Monday check-in

Saturday morning we spent up at my parents' house packing up all the stuff we were getting rid of from the house. We had a whole garage full of good stuff, furniture, kitchen stuff, clothes, linens, etc. It was so cold on Saturday and we were in and out of the house dragging stuff into the garage and clearing out the cellar. We had a two hour window of when the truck was coming which turned into a 3 hour window.

My siblings were there and our husbands and my niece. Mom stopped by, too. When we realized we would be there longer than planned, we decided to go and pick up Subway grinders and have some lunch. We sat around our dining room table the one where we have had all our Sunday dinners and had our lunch. The dining room table is the only piece of furniture left in the house. We toasted with our coke bottles thinking it may be the last meal we have around that table in that house.

It was good team work and a good feeling of accomplishment to get so much done. I had not been feeling well all morning so I was ready to go home when things were done and when I got home I was in full blown chills. I just got right into bed with my mattress pad heater turned way up and I was shivering and shaking. I slept most of the day and was up on and off in the night sick.

Spent the rest of the weekend resting and napping.

No work today due to winter break, which is a good thing. Not sure I would have made it in today. Feeling better, but I am so weak from not eating much over the weekend.

So hoping I will perk up today and get some stuff done around here and feel normal again!

Travels in the night

The family farm. View from the top of the hill, 1950.

Thursday night I had a dream that I was standing on top of the hill across the street from my parents' house overlooking the family farm as it was like when I was growing up. It was in the middle of the night and I was barefoot and in my nightgown. I had my camera and I was taking pictures of the farm in the dark, in the snow, well aware that I was standing on snow and it was not cold. I was thinking that this was my favorite place to be. It crossed my mind how I would get back down the long hill with no shoes and a bum knee, but the thought was fleeting.

I kept taking pictures and looking at them in the LCD screen. I had the ones all picked out that I was going to post on FB. Although I can only remember one of the photos now. I could see a silhouette of myself in the photo and wondered to myself how I could take the picture and be in it at the same time.

Then I woke up (or so I thought) in my old bedroom at my parents' house with the camera right next to my bed. I grabbed it looking for all the pictures. They were gone. My husband came in and I was telling him about the pictures as I frantically looked again and again through my digital photos. My husband told me I must have dreamed it all. But I knew it wasn't a dream. I took those pictures and they self destructed like a message from an episode of Mission Impossible.

I woke up (this time for real) in my own bed and I thought that it was a good idea to go up the hill and take pictures of the farm in the winter. In that moment my head cleared and I realized I had been dreaming and then I remembered how everything was gone now. The farm, the buildings, and the farmers.

I thought about my dream all day long, how empowering it felt to be standing up on that hill in the middle of the night and even though everything is gone in real time, it is still there in heart and soul and possibly in another dimension far away.

Getting closer

It is Tuesday night, my husband is at the radio station doing his show and I am listening while I blog. I like to listen on-line because the sound is so much better than on the radio.

He is playing some Mary Chapin Carpenter right now, Stones in the Road. I love that song.

My parents' home is just about renovated and our aim is to put it on the market by March 1. It makes me sad to think about selling it. Yet, I know picking up and moving there did not feel right either. So I am just going to go through this and cry when I feel like it and grieve its' loss.

I am thinking about having a little house blessing before we sell it. Maybe get my kids and my husband to go over there with me one night and just say good-bye to each and every room and share some memories.


I can't imagine never going to the house again and every time I think about it, I weep.

Preoccupied with weather

The roofs are collapsing all over our state. I hate watching the news, it is so scary. We received an automated call from our city encouraging all residents and business owners to shovel their roofs and to look out for cracks in ceilings. It is very unnerving all around.

Tomorrow a wintry mix is due and a big storm coming on Thursday. I know of 4 grown men who have slipped and fallen on the ice, one needing surgery for his injuries. There have been reports of professional roofers falling off roofs while cleaning them. The driving is still difficult as now the ice is falling from trees and power lines causing a scare as you are driving along.

Right now I am sitting in my kitchen with my cup of tea and just trying to relax and think about what to do this weekend. Tomorrow seems like another stay at home day catching up on house stuff.

I have not worked a full week for the past 3 weeks. We have never had a winter like this one and we still have a ways to go. Just trying to hang in there.