If I can’t fix it… it is broken

For the past two or three years, I’ve been working on fixing, repairing and maintaining my house after a long, long time of letting it go. I could make excuses and give a handful of decent reasons as to why I let my house fall into such disrepair that it probably would have been condemned by the county. I didn’t have time or more so, money. I didn’t know how to make the repairs. I was worried I might ruin something if I tried to fix it and then incur a really big repair bill to have someone with real know-how fix my fix. Or I was busy with church obligations.

The fact of the matter is those are all bullshit excuses from a guy who was depressed and self destructing because his wife left him. I sometimes wonder if I subconciously wanted my house to fall in on me after my ex-wife left.

Who knows… what i do know is that with the help of the internet (thank you YouTubers who post DIY vids!), the spurring of my wife The Deistette, a little help from some church friends (financially and physically) and some self determination I’ve managed to turn the ship on this house. It’s by no means finished or even close but at least things are pointed in the right direction.

One project where I learned a lot was in renovating my kitchen. Ok, renovate is the wrong word… that gives the idea this was for aesthetic reasons.  No, it wasn’t because I or my wife simply wanted to make it look pretty. It was because we had mold, lots of mold growing in the cabinet underneath the sink. With the help of my younger brother I gutted my kitchen down to the studs. I came up with a way to contain the mold spores and did a pretty damn fine job of it, I don’t mind telling you.  I learned basic plumbing and moved the sink from a corner location to a spot The Deistette thought would be better.

In other projects, I’ve taken out drywall… so much at one time that I exposed my house in such a way that I could see outside and across the street from inside my house. I’ve remodeled my bathroom. I’ve replaced toilets and fixed plumbing in my bathroom. I’ve repaired parts of my roof, disassembled  a bathtub single faucet and put it back together. I have torn off old siding, disposed of old asbestos type insulation and replaced with new thicker insulation.  I have replaced windows and in doing so reframed my house to fit a different sized double paned window.

I don’t list all these things I’ve done to brag (ok, maybe a little to brag) but to show what can be done with a little self determination AND help from some friends. You see, I know I didn’t do all those repairs on my own. I had some help. I had help from family, church friends and some amazing people on the internet.

As I continue to learn and gain experience, I hope some day I can say “if I can’t fix it; it is broken.” I’m not sure I’ll ever get to that skill level but I sure do like trying now. I really like fixing things on my house. Maybe being a handyman will be a second career for me someday. I’ve currently got about 1500 dollars worth of work I’ll earn from my neighbor over the next few months. For now, I’ll be hunting the interwebs for the answer if I don’t know how to fix something. Who knows… maybe someday I’ll actually start that handyman business.

I have found myself firmly in the Libertarian camp but not the one the Tea Party assholes preach or the Ayn Rand followers like Paul Ryan espouse or the textbook, theoretical view of Ron Paul. Despite being Libertarian-esque, I like this vid the Dems put out and believe whole heartedly in its message.

I have a ten year old little girl in my house

Faith has lived across the street from us for not quite a year. She, her mom and her two tween sisters moved in just after the school year started. I think that’s when it was. Maybe it was just before the school year. I can’t remember. Apparently, her mom went through a divorce and I assume couldn’t afford to keep her previous home and so began renting one of the little wood frame, shotgun type houses that sit on my street.

We haven’t really met Faith’s mom although I’ve seen her on a handful of occasions getting groceries out of the car or heading off for work. Turns out those times I’ve seen her were rather miraculous because the woman works about 18 to 20 hours a day! YES… 18 to 20 hours per day. This happens about five days a week. On the other two days she may work one of those days for eight hours.

There is something fundamentally wrong with the policies and culture of a country that claims to be the best in the world, yet there are still people who have to work that many hours of a day to provide the barest of essentials for their family.

And that is the reason I have a ten-year old little girl in my house.

Faith knows The Deistette from the bus stop.

Protected: Little Fawn is all grown up

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A bit of dead air

This is the longest break in posting I think I’ve ever had in the four years I’ve maintained this blog.

It’s been a hair more than two months since my last post and it isn’t for a lack of anything to say.

I’ve had some things I could have written about: my continued work and fixes on my house which I’m learning to do as I go along… learned mostly because of the awesome people on YouTube who post how-to vids, the feeling of loss after having sold my little 16-acre piece of land that I paid on for nearly 10 years, what it was like having my ex-wife’s 16 year old daughter come to the house unexpectedly (seeing my stepdaughter was wonderful by the way), the hard transition to only one car in a city that is designed in such a way that citizens really need a car. Or like how last week, my continued Wednesday date night with my daughter has now crossed a threshold and I have only 51 of these left until she turns 18 and is no longer obligated to spend them with me.

Those are some of the biggies.

There were a bunch of little things that I could have written or shown you pictures of that involve just random, mundane, every day things.

But I haven’t.
I’ve been tired.

Seems like everyone needs a piece of me and it’s sapping my energy to near zero by the end of the day. My physical, mental, spiritual energy seems to be running on fumes and it sucks.

The other thing though is I havent’ really been inspired to write about what’s been happening with me.  I wonder if blogging, not just for me, but for the blogosphere as a whole is waning.   Maybe it’s simply taking on a new shape.  Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and a few other sites have different way of blogging and I imagine have pulled some away from Blogger, WP and Typepad.

I don’t know.

I’m here though. Not dead.  Still alive and kicking.

Battle scars

I’m not sure if something is going around or if everyone in my office has a case of the Friday flu but two of my co-workers are out and two others came in late claiming a child was sick. If we had a couple dozen employees it might go unnoticed but when there are only seven of us… well, it raises an eyebrow.

Something is definitely going around though as The Boy woke us up at 3:30 Thursday morning after having barfed his guts up. All morning and into the afternoon he slept in between having it shoot out of both ends of him. I know… probably too much info.

He seemed to get better then he’d barf up again, his fever would raise a half degree or so then he’d sleep. A couple of hours later he would drink just a little then the same series of events would happen.

Finally about 8:00pm or so we decided to take him to the hospital. We worried of appendicitis because his low-grade fever wasn’t really coming down. Well the doc said it was probably viral since he’d had four other kids come in with the same stuff. Something’s probably going around.

He poked around on his belly and didn’t feel like it was appendicitis. So he prescribed fluids.

The Boy immediately started crying because he knew what that meant.

A pokey.

The Deistette had been telling him all day

till living doesn’t feel like giving up

About twice a month, sometimes three or four times a month I have to travel to different municipal or state agencies to file things for clients of my company. And now and again I’ll go see a few of clients during the month.

As a result I see quite a bit of the city as I drive around. Probably not nearly as much as some outside sales people but more than your average guy stuck in an office.

So last week I was on my way back from the State Comptroller’s Office and I saw a guy on a corner holding a sign. There are so many people doing this. Unbelievable how many. And it’s sad that in our country people have had to resort to this to stay alive.

But for some I wonder if it really is their last option. I mean there’s a a young guy (mid to late 20′s) near my office who claims on his sign to be a Marine Corps veteran. I don’t know, maybe he is. There is a couple that looks to be in their mid-50′s who wheel their down syndrome daughter out to the side of the road with them asking for money. There is one woman I remember seeing who put on such a display of despair as motorists drove by I felt embarrassed for her because it seemed so fake.

Maybe I’m just too jaded or I don’t know… wary. But these three examples of people begging for subsistence seems like an act. And so last week, when I saw yet another guy, holding a sign, I didn’t think much of it but the light turned red and I had a chance to…

well to pay a little more attention.

I don’t know. Something about his posture. Something about him just made me think twice give in. So I rolled down my window and gave him a few dollars. When he came up to me I said, “hang in there brother. Hang in there.” He said, “I’m trying. I’m giving it all to God. God bless you young man. Thank you so much.”

In our exchange he seemed ashamed and I couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears that lined his cheeks but I was moved.

I don’t know what his story is. I don’t know if he really is out of work, is mentally disturbed, a scam artist, an artist artist, or Jesus come down to judge us but this song by a local singer/songwrier was playing on my CD player as I sat at the red light and it made the whole scene… the whole interaction so much more real.  And I felt sorry for him. And I prayed a little prayer for him. And I had tears in my eyes, perhaps not only for him but myself as well feeling the grace of God, my good fortune and own determination that I am not in his place.

Music by Sara Van Buskirk
Find more of Sara’s music here

a vivid memory made

I have three friends from church who play in a band with me. The whole thing is kinda surreal. I mean we started out thinking we’d just play a little music, if we got good enough maybe… MAYBE play for a church service now and again.

Three years later we’ve put out a CD, got it placed on iTunes!… gigged around a little and made some people happy with our music. And yes… now and again we play for our church during a Sunday service.

It’s pretty amazing when I think about that and all we’ve done with this band of ours.

Well, a couple of weeks ago we had gig… another outside gig.  Seems like the only place we play is outside.  It was a benefit for three girls whose families needed financial help after their daughters got into an ATV accident.  It was the furthest we’d ever traveled to play a show.  About 50 miles away from our homes.

Little Fawn (my 16 year old daughter for any new readers) came along with us just to kinda be there, plus I handed her my camera so she could get some pics of us.

There was a lot going on. It was held at a restaurant that sits right against the banks of a lake.  There were hot girls in bikinis and fellas with ripped abs coming in off the lake.  There was a silent auction going on inside as well as a garage sale happening in the parking lot.  A fishing tournament had started earlier in the morning and people were tracking that.

Anyway, I say all this to let you know we weren’t the only thing being given any attention.  So as we were playing we could tell there were only a handfull of people really listening to us so we thought we’d drag out a song that is kind of a favorite of ours although most certainly unknown to anyone outside a UU church.

And so here’s the memory, that I pray lasts me till my dying day.

The song we decided to pull out is a popular UU hymn that uses words by the Sufi mystic, Rumi.

We play it as a round and as we got into the singing part… particularly MY singing part, Little Fawn was singing along to herself.  I could see her, as she peered into the camera’s monitor to see the most recent  picture she had taken, singing along.  She was busy… somewhat distracted as she pressed the buttons, moved back and forth through the pics… deleting one, saving another… and singing… with her daddy.

She knows all the words. She knows the melody.  And it means more than I can describe that she likes it enough that she couldn’t “keep from singing”. (part of the title of another popular UU hymn)

I am forever grateful for that moment when I looked up at just the right time to see my baby girl singing this song with me in a place where it probably never has been heard or ever will be heard, again.

wherein the Deist and Deistette praise God OR….

W E ‘ R E   F A R M E R S !!

So during the four weeks when I was doing the demolition and reconstruction of our kitchen (see post below) I decided since I was in a building kind of mood I would construct a little raised garden bed.  “Little” is the key word here.  It’s only two and a half feet by five and a half feet.

It’s really cool though.  I can hardly believe it. (click the thumbnails to see bigger pics)

Emmie and I have talked about doing one since… well since before we even met.  For a little more than a decade I’ve had the notion of living off the land, raising a few chickens and goats and having a garden that could sustain my family.  Keep in mind I know nothing about country living or farming and ranching but like I said for years I’ve had the desire to do this. I even bought my own little piece of Texas about nine years ago with the hopes of doing it some day.

Emmie told me when we first met online that she has had the dream of being able to have her own vegetable garden for years as well.

Well, she ain’t much but here it is.

Our little plot of earth that will soon release her bounty.    And with God’s good grace and laws of physics He has set in place (and hopefully despite my complete lack of knowledge) we will have at least some fresh veggies from our own garden.

We started by planting seeds back in February.  That may have been a bit early but like I said we don’t really know what we’re doing. 

You can’t save ‘em all…

I’m going to brag on The Deistette a little.  It is no exaggeration to say that she is a hero, a lifesaver.  A God-send… at least to a few.

Since she moved here in September of ’08, I have seen more strays and castaways step through the door of this house than in the 12 years I’ve lived here.

But for some reason… they find her.  Dogs and cats that turn up lost or thrown out although once, there was a threesome of baby possums that we found in our garage.  How they got there I still don’t know.

There have always been stray cats in the neighborhood.  Hell, we’ve got about eight or ten stray cats on our street alone.  So to have a kitten show up now and again is not surprising.  But it’s the dogs she always manages to stumble over that amaze me.  For those of you who have been following me since she and I met,

One shot… one kill

It’s a saying we used to have in the Marine Corps that was first learned when we were being taught marksmanship skills.  The drill instructors used it to instill the idea that every round sent down range HAD to count or you could be a dead Marine.

Later in a young Marine’s career it could be applied to a metaphorical “do or die” situation where a Marine made one attempt at something and was successful in his endeavor.  For example, Marine is playing basketball and it’s the end of the game. His team is down by two points.  Marine buries a long three point shot. Game won!  Boom! One shot… one kill!

So you get the idea.

Well, I just heard of someone who did that recently in their own do or die situation that so many people in this country have not been able to do.  It’s almost miraculous.  It seems so beyond the realm of reason that it if I weren’t a deist I might say IS miraculous.

This person is a friend of my dad’s from church and has been caring for my step-mom during the day while he is at work.  My step-mom has been a quadraplegic for a little more than a year and needs someone with her all the time now.

Anyway… Angela, her caretaker, told my dad she needed to find another job because her husband’s company said everyone would be receiving a 5% cut in pay to keep the company afloat after having taken a 20% cut three months earlier.

Shortly after (like days) Angela got a tip/recommendation from a friend, went on the interview and got the job!

If I had been in Vegas I would have put every penny I had on her NOT getting the job.  My wife told me of someone she read about who had sent her resume to 700+ job openings in about a year, got about 50 interviews and STILL had nothing.  College educated person with a master’s degree!

My wife actually found herself in a room last year at an interview where the person hiring said they had received about 700 or so resumes in just one day.  Thirty people were interviewed.  One got the job.  It wasn’t Emmie.

A few weeks later and I’m still in shock that Angela got the job.  Well, she is  a church-going girl… maybe God really does give people a hand now and again.

     blink, blink, blink.

whoah!… sorry about that.  I had a momentary lapse of reason.  Almost slipped off the ol’ deist bandwagon. : )

Congrats Angela.  I know your family really needed it.