Honestly... my family of origin is pretty great, and I love them. Just hadda get that off my chest I guess. In a strange way I see that what I wrote in my last post could be taken to mean that there was some abuse going on in my family, by comparing some of my sibs fighting styles to a stone cold abuser. I don't think that... I was just surprised to find myself back in some old emotional places, and I was finally able to see some things I hadn't before.
Not great, but hey, I'm an adult now, and I'm better equipped to deal with what's coming my way. Mostly.
Speaking of being an adult... I didn't start having babies until I was in my 30's, so I think I might have been under the impression that I was gonna skip the identity crisis once the kids grow up and move out. Ya know, the empty nester crisis of "who am I now?"
I'm no where near the empty-nest stage, but the Bird has a real jobby-job at the nearby movie theater and will be a licensed driver by the end of the week (assuming it all goes as planned) and I can see that eventually this is really gonna happen. She's sixteen and I can see it. The end of raising children.
...and I don't recognize myself anymore.
In some ways I am pretty all right, but in other ways I look at myself and feel like, "Really? I'm really still dealing with this crap?"
Better spend a little time this summer and see if I can dig out from underneath the mommy-identity and figure out some of who I've become over here. To that end, I'm grateful for a goofy little disaster we had at the beginning of summer.
When our house was being built it looks like there was a mix-up with where our water main was to come into the house. For some reason (prolly water main) there was a 3-4 inch hole either drilled or left in our foundation that got "patched" by someone shoving in a glob of tar and then covering the whole mess with insulation. This spring the "fix" failed at the same time as we had sprinkler leak right on top of the hole.
Water... in a carpeted closet in the basement for at least a week before it was found.
The carpet and padding had started to mold, the baseboards were swollen and ruined, as was a goodly section of drywall. I dug the mess out and cut away the drywall till I discovered what had caused it, then promptly called the builders.
They informed me that the house was well out of it's one year "workmanship warranty," and I informed them that if a foundation cannot hold up for more than a year, that ain't "workmanship." The foundation is actually covered for ten years... but I guess builders want to pay up about as much as a health insurance company.
Eventually they agreed that a giant hole in the foundation does constitute a "problem" that they ought to fix... and with some back and forth they even agreed to fix everything but the flooring. They, right or wrong, want us to take on some of the damage fix because of the sprinkler leak. SO, the upshot is that by the end of this month the (rather large) closet will be refinished only with no flooring and that will be the PERFECT place to paint. Year round!
On an interesting note, a painting I had done of Calvary's Hill is going up at a local Christian Ministry homeless outreach center. I am sooooo stoked!
1 comment:
Good to see you back!
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