525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes – how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
In 525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life?
How about love? Measure in love. Seasons of love. ~Rent
Today is Veteran’s Day. As a wife of an active duty service member my thoughts automatically shift to all those who are serving their country far from home, away from family and friends. As a mother, I think of all our children who have moms and dads risking their lives and who have to accept that mom and dad won’t be home, again, for_____fill in the blank. Time crawls for those who are missing someone. I know firsthand. And yet, how is it when the clock is counting down for the next departure–time speeds up and moments move at lightening speed?
It’s true when they say you don’t know what you have until it is gone, isn’t it? After all we’ve been through as a military family I am forever grateful for my husband’s presence. It is a present. A gift. I do not take it lightly. I do not take it for granted. I cherish even the snoring that comes with it.
I am thinking of all the stories I have heard now. The stories from friends and family who have served or are currently serving. Stories that ended and began all in a single minute. Stories that were heroic, sad, joyous, and devastating. How do you say I am so sorry this much? How do you explain the extent of the ache in your own heart? How do you measure gratitude? How do you measure moments? How do you say I appreciate you this much? How do you explain how much something or someone means to you or explain your degree of sorrow?
How do you measure sacrifice? I am surrounded by Veterans–my husband, my father, my father-in-law, my friends, my community, my previous community, and my community before that. I’ve been told there are about 20 million Veterans alive today who are serving or who have served. 5 million men and women during the Gulf War Era (present), 7 million people during Vietnam, 1.3 million people during World War II and 2.1 million people during the Korean War.
There are so many statistics out there on Veterans. So many numbers. So many measurements.
Way way back many centuries ago, well, 1998, there was a hurricane coming straight towards Corpus Christi, Texas. Naturally, I was there. I was living on a Navy base, off of the Gulf of Mexico, with my husband. And, naturally, when a hurricane is expected all of the active duty service members are suppose to leave the women and children behind and evacuate with the aircraft.
So it’s midnight and there is a tank like truck with a mega phone and flashing lights driving around a pitch black base announcing a mandatory evacuation of all people. I knew like 3 people and my husband, who was one of them, was leaving at o-dark-thirty to fly to Dallas (where he would later eat steak while I stood in pouring rain in said hurricane boarding up a house with cedar.) (I so do NOT hold grudges and I have totally forgave him for his so called stomach flu in 1993 that required me to drive 500 miles while he puked out a window in a stick shift that I did not know how to drive up hill in a blinding blizzard for 8 hours that resulted in the closing of the Pennsylvania Turnpike and us being stranded for days.)
Back to the story.
It’s midnight and I’m in some sort of apocalypse of pre-hurricane hell with no where to go.
Ring, ring! Hi, you just met me. Can I come over? It’s Jennifer. J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R.
Thus, began my relationship with hurricanes and my friendship with Stephanie. Later, the following day, Stephanie and I would stand in horror in a Home Depot like store where hundreds of people were CLIMBING the 20 foot shelves as a short cut to get to the plywood. (They ran out of plywood so we bought cedar for $500 to board up her house.) We would then stand in line forever while, no kidding, cash registers were over heating from the long, long lines. This was followed by trying to affix said cedar to her brick house in the pouring rain with mud up to our calves. Husband would later call from steak house to ask how things were going.
Real cedar boarding up these windows!
I experienced a “hurricane” while closing on a house. I experienced a “hurricane” while moving into a house (awesome and so romantic to unpack by candlelight in 100 degree heat).
Which brings me to Chesapeake. Oh sweet Chesapeake. Every single Fall a “hurricane” would arrive and my husband would be gone. Gone, gone, gone. Kids, cats, pools, swamps, flooding, power outages, and Stephanie. Because 10 years later we were living a mile a part and going through this whole thing, again, only with 4 kids and 2 pets. It really was comical.
Ring, Ring! Hi, I’m going outside now to drain the pool a few inches while there is a break in the storm. I’ll call you when I come back inside so you know I didn’t get struck by lightening, drown, or slip and hit my head, ok?
Ring, Ring! Hi, yup, it’s time to go into the laundry room again, just wanted to make sure you heard the sirens. Oh, ok. Great. I didn’t hear them because I was vacuuming in case we lost power. Thanks.
One such “hurricane”, and I put it into quotes because unless the eye is going over your house we won’t call it a full-fledged hurricane, was predicted to be bad. Really bad. The prep was more serious. More involved. And I remember this because I found an old FB post:
Here is some of what I have done this week: Tuesday-bought 2 cases of water, C and D batteries, and food. Thursday-bought 3 bags of ice and then another bag of ice. Got gas. Took cat to vet. For $350 cat is perfectly healthy. Bought more water. Moved lots of outdoor furniture inside. Threw out back. Bought more ice. Bought more flashlights. Went to pool store to buy chemicals to keep pool NOT green. Put chemicals into pool and then drained water out of pool. Filled up tub. Got more ice. Made a list of what to take if there is a tree in my house. Put water in car. Put water and bucket with garbage bags in laundry room aka the safe house. Maybe ice will fit in washer? Should buy more ice. Hope we have enough food. No one eat the food! Save the food! Washed all my clothes in case no electricity. Washed all of the clothes with a diaper. Now need to wash all the clothes AGAIN about 4 more times since washed with diaper. Need to buy more clothes. Need to buy more ice for my head.
didn’t even mention all the runs i made to get cash and then more cash. should i spend the cash keep the cash where is the cash do i need all this cash….?
my neighbors boarded up their house and just left. oh dear.
the ice is melting. i still have power. the eye of the storm is suppose to hit between 6 and 10 am. i should wash the boys again.
After the storm:
Does anyone need 6 bags of ice?
The Safe House aka the laundry room.
I’ve got nothing to close with…so I’ll just see you later.
I’m in TJ Maxx and somehow I find myself talking to a stranger about the Navy and I become exasperated.
I’m so tired of hearing people say to me “I don’t know how you do it–I could NEVER do it”—referring to the fact that my husband is in the military. I can’t help but feel really annoyed. I know there is a complement in there but it still bugs me. To me, it’s saying “Wow I feel sorry for you because your life is so hard”. And, again, I know the intent is not to make me feel bad but it does. My family might have different challenges than you but we all have challenges.
Yes, I have experienced deployments with small children. This gave me the opportunity to flipping dig deep! Want to know what you are made of? Get rid of your safety net. That’s what deployments do. You are on your own and you have to figure it out. Sometimes you are in a brand new place too. And it’s hard. You don’t always have the luxury of someone to bail you out, relieve you, or back you up. What are you going to do? Fall apart? Maybe. But don’t we all from time to time? You pick yourself back up and keep trucking through. I got resiliency training from those deployments.
Yes, I have moved a fair amount. It has averaged every 3 years more or less. Dislike your neighbors? Awesome, you get to move soon. Don’t like your city? Ditto. Have too much stuff? Well moving is a great motivator to purge. Always wanted to try a new area of the country? Or even world? Want to make new friends? Want to start over? Want to create new habits? Want to try a new job? Well we get to do that.
No my parents don’t live down the street, nor do any relatives live nearby, or my childhood best friend. There are cars, planes, phones, new friends to make (and that doesn’t mean they replace the old ones), and now I get the opportunity to DIG DEEP (see above).
I have health insurance, my husband has job security, and I have friends EVERYWHERE. For real. I mean I really do have friends all over the country and the world.
Yes, I have to say good-bye to really good friends. I also get to say hello to really good friends when our paths cross again, and again, because they always do.
I don’t want to live forever in my hometown. I don’t want the same house for years and years. I like making new friends, seeing new places. No, I don’t like it when my husband leaves. But I bet you don’t like things you have to deal with too. It’s life.
I don’t want to pick on your life. So if you see me please don’t say “I don’t know how you do it” because I’ll have to say the same thing back to you.
I was listening to Les Miserables last night while looking at a magazine spread of Ralph Lauren interiors.
That is obviously what inspired the dream I had.
I dreamed a dream of Ralph Lauren
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that he would decorate my house
I dreamed that he would be not expensive
Then I was young and so naive
So dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no mortgage to be paid
No song unsung
No college tuition
But the budget talk comes at night
With my husband’s voice soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream towards Target
And still I dream he’ll come to me
That I will live the years with velvet
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this budget I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now Ralph Lauren’s fee’s have killed The dream I dreamed
All interiors, needless to say, are by Ralph Lauren.
And if you didn’t get this post try listening to this
This is the third part of the series Downsizing or why my impending displacement feels like a game of whack a mole.
Moving is like a game. The object is to get your stuff into your next house before your spouse starts their new job (so that you are not unpacking alone), before the kids start school in the fall, and before your household goods get lost, stolen, blown up, rained on, driven over, crushed, broken, cracked and/or mutilated.
The rules of the game require packers to come into your house and in a cyclone of frenzied activity pack everything in sight including your car keys, shoes, and garbage. Need a toilet brush? Well it’s probably packed with your children’s toothbrushes (which you forgot to extract beforehand), inside the waste paper basket, underneath all of your shoes, in a box labelled “guest bedroom.”
This will take 3 days.
Then the movers show up.
At this point you are so exhausted and drained that you are mere putty in their hands. The movers proceed to code all of your furniture.
Each piece of furniture is given a complex series of codes depicting exaggerated wear and tear. Your brand new couch is coded as s3 s34 s56 s7 s9 which according to their source code is deciphered as soiled on the left, soiled on the right, soiled underneath, soiled up high, soiled down low, soiled here and soiled there. If your couch is damaged in transit you have now zero chance of successfully claiming it.
For the next 12 hours all of your belongings are now carried one at a time out of your house and into the truck.
After which the driver will then and ONLY then tell you when you can expect your shipment. He holds all the cards. When we moved here our driver told us to expect a call in a few days for a date in the future. Mysterious. I love it.
If your shipment arrives to your new house before you do (read the driver called you once and no one answered) your household goods are put into storage. This is the black hole. The bermuda triangle of moving. The dark abyss of doom. Sixty-four people at this point will handle your shipment. At different times. On different days.
So say you navigate all of the above successfully. You, the spouse who is still on leave, the kids, the movers, and your stuff are now outside your new house. But wait. The people moving out are military too. They need a full moon, a month ending in “r”, and a red headed twin named Harriet who can ride a unicycle, in order to get their paperwork processessed to set up their military move—so they are still in the house. The one that you are standing outside of, with your stuff, and your kids, with the movers.
NOW your stuff goes into storage. Your spouse starts his new job. And you sit in friend’s house with your two kids and her two kids and a dog and a cat and all of your things you couldn’t let the movers touch (but without shoes and car keys because the packers packed those) and wait.
The term “Whac-a-mole” (or “Whack-a-mole”) is used colloquially to denote a repetitious and futile task: each time an adversary is “whacked” it only pops up again somewhere else. This, my friend, is moving.
I get asked all the time really specific questions about paint colors. “I have an open floor plan, with this color floor, and this color furniture, and the pillows are this color—-so what color should I paint the bathroom?”
I really don’t know. I’m not in your house. But I can tell you what NOT to do.
Rhode Island School of Design
IF you are super challenged with these type of things then here is a list of Do’s and Don’ts.
Courtesy of Bubba Makes 3
If you are Candace Olsen or Nate Berkus (read Professionals or someone with a great eye for design) then you can disregard this post and do what you want…you’ll figure out a way to make it all work.
Otherwise.
If you want a yellow room, don’t pick a yellow.
Do pick a white with a tint of yellow. Same goes with all the other colors. Blue? Pick a white with a hint of blue. How do you do this? Go to Lowes or Home Depot and pick up one of the “Whites” pamphlets. There’s like 70 “Whites” all with a hint of a different color. Once the white with the hint of yellow hits all four walls the color intensifies and it will look yellow–albeit a light yellow. This is called playing it safe. If you are terrible at picking paint colors and you want a bright yellow room and you are ok with something that looks like mustard exploded on your walls…that’s on you.
If you are determined to have a deeper yellow room (that isn’t mustard exploding off a hot dog) then do this–TEST A SAMPLE on the walls. Be prepared to buy 4 (or more!) different sample colors (most paints now have small testers you can buy) and try them all. Paint a 10(ish) inch size spot on inconspicuous places on the wall.
They didn’t really choose an inconspicuous spot-but you get the idea.
Know that whatever one you choose will end up being about 1-2 shades deeper/brighter once you paint the whole wall with it.
Also, if you buy the small testers–they only come in a FLAT finish/sheen. If you are not planning on using flat paint and want a satin–the color will look different in the satin (or the semi-gloss etc…)…It will be brighter. The more the sheen the brighter it will appear on the wall. If you don’t know what the difference between Flat, Eggshell, Satin, Semi-Gloss, Hi-Gloss click here (Sherwin-Williams) or here (Apartment Therapy).
When you test the color keep in mind that the color will look completely different at night with incandescent lighting than it does during the day with sunlight. Also, fluorescent lighting (like the kind in the paint store where you are picking the swatches) will make the color look completely different than incandescent lighting (regular old light bulbs). COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Like two completely colors different.
If you look at a paint swatch the darkest color on the end will help give you a hint as to what the lighter shades on the swatch will lean towards. So if you pick a grey and the darkest color on the paint swatch is deep purple–chances are when that grey goes on the wall it is going to have a purple undertone to it. Or that soft beige? Did you look at the bottom color? It might look very orange once it hits the wall. See below. Look at the the lightest colors and then look at the deepest at the bottom of each strip to give you an indication of what direction it may take once it goes on the wall.
When picking colors for an entire house please for the love of Pete pick 3 or 4 colors that go together and stick with that. Say you pick green, grey, and khaki. Make sure all the rooms are in this color family–they are a green, a brown, or a grey.
Courtesy of Joey and Janice Buy A House
Bedrooms can break this rule. You close the door. It’s probably upstairs. It’s ok. BUT the bathroom that opens off the bedroom needs to match or at least coordinate with the bedroom. Got it?
Consider how paint colors will flow from room-to-room; and if it’s a small home or you’re at all worried about it feeling chopped up or chaotic, it doesn’t usually hurt to err on the side of fewer colors within your whole house palette (even if there are some bold ones in there, just make sure they mix well together to avoid that random rainbow effect). (From Young House Love–They have a great post called Bad Painting Decisions. If you want to read more from Young House Love click here.)
Here’s a few random “facts” about color:
Red revs a room up, draws people together, and stimulates conversation. Great for dining rooms. However, dark red can create conflict.
Orange is excitement and energy. No surprise there. Maybe not a good color for your kid’s room… How about an exercise room?
Yellow energizes and is uplifting. Great for kitchens. Some studies have shown that yellow can also cause people to lose their temper and make babies cry more?? It stimulates nerves. Maybe not a good color to use a lot of?
Light blue is considered calming, relaxing and serene. Great for spaces where we relax. Dark blue, however, can create feelings of sadness.
Green is refreshing and is a great stress relieving color. It promotes comfort and togetherness. Consider painting your entire house green??
Deep purple is dramatic and sophisticated. Luxury and creativity. Lavender and lilac are restful.
Houzz.com
And if all else fails–you can always repaint. Or hang wallpaper:)
