"I know. I am a beast."~Julie
9:00 pm
Maybe, 30 minutes ago, Dad and I arrived home from Ohio with an SUV and trailer packed with furniture and other odds 'n ends from my grandparents’ house. Dad is cracking me up because he is STILL trying to back the SUV and trailer into our driveway. Wait, maybe he just got it in. Almost. He has about got it into our driveway. I better get going to b/c I have to help him unload then I will be able to finish and to explain.
9:50 pm
The trailer and SUV have now been entirely unloaded. Our garage has begun to smell and look like Grandma and Grandpa's house. Well...it doesn't exactly "look" like there house but it now contains about half of their possessions mainly furniture, lamps (which might be considered furnature), books and keepsakes. Possibly, more then half though some has been thrown away, a considerable amount went down to Jon's with Christa, and mom, a portion was been left or taken to Granpa's new home and some was taken or claimed by Dad's sisters. They didn't want much though.
Background
As stated in my last entry, my grandpa entered assisted living last week. He and his children (my Dad and his three sisters) decided that this would be a good time to clean out his house and then put it on the market. The previous weekend, we drove down and began the process of moving him out. We came back with a trailer full of furniture, including but not limited to:
- a cool old couch with a vintage blue cover
- two sweet vintage blue lamps that match the couch
- a lamp/magazine stand
- a dinning room table w/ two leaves and six/eight chairs
- two matching bookshelves
Those are only the items that we brought home for me, not including books. (Yep, I will be pretty set for my first apartment).
Thursday night, Dad headed back to Ohio. Mom, Christa and I drove down last night. We spent the majority of today packing up a borrowed SUV and mid-size trailer (about half the size of the one we loaded last week). I kept thinking about Lisa's words "I love moving. It proves how strong you are and how strong you make yourselve be." Dad and I moved out most of the stuff though there were some heavy mid-size objects that he moved on his own when I was busy in the house. (The only reason I didn't help was that I was working inside and didn't realize that he was doing that. I am a little sad I wasn't paying enough attention to that because he wore himself out on those. Plus, it goes faster with two people. Consider: we unloaded everything, unhitched and moved the trailer, moved it back and rehitched it all in less then an hour b/c we worked together.)
In many ways, the last few days have been very theraputic. If you all are unaware, last Saturday (my birthday) through Tuesday was pretty bleak. Soon, I will be writing about all of that but not now, this has already taken long enough. Right now, I am going to pamper myself. I am in desperate need of a manicure (my nails are long and ragged and my cuticles are horrible) and could use a pedacure as well (or at least a foot bath-don't wear flipflops when you are moving things). What I will say right now, conscerning the deeper issues going on in me, is that I have been finding solence in Anne Lamott as I re-read Traveling Mercies. I can't help but leave you a section that meant a great deal to me and which sort of inspired my idea to pamper myself (looking at my nails also was a part of that esp since I do this every couple of months).
"Out of nowhere I remembered something one of my priest friends had said once, that grace is having a commitment to--or at least an acceptance of--being ineffective and foolish. That our bottled charm is the main roadblock to drinking the clear cool glass of love. I remembered what Grace's stories were all about: self-forgiveness and care of one another. It wasn't far away from Jesus saying to fee his sheep. Now, I'm not positive that he meant room service. But maybe he did. So I ate strawberries and melon and cookies, then put on the heat, and got in the tub."