Last night, I checked my phone messages on the land-line and found that the appliance store had called to let me know that the electrician was scheduled to install my new dishwasher between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m., but close to 7 a.m. since I was the first delivery of the day.  [Reminder: I work until midnight six nights a week.]

It seems like a lifetime ago that I woke up at 6:50 a.m., donned my glasses, a sweatshirt and sweatpants and tried to look alert.  I made my bed, then lay back down, listening for the doorbell.  I watched Good Morning, America and thought again what a cute pocket-size guy George Stephanopoulous is.

At about 7:30 a.m., the phone rang.  The voice informed me the driver was about twenty minutes away.

Forty-five minutes later, he arrived.

The new dishwasher was installed before I left at 9 a.m. to take my daughter to school.

When I returned, I lay back down on the made bed and listened for the painter to arrive.  He hadn’t told me he would be late, so I figured he’d arrive by 9:30 a.m.   I fell into one of those half-sleeps where you dream crazy dreams that seem mostly real but also disturbingly loony.  At 10:15 a.m., he has still not arrived.

I fell into a deeper sleep with even more bizarre real-feeling dreams.  At 10:55 a.m., I woke with a start.  Had the painter come, knocked and gone away?  Had I missed a phone call?  I went downstairs, opened the door and peered outside.  No painter, no painter’s van.  (Had the Rapture occurred?  What was going on?)

At about 11:15 a.m., from my spot on my made bed, I heard the front door open and the painter’s voice:  “Good morning!”

I sprang from the bed and looked down the stairs at the painter.  “Were you here already?” I asked like a complete lunatic.  “I fell asleep and worried that you’d been here and gone?”

Then he told me that he was late because he had to clean out the chicken coop.

Now, that is an excuse you don’t hear every day.

At noon, I signed on to work on my computer . . . and realized that I don’t work until 1 p.m. on Wednesdays.   So, instead, I drove to Value Village to drop off yet another small load of stuff we had that we don’t need, including four size 4T dresses that have been hanging in the laundry room for approximately four years.

What?  I was busy “cleaning my chicken coop.”

So, we’re getting our house ready to put on the market.  I’ve had the kitchen counter-tops redone and new vinyl put in the laundry room.  I bought a new kitchen sink and a new toilet.  A few days ago, a guy installed a new stove.  There’s a new dishwasher sitting in the living room waiting for a guy to hook it up on Wednesday.  A nice young man installed two new light fixtures.  A long-suffering friend came over on very short notice to help us put up the new hood over the range.

And for a couple of weeks now, I’ve had a man here painting the interior walls.

He was due to arrive this morning at 9 a.m.  I worked last night until almost 2 a.m. . . . went to sleep at 2:30 a.m. . . . and woke up very reluctantly on a non-school day at ten minutes until nine.

The painter finally arrived at 10:20 a.m.  No, he did not call and let me know he would be late.

He was here until almost 7 p.m.  And while he’s a great guy and a meticulous painter, I am weary of having strange men in my house.

Spiffing up the house to sell it is a pain in the neck and also makes me wonder why in the world I didn’t spiff it up earlier.   Other than the fact that it’s a huge ordeal and inconvenience.

Next up?  Making arrangements for an appliance store to come and pick up my very old freezer.  But first I have to defrost it and clean up the Coke explosion that resulted from two of my kids forgetting cans of Coke in it last week.

Yes, it’s fun to be me.

Last year was a year of uncertainty.

This year has a little more structure . . . but much of it remains shrouded in a giant cloud of the unknown.

Frankly, I’m not fond of being unable to see what’s going to happen next.  I’m more of a planner.  I like to line things up in alphabetical order and sort things from tallest to smallest.  And this year is a gigantic ball of tangled yarn that is too big to hold, let alone untangle.

Well.  So.  There’s that.

Meanwhile, the painter will be here at 9 a.m. and I’m so very sad about that because as it turns out, tomorrow there’s no school (still?) and it would be a perfect Sleep-In Day but since I thought there was school until a short while ago, the painter has already received permission (from me!) to come at 9 a.m.  He’ll be painting the upstairs bathroom and possibly my 8-year old daughter’s room, a fact that makes me want to cry because her room is in complete disarray and that means that tomorrow morning not only will I be unwillingly awake but I will be sorting through the debris on her floor, wondering what kind of mother allows a child to have such a sloppy room.

Good night.  More tomorrow unless I am dead from lack of sleep.

Driving down the road with teenagers, I had the following conversation with one teenager:

Teen:  ” . . . so I was thinking we could use that song as a platelet for our song.”

Me:  ” . . . a platelet?  Do you mean a template?”

Teen:  “Uh.  Yeah, template, whatever.”

Me, smiling:  “Do you even know what a platelet is?”

Teen:  “Yeah . . .  It’s a really small plate.”

Me, instantly hysterical:  “A really small plate?!”

Teen:  “What?”

Me:  “A platelet is a kind of blood cell . . .”  [Note: Slightly inaccurate, but still, close enough.]

Teen:  ” . . . ”

I had begun to laugh so hard I was crying . . . I couldn’t breathe.

Now, days later, all I do is think . . . platelet, really small plate . . . and I am amused all over again.

That is all.

Dental visit.  Ouch.

Hair highlighted.

Husband returned.

Left on a late jet-plane for New York City.

Room service.

Working online in hotel.

Wednesday meetings, meetings, working, office party, cab-ride, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, John’s Pizzeria, cab-ride.

Thursday home but not before meeting an amazing car-driver.  Then work.

Friday, husband gone.

Santa!

Saturday?  Blank spot.

Sunday?  Church, nap . . . what else?

Today?  Sister, shopping, traffic, painter, nap, work, lunar eclipse.

* * *
I will be back to fill in this post with actual writing and details.  But tonight I am too tired and at 10 a.m. the painter will be back to paint my kitchen, entry-way, hallway and living room.

Since you were last here:

1)  My four children had early morning dental appointments.  One had a cavity.
2)  A guy came and installed new laminate counter-tops in my kitchen and master bathroom and new vinyl in my laundry room and adjoining bathroom.  He arrived at 8 a.m. two separate mornings.
3)  I painted the laundry room and adjoining bathroom (midnight to 3 a.m. . . . I vow to never paint again.)
4)  I participated in two telephone conference calls with my company.
5)  I worked my regular forty hours.
6)  I had a temporary crown installed in my jaw.  Ouch and ouch and ouch again.
7)  My hair colorist had mercy on me and colored the uppermost portion of my hair so I have no obvious roots.
8)  My husband arrived home for three days!

Tomorrow?  I am leaving my house at 5 a.m. (that is four hours and twenty minutes from now) to catch a 7:30 a.m. flight to New York where I have a work meeting and then will attend the company Christmas party.  I know.  I am very fancy.  Well, not really.  But I will be in Manhattan on business anyway.

While I’m gone my husband will be here.  You’ll recall he’s already working in Southern California.  This is the first time he’s been “home” since October.  It was nice to see him for awhile and to hear him snore while I worked.

And now I’m going to bed to get a hoped-for solid four hours of sleep.

Okay, look.  I had quite a busy weekend visiting my husband and our new church in California.  I wanted to tell you all about it.

But I can’t because it’s 1:30 a.m. and I just finished working and I’m exhausted and at 8 a.m. a guy is going to arrive to install new countertops and at 8:30 a.m. two of my kids have to be at the dentist and then I have to take one of them to school (and bring the other home) and then at 11:00 a.m. I have an important work-related telephone conference and I just don’t time to tell you all about it.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll have time.

Don’t hold your breath.

What did you do last weekend?

It’s a strange thing to wake up every morning and do ordinary things when life has become unmoored.

My husband has been living in another state for almost two months now.  We saw him a week and a half ago and we’ll see him again very soon, but it’s still utterly strange.  I’ve lived with him longer than anyone else in the world and it’s odd to be apart.  (I miss him, even though it’s so easy to make the bed in the mornings without him untucking and flinging the covers everywhere while sleeping.)

The next time I put up a Christmas tree, it will be in a different house in a different state. I’m now marking time by packing away things we won’t need again until next time this year.  Yet, this certainty is draped with uncertainty because we have no idea where exactly we’ll be living.

In the meantime, it’s like we’re still here but not really . . . and yet, we haven’t gone anywhere at all.

We are living in the space between our past and our future.

If you really think about it, though, we are all living in that in between space.  We just don’t recognize it in the clutter and noise of daily life.  So I suppose I should be grateful for this awareness.

As I drove down the rainy street today, I thought about how much I will miss the Douglas firs and the emerald green of our wet climate.

I’m trying to live in the moment.  I really am.  It’s just that I find the moment so fleeting and elusive.

And I hate not knowing exactly what my future looks like.  I guess I’ll know soon enough.

For now, though, I am going to try to be here, heart and soul, in the moment.

So, yesterday I cooked the whole Thanksgiving dinner.  I used to think it was a semi-big deal to cook Thanksgiving dinner, but now I know how to make gravy from scratch and mash potatoes without asking the nearest woman for instructions.

I made pies the night before (pumpkin, pecan and peanut butter chocolate).  I even made the pie crust from scratch.  Be very impressed.  (Not really.)

My mom came over and we six sat at the table and before I knew it, the youngest boy ate and fled to his video games and eventually, my mom and I and my daughter sat at the cleared-off table and looked through the Black Friday ads.  Grace circled things she really, really, really wanted from Kmart.  I never, ever shop at Kmart, though.  I hate Kmart.

I had to work today but between shifts Grace and I dragged out the Christmas decorations, unpacked the pre-lit tree and like magic, the tree was up.  I love that tree.

I ran out of energy before every decoration was put in its place but we made good progress.  I’m glad because that means tomorrow it will be a fairly easy task.

The snow melted . . . hooray.  I never thought I’d be so happy to see forty degree temperatures and rain.

And now, the weekend begins.  Hooray.

Friday afternoon, the kids and I flew to Houston to meet up with my husband and visit his family.  We celebrated an early Thanksgiving with his extended family.  My daughter spent her entire time in Texas running around with second cousins she never knew she had–literally running in the yard–and playing football (I heard she caught a pass and made a touchdown) and jumping on a trampoline.  She completely forgot that she  meant to be afraid of running into a rattlesnake.  (Her grandpa informed me that she was never in danger of running into a rattlesnake since rattlesnakes are mostly in west Texas . . . then he said something about copperheads and I thought to myself, “la la la, I can’t hear you . . . .”)

My boys hung out with distant cousins, playing guitars and joking around.

I helped out in the kitchen and chatted with various womenfolk.

So, we arrived in Texas at 10 p.m. on Friday night.
Did the whole Thanksgiving dinner with extended family on Saturday.
Flew home on Sunday afternoon.

We left Texan temperatures in the seventies, maybe eighties . . . and returned to Seattle where snow had fallen.  Fortunately, the hour drive home was uneventful.  Snow had fallen earlier in the day but the roads were only wet, not frozen.  We were home by 7:30 p.m.

Today, school’s began on time but the early-morning phone call from the district told us that the kids would only attend for half the day.  The roads were a little snowy at 9 a.m. when I drove my daughter to school.  An hour later, as I drove to the dentist, I realized how much worse things had gotten.  Heavy snow was falling.

While sitting in the dental chair, we watched a truck get stuck going uphill.  Not a good sign.

Scary.

But after I finished having my gums poked with sharp metal instruments and my teeth scraped, I bravely climbed into my mini-van and sped up the hills with determination and enough speed to carry me up hill.  I returned home without sliding off the road.

Tonight, as I watched the news coverage of the nightmarish road conditions, I became so thankful our drive home on the freeway last night was so carefree.

Tonight, cars stood on that very same stretch of road for hours in the dark, stranded on the streets of pure ice.  Semi-trucks were jack-knifed, a car caught on fire and a city bus in Tacoma careened out of control and hit a building, ending up rolled over on its side.

I’m so happy to be in my warm home, so grateful that our electricity is still on.  The winds are blowing hard tonight and the temperatures have dropped into the teens.  The high temperature tomorrow is predicted to reach 28 degrees.

Now if I could just recover from the exhaustion of spending nine hours in an airplane and five hours in airports, I’d be all set.