Tag Archives: new home

Memories…Light the Corners of My Mind…

It’s my last day.  

Tomorrow, a new family will be buying our home.  I’ve lived on beautiful Norris Lake for 7 1/2 years.  Kenn and I lived and loved here for 3 1/2 years.  This is definitely a bittersweet move.  I am scared and excited and happy and sad all at the same time.

Memories are flooding back to me…..

How we fell in love with the house the moment we walked in.  

When we got married here in the great room, with the beautiful view as our backdrop.

The wonderful parties we had with both neighborhood friends and church friends.

Entertaining out of town family and friends.

Going fishing after dinner in our favorite cove.

Riding the mountain trails together in our Polaris side by side.

Enjoying the magnificent movie room Kenn built.

Bringing Kenn’s 18.5 foot canoe home on top of his 4 Runner from upstate New York.  

Holding my breath while watching him hang the canoe on the wall!

That last, perfect kiss goodbye….when he never came back.

The canoe is gone, the boat is sold, the house is empty of all personal belongings. A week from tomorrow, I will begin yet again in a new home back in Murfreesboro.  It’s the city where I was living when I met Kenn, 10 years ago.

I miss him every day and I know I will hold him in my heart and love him until the day I die.  But I know it’s the right time to let go of our house and move forward with my life.  I will be forever grateful for the love and laughter filled, beautiful house that Kenn and I were blessed to call home.

February 2nd—Ten Years!

February 2nd.  Groundhog Day,  Gary Snyder’s birthday (may he rest in peace), Jonathan’s new birthday—and 10 years after beginning my Act II.

Wow!  Ten.  Years.  Sometimes it feels as if it was a lifetime ago and sometimes a few months ago.  I remember hanging out in my room at my parents’ house when I was 12 years old and thinking ‘when will I EVER grow up?!’  It was taking SO!          LONG!

Now, at 66, the years dart by!  Yet, sometimes, the days drag by.  Next Monday would have been my 7th wedding anniversary with Kenn.  It’s hard to believe it’s already been almost four years since he left this earth.

However, my life is about to take a new turn.  I’ve made the decision to sell my current house and move back to Murfreesboro.  As I’ve told my wonderful friends here—I love my neighborhood, I love my church family, and I even love my house!  I just don’t love living here alone.  I’ve already had about a dozen people express interest in buying so hopefully, that won’t be a problem.  And I’m sure I’ll find a house that I love in Murfreesboro.  But I’m also sure there will be lots of tears leaving this place that Kenn and I called home.

I am so very thankful that God gave me the few years I had with Kenn.  And I am so thankful that He will see me through to the next adventure!

As a side note—

Beldar IV successfully entered my life on December 6th. I asked the doc if he would give me Beldar III after he removed it (after washing it well!) and he did. (Great coffee table conversation piece!) But Beldar III didn’t leave peacefully. The night after surgery, I was sleeping soundly, and around 3 AM, I hear BEE DEE BEE DEE for about 30 seconds coming from the other room! This repeated three times. I got up and wrapped a towel around it and fell back asleep. The next night—A REPEAT! I got up, took it into the study on the other side of the house (still wrapped in a towel), closed it up in a drawer, and shut the door. The following week, at my post surgery checkup, I brought it back with me and asked them to turn it off. The tech said she had never turned one off that was outside of a person’s chest so she had to call the manufacturer and find out how to do it.
It is now quietly residing on my coffee table!

Casey and the New House

Change is tough in some ways for most of us, if not all of us.  Even when the change is by choice, there are adjustments to be made.  For me, I guess the main adjustments to our move have been finding a new church, meeting people (I knew NO one here!), getting used to a not-quite 21st century small town, and having no wifi.  Oh, and the seven mile trek up the mountain to get home, which takes 15-20 minutes to drive, due to all the twists and turns.

Casey is no exception.  Although I must say, even with his…..uh…..specialness (bless his heart!), the adjustment process has gone quite well.  Kenn did me a wonderful, HUGE favor……TA DAAAA!

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Yes, that is a doggy door!!!  And yes, he installed it into a stone wall!  Casey used it pretty quickly.  But as before, he had no problems going outside, just struggled to figure out how to get back in the house.  I promise, it swings just as easily both ways!  Bless his heart.  I am happy to report the process has now been mastered.

The house is both on a lake and in the mountains.  The lot is very sloped so there’s not much grass for Casey to romp in.  But since Krystal died, he’s been very clingy to me.  He’s always been a cuddly pup, but now he doesn’t like me to be out of his sight.  Although he can find a little strip of grass to do his business, it’s mostly done on concrete.  So it rolls down the incline.  That took both of us a while to get used to.  I bought a little fire hydrant to give him something to aim at. (I asked Jonathan, an expert writer, to reconstruct the previous sentence so it doesn’t end in the word ‘at’.  His response?  If the sentence is about Casey peeing, restructuring is ridiculous.)

We have all been enjoying our new vehicles, including Casey.  He and I go check the mail in Kenn’s Razor, an all terrain vehicle that is loads of fun driving around on mountain trails here.  We use it to tool around our neighborhood, too, and to get to the boat dock.  Casey seems to enjoy boating.  I bought him a life jacket and sun glasses for boating.  He likes his vest and tolerates the glassesimage

I can’t help but marvel at all the changes that have happened in the past three years.  Some have been extremely hard, like losing sweet Krystal, but most have been great!  I have a lovely new husband and a lovely new home.  We’ve met wonderful neighbors and have joined a wonderful little church.  Life is good.  God is very good!

 

Settling In

My new adventure began in February of this year.  I had no idea what my future held.  I didn’t know where I would live beyond my temporary apartment, no idea which church I would attend, whether I would get a job, go to school, find other things to keep me busy.  I have lived in Murfreesboro for seven and a half months now.   I have had ups and downs, but thankfully, the ups have come more frequently than the downs!

I am finally getting settled in my new home.  I still don’t have doggy doors (can’t find a handyman!) but I am able to just leave a door ajar, now that the yard is fenced.  My stuff is gradually finding a home, even if it takes a few rearrangements to get in a permanent place.  There is grass in both the front and back yards, and a row of knock out roses were planted along my back fence.  I have a small yard, but it is perfect for me and my pups.

Speaking of the pups, after a rough start, they are adjusting nicely.  I boarded them while some very nice guys moved my heavy stuff from the apartment to the house.  After the big part of the move, Kenn and I (more on Kenn later!) picked Krystal and Casey up from the kennel to bring them to their new home.  We walked in the door, Krystal looked me right in the eye, and squatted and peed.  I thought it was about 30 seconds after we walked in the door;  Kenn says it was more like 15 seconds.  She turned 14 years old while boarded.  I can’t help but wonder if that was her way of telling me just what she thinks about all of this moving around!    She ended up peeing at least 10 times that day alone.  i didn’t have any rugs down, so we were able to stay on top of things.  Casey just walked in, smiled and wagged, and ran to his toy basket to start tossing his toys in the air.

Besides my new home, I have a wonderful new man in my life!  I was on Christian Mingle, a Christian dating website for the past six months.  I had spoken to several men, but I finally realized that online dating just wasn’t going to work for me.  I decided to just take my profile down.  Before I did, I looked one more time.  I saw Kenn’s pictures and thought he was attractive, but he lived in Ohio.  I read his profile and he said the perfect trip would be any cruise.  Hmmm…..I have been on 25 cruises and counting.  He also thought a perfect first date would be a trip to a zoo.  That got me.  I wrote to him and told him I liked his profile and if he didn’t live so far away, I would be totally hitting on him.  We started messaging back and forth, then talking on the phone, and after about 30 hours of talking, we decided to meet in the middle.  The man knocked my socks off!  He was respectful,  kind, a little shy, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of hIm!  I truly never expected to become so smitten.   The best part?  He is crazy about me!!!  We have spent the past five weekends together.  Turns out he has a lake house in northeast Tennessee.  He entertains me by taking me boating and riding mountain trails in his ATV.  I’ve entertained him here by getting him to help move my belongings, hanging mirrors, installing window shades, cleaning up puddles.  He is definitely getting the short end of the stick!  The distance certainly isn’t ideal, but we are enjoying the time we do have together.  We definitely feel that God had a hand in us meeting!

I was sitting on my patio this evening and the first birds I’ve seen since moving here arrived in my yard.  They were bluebirds.  I am home.

Happy 4th!

It is quite rainy here in middle Tennessee this July 4th, and is supposed to rain and storm all day.  Last night, someone was shooting off fireworks close by.  Now I can definitively say that Krystal is indeed deaf or close to being so.  Fireworks….or thunder, or any loud sounds…..always frighten Krystal.  Normally, at the first boom, she would run and hide under my clothes in the closet.  Didn’t bother her at all last night.  I guess there’s an upside to everything in life!

I went by the new  house on Tuesday to see how it was coming along.  There was a big sign on the front door saying ‘STOP!  Floors just finished.  Do not enter until 7-3-13’.  I peeked in the window and gasped at my beautifully finished hardwood floors!  Yesterday, I excitedly drove back over so I could go in and look around.  After unlocking the door, I took my shoes off as to not mess up the floor.  This is what greeted me.

 

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