The betrayal starts small. You tweak your back while bent over blow-drying your hair–which is not as thick and luxurious as it once was. You realize you can’t raise your arms straight overhead. Your hip feels stiff and you start doing internet searches and wonder if your hip flexors are just weak or if perhaps you have developed bursitis. When you drop something, you just leave it because bending over is such an ordeal.

Your mind is sharp–not quite as razor sharp as in days gone by–but sharp enough. Your body, however, is a traitor. You start to limp sometimes. Over six years ago, the doctor sends you for an x-ray, then physical therapy and you learn a few stretches and carry on. The limp subsides and you start hiking in earnest, an hour a day on hilly trails. You’re feeling pretty good for a middle-aged gal.

Then your Achilles tendon protests and you’re sidelined for a year. Then you move houses three times in five years. Your limp returns, your hip aches, you finally get into see a doctor after waiting six months for an appointment. You fully expect to be shamed for not working out daily and eating a better diet.

However, she sends you for an x-ray of that pesky hip and bingo! You have severe osteoarthritis. You end up at a physical therapist’s office for that hip and your uncooperative shoulders. The physical therapist assesses you, recommends an x-ray of those shoulders and boom! You have severe osteoarthritis of both shoulders.

These three joints are described as “bone on bone” by the orthopedic surgeons you consult.

Surgery is scheduled for that hip but postponed for the shoulders.

In the meantime, you’re trudging through your days working as a retail assistant manager, pushing a cart as if your life depends on it, leaning on it like a walker. You love your job but the physical pain is taking its toll. It only hurts when you take a step but that’s how you spend your days. Taking steps. Lifting freight, arranging displays, limping along as you lead customers to products.

So, that hip has got to go! Total replacement coming January 26.

*

(I know. Why is this written in second person?)

I’ve chosen to work in retail for a variety of reasons. For one, I despise boredom while working. (I’m looking at you, Credit Union.) For another, I like being physically active at work and I like that each day is different, while also following a general pattern. I like working with a variety of people who are different ages and from different backgrounds.

But this week, this week of shopping madness, has worn me down. I worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, spent most of the day Thursday cooking and then back to work Friday and Saturday. I literally took a bath last night at 6 PM and then went to bed at 7 PM.

I was tired when I woke up.

I need to take some time off, hopefully after Christmas. But tomorrow is freight day, so I’ll be working from 8 AM to 6 PM.

My four kids, my mom and one sister joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. We had a peaceful day. No one cried. It’s possible there are still leftovers in the fridge but I am too tired to care and too tired to check.

I’m uninspired to decorate but have promised myself that I will create Christmas magic on Friday, my day off this week. I don’t have that many decorations anymore thanks to moving three times in four years. (Moving: Do not recommend. Even though we’ve been in this particular house since March, there are still areas of disarray and confusion. I don’t know what I’ve jettisoned or what I’ve just lost. For instance, where is my purple down jacket?)

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(I’m only writing this because I had to come to the basement to pay some bills because I cleaned off the kitchen counter pre-Thanksgiving and put the bills down here and since I was here, here I am.)

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While at work recently, I heard a woman say this to her child about a coloring book: “No, that’s about Jesus and he’s not really our vibe.”

I guess she’s not really into the True Meaning of Christmas.

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See you later, alligator.

A month or so ago, my husband was driving on the freeway when the dashboard lights began flashing. He immediately drove home and made an appointment with a mechanic (because it’s always something, right?).

He enlisted me to help him deliver the car to the mechanic, so within a week we headed to the shop realizing only when entering the mechanic’s parking lot that we had forgotten his car. That’s right. He was in my car with me as we drove together to drop off his car.

Neither of us noticed this error. What is wrong with us? Have the events of the past five years (two moves, one pandemic, three different pastorates for him and four different jobs for me) finally taken their toll?

We might be losing it but at least I didn’t unpack fully so it’ll be easier to move all our earthly belongings three miles up the road on March 10, our Official Moving date. I’m looking forward to unpacking and finally finding everything that I’ve lost since June. Maybe even, my brain.

I can’t wait though I am full of the kind of dread that is giving me nightmares that involve performing music that I have never practiced.

I’m alone in my living room with the remains of Christmas taunting me. I need to pack everything away and then tote it to the new house we’ll be renting in February.

That’s right. We are moving for the second time in a eight months to a different rental house–this one owned by friends we’ve known for forty years. It’ll be more spacious and newer. (Our current rental was built by our landlord’s dad in 1954.) We expect to be able to stay for a long time in the next house.

Our current rental has been fine–and the price was half of current market value–but the lease was for one year and then it would be month to month. I felt so unsettled and when the opportunity came to rent the other house three miles away, we jumped at it.

(I should mention that two or three weeks ago, I was getting ready on a Monday morning when I heard a loud bang/thump. I optimistically told myself that maybe one of the boys downstairs dropped something heavy but sure enough, I was wrong. A short time later, my husband knocked on the bathroom door to tell me that there was water in the basement and so I hurried downstairs to find the hot water tank spewing water into the cement basement which is filled with cardboard boxes and plastic totes because I never fully unpacked here because there isn’t enough space for everything.

I rushed to move the cardboard boxes onto the totes and out of the path of the water and then–in my nightgown, mind you–I began to deal with the water. First I called the landlord to find out how to turn off the water to the house, cranked it off and then splashed through the water and began using a cruddy wet-vac I found tucked into a corner of the basement. Two of my adult kids watched, my husband came down, the neighbor came over and finally, someone took over the wet-vac so I could finish getting ready and go to work.

At any rate, the Serv-Pro people eventually appeared to set up huge fans and rip up carpet. They tore out a wall and finally deemed it “dry” and now I have to meet with an insurance adjuster even though I’m just a tenant. It’s been a nightmare, really, but I remind myself that at least it’s not my insurance and it’s not my problem.)

Anyway. Now we are going to move. In our spare time.

We have given ourselves two months to complete the move, though, and will that be worse or better? Yes.

Christmas comes early when you work retail but then it picks up speed and goes by so fast you wonder how it’s already January. All our kids were here this year, in addition to my mom, and we had a really good day (except for an incident between two adult kids that ended in tears which is ridiculous but also reminds us that we are all human beings with feelings and misunderstandings).

I hope it’ll be a good year or at least a year without a water catastrophe and one in which I can fully unpack and find my scissors among other things.

The knock at our bedroom door at 12:03 AM did not wake me. My husband did. He said our son was at the door and I stumbled from bed and out into the hallway. (The last time one of my sons knocked at my bedroom door at midnight was August 5. That time that son had fainted and fallen backwards into the tub. He knocked because when he felt the back of his head, he pulled away a bloody hand. I ended up taking him to the ER–there’s a first time for everything–where the doctor stapled his 3 cm gash closed WITHOUT ANESTHESIA.)

But this was different.

My oldest son (who lives in the basement) was frantic because he came upstairs and smelled gas. I could smell it, too. I went over to the stove but it was turned off but the stench of gas was strong. My son had already Googled what to do and he said we needed to call 911 and leave the house. He was pacing and frantic.

I opened a window and the door and my husband appeared and we wandered in circles for a minute, trying to decide. My husband jiggled a knob and thought it had been loose and the gas smell dissipated some but my son appeared again with his socks and shoes on and can I just point out how unusual it is that he can even locate his shoes? He was prepared to evacuate. He could not believe we were not.

My husband and I went to the bedroom and decided that I ought to call 911, so I did and felt somewhat silly but better safe than sorry, right? The dispatcher transferred me to the fire department and they told me to get out of the house and that an engine was on the way.

We barely got everyone out of the house–my 82-year old mom was still navigating the front steps–and a firetruck with flashing lights pulled up in front of our house and three firemen walked up, weighed down with gear. The main guy asked me a few questions and they went into the house. After awhile–and after checking out the basement and the gas meter–they agreed that the stove knob had probably been on and my husband’s jiggling had turned it off. It was safe to go back in.

And the fireman told me we did the right thing.

We all went back inside and that’s when my other son–the one who lives on the main floor–told me that an hour earlier he’d come into the kitchen and noticed a burner on and turned it off. That was most likely the cause of the odor–or maybe it wasn’t completely turned off? At any rate, we all kind of wondered who exactly turned the knob–accidentally, of course–and we all denied that it was us. And we all promised that we would check the knobs on the stove before we go to bed. (My husband followed up with our landlord who said she’d also had trouble with the persnickety knobs on the stove.)

Anyway, after all the excitement, it was about 1:00 AM and we went back to bed. Only this time I did not gently drift to sleep. I tossed and turned until 3:30 AM. Once even the tiniest amount of adrenaline wakes me up, sleep eludes me.

I’ve reached the age when babies are long gone and so are teenagers. There’s absolutely no one who needs me at night, no interruptions to my sleep, no reason I can’t sleep.

And yet, despite my body pillow and the two down pillows to cradle my head, despite a warm bath most nights and despite a half hour of reading on my Kindle after a nightly episode of Frasier, despite no caffeine after noon–despite all my efforts to get a good night of sleep, I may or may not sleep. I might not fall asleep or maybe I won’t stay asleep. It’s a dirty trick and I don’t like it.

Last night, I was in bed, routine complete, ready to read at 11:00 PM. I am reading (for the first time) The Grapes of Wrath and I didn’t reach the end of the chapter for about an hour at which point a leg cramp struck, causing me to hobble out of bed to gobble a banana and drink some water. Then I went back to bed where I did NOT sleep for . . . an hour?

But maybe I’ll sleep tonight. One can always hope.

In the meantime, I’m going to go check the knobs on the stove.

What I need, I decided, is a laptop. I even picked one out but I didn’t purchase it yet. But I will because I’ve realized that the obstacle between me and this blog is the slope of eleven stairs that lead me to the basement of this rental house where I have set up my computer.

It’s the worst home office ever, located under the stairs in the basement, steps from the washing machine. The world’s most uncomfortable stool sits in front of the workbench where my desktop lives now. Kitty litter sticks to my feet when I walk past the litter boxes to there. It’s not great.

I chose that spot because it has access to good electrical outlets but that’s the only winning feature. The house is small and full of people—my mom, two sons, my husband, me and our two cats. So I don’t have a room of my own, just a corner in the basement and it doesn’t make me want to sit and write. But I want to sit and write.

So I need that laptop because tapping on this phone with my index finger is too slow.

*

The first month here—July—felt like living in a vacation rental because our little house is a partly furnished place. And of course, it took the moving truck 9 or 10 days to arrive.

I applied for a bunch of jobs and ended up back at Hobby Lobby where I’m working full-time and mostly enjoying the work. I just feel like I have no time.

I haven’t unpacked everything because this rental is temporary but who knows how temporary. I don’t love the unknown but am trying to go with the flow even when the flow is white water rapids. I won’t drown. Right?

My closet is smaller than ever. I’m being downsized against my will.

Okay. So that’s what’s up. I’m hoping to get a laptop so I can write more.

I sit at my desk unable to relax because my rolling desk chair tends to slide right on this uneven mud room floor. I hear a lawn mower drone in the distance because it’s every Minnesotan’s God-given responsibility to keep his or her lawn in pristine condition for these three summer months. My husband is watching reruns on the television in the living room so I hear laugh tracks floating down the six stairs between us.

I’ve just finished ordering a dress online, confirming weekend plans with a long-time friend and applying for a job for the second time. (I only made it through two interview rounds last time but now there are two more openings.) As long as there is an opening, I will apply. I am tenacious when I believe something is right and this job is right for me. Or if it’s not, maybe Costco will hire me. Don’t you love uncertainty?

You’ve been wondering if I will ever follow through when I proclaim my undying devotion to this blog. So here I am. Devoted. Following through. Believe me when I tell you that my life is so boring that often there’s nothing to say. Also, I hardly ever sit at this desk where my computer gathers dust.

We are moving again. Did I mention that before? This is our eleventh move as a married couple. My husband has been hired by a church in the Pacific Northwest, close to where I grew up. He was not looking for a new job but this new job was looking for him, so off we go.

Unfortunately, since I was convinced this was our final move, I gave away our moving boxes long ago. But fortunately, since we moved not all that long ago (four years), I haven’t accumulated all that much stuff and so packing–while a lot of work, so much work, why do I have so many books?–hasn’t been that bad, all things considered. I’m pretty much a professional packer and definitely a professional sorter-and-purger, so that’s what I’ve been doing in my spare time.

My criteria for keeping kitchen items, for instance, is . . . “can I buy this again cheaply at a thrift store?” If so, off it goes to the thrift store. The flaw with this approach, of course, is that I will spend the next few years wondering where that platter has gone–did I keep it or give it away? It’s a fun way to live, really. Confused, mystified, but ready to go thrifting for whatever reason and no reason at all.

The cost of housing in the Pacific Northwest is shockingly high and causes me so much regret over every property we’ve ever sold, but despite that regret, we are, indeed, selling our igloo house here. We have been offered a miraculously affordable rental house on the other side, so we will settle in and see what happens with the real estate market in the years to come.

My husband and one son will be departing on June 19. I told him they need to get out so I can finish packing and cleaning before the moving truck comes on June 26. Then my daughter is flying out and we’ll clean the house and wrap up loose ends before departing ourselves on an epic road trip which will include stops at Wall Drug store, Mt. Rushmore and Devil’s Tower. I love a road trip so I think it’ll be fun.

Honestly, the impending move doesn’t feel real even though neat stacks of packed moving boxes line the walls. Sure, I would have liked to have been that person who stayed in one place their whole life but that’s never been the path for me. (After all, my parents moved some 20 times in 7 years before I was 5 years old.) I’ve appreciated the time we’ve spent here–only about an hour from where my grandparents met and married in 1926–but it’s time to return to the Cascade mountains, the Douglas firs, the Puget Sound and the rain. (And let’s be truthful, also the slugs, the traffic and the gloom.)

I arrived there for the first time in 1969 and will return for the last time (God-willing and the creek don’t rise) in 2024.

(End scene as thunder rumbles in the distance.)

I live in Minnesota, you know, so I’m feeling a little discontent with the current lack of snow. We have only a dusting. You can still see the grass. This week, the temperatures will reach a high of 45 degrees and that’s just not festive. If you can’t go barefoot on the beach to take photos of the sunset, snow is the required. That’s just how I see it.

My California-living son is flying here Tuesday night for an early Christmas. He’ll be here a week. Then my daughter flies in on Christmas Eve and will be here for a week. Although it’s too bad they won’t see each other, this does mean they’ll each get to sleep on an actual bed instead of an air mattress out in the open where the hooligan cats torture sleeping humans.

My mom was here for a two weeks over the Thanksgiving holiday. I hadn’t seen her since a hurried visit in 2022 when I left her house near the beach abruptly when I suspected I had COVID. (I did not.) Then she herself abruptly left that beach house in the fall of 2022 to relocate to Virginia so I hadn’t seen her in awhile.

A half-empty nest without the addition of any grandchildren feels lackluster. I have yet to put up my outside lights and the bah-humbug part of me says, oh, why bother? But I’m going to put them up anyway because I know my daughter will be thrilled and I like coming home to a lit-up house. We are still worth the effort, right? Right.

Funny story. Our front porch-light was so dim that you couldn’t tell whether it was on or off. On Halloween, I’d string up white lights around the door frame so kids could tell we had treats to dispense. I complained half-heartedly about the dumb light to my husband and he took matters into his own hands and discussed it with an electrician who agreed to put in a new fixture.

That’s when I went outside and peered into the porch-light and decided to . . . try putting in a brighter bulb.

Which did the trick.

Why had I not tried this before? I’m not sure. I assumed it was a solar light or something because who in their right mind would put an extremely low-wattage lightbulb in a porch-light?

Anyway, sometimes the easiest solution is the one that seems too obvious to be true.

I wish all problems were as simple to solve.

If I don’t talk to you again this year (ha ha ha, that joke never gets old, does it?), then have a Merry Christmas!

On October 11, 2003, I started this blog.

If you go back to the beginning of this actual blog, you’ll find I first posted here in January 2004 and I linked to a previous site which no longer exists. Fortunately, I saved those words in a computer file, so all is not lost.

The only thing lost is time.

Twenty years later, I sit in an office/mud room in Minnesota. My husband’s in the living room watching a baseball play-off game between the Twins and the Astros. He’s rooting for the Astros because he was born in Houston.

My oldest son is sleeping in our basement. I will not sum up his life here but I will say that I wouldn’t be surprised if he always lives with us. He’s doing his best.

His twin brother still lives in San Diego. He finished a degree in Music Performance and is working at a grocery store while he tries to figure out his path. He loves to sing, loves opera and hopes there is a world in which he can earn a living doing what he loves.

My youngest son is in the Philippines right now. He hasn’t figured out a career, but he may have found the love of his life on the other side of the world. When not gallivanting around the world, he lives with us still.

My daughter just turned 21. We spent four days at Disneyland last month, both to celebrate her birthday and to spend time together. She lives with her boyfriend of four years near Portland, Oregon. They have a corgi names Cricket. She works at a Montessori school.

Those are the facts but they are not the stories. I wish I could tell all the stories that I know–some scandalous, some tragic, some ridiculous–but I am bound by manners and privacy. I can’t give away what I do not own.

But I’m not done writing. I’m not done telling stories. I’m not finished describing the world as I see it, even if no one is really interested in what I have to say. I’m interested and that’s enough.