Doors And Porches And So Forth

Well, well, well. What have we here? That's the view from my kitchen door out to the little kitchen porch and beyond that, the bed where I grow a few herbs, roses, zinnias, bananas, pinecone lilies...

This time of day the sun really blasts it which the sea grape, the plant in the pot there, loves. And because it's so hot out there, I've put my bowl of bread dough out to rise. The dough is made up of bread flour and oat bran for that oh, so healthy! fiber and the magical oat properties. But it's harder to get a good rise out such fibery bread so I had it on the table on the back porch but when I checked it a little while ago I realized that tiny black ants had discovered it, although not that many yet, so I moved it to a stool out on the kitchen porch. 

It's been another day. And here I am again. I tried this morning, I really, really tried, to get out for my walk earlier but I did not. For one thing, I didn't get up any earlier which didn't help. So it was another sweaty walk but it felt okay except for the fact that my left buttock area, which had begun aggravating me last night, picked right up in intensity as I walked and when the pain reached from my butt to my knee, right down my leg, I realized I was dealing with sciatica which pissed me off more than anything. 
I swear- every damn time I try to get back into the routine of walking, something happens to interrupt it. 
So I've been hobbling along all day. I did, however, look up stretches to do on the good old internet AND, actually did some. I'm going to do them daily. 
So she says. 
But really, pain is a great motivator. 

And then I did a few things around the house that needed doing and even swept the porches off. Finally. 
Here's the main front porch.

Y'all have seen it a million times. I rearranged a few plants too, while I was at it. And then I swept off what I call the swing porch because it has a porch swing on it. 

Pretty stark compared to my other porches, isn't it? 

When I was taking care of baby Owen and then baby Gibson, we spent hours on that porch. I'd read books to those boys and rock them and rock them, trying to get them to go down for their naps. When they got older, they'd play pirates there, the swing being the pirate ship. Owen would stand on the arm of the swing, holding on to the chain, put his little hand over his eyes to shade them from the powerful sunlight coming off the ocean in which we were sailing, and make pronouncements about the other pirate ships in sight that we needed to destroy with our cannons. 
He was the captain, of course, and Gibson was the first mate. 
I have no idea what I was. 

One of these days I have to do a video of my house and its rambling ways. I don't know what's stopping me. It's very hard to explain how different parts of the house connect. Or at least some of them. For instance- see that yellow door? That opens into my bathroom. I am certain that at one point, the porch stretched all the way to the end of the house but when the last owners put in the bathroom, they used the porch structure to build it on. And then my bathroom leads into our bedroom which leads into Glen's bathroom which leads into the laundry room which leads onto the back porch as well as the guest room. 
Got that? 
I know you don't. 

Here's what the door to the guest room from the swing porch looks like. 

And from the guest room, that door looks like this.

It gets confusing. Children have become lost trying to get from my bathroom to the kitchen. I've given up trying to remember the number of doors in this house. It's sort of ridiculous. But of course, this is all because the original house was four rooms and a hallway and then, I suppose, as families grew and more money was available, more rooms were built. 

As we get older, I realize that this house may become far more than we can handle and it's not exactly old-people friendly although I am sure that many elderly folks have lived here and managed somehow. I so often wonder how many babies were born here, how many people died and were laid out here. 
Quite a few, I would imagine. 

I scrubbed both sides of the double hallway doors that lead onto the pack porch today. Like the railings, they've been griping me for weeks if not months. I won't even bother showing a picture of that because although it looks vastly improved to me, there are places that are not ever going to come clean. Oils from hands have now stained the wood where paint has worn away. Even when we had the exterior of the house pressure cleaned, those places remained dark. 
Yes. We need to paint the house. Interior and exterior. There are many repairs that need doing. Windows need replacing. Floors need shoring up with new wood underneath. 

Sigh. 

We could spend tens of thousands of dollars doing all that needs doing and of course that's not going to happen. But I love this house so much that I mostly only see the beauty in it, the strength and grace of the bones of it. 

I think it wearies Mr. Moon though, to constantly be thinking of what he "should" be doing. I made him buy me this house and that's all there is to it. He never really wanted it, knowing as a carpenter and a painter the sort of work and expense it would take to maintain it. It was a true gift of love for him to agree to our buying it. And oh my goodness! He has done so much to it over the years. Completely rebuilt his bathroom, put in the pantry, had the roof replaced, had the HVAC replaced. Twice. And so much more. 
I can never thank him enough for letting me live in my dream house, even if it a nightmare for him to take on. And I know he loves the house too, or at least parts of it. The very high ceilings, for one thing. The way our grandchildren love it so much. 

Well. I did not mean for this post to become another love letter. 

And to wrap it all up, I'd like to share something that Billy sent to me this morning. He'd written me one of his sweet check-in texts and we'd gotten to talking about how easy it is to make both of us cry these days, for sadness and for happiness. For love. This is what he sent me about that. 

"I love that," I texted back to him. 

"I thought you would," he said. 

What a gift his friendship is. 

And finally, this.

My bed when I went to get in it last night. Not sure why but that picture makes me happy. Jack was READY. 

Love...Ms. Moon