Home Sweet Home

Finally, after one whole year the remodeling on my house is completed.  I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen.  But finally, here I am, relaxing after a days work on my beautiful patio, watching one of my favorite shows (Ghost Whisperer), working on my book, and taking a few minutes to write a blog.  My steady loyal and deeply loving companion sits next to me on the futon.  Her name is Sweetie.  Well, she was just sitting there but had to jump down to bark at an innocent golden retriever taking a walk with his dad.  Oh well, she’ll be steady, loyal and deeply loving in a moment I’m sure.  I made supper in my incredible kitchen.  What an amazing joy I never believed would be more than a dream.  My home is my personal sacred space.  A place of happiness, comfort, friends, family, and a steady, loyal, and deeply loving dog named Sweetie.  She’s back. 

Salvation and 21st century living

Salvation calls us to live our lives in reflection of our experiences of God and at the same time graces that living with life-giving power. 

This makes perfect sense to me.  How do I express it so the Easter crowd, especially those who don't believe they've experienced God, can develop their faith and faithful living.  I'm watching "Amish Grace" which is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.  The forgiveness of the Amish was something that was not easy or even neat and clean.  But as they struggled to continue to forgive (not pardon or forget) by living in reflection of their relationship with God, they continued to grow in their ability to forgive and by God's grace life giving power was a blessing given to all including the wife of Charlie.

Everyone experiences God all the time.  Unfortunately, many people aren't able to identify their spiritual experiences or the Church has damaged their desire to either experience God or recognize these experiences.  God is often thought of as an old man with a long beard.  The truth is, we don't know that the divine power that we usually refer to as God even looks like a human being.  Perhaps it would be easier for some to envision God as energy.  Energy that permeates all while providing guidance, grace, agape, life, forgiveness, salvation, and much more than we even know or understand.  God is often thought of as the judge and punisher that is to be feared.  Many spiritual leaders teach this.  God is often thought of as being the one to decide the time of life and death.  God is often thought of as the inflictor of pain, sickness, injury, struggle.  Any time we paint a definitive picture of God we sell our creator and ourselves short.

I wish I could give everyone the ability to recognize divine action and presence in their lives, whatever/whoever the divine is.  I wish everyone knew how truly precious they are.  Because I believe that if we truly knew, we couldn't be so cruel, evil, hateful, hurtful to one another.  Mental illness aside, I don't believe we could treat one another badly intentionally.  Is it realistic to believe that all humans could come to this understanding?  Is it realistic to believe that all humans could choose to come to this understanding?  With the current state of our choices in living, it sure doesn't feel like it.  Regardless, please make the choice for yourself to live as one beloved by the divine.  Choose to know the divine increasingly each day.  Choose to believe that the one who created you, who breathed life into you is one of grace, strength, integrity, fullness, blessings, forgiveness.  Choose to grow your living and life in ways that enhance others as well as yourself.  Choose to be.

toilets and other exciting things

Continuing on my "con-de-struction" explorations, today I had the ... enlightening experience of purchasing a toilet.  Now the world of toilets holds rather interesting surprises for the novice.  We have the Sloan Flushmate Flushometer System, one piece gravity toilets, dual flush systems, designer toilets, toilets with sinks on the tank, loud toilets, quiet toilets, round seats, elongated seats, high toilets, short toilets, one piece toilets, 2 part toilets ... yes, what an expansive world of toilets.

Of course we have your basic "toilet humor".  Among these exciting choices I found Mr. Bean and the toilet.  I hope you'll enjoy the link.  Then there was this gag website where you can actually purchase toilet monsters!!  These things (green or red) actually attach to your bowl and lid so that when some poor unsuspecting friend or family member innocently goes to the water closet to descreatly "take care of things" upon opening the seat, UP pops this hideous monster scaring the c___ out of them.

So, I'm sure you're wondering with all these choices what did Pam get.  Well, I got the Sydney Smart dual flush toilet 305.  This is a high efficiency toilet with two buttons on top, the "half-flush" and the "full-flush".  Now a friend of mine asked me, "Uh, Pam, is the "half-flush" for when you ___ and the "full-flush" for the other?"  Well, now there would be a good question.  According the the salesperson (yes, I did ask), this toilet is SO powerful and is virtually unblockable, therefore, one should never need the "full-flush".  I say, we'll see when the kids come to visit just how unblockable it is.  :)  Oh, I almost forgot to mention the quite exciting toilet seat.  This would be the "soft closing" elongated seat.  That's right folks, you know those drawers and cabinet doors that no matter how hard you try you can't slam them.  Well, here is a toilet seat that closes itself in a dignified and quiet manner.  The "male" salesperson assured me that this is one seat men will always close.  Now that's a selling point!

Oh, and it sells for over $500 and I got it for $150.  That closed the deal.

Sacer Facere

Ash Wednesday brings so many things to life.  I know, you're probably thinking : What in the world is she thinking?  Yes, we have ashes placed on our foreheads in the shape of the cross to remind us of our finitude,

con - de - struction

It all started June 2009.  Oh yes, the excitement of seeing my dream coming to life on paper.  The joy of discussing possibilities, further developing the dream, seeing what could be and deciding what will be.  Interviewing contractors and the nerve wracking decision of who should I hire.  Will they drive me insane?  Can I handle the stress?  I made a decision and the destruction began.  The destruction of the back half of my home so the construction can begin.  The things we discovered: the back half of my home was little more than a lean to against the front half, most of the electric wiring was not up to code, there was no foundation under the back half of the house, it was just some loose pavers sitting on top of cap rock.  Let me count the horrors.  But I slowly began to recognize the exceptional skill, workmanship and ethics of my contractor.  Nothing threw him, everything was simply an opportunity to use his creativity to find an appropriate solution. 

But, it would be too easy to complete the process here.  Water had been leaking out from under the sink cabinets for the last year.  I spent hundreds of dollars on 3 different plumbers to fix the problem.  And now, once again, water leaks out from under the cabinet.  I mentioned it to the contractor and in less than half a day they figured out that the water was coming from the air handler 20 feet away.  Apparently, it had been leaking all this time and just sitting under the cabinets, slowly destroying them and every once in a while the water would sneak out into view.  UGH.  The water also destroyed my one year old bamboo floor in my living room.  Of course!  What next?  The kitchen cabinets needed replaced but if I'm going to do that then I should upgrade the whole kitchen the way I want once and for all.  But ... that can't be done until the air handler is moved to the attic.  oops  ... no attic!  Oh yea, that was in the plans for phase 2, you know, the phase that was to be started in 5 years.  pondering .... pondering .... pondering

The contractor is on the roof one day working on the roof over the new room and says, "There are swimming pools up here, Pam."  Let's see, it rained 3 days ago ... oh, yea here we go.  I called my architect, um, could you draw up the plans for phase 2?  It's amazing how fast he accomplished this.  The contractor gave me a quote and away we go.

Ok, now we're rebuilding the back half of the house with an extention and porch added, gutting the kitchen and rebuilding, pulling up the flooring of the kichen and living room and putting tile in both as well as the new den, pulling up the carpet in my bedroom and putting new capeting in.  For a short period I joked about how the entire house was being redone except for the bathroom until I realized in order to put the hip-joint roof on and strap it down ALL the drywall in the house would be torn down to get to the cement and the ceiling over my bedroom and bathroom was soooo bad that they decided it was easiest to just tear the ceiling out along with the walls and use the trusses of the new roof for the ceiling.  This house is going to be incredible when it is done.   DONE!!

Oh yes, that's the question.  When?  Done?  My standard response to this question these days is: "After my funeral."  (said with a smile)  Yes, these days we have 3 guys working on the roof and another one tearing up my floors in the living room and kitchen.  Oh, did I forget to mention that when they took the dry wall down in my bedroom they discovered that there were NO headers over my windows.  This would be two full walls of solid windows.  No wall in between, just windows and nothing else.  Yep, that was my home.  Safe and secure from all alarms ...  well, not really.  They ripped out my one and only closet, hung a rod for my clothes in the new walk in closet under construction.  The rod was hung by a 6 foot tall guy.  I have a hard time reaching my clothes or seeing them (in the new rooms with no electricity yet) but at least they are hanging up. 

So I have the entire back of my home under roof but no electricity, walls or floors or ceilings.  The living room has no floor or walls, the light is gone but I plugged in a lamp.  The kitchen has half the floor removed.  My bedroom has no floor, walls, ceiling or window dressings.  The dressing room is completely gone.  The bathroom has blueprints and battery power packs plugged in.  Did I mention the lovely film of dust over EVERYTHING.  All my books (including my cookbooks) are in 25 boxes in my office seven miles down the road. My plates, glasses, etc. are slowly moving into boxes.  I now am at the point where I clean only the tiny spot where I need to do something, knowing that in minutes it will be filthy again.

When will it be done?  After my funeral.  How can there be any other answer?  But my dream, yes, my dream is coming true.  Excited? OH YEA!  The anticipation is worth every bit of the struggle to get there.  And I don't have to do it alone.  Just think of the joy to come.

Did I mention that the entire house leaks when it rains ....

Groundhog Day

Happy Groundhog Day!

Ah yes, what would we do without Punxsutawney Phil?  Having grown up in Pennsylvania Dutch farming county, I know a few farmers who could think of a

Deep Freeze

It's been unseasonably cold in the Keys.  I had forgotten how the cold tends to make you want to just want to cozy under a warm blanket, bake until your hearts content, and make soup.  So I've been cozying under blankets, making soup and getting ready to bake.  It's funny how the weather has so much effect on our behavior and energy.  Well, maybe it's just time to sit back and relax for a bit.  Enjoy the quality time with the dog and friends.  Blessings are all around us, busyness skews our perceptions.  Thank you God for these basic reminders.

Beginnings

How interesting to have a blog.  I've been working on writing a book, but it seems so impossible because I have no idea how to do it.  One of my published friends has given me some pointers.  I'm following them, but thought this might be an interesting way to work on my book. 

It's about my spiritual journey over the last 49 years and what I've learned through these experiences that I hope will be encouraging to others.  Life is wonderful and horrible at the same time.  My desire is to provide interesting yet thought provoking reading that opens the door of hope and new life for at least some of the readers. 

Well, thank you for your interest so far.  It'll be interesting to see where this takes us.