

dressed for work

recognize the butterfly? Click here

time to start moving

Have to have plants & easy to grow philodendron are the best! 

Got cable set up so we have TV & the Internet

Our year round Christmas tree will go on top of the fireplace

moving in - one cart load at a time

another load

another break - this will now be my go-to gelato 

when we don't go to the nearby gelato store

Haggan-Dazs dark chocolate chip gelato

We love our new place - it feels good - it feels right

Life's Journey - Pressing On

Blogger Marilyn Nielson discusses the complexities of life's journey. She talks about the “cycle of selves,” the constant changes we experience as we go throughout this journey here on earth – learning, growing, maturing, and changing in our capabilities – increasing as we grow from baby to adult and then decreasing due to age and/or disease. 

Says Nielson – “I can imagine myself setting off on this mortal journey, feeling excited and apprehensive all at once, and probably mostly clueless about what was to come. And now here I still am, holding on dutifully to the tiny bits of knowledge I've gained, bracing myself for the unknowns ahead, hopeful and trusting, but yes, just the slightest bit terrified as well—not sure about what's coming next …. So we keep pressing on.”

Yes, we do press on with trust, faith, and hope in the life that comes after this one.

image - Handcart Monument by Torleif Knaphus, Temple Square, Salt Lake City

Ohio Pumpkins In Seattle News

Circleville's pumpkin show was featured on local news here. Fun!

Saucepan Memories

A friend brought soup for us the day we moved to our new place. As I hefted the saucepan onto the stove, memories flooded into my heart and mind. This pan is exactly like the one Mom cooked with her entire adult life - Revere Ware

How many batches of mashed potatoes were cooked in the pot like this? Seems like we had mashed potatoes at 3-4 times a week - always with peeled potatoes. Only later in life did Mom decide to quite peeling potatoes. She said she was tired of doing it and anyway, the skins were good for you. She called them "dirty" mashed potatoes - I think that's what one of the grandsons said when she served them. 

Hot chocolate simmered in this pot to warm us after ice skating or playing out in the snow. 

7 Minute Icing for a multitude of birthday cakes - the recipe came from Mom's Joy of Cooking cookbook. 

Dad often cooked oatmeal or grits on Sunday morning when Mom got to sleep in. This is the pan in which the oatmeal was cooking the morning my dress caught on fire and I was burned. *Sometimes Dad put food coloring in the oatmeal. I remember green for St. Patrick's Day and purple. Mom was not a morning person and her mind didn't do well with purple or green oatmeal in the morning!

When I thanked our friend for the soup, I told her about some of these memories. She's about my age. She said she had a pan like this when she was first married. She and her family then moved to out of the country for her husband's job. Before their move she sold many of their possessions, including her Revere Ware. When she moved back to the States, she bought more Revere Ware but was disappointed that it wasn't as good as the older pans. (This is confirmed here.) When either her mother or grandmother died (I can't remember which), our friend was delighted to find this Revere Ware saucepan - just like the one she used to have - and just like Mom's. 

*added October 25, 2015

Book - Pearl's Secret

Pearl's Secret: A Black Man's Search for His White Family

by Neil Henry

A black professor of journalism and award-winning correspondent takes an investigative look into his family's past in this autobiography and family story, as he pieces together the murky details of his family's past in search of the white branch of his family tree. worldcat image & summary

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I was fascinated by this story. I’ve read a number of similar books* –  author sets out to discover the story of biracial family. 

Neil Henry is about my age. He is the great-great-grandson of A.J. Beaumont, a white Englishman who moved to Louisiana at age 17 in 1856, and Laura Brumley, a freed slave. The two had a long time relationship that resulted in the birth of Pearl, the author’s great-grandmother.

“In the Beaumonts I found a white family that certainly was every bit as human as we were, people who had struggled with their own brand of demons. Both of our families had been crippled to some degree by prejudice, personal trauma, and tragedy, but in the most important ways both branches had endured. So it wasn’t what we did for a living that counted, nor what kind of china we dined on, nor what our houses and neighborhoods looked like. Nor, in this one sense, did our skin color even matter very much. What counted most through the generations, far more than any other factor, regardless of our race, was how we treated those we loved and how well we loved. That seemed the transcendent lesson or moral that my search had revealed.”

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See "Tomlinson Hill"

Dome

Our backyard was a fun place. Dad enjoyed constructing various structures for us and the neighborhood children. At one point he became intrigued with Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome and decided to build one out of broomsticks and metal can lids. 

Dad put out a call for extra or old broomsticks. The story goes that brooms started disappearing from back porches around Oak Street. 

Here's the finished product in April 1958. 

How Long Has It Been?

Does time ever get away from you? 

Does time just fly by?

 It certainly does for me. 

Recently I decided to fertilize my philodendrons. My goal was to feed the plants every six months - but it's been more than a year since I last did it. I was amazed because I had every intention to do it more often. 

It's so easy to let things go, often unintentionally.

I thought about the spiritual aspects of life. 

At different times in my life what have I let go thinking I'd get to it sometime  

And then I simply lost track of time?

Going to church

Developing a relationship with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ & the Holy Spirit

Really worshiping God and His son Jesus Christ

Studying and pondering the scriptures

Serving

Praying with real intent - really communicating with Heavenly Father

How long has it been?

Eared Grebes???

Eared grebes

...  eared grebes, fifteen hundred of them,

Found stunned and dying on the solid ground

They thought was water.
...

The sky, you said, was what confused them— 

Something about the clouds, the storm-light— 

That, and their own certainty as they hurtled 
 
Toward what they thought was only temporary Rest.

Next time we stand under the sky,


Hands linked, marveling at the synchronicity

Of flight, you will remind me that it doesn’t always 

End well, that breathtaking consensus. And I will 


Say, the way I always say, that miracles are rooted

In the trivial, that there is always risk in plunging 

Toward the unseen, that after those birds fell


They were carried, one by one and trembling,

To the real water by a hundred clumsy human hands.

—Marilyn Nielson

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I love Nielson's poetry.  Here she gives us an image of birds hurtling towards what they thought was temporary rest, the unseen, but finding out that decision had different consequences than expected. This brought to mind what happens to so many of us in life. We make choices that lead to our being heaped up somewhere, stunned by the experience. 

Then comes the miracle - people come to their rescue. The rescuers had "clumsy, human hands." The rescue wasn't smooth, but it happened. That's the miracle. 

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I've blogged about other Nielson poems here, here, and here. Nielson celebrates her family and nature on her blog. 

image - pixabay

Everything Starts Messy

"Everything starts messy–and stays that way a good long while." So states Amy Makechnie as she talks about "growing" children and likens it to gardening. I think her perspective applies to many parts of our lives. 

Looking back I can recall few times when things weren't "messy." If something in our lives gets to the "just right" stage, it usually doesn't stay that way very long. There's always another challenge, something more to learn, a new goal to reach for. The flowers bloom for only so long before they need to be tended and nourished for the next growth spurt and then blooming season. It's all about cycles and seasons. 

Makechnie then says, "It’s easier not to plant a garden. It’s easier to ignore the kids than pay attention. It’s easier to plug into devices than read a story. But we do hard things because there is something more powerful than [not doing the hard things]: the harvest." What a blessing it is to enjoy the harvest - the results of our efforts and the mess. 

quote & picture