I had a wee melt down....

This house repair/reno has taken entirely too long.  BUT, I can see things beginning to come together.  Its quite odd, when you have a vision of how things should look.  And then you see it blending together to become your vision.  Lovely.

When we bought this house, John was laid off, just after we closed the deal.  It was a painful time for all of us.  We bought the house based on his income and then when he was finally able to find another job, his salary was cut literally in half. 

That being said, we had a lot of things we wanted to do to the house, changes to make, etc.  Because of the struggle financially, we were stuck with leaving some things as they were and not making upgrades on other things.  I will not lie, the salary cut, two growing boys and the extra expenses of a larger home were tough to navigate. 

John has steadily been promoted since then and our finances are much more sound, but money is still tight.  We have two in college. Money is still a concern, but at least we can breath again.

This whole repair renovation has presented us an opportunity to change some of the things we had hoped to change over the years. 

We've tried to look at it as an opportunity, not a misfortune.  The amount of time it has take has taken a toll on my body and my mind.  This ol' Dysautonomia body just doesn't cooperate like I want it to.  For example, yesterday I painted what used to be the dining room area....by myself....in one day.  I thought I would be able to rest a bit yesterday afternoon and pull myself together for church.  WRONG.  My body just laughed and laughed at me, as I crawled physically defeated to the bed. 

Tuesday of this week, things all came to head with me seeing so much STILL to be done.  I started making a list of things and the list just grew and grew and grew.  I could hear the characters, in my book, calling from a great distance away, "We want to play.  Please come make us do something interesting!" 

So, I sat down, had a good cry and then cried some more.  Note of advice: Pity parties are alright to have, but they cannot last very long. 

As my pity party was wrapping up, we got word that one of Adam's high school class mates committed suicide.  At once, I received clarity.  This house stuff is just that....STUFF.  None of it matters in the grand scheme of things.  Yes, I've been overwhelmed recently and in the past, but not to the point that I wanted to stop trying.  This young man stopped trying.  I don't know the details surrounding his life.  I wish he could have seen light at the end of the tunnel, because that wee sparkle of light is Jesus, beckoning us to keep trying. 

Please pray for this family.  They will need the vision to see that wee sparkle of light, as they move through grief.  My heart is broken for them. 

Post Script: I promise when this house adventure is all over, I will post a video tour, if I can figure out how to post it  :) 

It all started with a water leak

John was out of town for 3 weeks.  He came home at 6:30 on a Sunday night.  Less than 12 hours later, we awoke to a water leak coming from the upstairs bathroom into the the kitchen.  Welcome home John.

We sprang into action.  Literally.  John went flying across the front yard to cut the water meter off.  He called insurance (BTW-ALFA Insurance rocks!)  They got a restoration crew out immediately.  The bathroom floor had to go, along with the floor in the upstairs hallway.  A hole had to be torn out in the sheet rock because we didn't have an access panel to the plumbing in the bathtub/shower.  Downstairs, they tore out the kitchen ceiling.  Ripped up the living room carpet, along with drywall in the kitchen walls.

Doesn't this sound like fun?  Well, if it does, I'm not doing a very good job of describing it.  IT.HAS.BEEN.AWFUL.  Because the water leak affected so many areas of the house, furniture had to be shifted all around.  Nothing is in it's proper room. 

A well respected, highly recommended (by people I trust) contractor was hired.  Since the whole house was already torn up, we decided to take out the wall between the kitchen and dining room, making the space much more open and family gathering friendly.

Due to this decision, we ended up needing new counter tops and tile added instead of hardwood in the kitchen.  (Note to anyone who will listen.....DO NOT PUT HARDWOOD IN ANY ROOM WHERE WATER IS INVOLVED!)  We also changed out some lighting, added two pendant lights and corner shelving on each side of the built in pantry.

That all started 4 weeks and 2 days ago.

We are currently living (John, myself, Adam, dogs Harry and Zeus, and occasionally John David and Tori, the granddog) in our master bedroom suite.  The boys can still sleep in their beds, but they can't use their bathroom and the only place with a television right now is our bedroom.  (Oh and I can't get to the refrigerator because the unplugged stove and dishwasher are blocking it.) Also living in our master suite are the contents of my kitchen cabinets and assorted other trinkets from around the house.  Zeus, in fact, jumped off the couch in the sitting area of our master suite and landed right into a pile of Tupperware and other plastic containers.

The downstairs hallway and foyer are filled with assorted furniture pieces from the living room.  My office is filled with flower arrangements from all around the house and all the artwork that has been hanging on the walls.  (I know...the mental picture is brutal)

I don't like shopping for house stuff.  I don't like picking counter tops and paint colors.  I detest flooring samples and the like.  That means I have been having a blast.  My best friend Angie adored all this kind of stuff and I've shed more than a few tears that she is not here to help me with this.  I miss you Dude.  Always and forever.

I did discover something quite interesting in the past 4 weeks and 2 days.  I do indeed have a style and that style has a name.  "Modern Country".  Think Pottery Barn, Martha Stewart, Crate and Barrel and the like. Clean modern lines, neutral background colors, with rustic and natural elements included.  I've never known what to call my style, so I'm glad to have stumbled upon these two delightful words.  I do like words.

Tomorrow, if the forecasted ice storm decides to stay away, I will be getting the counter tops installed, the access door cut in the new sheet rock upstairs, the pendant lights put in and the ceiling painted in the living room. 

After that we will still need baseboards put down and painted, the hardwood in the upstairs hallway installed and all the painting done in the back foyer, kitchen, what used to the the dining room and the living room.

I'm thinking we still have a good two weeks.  I know it will be worth the hassle and I know there are worse things in the world, but man am I sick of this mess.

I cleaned our master bathroom and put everything in its place in there because I wanted one room, at least one, that was as it should be.  I threatened to delete any person from this family who messes up the bathroom.  So far so good.  All family members are still around.

I will post pictures when this is over.  But for now, please pray for this to be over soon and for my stinkin' Dysautonomia symptoms to play nice. 

Post Script:  The ice storm did indeed arrive as forecast.  But, we didn't let that stop us.  Instead of the workers being here to do what I mentioned above, we have been wiping down walls and baseboards and I'm actually getting a wee bit of painting done in the kitchen.

We are having to use a textured paint, that costs way too much.  But it is because of the difficulty we had getting the old wallpaper off.  Wallpaper is from hell, by the way, in my humble opinion.  The textured paint helps to hide all the uneven surfaces due to the paper removal.

And on a much more lovely note.....I LOVE THE PAINT COLOR AND I ADORE THE WAY THE PAINT AND THE KITCHEN FLOOR LOOK WITH THE CABINETS!

I have always hated the cabinets, they looked pink and weird, but with the right paint color and tile color, they look amazing!  So I miracle has happened in the middle of all this!  I like my cabinets!  

Where did it come from .....

For months, this novel has been living in my head and heart.  My non-fiction work and photographs have been published in various periodicals, but this fiction stuff is a first for me.

The idea for this story came from a dream that I had while at the beach in North Carolina, in 2013.  It was just months after the death of my best friend.

Back up to late December 2011.  Angie was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  On the night of her diagnosis, one of the most profound things to ever happen to me spiritually occurred.  I was visited by an angel in my dreams.  The angel did not look as I thought it would. In fact, the vision was a blurry haze of blue.  Imagine having a can of intense royal blue paint, then swirling white paint about in it.  That's what I saw.  But in the dream, I had no doubt the vision was an angel.  I was amazed at it's beauty.  I remember trying to touch it, but it remained just out of reach.  After several  minutes of fascination, I asked the angel to "Go see Angie."  What makes this even more incredible to me, is the fact that John watched this dream as it happened.  He woke up to my voice saying "Go see Angie", while I was reaching overhead trying to touch something.  He said I did this for the longest time.

I told Angie about the story and asked her what she thought.  Could it be real? She was quite furious with me for doubting the visitation. We went to the monastery, where I am now and oblate, to visit with one of the sisters, who is a cancer survivor.  When we walked into the sitting area of her office, we both stopped in our tracks.  The window ledge and panes were covered with blue stained glass angels.  Angie looked at me, tilted her head toward the window and smiled. 

We spent the next hour, talking to and praying with this sweet sister.  One nun, one Church of Christ girl and one Methodist/Church of Christ girl, all  joined hands in prayer as the Spirit of God laid gently upon us. Peace was alive in the room. 

A bit later, I received another visitation from this vision of blue.  This time it revealed to me that it was a feminine personality.  It sang to me, in the loveliest voice I've ever heard.  The only words I remember are "God is close to the brokenhearted."  When I woke the next morning, I sang that phrase to John and asked him to help me remember it.  He laughed and said, "I'm familiar with it.  You sang it all night, in your sleep." 

This line comes from Psalm 34:18  "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit."  

My blue angel didn't visit again until the June after Angie died, in February.  That's where we pick back up at the beach, in North Carolina.

One night, I dreamed this phrase, "A life well lived is a sacred echo."  Immediately upon waking, I told it to John, so it wouldn't be lost to the fog that lifts the details of dreams soon after waking.  We wrote it down and then he went to his computer to see if that was a phrase I had heard somewhere before, but just didn't remember.  

After a long search, we found the words "sacred echo" but not the rest of the phrase.  Seems it was an original thought planted in my brain by God, via my blue angel.  

This phrase stayed with me.  I rolled it around and looked at it from all sides.  I even diagrammed the sentence to see how it looked.  

Then one night, several months later, in a dream, this book came to me.  A blessed way to wrap up all the ideas that had been gifted to me. I got up the next morning and wrote down the ideas.  I prayed over them and mulled them, until I felt enough courage to share the idea with John.  He thought it was a great idea.  

So there it is.  The birth of a novel, via my blue angel.  Some of you will doubt my visitations and that's okay.  Until it happened to me, I would have doubted it too.  I even doubted it after it happened to me.  The God I serve can use a wee boys lunch to feed thousands, so it shouldn't surprise me that He can use a nobody like me, to tell a story from an angel and my own pain.

This is the hardest work of my life.  Each character is one I have birthed via the brain.  Each  idea has been put in my heart by the Divine, to help tell a story of friendship, loss, grief, recovery and happiness.  At it's core, my story is about celebrating a life well lived by living well. 

People keep asking me, "How much longer do you think it will take you to finish?" My answer is a simple one.  It will take as long as it takes.  After working on it a little bit since the early 2014, I've been working on it full time since about June. 

Some days I spend, up to my throat, in research.  Some days I spend the day, looking at photographs of the main locations in the book and write down every wee thought that comes to mind.  Some days I jump out of the bed and write like crazy, trying to get all the details of a dream on paper. Then I look up and realize it's 3 o'clock and I'm still in my pajamas and haven't eaten a bite, brushed my teeth or combed my hair. 

But oh my, on a  few glorious days, the words flow like a river, surprising me with their depth and emotion.  It's then I know my inspiration does not come from any talent of mine, but from the Creator of the universe. 

In the midst of all the chaotic writing, each day starts and ends the same.  I pray over this work.  May the God of love and peace bless these words to bring glory to the Master Healer. 

I hope to have it ready to present to one already interested publisher, by the end of the summer.  I am planning on attending a writer's conference in the late summer, where I can present the manuscript to 3 other publishers.  Then I will be sending query letters to every publisher with an address.  I hope to get my book printed via the traditional route, but if no one bites at it, (And that's a strong possibility in the dog eat dog world of publishing) I will look into self publishing. 

So there it is.  Please help me pray. 

*The lovely painting was done for me on my birthday 2013, by my amazingly talented artist friend, Lynn Weatherford.  I described my experiences to her and this is what she painted.  Brilliant! 

Romantical.....

Today is the 30th Anniversary of mine and John's first date together.  Yep, we've been together a long, long time.  January 28, 1984 I went out on a date with a handsome dude I barely knew and after that evening, I never went on a date with anyone else.

Because I'm feeling kind of "romantical" today,  (When he was little, John David used to say "Momma and Daddy are being romantical" when he saw us hugging or kissing.)  I've been writing some happy, romantical, and a wee bit humorous scenes for the book.  This is my modern day main character, Sara, along with a handsome gentleman she met at Dalhousie. 

Here is one:

It was a warm Scottish day, meaning that the air was not cold enough to need a scarf, but not yet warm enough to leave a coat behind.  The watery sun was working quite hard to shine.  

Ian drove on the narrow winding road, beside the famed Loch Ness, at a speed somewhere between the cartoon Roadrunner and being shot out of a cannon.  I sat on the passenger side, ever so thankful for my seat belt, but unsure if it would do any good, if we hit the hillside at such an alarming speed.  I had an up close view of the hillside, had I chosen to look at it, but instead, I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. 

I heard Ian make a sound that I assumed was a masculine giggle.   “Are you alright, ”  he questioned.

“Why yes, of course.  I adore the fear of having the left side of my head shaved clean from the sharp rocks of this hillside….right beside my left ear....as you zoom around the loch.” 

He did a full out laugh this time that caused me to give him a very threatening “stink eye”.  The stink eye was a look my children gave each other, as an alternative to punching their sibling, if mom was close by.  Unfortunately,  Ian seemed to be immune to the effects of the stink eye.  He laughed, even louder.  

I continued, “I will tell my friends in the states that while I was near Loch Ness, I was much too scared to actually look at it.  The fear has nothing to do with Nessie.”  

With a ridiculously childlike grin Ian said, “How about we slow our day down a bit.   We can stop at Urquhart Castle, let you catch your breath, have a very slow look around and maybe have a cup of tea afterward?” 
 

As Ian slowed the car and the landscape came into focus, I noticed the dark green of the alders and the yellow blooms of the gorse and broom covering the hillside. The gorse is magnificent from a distance, but when viewed at close range, you have to be careful of the huge thorns.  

“Urquhart Castle,” I mused, thumbing through Brigid’s journal.  “I don’t see anything here about it?  I vaguely remember seeing pictures in her albums of Urquhart, but she doesn’t seem to have left me any messages about it. Hmm.”  

“Would you rather not stop?”  We can always keep driving toward Inverness.  There are some lovely spots for lunch and tea there.” 

“No, let’s stop. I’d like to get a good, slow look at the loch anyway.”  I was rewarded with a handsome grin, as we turned the car into the parking lot for Urquhart tours.  

A prayer from Angie....

After Brigid's death, Sara finds a journal with the following written in the cover. 

Sara, 

Go on the trip.  Do you hear me?  I’m not kidding.  We have spent too much effort, money and time planning this for you to give it up and not go, just because I died.  Life isn't over for you.  Go.  Heal.  Enjoy.  

I want you to see all the places we’ve talked about.  I want you to feel it and discover why it means so much to me.  I believe there is something waiting for you there.  I feel it deep in my heart. That's why I pushed you so hard to go with me.

 

Lying around being sick is no fun and I'm sick of it (That is funny...laugh please).  So, to amuse myself, when Scottish related information comes my mind, I’m writing it in this book, just for you. Please take it with you when, not if, you go.  I will kind of be your heavenly tour guide.  Giggle snort. 

May God be with you and bless you.
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward------An Old Celtic Blessing

Enjoy it, my dearest friend.  The love we share will spill over the walls of eternity and echo forever.

Brigid

(C) Kelley Smith, 2015  "An Echo In the Veil"  

Just as a side note, Angie crossed stitched that blessing for me, when John and I got married in 1987.  Things do indeed come full circle.