Sunday, May 16, 2010

Normal Life

For the most part, we don't live anything that I would consider a "normal" life. We live in a house that is under construction, with only one shower serving five people, no flooring anywhere but the kitchen and the boys' bedroom. Karen and I work conflicting hours, and hardly spend any time together, despite the fact that after almost 22 years of marriage we actually like spending time together.

But we try to make life seem normal for the boys, and on the score we get a lot of help—from the boys. After four years of living in a house that was always for sale, never getting to decorate in their own room, not even posters and their own artwork, and having to dash off on Saturdays while someone showed their house to a buyer that was never going to buy, even living in a construction zone seems to feel fairly normal to them.

This week, in part of our attempt to make the house feel more like home, Karen and the boys started planting a vegetable garden in the front yard. We are hoping that the fence discourages the worst of the raiding critters who took away most of our pondside garden a couple of years ago. 

Dad stayed out of this save to erect the fence and set up the wood box to contain the dirt, uh, soil. Letting me touch anything that's meant to grow is a disastrous mistake.

The garden consists of broccoli, cauliflower, onions, strawberries, yukon gold potatoes, lettuce, garlic, and grapes. Might be some other good stuff in there, too, that I don't remember, but if it survives we are in for some good eating.

We also have raspberry and blackberry bushes on the property, and a pair of apple trees, although they have not blossomed this year, and may not. But we are not planning to leave this house anytime soon, so there will be time enough for apples.

Construction projects on the house are not coming along so quickly.  We though that we would get more done when we moved into the house, but the problem is that now, having moved all of our possessions into the house with us, we have to move a lot of things around anytime we want to put down flooring or put up walls or hang a ceiling. It makes everything take a lot longer.

And then there's that whole "normal" life thing, too. With our schedules, and my theater work and the boys activities, and the fact the despite the inconvenience we are at least getting by with the new house the way it is, construction kind of gets pushed farther down the list.

This summer, perhaps, that will change. Karen is taking some time off to be with the boys, and so a lot of their need to be out and about and doing, and to spend time with Karen, will be satisfied and then we can spend more of our weekends, those that Karen has off, to work on the house one room at a time.

Meanwhile we keep plugging away. Today we took the boys to the park so they could play, and we happened to meet two very good friends of theirs (and the friends' Mom, who is a good friend of ours), and everybody had even a better time than we expected.

It makes the day short, though. With the return to work looming, and a rehearsal tonight (tough show, but tons of fun), there wasn't time to work on anything in the house today.

I've been trying to rearrange my studio space so that I can get back to working on the piano and guitar, but there isn't quite enough space, because I'm still using my old computer desk, which is much too big both for the space and the computer I'm currently using.

Karen's been trying to spend more time on the computer so she can learn some new architectural design programs and get better at staying in touch with people, but it's been hard for her to find the time (and energy with her crazy schedule) to keep on.

But lest I complain too, much, I'm a lot better off than I was a year or so ago, when we were rushing to move out of the old house and didn't have time to breathe, let alone accomplish anything. If we can keep that trend going, perhaps this will be the year we finally get back on track.

And if not, we have each other. Nothing that had happened to us has changed that.

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