Skip to main content

We Have A House...Another One


It's official. We now have five acres and a home in Lee County. It's complete with electric service, a telephone, and a post office box for mail. Now the fun begins.
Our new place needs some work. A lot of work. I keep jumping to step 67 (rearrange furniture) while Alan just wants to concentrate on step 1 (mow down the overgrown bushes) and then move on to step 2 (de-critter the place) before jumping ahead to step 3 (pull out the damaged kitchen cabinets). It's a fun process.

I've been a little put off lately that Alan hasn't taken me up on my offer to come down and scrub the walls with bleach while he removes and replaces the kitchen floors. As I was making the three-hour drive down there today, it dawned on me just how much he looks like a six year old on Christmas Eve. He's really excited about his new project, and in the back of his mind, I think he considers this his Charles Ingalls moment when he gets to build a house for his family with his own two hands.

I like this in him. It is pure masculine energy at it's best. And in my book, there is nothing sexier in a man than his ability to intuitively know the square footage of a room and exactly how many 87 degree angles he will have to cut in the laminate flooring. Or the proper tire pressure for a 1967 Mustang. Even if my brain sits there thinking, "Huh?", my heart just thumps out of my chest when he starts talking about socket sizes.

The really cool part of all this is that through his sweat and swear words and incredible engineering genius, he is doing something for us. That's a priceless feeling. It takes me back to when we first met and spent $10 taking silly pictures in the photo booth at Lakeland Square Mall. (If you know my husband, you know he totally did the goof-ball thing for me.)

Now we just have to figure out the semantics of actually living together full-time after seven years of a long distance marriage.

Comments

Christy said…
Five acres?! I may just come down and pitch a tent! You'll never know I'm there :) This is very exciting, though. Congratulations! BTW, I totally heart those photos...
frabjouspoet said…
I love them too. They were one of the treasures I discovered while going through my pictures...

Oh, and you can pitch your tent. Or sleep inside if the wilderness sounds are too much. I hear we're in Florida panther country.

Popular posts from this blog

Stalking a Pirate

Prepared we were not to cross Captain Jack's path late in the summer of ten, with the sun bearing down as we wandered the town where the Koreshans once lived. But he nodded. We smiled and went on our way, rolling it all in our heads. We giggled and talked and suddenly stopped to turn back and run after him. You see love for a pirate and sailing the seas rest deep in a gypsy girl's soul, where she dreams of the day he will take her away to find a new place in the world. So we followed his swagger as he wound through the woods and stopped to take in the sights. You know when chance comes to call you must answer with all because sometimes she doesn't seek twice. There we tracked Captain Jack on the seashell lined path and dreamed of the life that he lived With his swashbuckling ways that man made our day late in the summer of ten. You know love for a pirate and an adventurer's life lie deep in a gypsy girl's soul, where she dreams of the world she has yet to explore an...

Trying to Keep It All Together

The title of this post is a bit of a misnomer. Just this morning I said, "I'm having a hard time getting it together right now." I'm in one of those periods when showing up is the best I can offer, and I can't even guarantee that. That said, I just popped on here to share that I'm struggling. I'm dealing with a lot of loss right now. Some of it is easy to spot. Some of it I've tucked away because it's either terribly painful or terribly embarrassing--at least to me. Some of it was inevitable. Some of it was a surprise. All of it rises up into the center of my chest and begs me to stop for a moment to acknowledge it. It's doing that right now even as I type this. I'm having a hard time getting it together right now.

Warning Signs

This post has been sitting on my computer for the last few weeks. In the wake of this week, the message seems even more appropriate. *** For several months now, the service engine light has been on and off...mostly on. I've taken it to the mechanic several times, and he's pulled the code and checked out all the usual suspects before calling me to pick it up. There have even been a few times that it goes off on its own. And then comes back on. It's a bit of a waiting game, as I'm waiting until someone finally figures out what's going on. I was thinking about the service engine light this morning on the way to work and comparing it to how many times in life we talk about missing the warning signs. It's a convenient response, kind of like, "stay strong" or "she's in a better place now." Those empty words that fill an uncomfortable space and are usually best left unsaid. The truth, which sometimes seems to be messier, is that warning...