Showing posts with label House and Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label House and Home. Show all posts

Neighbors, Pretzels and a Tribute to Sarah

Posted by My Heart Song

10/23/2017
 

Our dear friend Sarah has been our nextdoor neighbor for about 9 years. She (and her mom, who is also a dear friend) are moving soon. We are sad about this and will miss them terribly. My children especially are super fond of Sarah, who has babysat them over the years and has always been a friendly, helpful presence in our lives. 



One thing we have done a few times over the years is make soft pretzels with Sarah. I think we were doing this once and she just happened to come visit while they were in process. She stayed to help and got to enjoy the pretzels too. She was hooked and now it's a tradition that we invite her over whenever we make pretzels. 


So this week was our last time making pretzels with "our neighbor Sarah" but hopefully not he last time we make pretzels with "our friend Sarah." 


This makes me want to walk down memory lane, so here are a few photos of Sarah and my kids through the years.





When we first met Sarah, she was very outdoorsy. At first, she didn't like us as her new neighbors, as we cut down a dozen overgrown trees from our property. She forgave us, eventually. But she took to the kids right away and would play with them outside a lot. 


They loved to work with Sarah on any outside projects, but just being with Sarah was fun, no matter what.


Playing in fall leaves - way more fun with Sarah around!


This led to backyard camp outs with Sarah...



Inviting Sarah to join our family when the circus came to town...


And still lots of outside fun and goofiness. 


As tom-boyish as Sarah was, she took seriously my daughter's invitation to her "Dress Like a Princess" birthday party. So beautiful!



Eventually, we invited Sarah inside our house (ha :-) and she played crazy games with the kids. Mostly, she just let them climb on her like a jungle gym!


She'd read to them. 


Sarah was always a good sport to play with playdough or work on puzzles or do whatever the kids initiated. 


She so quickly became a good friend to us all!


Through every season, Sarah has been a regular face in our front window, heading to ring the doorbell and see if we're home... even in snowy weather when she still wears shorts!


It wasn't all on Sarah to create the fun and games. She mentioned once how fun it would be to have a pie in the face (yup, she asked for it, literally) so I surprised her one day! Actually, I pulled this off twice!


But, of course, time has passed and Sarah has grown up. We were there when she earned her Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and we were there for her high school graduation.


Now she's in college and working full time. But she still finds time to come over and visit, often bringing along her dog Chewy.


Our family has grown too, adding more children. Here is Sarah holding one of the newborns.


And with this most recent baby, she visited at the hospital like she was one of the siblings. We all loved that! 

Since she's been driving, Sarah often invites my oldest daughter to join her on a quick trip to Dairy Queen or PetSmart or wherever. It's been so good for my daughter to have a positive role model to look up to in Sarah!

Without a doubt, Sarah has been one huge blessing to our family. All of us enjoy her company, her friendly chatter and helpful spirit, her distractions during long days at home, and her friendship. We know the day is coming when Sarah will likely marry and/or move farther away, but we sure do cherish all the memories we've created together. And we have grateful hearts to the Lord for leading us to such great neighbors, who share our faith and are encouraging to be around. 

You might be moving across town, Sarah, but you will always be welcome here! We love you! 

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The Tree

Posted by My Heart Song

6/16/2016

We've lived here for over 7 years. During that time, our attention often is turned to "the tree." The tree is in our backyard. It actually is just over the border on our neighbor's property. But it leans entirely onto our property. It is massive. It is over 100 feet tall and over 150 years old. It is situated in a difficult to reach spot - behind one neighbor's shed, behind the other neighbor's playset. It was clearly here before our neighborhood was built here.






At least once a year we lose power due to downed electrical lines in our neighborhood. About half the time, these are in our own backyard due to our our own trees. Here are some pictures of storm damage last month, during which we lost power for 24-hours. A huge limb from "the tree" caused this damage.


So recently we went half-and-half with our neighbor to have the massive tree removed. 

What an exciting day that was... to watch from the safety and comfort of our home. :-)

So very tall. Another 40 feet higher than the bucket of the truck at its fully extended height.



A few shots of the progress. 

That last section to come down weighed about 10,000 pounds, the expert lumberjack guessed.

The tree was rotten from the inside out. We knew it had huge holes in it, as we'd seen entire raccoon families hide inside of it! Here you can see the rotten core.

So "the tree" is gone and we have more sun in our backyard. The area is currently a compost pile, but we hope to turn it into a full-sun garden in the future. 

PS: Here is a picture from 2011 with a coon peeking out of the hole in the tree. 

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Garden Update

Posted by My Heart Song

 6/5/12

It's been a few weeks since we planted our garden. 

It looked like this in early May. 
Measured off and tilled up, but nothing planted yet. 

Now in early June, we have plenty of sprouts and the garden is coming along nicely. We have planted: cucumbers, tomatoes, peas, lettuce, beans, cantaloupe, peppers, and many rows of sweet corn. 

Then a neighbor gave us a few starts of onions, more tomatoes, and broccoli. So we added those in. 

I also have garlic in a different garden plot that is almost ready to harvest. Garlic is planted in the fall and ours came up early this year with the warm spring temps we had. It will be ready earlier than normal. Garlic is very easy to grow and the yield is excellent. You plant a clove but you harvest a head for each clove you planted. We press each clove and then mix it with a small amount of olive oil. Then freeze them in one-teaspoon dollops. We use them then all year long when a recipe calls for a clove or two of minced garlic. Easy home-grown goodness.

Both the kids, as well as my husband and myself, have been out in the garden, helping with all aspects: planting, weeding, watering. And it won't be long now until we get to take part in harvesting too!

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Home Makeover: New Kitchen Sink

Posted by My Heart Song

8/3/2011

Last weekend my husband tackled a major home improvement project: installing a new kitchen sink.

The old sink: very heavy and very stained porcelain. Even my favorite cleaner for tough jobs like this couldn't get it very clean. The old faucet was leaky and the knobs loose (unable to be fixed).

 The old sink was so heavy my husband and I together could barely move it. The new one - our little people could carry to the kitchen for us! My husband found this sink and the faucet fixture at the ReStore, so it cost much less than buying new at a home improvement store.

New sink installed and working beautifully.

Thank you, thank you to my favorite all-around handyman! :-)

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Hoarders, Part 3 - What's Behind It All?

Posted by My Heart Song

5/20/2011

This is the third and final post in a series on Hoarders. If you missed the first two posts, please go back and read those now before moving on to Part 3.

A common tendency of a hoarder is isolation. Once hoarding gets out of control, it's easier to just hide the mess than to deal with it.


For my husband's uncle, he simply left curtains shut and doors closed. Keep the garage door closed and nobody would see what was stuffed in the garage (see above). He didn't invite anyone over. He let his lawn and shrubs and trees grow out of control, providing more shelter for the mess the house had become. He isolated himself from neighbors and family members.

Hoarding moves beyond normal activities like saving keepsakes because you have a sentimental attachment to them. Hoarding moves into a realm of finding security and self-worth in and through your stuff. To remove the stuff makes one vulnerable. One might feel alone without the stuff in which they find comfort. To offer to clean up the stuff "once and for all" won't address the deeper issue for most hoarders. Left with a clean house, they will only set out to fill it up again, because the stuff provides them with comfort and security and self-worth.

Hoarding tends to cut off relationships with other people (who are overwhelmed and disgusted by the hoarding) and instead creates a "relationship" with the stuff itself. Hoarders often cannot bring themselves to the place of getting rid of their stuff. It is emotionally painful to even consider. The hoarder has a co-dependent relationship with their stuff. The stuff needs them and they in turn need the stuff.

What's behind it all?

Materialism. Believing that stuff that we own will make us happy. "Must have more stuff. Must stuff each room of my house full, then move on to stuff the garage. Then rent a storage unit for all of my stuff." All of my stuff shows the world that I am successful. "I am somebody becomes I own A, B, and C. I am happy... except that deep down I'm really not!"

Not understanding one's true value is also a part of hoarding. Looking to stuff to find one's worth is the same issue as the teenage girl looking for love in all the wrong places. She doesn't see how valuable she is. Neither does a hoarder. They may feel rejected by people, so they turned to the stuff that will not reject them. They may feel disappointed in people, so they turn to stuff that is always there and won't let them down.

I am reminded of Jesus' parable of the rich fool in Luke 12 and can think of two easy lessons from this parable.

First, the folly of storing up things for ourselves but being poor in storing up anything of eternal value. We can jam our homes full of stuff, storing up all kinds of food, clothes, knick-knacks, you name it. All stored up for ourselves. But how foolish that really is! How much wiser to spend time on PEOPLE instead of THINGS. To invest in children, in neighbors, in family, in souls than to invest time, money, energy in the things of this world that will pass away and rot. Jesus said to the rich fool, "This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?"

Second: Life is more than food and the body more than clothes. There is more to life than clothes, food and stuff. Each soul is so valuable and yet we tend to only think of "valuables" as things, as stuff. Sometimes we need a reality check. A second look at our priorities. Honest consideration of how we're spending our life and what regrets we might have at the end.

The End of the Story:

My husband's uncle's life had a sad ending. He hadn't seen his adult children in many years. He rarely got out. When he fell on the day he died, he had to call 911. The paramedics had a hard time getting into the house to find him. They knew the house needed to be condemned as uninhabitable. After his death, his children came back to their childhood home and couldn't believe their eyes. Their dad's legacy: a mess to be cleaned up and a house full of questions.

In a small way, though, this is a story of redemption. My husband is a visionary. He saw this house - full of bad smells and trash, smoke-stained ceilings and left-behind furniture - and saw potential for what this house could be. We helped clean it out. It took many weeks of hard work. It took 8 semi-trailer sized dumpsters to collect all of the trash, clutter, expired food, ruined furniture, etc. Then we bought this house!

This time around, this house will be filled with love. If these walls could talk, they'd speak of laughing children, of meals eaten together around the dinner table, or cuddly children listening to parents read stories. This time around, this house will be full of people, of living souls, more than stuff. This house is part of the reason we became foster parents. We saw the space and said "If God gives us this house, He wants us to use it for His glory. He wants us to use it for ministry." We will redeem this house. It will not be uninhabitable. Instead it will be a home, with open doors, where love abounds. Not love of stuff but love of people.

PS: For those who might be interested in seeing pictures of our home AFTER the clean-out, go here and look through the 9-part series called Home Makeover.

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Hoarders, Part 2 - Clutter and Trash

Posted by My Heart Song

5/17/2011

Yesterday I started a blog series on Hoarding. If you missed the post, please read it before jumping into this one, which is part 2.

We learned yesterday that my current house used to belong to a hoarder. That hoarder was my husband's uncle who lived here for 30+ years and passed away 2 years ago. This is my commentary based on my experiences, as we cleaned out the house of a hoarder.

One thing hoarders are known for is for making paths through the clutter. This case was no different. There was one path to the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and to one chair in the living room in front of the TV. The front door was blocked. The den had long since been overtaken by piles of clutter. You could look into each room but most of the furniture was buried under the piles.


This is a picture of the living room, with the fireplace and bookshelves at the far end and a stairway heading upstairs in the foreground. There was no path to enter the room here. It was completely blocked with clutter, piled about 4 feet high. Furniture is buried. Windows are blocked.

This was the den, which is now my son's bedroom. Long-since dead plants by the windows -- can't water plants if you can't get to them! We were surprised to find two televisions and two recliners under all of this clutter. Christmas gifts and cards that were intended to be sent to grandchildren years ago but never got mailed. Lots of important papers were eventually found in here also.

Organization is not a strong suit for a hoarder. Often, the piles found around their home are in no real order. The pile may contain important documents, money, old newspapers, or other trash... or most likely a mixture of all of those things. This was definitely the case here. My husband's uncle had piles of money left throughout the house, but didn't remember where they were. He died. Now the family that was left to clean up the house had to sort through each pile and ask the question "Keep it or pitch it?" thousands of times!

This is a picture of the sunroom - a walkway between the garage and the dining room that was also overrun with stuff. Eventually the garage was filled with stuff and then the sunroom got filled up too, leaving no path to even get to the garage from inside the house.

Many hoarders value saving money. They often begin to hoard items because they think it will save them money in the long run. My husband's uncle wanted to save money too. So not only did he stockpile items (as we saw yesterday) but he also cancelled his trash service in his last 2 years of life, to save money. True trash - empty food containers, old newspapers and mail, empty boxes, receipts - were all strewn about the house. Imagine all of this trash added to the mixed piles mentioned above, where important documents or cash were stashed.


This is picture shows the kitchen. The fridge is in the back on the left. Then the wall oven. The kitchen sink is completely buried on the right side, under the window. Completely buried under trash. Empty medicine bottles, empty ice cream and carry-out food containers. Empty cans. All just left to sit and stink, for weeks and weeks on end! Go ahead and click on the above picture to see it magnified. You can just imagine the overwhelming stench of it!

Lesson #4
If you have to make a path through the stuff to move about your home, it's time to clean up! Start small. Find one space (maybe one corner of a room, or one closet) and start there. Find 3 containers or bags. Go through every item and make a decision about which bag it belongs in.
Bag 1 - Keep it
Bag 2 - Donate it
Bag 3 - Trash it
Be ruthless about clutter. It WILL NOT get better on its own.
You have to be intentional about getting rid of clutter! If the job seems overwhelming to you, ask someone to help you out and hold you accountable to getting the job done. I mentioned above that hoarders are often not very organized, so they may need a more organized person to help them sort through the mixed piles and clutter.

Lesson #5
Keep important things in one safe place. Keep your important documents (like passports, birth certificates, financial documents, wills, etc.) in a locked safe or a safety deposit box offsite. You need to be able to access these quickly, so keep all important stuff in one place. You also don't want these items lost, misplaced or stolen so keep that in mind when choosing a location.

Lesson #6
Listen to others. If you think you may have a problem with hoarding or if your family members are telling you that they are concerned about how much stuff you are bringing into your home... take it seriously. The clutter in a hoarder's home can be a fire hazard or cause injury if a pile falls on someone.

One more post in this blog series on hoarding coming tomorrow...

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Hoarders, Part 1 - Extreme Stockpiling

Posted by My Heart Song

5/16/2011

Do you know any "hoarders?" This term has become quite popular now because of the TV show by that name. I have never seen the show, but have lived through some experiences with folks who have been hoarders.

My most recent and by far the most serious case of hoarding that I've experienced took place about 2 years ago. The man who lived in our house before we bought it was a hoarder. He was my husband's uncle and he passed away. As part of the family, we were involved in cleaning out the house to put it on the market for sale. Eventually, we made it clear that we were interested in buying the house and the rest is history. But this week I want to share a few pictures of our house, before it was our house and talk a bit about hoarding. Today the focus is specifically on "Extreme Stockpiling."

I am all for a great bargain. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I love getting items for free or for super-cheap and will often stockpile those items for future use. But there is a line that can be crossed, when stockpiling items you will use in the next few months turns into Extreme Stockpiling. This would involve saving mass quantities of an item that you do regularly use or think you will use in the future. Extreme Stockpiling caused some of the clutter that had to be cleaned out of this house we now live in. How about some pictures to show you what I'm talking about. There were dozens of cases of Coca-Cola that had been stored in the basement for years. So many years, in fact, that the Coca-Cola had evaporated out of the unopened cans. The cans were now empty and almost weightless, as you can see in this picture of a young boy who could lift 9 24-packs of unopened cans!

A picture of some of the 24-packs stacked in the basement, floor to ceiling. This pop had been on the basement floor for so long that it eventually started leaking out of some of the cans and onto the concrete floor. There are dozens of coin-sized pits and grooves in the concrete where the pop had been, eating away at the concrete. These remain there today.

Another shelf showing regular grocery items that were stockpiled and never used.
A serious supply of canned chili and canned green beans lining the hallway.

 Stacked packs of beer on the steps going to the basement.

One of the most frustrating parts of cleaning the house of a hoarder is to see how much money was wasted on items that were never used and are now expired. All of the money used to buy the pop, the beer, the canned goods in these pictures - thousands of dollars, no doubt - was wasted! The items sat until they were of no good to anyone.

Lesson #1
Only stockpile what you know you will use in the next few months. No need to buy up everything on the store shelf just because of a low price. There will be other deals next week, next month and next year. Consider what you can realistically store in your home and how much you will realistically use in the near future.

Lesson #2
It's not a good deal if you don't really need it. Don't buy any item that you don't have a use for or a plan for (such as donating it to someone who can use it now).

Lesson #3
As much as possible, keep all stockpiled items visible. I'm not saying to keep them out in the open for the world to see. But you need to know what you have and how much of it you have on hand. Items that are out of sight will be quickly forgotten. Instead of grabbing from your stockpile, you'll buy a new one at the store. A forgotten stockpile is pointless!

When my husband's uncle was getting older and his knees were getting bad, he was no longer able to go downstairs. Downstairs is where most of his stockpiled items were kept. This would've been a great time for him to have someone help him move all of those items upstairs where he could see them and therefore use them. Instead, the items stayed in the basement and went bad, expired, or evaporated away - doing nobody any good at all!

More pictures and commentary to come tomorrow on this topic of hoarding...

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