Lemonade

Today is hubby Kolbar's birthday! Cheyenne is coming in from Columbus and several other friends are gathering up on Saturday for lunch, movie, and then home for cake and ice-cream. Tasty! Tomorrow Cheyenne and possibly Sniffles, will be unloading things out of more boxes to make this place more organized, which is something Kolbar has asked for. I don't blame him. Sadly, I still need help because I am not strong like bull. So, the enlistment of friends begins. Teacher will be coming one day next week to help me unload more boxes and put things together. AND yesterday I found some free cross-stitch patterns I am going to put to good use. A "welcome" plaque and also one of The Beatitudes! I am no where near as much into cross-stitch and embroidery as I once was, but now there is a need to decorate an entire house and I would really like to do some homemade/handmade things. Kolbar says he doesn't want the place looking "country", but we'll see. Surely after so many hours are put into cross-stitch projects and he puts them into frames for me, he won't be upset! Martha Stuart I am not, but I am discovering the more I do here in the house, the more I am like my Mommy, and this makes me warm inside, and happy.

When I was living on my own I never wanted to do anything like this super seriously. I always viewed the apartments as temporary places. At the old house, so much had gone down there as well as so much depression, it felt impossible for me to get anything looking good because there were so many structural problems (roof leaking, cold, drafty, floors collapsing in the bathroom, etc.)! Now I am in a place that I look at and feel very much as if I have arrived home. My home. Mine and Kolbar's home. Home.

It feels wonderful, and, at the same time, it is a little over-whelming. Not because there is (constantly) so much to do to keep it looking nice, but because it is home and the feelings I have are just wonderfully over-whelming in their magnitude. As Kim Woodburn would say on How Clean is Your House?, "I am gobsmacked!" And, it's true.

One thing I have noticed is that, once we found home, it felt like it immediately. There is a lot of work to do, but this is home. My Mommy used to say you make home out of wherever you are, but it was difficult for me to do that back then. If we have to move from this darling, lovely house I will endeavor to do just that, but I hope we never have to leave it unless Kolbar's work (or mine) takes us some place even better. Also, the depression that has plagued me for years has finally begun to lift. Permanently. Sure, there are bouts of sorrow and sadness, but they usually come, I have noticed, when the pain is really bad. Once I have moved through the pain the depression lifts. Some would call this "normal" I suspect. I hope it is, because I have many years left of pain, and I am still enjoying my life despite it all. God does work in mysterious ways.

It is amusing, really. I slept late to give my body some extra hours it needed of rest. Then I lay back down to give my bum some rest (perhaps I'll explain this to you some day), and got back up to take a full regimen of meds for the pain-it is one of those sorts of days today-and now I type to give the meds time to work and to spam LJ with, perhaps, silly thoughts and understandings of this weird life I live.

This reminds me of something else my Mommy said to me once:I was very small and yet again in the hospital. This wasn't anything new to me. I was an old hand at hospitals and medical jargon by the age of six. I was playing with my doll in the hospital bed and my Mom was sitting beside me reading a magazine. I believe a 105* temp had broken the night before so I was still pretty weak; however, I knew that with the fever down, if it stayed down for two more days I would be able to go home. A nurse I had not seen before came into the room. There were three other beds in the room besides mine. I remember this because they were all empty, which made for an even longer stay when you didn't have other kids to talk to. The nurse looked at my chart and then at me, and then at the chart, and then at my Mom. My Mom shook her head in warning. The nurse sighed heavily and looked at me with pity and said, "When life gives you lemons make lemonade", and then left.

I had never heard that expression before and asked my Mommy what it meant. She said, "Some people don't use what God has given them so they go around like they're sucking on sour lemons. BUT if you take the sour lemons and add sugar to the juice you have a sweet drink that is perfect for summer. Do you understand?" I nodded as best I could. My Mommy was quiet for a couple of minutes it seemed, then came to stand beside my bed. She said, "Are you sure you understand, baby?"

"Of course I do! God gave me and you and Daddy lemonade instead of lemons."

"What?"

"Yeah, because we don't have the sour lemons, we have sweet lemonade because we need it like it more."

"That's right, baby. He did," she said, and then added, "don't worry about people like that, because they don't know, or want to know, how to make lemonade!" Isn't it strange how you can remember things sometimes.

The world tried to give me and Kolbar lemons with the old house, but God gave us sweet lemonade with this one!