Laboring on Labor Day

~ theantelopediaries
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Dashboard of our U-Haul.

Sometimes when things don’t go as planned, I have an absurd conversation in my head.

“So, how did you spend your Labor Day weekend?”

“Barbecuing.”

“Relaxing and watching TV.”

“Went to the state fair.  How about you?”

“We replaced our old water heater, which was leaking, and we hauled three quarters of a ton to the dump.”

It wasn’t how we thought we’d spend our Labor Day, but it worked out for the best.  We ended up getting a lot of work done.

Our water heater began leaking this past week.  My husband walked into the garage and found a puddle.  He had to sidestep it to ensure he wouldn’t get electrocuted because the water was coming out of a chamber with wires.  The silver lining was that we had a three day weekend to deal with the matter.

I began researching hot water heaters.  I am compulsive about finding the best deal.  My philosophy is not to skimp on the important stuff.  There is an old saying that goes something like: “I’m not so rich as to buy cheap stuff.”  Sometimes when you buy cheap stuff, you end up paying more for repairs or replacement.  (Like our washing machine that we bought at a recycling outlet last year that broke on Monday for the third time.)  So while my husband was happy to buy the cheapest possible 50 gallon hot water heater, I needed to perform due diligence.

Our leaky hot water heater.
Draining our old leaking hot water heater.

I convinced my husband on a Whirlpool which has an EnergySmart mode that monitors your water use patterns to maximize efficiency and reduce standby heat loss.  I figured the $150 difference would more than pay for itself in terms of energy consumption and it bought us three extra years of warranty on parts and another year on labor.  And, something fortuitous happened, without which my husband may not have come on board.  When I called my previous landlord, a plumber by trade, for his recommendation for a hot water heater, he told me he had something in his wallet that he has been carrying since we left.  It’s a refund for some of our deposit, which we didn’t get back when we left.  Thank you cosmos.

Problem was that we didn’t have a truck.  When I was an apartment dweller, I didn’t understand why there were so many people driving SUVs and trucks.  Now, as a homeowner and parent, I get it.  It seems every couple months we need a truck, probably because we bought a fixer upper home.  We figured if we needed to rent a truck for the day, we might as well use it to clear the debris from the blackberry bushes that have been sitting in our backyard and tear down the old fence.  There was enough to make several trips to the dump.

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Blackberry bushes waiting for the right opportunity to be hauled away.  A section of our old fence stands in the corner.

And thus, a simple hot water heater replacement turned into several big projects.

We woke up to rain on Saturday morning.  This meant that the bushes and fencing would weigh more and we would be charged more at the dump.  We tried not to let this deter us.  Pete used a chainsaw to cut the old fence and then began chainsawing the bottoms of the remaining blackberry bushes.  This went A LOT faster than me cutting them by hand, as I had been doing when I had time.  He was done with everything in less than an hour.  I raked the blackberry bushes onto tarps and prepared everything for Sunday when we would rent the truck.

We made three trips to the dump on Sunday and disposed of almost three quarters of a ton of debris.  That’s 1,500 pounds of fencing and bushes.  I can’t believe that we lifted that much.  It didn’t feel like that much, although it wasn’t always easy.

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Old fencing and yard waste.

“Our house is starting to look like someone lives here,” my husband said after we had cleared all the debris.

Polina behaved well.  She was content watching cartoons on DVD while we worked.  My only regret is that when she came out and wanted to dance with me like Cinderella, a character she reincarnates frequently throughout the day, I told her I couldn’t because I was working.  I regret not giving her the minute it would have taken to dance with her, because I really wasn’t giving her any time during that day.  Lesson learned.

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Loading blackberry bushes into a U-Haul.  It took two trips to get rid of them all.

After making the final trip to the dump at 4 pm, Pete began working on installing our new hot water heater, but why stop there?  He decided to install a pressure relief valve as well, which meant sawing at an existing pipe.  He worked well into the night getting the right attachment and fixing a leak from the pipe.  In a rare instance, for him, of self-deprecating humor, Pete said our previous landlord would have laughed if he had seen him working.  I told him if he replaced as many water heaters as our landlord he probably would have done things differently too.  Lessons learned.

I’m proud of the fact that things went as smoothly as they did with a three year old.  Proud, not grateful, because I think we as a family have matured, largely because circumstances forced us to.  I can recall times when we had less on our plate and we weren’t able to hold it together without bickering or someone crying.

Polina was being a good sport.  She even got to ride in the front seat of the truck on the way to the dump.  It was the first time she got to sit in a forward facing seat in the front of a vehicle.  She was taking it all in stride.

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Riding shotgun.

 

Taking it in stride.
Taking it in stride.

We dedicated Monday to Polina, since Sunday was all about us (working, that is).  We went to our new place for Indian buffet and then went to a nearby park that Polina loves because of the “big swing,” which she repeats often while we’re eating, lest we forget to take her there.  We were at the playground for a long time, not our usual rushed selves.  Polina for the first time hung on a monkey bar and swung by herself like some of the older kids.  She had a big grin on her face.  We came home and after a two hour nap, she asked to go to the park again.

“I want to go to the park right now.” she said politely, but authoritatively.  That is one of her longest sentences, if not her longest sentence thus far.

Pete continued to do house projects while I went with Polina to a nearby park.  She was so happy.  She is happy with the simple things in life, like swinging, or climbing a rock wall, or running.  She teaches us what is important and how to be happy, even when things don’t go our way.

Lesson learned.

Finding the Perfect in the Imperfect

~ theantelopediaries

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Wednesday morning for the nth time it was the middle of the week and I hadn’t made it off our property. Monday I spent several hours cleaning the house.  Our house needed it.  It started with me getting a toilet brush and cleaning the first toilet.  There I did.  The rest was easy.  Getting started was the hardest part.  The rest was momentum.

I worked hard,.  Polina watched and found things to do while interacting with me.  I noticed how much better I was handling work with her needs.  Before long it was nap time, then dinner time, so we didn’t make it out.

On Tuesday I called so-called “tree experts” to diagnose an evergreen in my yard that had lost all its needles.  It was that way when we bought the house a year ago, but now I noticed that the tree next to it was also losing its needles.  I began to worry the tree might be infected.  One expert suggested it might be due to a bark beetle infestation.  I panicked that I may lose the rest of my trees due to bark beetles.  I spent the morning worrying, emailing and calling.  The sound of a chainsaw revving outside made me nervous.  During Polina’s nap, I talked to my neighbor next door, as she had mentioned a company she had worked with in the past.  On the way back, I decided to be bold and talk to the chainsaw operator guy.  Turns out he wasn’t an arborist but has been in the “tree service” business for 27 years.

“They don’t climb trees and I didn’t read the books,” he said.

Fortunately for me, he went across the driveway and examined my tree.  He slapped it with his hand.  It sounded hollow.  He concluded that it has been dead for a while.  As for the tree next to it not having as many needles, he said this happens when trees overlap and needles don’t get enough sunlight.  All in all I felt a lot better that it wasn’t necessarily the bark beetle.  I felt even better when he gave me an estimate, which was less than I expected.  I was grateful.

A good day, but we hadn’t made it off our property.

Wednesday morning, I was set on going out.  I learned from past experience that the *right* way to do it is to get an earlier start.  Unfortunately, that morning, Polina woke me up at 6 am and continued to wake me for two hours.  Fortunately it was time for Peter to wake up, so he took over, letting me “sleep-in” for an hour.

When he left, I got ready.  I had to make a speedy exit or our trip would fall to close to Polina’s nap time.  I ate leftover dinner for breakfast.  I left the pile of dishes from the night before in the sink.  I’m learning how to throw perfection out the window.  I don’t like it, but I have to.

When we got to a park I had been wanting to visit for a while, Polina was asleep.  Another case of meaning well, but bad timing.  Parking was $7.  Seven dollars to park in a county park?  I parked near the entrance to wait for Polina to wake up.  I realized once again I forgot to bring something to read.  Why didn’t I put that book in the car I wanted to read? 

Fortunately I had the radio.  Unfortunately, a park ranger alerted me to his existence and after a brief chat about the park I offered him $7.  Driving to the day use parking lot, Polina woke up, and when we got out of the car, we weren’t on our property for the first time in four days.

While Polina decided to run around barefoot in the playground, I was cold.  I had on a sweatshirt but no reserve coat in the car (although I did bring a rain jacket for Polina.  Check.  I did something right.)

I didn’t think I could stand being in the cold and tried not to be sad about wasting $7, which, if you get paid for your work, may not be a lot of money.  But I don’t get paid for my work.

So I’m standing in the cold in the playground by the lake and I look up.  There is a clearing in the clouds.  Maybe if I wait long enough, the sun will peak out.  The best thing we had going for us is that the place was empty except for a few park rangers.  We had the place to ourselves, and there was “the sound of silence.”  I decide to make the most of our trip.  We went down to the water, picked blackberries by the shore, walked on the dock and talked with a lone fisherman.  Sometime during all this, the sun came out, and when I looked up, the clouds were gone.  Polina and I ended up spending five hours in the park walking on a nature trail, picking and playing with branches and leaves, discovering water lilies, pretending to be fishing with sticks in puddles, seeing the fish the fisherman caught and released, practicing walking on rocks, and playing on the playground.

During our drive home, it started to drizzle, then rain, then downpour.  When I took our exit off the highway I saw a giant rainbow.  We made it home and Polina went to sleep easily because it was a full day.

A cold day turned into a warm one.  What I thought was a wash turned into a 5 hour adventure.  It didn’t start off perfectly, but it ended perfectly.

Now if I can only get the dishes done in the morning…..

 

 

 

Top 5 Reasons Why I Haven’t Blogged Recently

~ theantelopediaries ~ 2 Comments

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Well, it has been over a month since my last post, and to be truthful the last week or so I’ve been wondering how low I can go.  You know, the feeling you get when you’re already in the mud and you want to wallow in it.  I write because my insides want it, so why don’t I?  I could write reasons, but I’m afraid they’ll be excuses.  Now I realize they really are reasons.

So here are the top five reasons why I haven’t posted in almost a month.

  1.  I don’t get enough sleep.  “Blah blah blah don’t we all.”  Well, I’ve been spoiled since quitting the “labor force.”  I used to blog in the evenings after Polina went to sleep around 8:30.  More recently, perhaps because of the longer days, she has been going to sleep at 10.  10!  I’ll be honest- that’s crazy for me.  I need time to unwind and by then I’m falling asleep myself.  So either I fight through the somnolence and wake up groggy and resentful the next morning or… I go to sleep.  I tried both options, most recently the latter and even IT backfired on me.  In the middle of the night, Polina’s calls for me turn to loud cries if I don’t go to her, so I go to console her and fall asleep next to her myself.  I tend to turn in my sleep, which wakes her up, so she wakes me up, so I have to console her again before trying to go back to sleep myself (which doesn’t come as easily as it used to).  Of course I need to turn again or I wake up lying uncomfortably, so Polina wakes up and on it goes.  Long story short, I’m awakened numerous times at  night, as is Polina, which makes both of us a bit short-tempered during the day.  This sleeping arrangement isn’t working for me, but we have no other option until Polina’s room is ready, and right now we’re in the sanding phase.  My husband is kind enough to supervise Polina in the morning as he gets ready for work so I can get some shut eye.  I would function a lot worse without it.
  2. Polina doesn’t nap consistently at the same time.  To be honest, she was never a consistent napper, but more recently, sometimes she would barely nap.  In the winter, this meant she would go to sleep earlier.  In the summer, it often hasn’t worked that way.  Longer work hours, less time to myself.  Needless to say, it has been difficult.
  3. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the crap I have to learn.  Posting something online isn’t too difficult, but fiddling with appearance or learning about seo and other stuff that would help get your blog out there is time-consuming, at least for me, because I tend to be thorough.  In the end, I realized that I write because my soul feels better after I do.  Any audience I get is more for my ego than my soul.
  4. My husband is not supportive of me blogging when there is so much to do.  First, dinner has to be ready when he gets home.  I’m getting a lot better at it, but I didn’t enter this relationship knowing how to cook.  It takes time to find recipes, get ingredients (let me tell you, sometimes you just want to go to the store by yourself) and then follow directions for cooking with a toddler that also wants your attention.  My hat goes off to people that can do it consistently.  I realized that I only need to cook four meals a week and the rest of the days can be leftovers.  This week I got all my meals made.  I’m getting better at it, but sometimes it is a challenge.  Second, we have a house that has projects involving sanding, painting, cutting and moving.  I told my husband I can’t keep an eye on Polina for many of these projects, so that means we take turns working on weekends.  Blogging, for him, is not a priority.
  5. Lethargy has set in.  I’ve blamed my husband and child, now let me blame myself.  The last few weeks I have been wallowing in the mud that is lethargy.  When I was younger, I could stay up till 2 am working.  I can’t do that anymore.  Bitterness sets in for a number of reasons when I think about the past, things I perceive as unfair, so I don’t want to push myself and lethargy sets in.  Eventually I reach a nadir and that propels me to get off my butt and move, like right now.  Polina is napping and instead of doing dishes, cleaning the bathrooms, or picking toys off the floor, I am blogging with gratitude in my heart.

Scenes from the Day- July 25, 2015

~ theantelopediaries

Saturday began a bit differently than usual.  Pete had been away since Wednesday night in San Francisco.  Aside from the usual stress and anxiety that builds up during the week that doesn’t offer much breaks, I was particularly on edge.  He was coming home that night, and I couldn’t wait.

I was texting with someone who contacted me via craigslist about buying a crib mattress. I was selling ours.  We hardly ever used it because Polina woke up not longer after I would set her down in it.  As a newborn she slept next to me and she preferred it.  I caved to her sleeping with me because I didn’t want to use the crying-it-out method.

Periodically I would look up to check on her.  Then I looked up and saw her on top of my car, my two-seater that Pete traded with me when we had Polina because he didn’t want me to drive with a baby in that thing.  She was perfectly calm standing on top of the roof.  Apparently, she isn’t afraid of heights, which would be even more evident as the day progressed.

One text. That's all it took while I was in the front yard with Polina Saturday morning. When I looked up, she was on top of my car. I don't know how she got there, but I helped her down so she wouldn't break my windshield wipers.
One text. That’s all it took while I was in the front yard with Polina Saturday morning. When I looked up, she was on top of my car.

 

She wanted to use my car as a slide down the front windshield.  She refused to let me help her.  She wanted to get down herself.  So I helped her gently, so it didn’t look like I was helping.  It worked.  She was happy as a clam.

We drove to town to meet my friend David for lunch.  It was great to talk to him.  I don’t have too many friends, and he is one of my oldest.  My oldest friends happen to be male.  I don’t know why that is.  It will be six years since we met working together leading treatment groups for drug and alcohol users involved in the criminal justice system.  He has his problems and I have mine, but we can laugh and support one another.  I cherish that more than anything, because this can be a very cold and painful world.

Afterward, Polina and I headed to a former navy complex that reopened as a park.  As is typical of Washington state, there aren’t many signs, at least compared to Philadelphia where I grew up.  In Philadelphia, the signage is so clear that it can become comical because there are so many of them one after another.  Even on trails it is virtually impossible to get lost because just when you think you are alone in nature, in the middle of nowhere, there is a sign.

Not so in Washington.  I think it’s part of the passive-aggressive vibe to this place, like you’re supposed to know where you’re going and if you don’t, then  you don’t belong there.  This happens all the time in residential neighborhoods that are built like corn mazes and streets that change their names three times within 5 minutes of driving.  I don’t get it.

Anyway, it’s easy to get lost around here, even if you’ve lived here for 16 years like I have.  I hadn’t been to this park in a while, so we went down one path, didn’t find what we were looking for and went down another path.  Polina insisted that I carry her on my right side.  Even as a baby, she protested when I held her with my left arm.

The problem now was that my right arm was ready to fall off from carrying her down to these places I didn’t want to go.  I saw a spot by a grove of Madrone trees and we sat down.  There was a cool breeze, a stark contrast to the almost unbearable heat of the prior weekend.  Polina was restless and wanted me to keep carrying her.  I showed her the bark of a Madrone tree.  I rubbed it on my skin and it was soothing.  It helped me to calm down.  As a kid I liked to rub leaves on my cheeks and forehead.  I don’t know why I liked it, but I did.  Anything smooth or soft works.  I taught Polina, and she calmed down. (!)

Then I taught her how to pull the bark off the tree.  It’s as thin as paper.  Not peeling the bark off a Madrone tree for me is like leaving a line of chalk on the chalkboard.  It’s irritating and I have a compulsion to erase it, except in this case, it’s about peeling.  As I peel the bark, it feels good to “liberate” the tree.  The trunk underneath is smooth and I gently caress it so as not to nick it with my fingernail.  Polina also liked peeling the bark.  It was mildly hypnotic watching her do this quietly for about 20 minutes.  Maybe she was mesmerized.

Polina pulling the bark of a Magnolia tree. It's quite calming.
Polina pulling the bark of a Madrona tree. It’s quite calming.

 

Then off we went in another direction and found some blackberry bushes growing by the side of the path (previously a road.)  Most of them weren’t ripe yet, but there were enough that were to fill our bellies.  I taught Polina to pick the black ones, not the red ones.  She quickly learned and began eating.  After every bunch she said, “messy,” indicating that her hands were messy.  Of course, she’s picking blackberries.  But Polina doesn’t like messy anything.  Fortunately, intuition told me earlier that morning to bring a washcloth, so after every bunch I had something with which to wipe her hands.

Picking blackberries. Polina was quite good at it.
Picking blackberries. Polina was quite good at it.

 

Walking further, we came to some stairs which I had remembered from my last visit.  I had slight vertigo from looking down these stairs.  I needed a hand rail.  Not Polina.  She insisted on going down by herself.  She learned a new word this past week: “sama,” which means “by myself” in Russian, which she has no trouble saying to me.  (Several days prior, when I opened the door and turned the light on to take her to the bathroom, she turned off the light, closed the door (leaving me in the bathroom), then after a few seconds, casually opened the door and turned the light back on again.)

No fear. (I'm talking about Polina, not myself.)
No fear. (I’m talking about Polina, not myself.)

 

Oh oh. People coming. Back upstairs.
Oh oh. People coming. Back upstairs.

 

Polina, perhaps channeling her peasant ancestors, loves to be barefoot, even in weather that I would consider chilly.  There is a school of thought that says connecting bare feet to nature is beneficial for good health.  Does asphalt count?

Running barefoot through the park.
Running barefoot through the park.

 

It was 5:50 pm.  Four hours before Pete’s flight arrived.  It didn’t make sense to drive back home only to come back down again later.  I decided to go to town to see what was open on a Sunday evening.  I chose Thai, and it was a good decision.  Polina, the picky eater, ate all her beef noodles.  We killed some time there and sooner rather than later, it was 9:45 pm.

We finally picked Pete up from the airport at about 10:40 pm.  Polina was asleep in her car seat, but she woke up briefly to greet him.  She was so happy to see him.  The recognition in her eyes quickly turned to excitement… It is gratifying to see her bonding with a healthy human being who also happens to be her father.  It was a positive end to a positive day.

The love of my life.
The love of my life.