A new blog!

Thank you all so much for your comments and wonderful ideas on names for my new blog.  I had so much fun reading you!  So much have transpired since the day we left our dear little white cottage in the woods, but now we're finally happily settled in our new-old house in the roses. And yes, I also have a new blog set up!  Oh do come and follow me! Let's start a new story together, shall we! 

 HERE'S THE LINK to MY NEW BLOG

See you all there!

Finding a name for my new blog

Hi precious friends and followers!  I hope today finds you well, and ready for this adventure called “life”.  I am doing great, and finally here, in this new-old place where our path begins anew.  I have visited the house in the roses, and the paint job is almost done.  I’m excited, and impatiently waiting for the Fisherman, who’s still on the road on his way home.  The truck that's bringing our stuff, will arrive on Friday.  In the meanwhile, I am ready to start documenting our life on my new blog.  But for that I’d need your help.  What should I name it?  I have some ideas, but cannot make up my mind.  I don’t want to use the name ‘the house in the roses’ again because that’s a past life, but it is the same house after all, so I’d like to keep that name as part of the new name.  Does it make any sense?

  

Something like:

That old house in the roses?

All roads lead to 'the house in the roses'?

These Are the Days at the house in the roses?

Yesterday Once More?

What do you think?  Wouldn’t you please help me select a name for my new bloggy?  I can’t wait to read your ideas…. 

See you super soon!

Moving day

The moving truck and its crew came around 8:30am.  

Entwine, Jim, Orlando, Danny, the Fisherman and I got together for a prayer of protection and guidance before starting... 

Then, box after box were carried away to the gigantic red truck, beds were dissembled, mattresses wrapped in their protectors and carried away, sofas, chairs, TVs and tables were fast disappearing from each room in the little white cottage... 

Imagine watching a movie in fast motion, and that’s what you’ll see… people coming in and out, out and in, things being taken away, the Fisherman and I cleaning, painting, cleaning cleaning… could you see it pictured on the eye of your mind?

Around three, the light outside shifted, and the atmosphere of the little white cottage changed to a yellowish hue, outside I could hear the ruckus of crows in the woods.  The pumpkin colored light outside told me that it was time to go.  

I closed my eyes and tried to conceal the tears.  Melancholy filled my little heart, but I continued cleaning carpets and painting and making sure that my lovely little white cottage was left as perfect and beautiful as she deserved to be for the new owners.  

What a sad sensation that was; caring for something you so love, only to having to give it away to some strangers.  It was almost that sensation a mother feels when giving away a daughter in marriage.  You help her put on her floor length and adorned with beads, crystals, and lace wedding dress, you help her put on her jewelry and pearl earrings and necklace, you comb her lovely hair and as you do, you weep with love remembering all those years with her, all your love for her, and all she gave you in return, yet knowing that too soon you’ll be giving her away...  

Little by little, finally each room got emptied out.  

As I contemplated each emptied room, I memorized some of the occurrences that transpired there, the moments, the gatherings, the Thanksgiving dinners, the Christmas dances, the laughter, the stories, children’s voices, the gypsy wanderings, the sad moments too, mom and dad sitting on the settee on the front porch and the Fisherman taking their picture from the inside of the house; so you see only their backs, the story behind the crack on the tile on the kitchen floors on that hot July, when the huge fan blew off a large picture from the wall and in turn it knocked down the pretty flower vase... the floor covered in a zillion petal, the prayers under my favorite window, the bad nights, the good days…. I summed up all those memories, and placed them in that treasure chest of my little heart, so I can keep them there with me and remember them forevermore.

In the evening, when the last things were still being carried away to the gigantic red truck, I run up the hill to say goodbye to my dear little white cottage… It had never been any more beautiful, more enchanting, more magical!  I hugged her and I wept with her and I said ‘goodbye I’m taking you with me in my heart’… 

When I was coming down the hill, I noticed a shadow was following me… How precious when I noticed it was that same kittie I saw that first day in my garden when we moved to our little white cottage…  has he come by to say goodbye too?     

Soon, little white cottage, you'll meet December’s magical days when the holly and the ivy are both full grown and bare trees stand with roots on both ends, chipmunks swiftly gather and toads softly peek and leaves gracefully fall and the wind blows and the trees close their eyes full of pumpkin eye dust. 

Soon, little white cottage, mourning doves have secrets to share, frosty winds made moan, Jack-o-lanterns may be carved, ghosts waltz, the junipers shagged with ice, candles and bells, fog after a night’s rain and all the old ghosts, residents of the neighborhood lining up the hill feasting on fog pies. 

Soon, little white cottage, you’ll be filled with ice-covered grasses and snow white gardens, roses will be dressed in frosty costumes and the morning will wake by the hoarse, cawing voices of crows, cold hardwood floors to remind us alive, and misty windows our blessings to count, you’ll be filled with sweet smells brought by chilly winds and in the woods Hickory and Mesquite, and the eye would look upon naked branches and find stamped on trees their faces again, when the leaves come tumbling down and the woods thin out and the day will come to its end under pink skies and back in June the coming of the wild roses and the full yellow moon, warm, firefly illuminated nights, boughs like Christmas trees in summer time, the song of cicadas, the Privet shrub smelling like spring.

Oh, dear little white cottage, I am going to miss you so!

The journey

Moving to a new home requires a lot of planning and organization, like turning off all of your utility services and such.  And thus, Tuesday was the day for that, and I have also forwarded our mail to our new address, and stopped our home security system.  For the last two weeks, I’ve been busy packing up, making more boxes, running back and forth from Home Depot, to the Goodwill donation center, and from the Goodwill back home… and on and on and on… Life is a circle.  It is a merry-go-round kind of a thing, and these days my soul has grown round too. Full with expectancy about the future, and of new promises and hopes.   I work, and as I work I think of my mother.  I think of her often throughout my day, and my heart cries in quieted waves.  I hear my father explaining how he finally was able to gathered strength to give away all of mom’s shoes; those that only a few months ago she was still wearing and walking in them, and my heart can only weep. She will not need them anymore.  And it is almost as if the tired eyes of the world were gently closing down; her head resting upon a pillow, ready to go to sleep…. 

 

Sometimes I have this deep urge to call her.  I want to just say hello, tell her something new, something old; share a new occurrence about my day, and my life... tell her I love her, what I've done and how it made me feel, but then I realize that she is not present anymore.  Although she is. And my little heart miss her terribly.  As my father takes her place in that aspect in my life now, I am learning to treasure him in a deeper, more meaningful way than ever.  My connection had always been with my mother, but throughout all these last years of her illness, my relationship with my father has matured in deeper ways; love have expanded, and tides strengthened.  He is essential in my life.  A rock.  An everlasting tree.   I have always thought of my father sort of ‘eternal’.  Unfailing.  Always there.   My little heart won’t dare think of him in any other way, other than forever by my side.  Why do we have to love so hard, and with such deep, strong love?  Love hurts.

The other day I read somewhere that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it merely changes form.  I believe that energy goes back to the Creator who gave it, and in Him is where I chose to keep my hopes... 

The other day, upon coming back home from Home Depot, my car wouldn’t start.  I noticed that the man parked beside me was ready to come ask if I needed help, but very politely he waited a little bit, until it was finally evident I was having car trouble.  He tried to help me as best as he could, then came another man, and yet another.  Three men stood by my car at one point trying to help me get my car started… until it finally did. I find this courteousness and gallantry of the southern men, amazing.  It is true that I had have a few unpleasant experiences in the past in the years we lived here in the south, but it is also true that for the most part, southerners are very courteous and friendly people.  The friendliest I’ve ever known, and that pleases my personality very much.  So, I felt compel to put a good word out there on their behalf.  If I’m ready to talk about the bad people, and their deeds, I will also praise the good ones too.  Plus, I count this incident as part of the occurrences transpired while living life here.  So here they'll stay.  I am leaving them here as a record, for whenever I want to turn the pages of my life back to those forgotten days of yesterday, and read again.

The Fisherman came home to our little white cottage on Wednesday.  And today, the packing crew came by… Ruben, and Eric did such a great job packing up all of my mirrors, art, lamps and delicate things.  They also took care of all of my plants and garden statuary.  All nicely packed up now.  After they left, we continued packing some more, and started patching up holes and retouching the paint on walls.       

Days around here have taken on the hues of pumpkins, and the air smells sweet and cottony fresh.  Around the edge of the woods the big leaves of the maple trees are piling up; toasted and desiccated and deep brown in color, and up the hills those sentinel of trees, protectors of our little white cottage, have changed their summers costumes into autumnal glories.  How did this happen? So fast trees change colors, it almost is like magic.  And I like to see them as some actors and actresses on a play, exiting through the main doors of Summer in the middle of that stage called “seasons”, ready to change costumes in a blink of an eye, just to amuse me…

So many things happening, such stressful days… behind and ahead.  My heart cannot find its rest.  I have so much I want to say and meditate upon… about people, about the way they process what they see, or read or think about... and, why would anyone take what I write so personally as to feel offended, when I don’t even know them, it scapes my imagination... really, it was never my intention to be judgmental or critical towards anyone who comes here.  I only come here to tell the story of my heart, the only way I know how… by feeling life.  And that’s it.

And thus, I’ve found myself in conflict, caught between the need to continue documenting my little life, or making my blog private to evade trouble. I guess I’ll make a “bargain with the devil” and continue writing and documenting our move and how I feel about things, and life… making my blog private will only mean giving a lot of myself away in order to placate a significant reader, and keep the peace.  But I owe it to my dear, long time readers to keep it public.  So, I will keep it public.

A huge thank you to all of you who inquired, and were concerned about my blog being switched to private. Maybe one day, I'll tell you the whole story behind it, and then again I will only talk about meeting my roses again and what I am doing to keep the memory of my dear little white cottage alive.

Please follow me as we say goodbye to our dear little white cottage and cross the country, back to that old house in the roses…

Love you all

Our little life in our little white cottage

Last week, I collected the last Queen Elizabeth roses… 

...The last roses of the season, and of my life here at the little white cottage 

And in the garden, I have finally collected all my dear little things and placed them all in one same spot, to make it easier for the movers when they come.  I want to make sure I don’t leave anything  behind.  Many of these little garden treasures and friends, I brought with me here from the house in the roses.  

Some of them are not in their best of shape any more, and they don’t look quite as pretty and fresh as when they started their new life here in my southern garden, but I still love them... 

This beautiful angel here, once upon a time keeper of the garden at the house in the roses, is now a single winged angel; fragile, and discolored, and I almost gave it away the other day before I had to run back and rescued him.  I’m bringing him with me back to his garden, even if he is almost crumbling to pieces…  

The hydrangeas by the front porch, did finally bloom this year, and it has been gifting me precious jewels of blues and purples for a few weeks now. 

...as if it had finally realized that the hands which had planted her and cared for her all these years will stop caring for her, and thus decided to offer me some of her most beautiful belated jewels... 

Around the front yard, and everywhere around the little white cottage there’s some type of a dainty cranberry wildflower carpeting the ground.  Wildflowers are as fleeting as life itself.  They come and go with the days, and the seasons, just as we humans do...

I feel it is essential for me to document my life as it happens.  It serves me as a memorial, or dedicatory to life and the days I live and places I dwell in this life.  And thus, my blog is my book of days, sort of a thing.  I hope you don’t mind me babbling away about stuff you may not find interesting, or amusing…  

And thus, it has happened, that our little white cottage got very ill over the weekend.  All drainage conducts got clogged up.  The toilets were oozing yucky stuff, shower tubs and floors flooded up with what it looked like sewage waste and the sinks were making weird noises and not draining at all.  Things got worse from that point on.  When the plumbers came by they informed me that whoever had built our house had installed the sewer connections wrong, the pipes were installed going on the wrong direction, because the sewer was facing south.  All what they could do was dig a hole outside, find the PVC, perforate it and extract from there.  That’s what they said.  But they were wrong. 

After they dug a hole as big as a grave in one part of the yard, and still were not finding the PVC, it occurred to me then, that these guys didn’t know what they were doing.  I suggested we call the city to get a copy of our plat.  Surely, there must be a copy out there somewhere of our plat, right?  And thus, we finally got the exact place where the sewage is located, which, by the way, it was not where they were digging, but over on the other side of the house, and exactly the place where I had originally told them they would find it, the minute they arrived.  If only they had trusted my intuition!

Right when our little cottage was exploding inside and outside, a huffing and puffing stranger came by… to photograph our house.  He was some insurance guy working for the new owners and wanted to take a few pics of the house…  Can you believe the timing!  So there was this guy taking pics with his selfie stick everywhere right when I had such mess going on… when I commented with one of the plumbers about how worry I was for the sale of our house, he simply said jokingly “let’s kill him and bury him back here, that way nobody will find out”…  For a moment… yes, I thought I was part of the cast of some humorous horror movie!  Hahaha.   What a nightmare the entire thing was; one of those unfortunate things you just have to laugh about, if you don’t want to go bunkers…

Evening came, and night still found me cleaning our little white cottage.  Everything is now in perfect condition again, less $300 later.  And all this in less than a week before moving.  Can you believe it!  Not nice, little white cottage!  Not nice!  

No worries, Buyers, your little white cottage is again the perfect little jewel she had always been... enjoy her, care for her, and may you be as happy as we had been here all these years....