Having a Tribe

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a “tribe” or a “crew” or anything of the sort. Until now that is. Let me tell you, it’s a little overwhelming at times, but in a very good way. I’ve always been a “Do It Yourself” kind of guy. Whatever it is, whatever needs doing, I do it myself. I don’t ask for help very often because it’s not something I’m used to getting much of. I need something done, I do it myself.

I bring this up because a few weeks ago I made the momentous decision to <gulp> sell my house. I love this house. I love the house, the property, the location, the neighborhood, the neighbors (well, those that are still speaking to me anyway) and everything about it. I said for years that the only way I was leaving this house was in a box. I’ve poured my heart, to say nothing of a lot of blood and sweat, into this house. But it’s time to move on. It took me a year to come to this decision, but once I finally made it, I looked around and saw the unholy amount of work to be done in order to get it ready to sell.

The front yard — newly landscaped only 4 years ago — was a disaster. The back yard, torn to shreds by the installation of the geothermal heating/AC unit 3 years ago, needs to be completely redone. The entire inside needs to be repainted (all 5100 square feet of it!). It needed new carpeting in all the carpeted areas. Tons of work. I was instantly overwhelmed. There was no way. It would take me a year.

Then a funny thing happened. While I was on a business trip to the god-forsaken land of Texas (Digression: Austin is lovely, but Houston would make a great landfill) this new tribe suddenly rallied to my cause. I came home to find the front yard almost entirely weeded, pruned and cleaned up. We added 12 cubic yards of mulch and it looks like a million bucks. I rented a Bobcat and leveled out the back yard and it’s ready for sod. And for the past week, my Girlfriend, her best friend (and her entire family!) and my girlfriend’s parents have been over here weeding, raking, moving furniture and painting. The main floor is about 1/3 painted already. We could be done with paint in a week or two. Julie arranged to have the carpet installers come give me an estimate today. (Digression: I need 2500 square feet of new carpet. That means I’ve laid 2500 square feet of tile in this house. By. Myself.)

These people, whom I have only known for less than a year, have descended on my home and given up their time, their weekends, their evenings, and even sacrificed some clothing (Steph poured paint all over her clothes, which was hilarious) to pitch in and help me. And here’s the thing: I didn’t ask them to. Julie took over the project management of the whole operation because she could clearly see how overwhelmed I was with kids, work, and the mountain of tasks to complete. She rallied her troops and they came to my aid.

I am overwhelmed. I am filled with gratitude and in awe of their kindness and support. There’s still a ton of stuff to do — like take down, paint, and rehang, with new hardware, all 34 doors in this house! — but I am no longer overwhelmed with the enormity of it all. I’m still not used to it, and I will also say that I’m still not entirely comfortable with it all because it is all so foreign to me, but I know that we can get it done. Notice I said ‘we’ there. Not I. We. That’s the change. That’s the part that is uncomfortable and foreign to me I guess. It takes me a while to get used to changes. Especially changes this big. But I’ve made bigger changes in my life, both internal and external ones. I’m just getting to make some simultaneously right now.  The last 2 years have been all about big changes for me, and this is just one or two more. I’m ready.

The house goes on the market soon, so stay tuned for the next chapter(s).


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Then this happened

As you may know, last year was a bit of a challenge for me. I got divorced. I was homeless for a while. I lost my job. So just a bit of a challenge you could say. 

Then I got my house back. Then I got a new job. I was just minding my own business, enjoying being single and being a dad and then this happened:

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Amazing. Remarkable. Magical. Truly. It shows me that as long as I keep showing up for life, no matter what life throws at me, things change. Things get better. And miracles happen. 


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It’s Just Another Day of Bedlam

Easy as pie my assToday has been … well, surreal. The kitchen looks like there was some sort of war between the ingredients going on. Epic. Disaster. We started by making waffles, which is messy, but I got the kitchen sparkling clean after that. Then came the adventure into making paper. Which quickly descended into experimental territory. 

We’ve always made paper by unloading the paper shredder into a blender full of hot water, then adding all sorts of other things to it, blah blah blah … That was before The Tot … Jesus Cristo con frijoles!! That child! So that was the start of the mess. Then we decided to take some of the exotic wood sawdust/shavings from wood-lathe land (caution: when your woodshop and your kitchen collide, get out of the way FAST!) and add that to the paper-making. 

So we started a huge pot of water and Osage Orange (or maybe it was yellow heart) boiling on the stove. No idea why. Then we decided it would be a good idea (probably because the costco sized bag was sitting RIGHT. THERE. since I had been using it to deodorize the rug since my STBX had just decided to let the dogs pee all over it for the past 6 months … let’s not go down that road, shall we?) Anyway … so we started dumping handfuls of baking soda into the pot. Interesting … it was like adding it to a pot of boiling vinegar! Foaming all over the place! and all over the stove. Nice. Boiling baking soda and wood pulp. That should be easy to clean up!

That was now officially my son’s experiment — he took over after it became obvious that it was really weird and cool and messy.  The Tot decided she needed to do her OWN experiment. So I got her a small mixing bowl. She got out her “ingrediments” which consisted of double-acting baking powder and vanilla extract. That’s how it started anyway. Wait, did I ever even finish making paper? Yeah, I was finishing that up while the experimenting was going on. 

The son got bored with the boiling pot of foaming wood pulp and wandered back to the woodshop to make more bowls — someone please go buy one before I go broke! http://www.etsy.com/people/randysimmons1 Ok, my OT is going OT, not a good sign.

While I finished with the paper, The Tot continued her experiment. She was most of the way through the can of baking powder when I switched her to baking soda (since I have eleventy million pounds of the stuff). Then I turned my sights to replacing the under-cabinet lights. (Why did I decide that now would be a good time? Point out the part where I said I was sane. Go on. Just try. ) They are all Xenon and get too hot, plus there’s 360 watts worth. So I replaced 4 (240 watts) with 3 LED light bars (30 watts) and … well, maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention to the Tot’s experiment. She had self-graduated to the largest mixing bowl in the kitchen, added flour, raw barley, dried black beans, brown rice, shredded paper, yellow-heart sawdust and red heart sawdust to her list of ingredients and was threatening to use it like paper mache to “make a bolcano” with. Clearly this had gone on too long. Rather than carry the flour, sawdust and shredded paper containers to the site of the experiment, she had just been carrying handfuls back and forth, so there was now a trail of each across the floor. And the table was … wait, is there still a table under there? Dunno. I’ll look for it later.

Great, now it’s dinner time … So we did that (on what little of the table we could find). And now the Tot is INSISTING on making the paper mache volcano. So we get out the next-largest mixing bowl and start THAT project. On the floor. Wouldn’t you know it but Murray Dog decides to play hoover about now and look amongst the shredded paper, sawdust and who knows what else for tidbits to eat. Pickles, the large cat sleeping on the chair, takes offense to this plan, and swats Murray Dog, who jumps, and lands … wait for it … IN THE BOWL OF PAPER MACHE!!! Then runs off through the house. Somebody shoot me. Mess officially no longer confined to the kitchen.

Meanwhile Lilly has decided that the now-fresh smelling rug is *too* fresh smelling and decides to pee on it. The deck is just not high enough to jump off of at this point. Did I mention that we got 2 new cats this weekend who are sequestered in the master bath, making Pickles edgy and Murray all giddy at the prospect of fresh kitties to bounce? Yeah, so add that. Or multiply by that. I forget the exact math on these things.

It is now 10:30. I have wiped down the counters, and re-oiled them, since paper-making will take the shine off a soapstone countertop. I have cleaned up most of the paper mache mess, other than the stuff littering the floor. I still haven’t the first clue what to do with this 40-pound bowl full of 5-year-old’s experimental ‘cooking’ results. And now I have to (once again) figure out where everyone (of the critters) is sleeping tonight. Murray Dog gets very upset if he can’t sleep in the room with me. The new cats, needless to say, are not thrilled with this sleeping arrangement. Plus it’s raining, which makes Murray Dog all nutty since he’s convinced there will be thunder and lightening and the world will end in calamity. 

If anyone is in the neighborhood and would like to stop by and shoot me, that would be a big help. 

If you read this far, well, you obviously don’t have enough to do, so get over here and take this giant bowl of godknowswhat off my hands. And clean my floors.