Category Archives: Selling a house and moving

Home Improvement – Part II

Posted on by

The thought of painting all the navy walls in our house beige was mind-boggling, overwhelming and unthinkable. It bothered me most because in my deepest heart, I didn’t think it would matter. Years of trying had convinced me nothing could get our old farm house sold, and to embark on an arduous work project for no good reason left me drained at the thought.

But… I knew I’d be in my paint clothes by that afternoon.

While Nate and I were raising our seven children, both of us felt it was more important to teach character than habits. One of my personal quests as a mom was to insist they keep their commitments. If they signed up for a baseball team, they should be at every practice and game. If they took on an art class, they should never miss a session. If they exchanged names with a pen pal, they should answer every letter. And my hassling them about school attendance was legendary. (Vomiting-in-progress was the only valid excuse.)

Now Nate and I had both made a commitment to persevere in getting the house sold, and I was wavering. Sitting in the living room that morning detesting the thought of all that painting, I was doing the opposite of what I’d taught our kids.

Although I would rather have done anything else that day, I dragged myself to Home Depot and bought the paint, unpacked the tarps and brushes, began moving furniture and started taping edges. My mood was dark, and I wondered how many days or even weeks it would take before everything was back in order.

Just then someone pulled into the driveway: my sister Mary. When she saw the situation she lit up like a child making a birthday wish. “Oh,” she said. “I just love to paint! Can I help?”

Although her life is busy with a capital “B”, she carved out four straight days to paint with me, bringing her “favorite brush” and a heapin’ helpin’ of enthusiasm, enough for both of us. Gradually my navy house morphed into a beige one, and the neutral color began to grow on me. As the rooms brightened, so did my perspective.

Could the realtor’s advice have been correct? Would the understated walls allow potential buyers to see their own furniture in our rooms?

Eventually, tired of stepping over the never-ending mess, Nate suggested we get a professional painter to help, and quickly after that, the job was finished. It had taken five weeks of doing virtually nothing else, but in the end I had to agree. The whole place had had a face lift, and with Mary’s help, I was back on track toward perseverance.

After the brushes had been cleaned, the tarps folded and the extra paint stored in the basement, I sat back in my living room chair to ponder one weighty question:

Would the house  sell now?

(…to be continued)

“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:4)

Running On Time

Posted on by

Yesterday I came across a coupon that expired last month. It had been good for a full year and was worth $8.00, but I didn’t know we had it. The title read, “NICTD CONFIRMATION OF A LATE TRAIN.” Google let me know that NICTD stands for Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, and it was clear what had happened.

Nate and I moved from Illinois to Michigan on June 11 of last year. The very next morning he drove to Michigan City, Indiana, and boarded what would become his daily commuter train for Chicago’s Loop. Although the ride was twice the length of his Illinois commute, he didn’t seem to mind. Grateful to have finally sold our Chicago house after four years of trying, the longer travel time to work didn’t bother him. That is, until it got too long.

Although Nate often bragged about the punctual Chicago trains, apparently the NICTD didn’t have the same “track record.” Many late trains coaxed them to put a coupon system in place that offered passengers a pay-back for extreme tardiness. Along the side of the coupon it reads, “60+MINUTES LATE.” Now that’s a woefully overdue train.

The cross-shaped punches in Nate’s coupon indicate he was on board this “at least 60+ minutes late” train on his fourth commuting day, returning to Michigan after work. With his back in severe pain by then and his body suffering from hidden pancreatic cancer, he must have been beyond miserable while the train sat on a track neither here nor there.

I can tell from Nate’s oversized handwriting on the coupon that he was also angry. He did follow instructions, though, to “Please print clearly.” Well, at least the “Please print” part. I don’t know why he never redeemed it for the price of his train ticket. Although $8.00 wasn’t big potatoes, he was probably going after it on principle. When someone contracts to be on time, they should be, and each ticket purchased is a mini-contract.

Nate was always on time. If he was late for anything, it was because I had something to do with it, an aggravation during our early years together. He was right to be punctual, and I was wrong to be late. But as married people learn to do when compromise doesn’t work, one partner gives in. And Nate did. I wish I’d tried harder to pull myself together.

But God was watching, appreciating Nate’s desire to be on time. I say that because God is never late, and we are to emulate him. He usually waits until we think he’s already late, but when he comes through, it’s spectacular. In this, he’s trying to teach us, teach me, it’s important to be punctual.

Those who’ve mastered punctuality on earth have already stockpiled some treasure in heaven. Nate gets double credit for his efforts, because he sacrificed his own desires to put the interests of his wife ahead of his own. But both “early people” and “late people” get some time-related perks in paradise. The “earlies” will never again have to struggle with the “lates”, and the “lates” will always have the time they need.

“I trusted in thee, O Lord. I said, ‘Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand’.” (Psalm 31:14-15a)

Skewed Priorities

Posted on by

The little cottage where Nate and I moved last June is a home we’ve owned for nine years. Although it’s always been winterized, we used it mostly in the summer because of the large, relatively empty beach nearby. When finances became tight, we put our Chicago house on the market. But when it didn’t sell, we put the summer house up for sale as well, continuing to hope one or maybe even both would sell.

After four years, the house in Chicago finally sold, and we found ourselves moving to Michigan to live full time. We considered it an adventure for two sixty-somethings and figured we could return to the Chicago area if we missed it too much.

Nate continued to work in Chicago’s Loop, commuting around the bottom of Lake Michigan via the South Shore train line. He found the long ride pleasant and full of interesting characters. I admired the ease with which he made this major change after living in the Chicago area for 37 years. But in his own words, coming home each evening to our humble Michigan cottage was “coming home to paradise.”

Nate and I often talked about improving the Michigan house. It was needy in many categories, and we had some good ideas, but we were so busy with his work and my unpacking that not much was accomplished toward that end over the summer. “Let’s wait til fall,” I said. “I’ll get the kids to rip out the musty old living room carpeting we’ve hated for years, and I’ll swing a paint brush in several rooms.”

But when fall came, cancer came too. Thoughts of renovating went out the window, because once Nate became sick, none of that was important. Besides, we had all we could handle just keeping up with doctor appointments, radiation treatments, pharmacy visits and medicine doses.

Today at lunch time, several of the boys asked me what they could do to help. Before I could answer, 15 month old Skylar walked into the room with a flaming red rash on one cheek. She’d been frolicking with Jack the dog on the living room carpet but hadn’t cried out, so no one could figure out how her cheek had become injured.

carpet roll

Then Hans said, “That looks just like the rash Nicholas had a few days ago.”

After further investigating, we all agreed the carpeting was to blame. Jack had had a major bout with fleas recently, and we’d responded with a vet appointment and his recommended chemicals. Maybe it was just the fact that our carpeting was nearly 40 years old, but within the hour, the boys were cutting it into chunks and dragging it out of the house.

I’d been asking them to rip up the rumpled, stained carpet for several years, but there was always a reason why “it wasn’t a good day” to do it. Today it got done on the dime because of two rashy baby cheeks.

Life is all about setting priorities. We line them up and then obey the list. When Nate and I became aware of his cancer, existing priorities were tossed aside as new ones came into their places. Home improvements fell to the bottom of the list while Nate’s care rose to the top. Occasional family visits were no longer good enough. Instead, the family came together around the clock. Focused time as a married couple had been sprinkled here and there throughout our days but then switched to becoming constant. There’s nothing like a health crisis to rearrange skewed priorities.

Interestingly, by the hour of Nate’s death at 7:35 pm on November 3rd, every item on the revised to-do list had been checked off. Each task had been completed.

Why does it take a crisis to force the right priorities? All of us know what they are, even before a crisis hits. We just don’t line them up until then.

“We spend our years as a tale that is told. [Lord], teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Psalm 90:9b & 12)