Back in the Saddle

Hi there, readers--if anyone is still out there.  (Testing: 1,2.3...is this thing on?)

You know, I'm not sure I remember how to do this.  I feel like I've been thrown off the horse.  But you know what they say about making yourself get right back up on that beast again, don't you?  So here I am, back in the saddle, finally.   ("Equestrian metaphors?  Really?  How lame!  Does she think that's the way to make people glad she's back to blogging?")

When I started this blog way, way back in March of 2011, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and filled with thoughts I just HAD to share on a daily basis, I would never have believed that I could go more than a whole month without posting something on String of Pearls. But I just double-checked and yes indeed, my last blog post was dated May 22.  (Has it really been that long since I was here?!)  In my early days as a blogger, and for quite a few years afterward, I was opening up my laptop bright and early every morning while I was still on my first cup of coffee, with fingers itching to get at those keys.  Things have certainly changed. 

Life was very different for me in March of 2011.  My youngest son was still living at home, just about to graduate from high school.  My oldest son was married, but so far wedding bells didn't appear to be on the horizon for any of his younger brothers anytime soon.  (Ha!  That changed quickly--and sons # 2, 3, and 4 got married in an 11-month span, between December 2013 and November 2014!)  In March of 2011, I was still working on Finding Grace, which was about a year away from being published, and I was quite sure it was the only book I was ever going to write.  (Wrong again!)  I was just a few months away from becoming a grandmother for the first time, from meeting identical twin granddaughters who would burrow their way into my heart and open up a whole new world for me.

I had so much I wanted to write about here at the blog: not just about what was going on in my family at that time; but also all that had gone on before, during the years that my husband and I were raising our five boys.  My blog, I hoped, was going to be a sort of chronicle of life in the Pearl family, something I could leave behind for my kids and grandkids to read in the future, to remind them of their history when their memories would inevitably start to fade.  I rarely had a day when I felt like I'd run out of things to say.  Blogging was my wheelhouse.  I loved being a blogger.

It's not that I don't have things to say anymore; actually, just the opposite is true.  I have so much to say--the days are so very, very full--that when I imagine writing about it all, I get overwhelmed and don't know where to start!  My life has changed enormously since I first pushed the "publish" button here in 2011.  My youngest son, 24,  has been a college graduate for two years and is currently stationed overseas (and actually, he has a couple of weeks of leave and is flying home to the States TODAY--huzzah!).  All four of our oldest married sons, who range in age from 33 down to 29, are having families of their own. Those twin granddaughters are--incredibly!--six years old (and reading!); and now with the recent birth of a new grandson less than two weeks ago, six more grandchildren have been added to the Pearl family.  When my two daughters-in-law who are currently pregnant (one with triplets, the other with baby #3) give birth in the coming months, we will have an even dozen grandchildren.

Then there was the big move south a few months ago, from our home of 26 years in NH.  That was tough, leaving the warm and comforting place where we'd raised our sons.  But we are now situated about halfway between two of our boys and their families in one VA city and one of them in another, less than an hour in either direction.  And of course that means four of our grandchildren--soon to be eight!--are less than an hour away from us, too.

Now that we're neighbors, my husband and I are able to do so much with and for our kids.  I have to pinch myself sometimes, I really do.  There have been so many wonderful opportunities to be together, just in the three months we've lived here.  But where to start...

I'll tell you what, I'm going to let some pictures do the talking for me--before I get overwhelmed again and decide to scrap this post altogether.

A restaurant meet-up to celebrate son #3's birthday--something that didn't

happen very easily when we were living up in NH!

My VA boys surprised me with a "Fake Mother's Day" (a week late, because

I was in NY on real Mother's Day); they came without spouses or kids, to

give me a throw-back to what it was like when I was always surrounded by men.

Actually, my little buddy G-Man came with his dad for "Fake Mother's Day"--
and we jokingly said that he was filling in for my youngest son,
who is in Germany.  (I often call him by that son's name, coincidentally!)

I am so thrilled to be able to spend so much time with this little

princess, my Princesa.  (Don't let the innocent, angelic face

fool you--she's a real corker, that one, a little spitfire who is a

good match for her big brother!)

I got to watch this snuggly little guy, Junior, for son #2 and his wife 

when his baby brother was being born not quite two weeks ago.

And I got to watch him meet that little brother for the first time.

This was #8 for us, but it never gets old.  We love being

grandparents!

Four more grandchildren are present in utero in this photo from

the recent baby shower D-I-L Preciosa hosted for D-I-L

Braveheart (the one in the middle,who's pregnant with triplets).

I got to babysit for this dynamic duo (G-Man and Princesa),

yesterday, when their mommy went to meet her new nephew.

I loved how they reacted to our new garden statue of Mary.

Being nearby has made it possible for my husband to share his talents to help

son #4 convert his attached garage into a playroom for the triplets.

As you can see from the pictures, I have a lot to write about!  New babies, baby showers, renovation projects...and let's not forget the tour of our new house, which I started and intend to continue...

Before I go, I have to share a recently discovered blog post that really spoke to me.  Oh my gosh, guys, I found this post on a blog called Writing on My Heart (because the woman who writes there happened to stop by here and leave me some lovely comments, and then I visited her site and found a kindred spirit!).  And I just LOVED it.  These lines from the post remind me so much of what family dinners were always like for my husband and me and our five boys throughout the years:

"In our family, the past lives with us like another family member.  Almost every day, the past is resurrected...I believe my children have grown 'watching movies' of their childhood because of the constant airing that childhood narratives get in our home.  Not a day goes by without someone purposefully steering the dinner conversation towards tender reminiscences of growing-up tickles and mischief...Is it any wonder that our dinners can go on to close to two hours?"

This passage so perfectly describes what it's always been like when our boys are gathered around the table with us. This writer says it better than I ever could, but what her family does is exactly what we do.  And because of this, I can't think of any greater joy than sitting at the table for hours, ignoring the dirty dishes, talking and laughing...because when people get up to start clearing the plates and glasses away, the party always seems to break up.  Now that we're so close to so many members of our gang, I hope that there will be many more happy nights gathered in the dining room, sitting together at the table and waiting until later to worry about cleaning up.  And I hope my daughters-in-law will grow to love those long, lingering dinners, reminiscing over old times, as much as we do.

This blog, I hope, will be like "watching movies" of our lives, too.  That's why feel like I need to keep at it.  So okay, folks: I think I'm ready to ride this horse again.  Stay tuned for more posts in the coming days.

Serendipity, and Letting Go

I'm dusting off the old blog today.  Lately, I've spent a lot more time over at Instagram, where you can snap a quick picture and add a mini-post and be done in a matter of minutes.  Easy peasy. (As I've said before, I can see now why so many bloggers have made the switch to being predominantly 'grammers.)

But as archaic as blogging might seem these days, it is still my favorite form of social media.  It is still the outlet that gives me the most pleasure, writing-wise.  And I am determined to keep this blog of mine up and running, as long as there is even one reader out there who cares to stop by.  (And I know there will always be at least one: hi, my better half!)

If you've come here before, you probably know that after 26 years of living--and raising five boys--in our NH home, my husband and I have been thinking about selling it and moving closer to some of our kids and grandkids.  We have three sons who have settled in VA with their wives, two in one city and another one just a couple of hours away from them.  They have been not-so-subtly hinting for a while now (there might have even been a power point presentation created for us, complete with heart-tugging photos and declarations of love; but I digress) that they would sure like it if we moved close-by--and reminding us that if we did so, we could see 3/5 of our children and 1/2 of our grandchildren on a regular basis without having to get on an airplane.  It does make sense: it would cut our travels down considerably, if we didn't need to fly to see the VA gang; and it would make it so that our other two sons (one in WI, the other currently stationed in Germany) could see more of their family members when they come home to visit dear old mom and dad.

We went back and forth on this, even though it did seem to be the logical next step once all of our boys grew up and it was obvious that they wouldn't be returning to settle in New England.  We were constantly traveling to see all of them and were hardly ever home anymore anyway, we rationalized, and they were only able to get home on rare occasions.  What was the point of keeping this big house for the two of us?  However, one stumbling block has been that we are mightily attached to the cozy white Colonial that we thought might be our "forever home" and into which we have put so much blood, sweat, and DIY tears over the years. Intellectually, we know that this house doesn't fit our lives that well anymore; but emotionally--well, that's a different story.

I mean, we were slowly but surely coming to the conclusion that we would sell it; but we thought we might take six months to a year to make the break.  We started the "getting ready to move" process by ripping out the 26-year-old builder's grade gray carpet that was original to the house shortly before last Christmas, and replacing it with beautiful wood laminate flooring throughout the upstairs.  We also decided to update the extremely dated upstairs bathroom that our boys had shared growing up.  While these projects were being completed, we rented a dumpster and started the arduous process of tossing out all the construction debris and lots of other junk that when push came to shove was not going to make it into either the "keep" or "donate" piles.

Stuff like this.

Away with you, ratty old carpets, broken Adirondack chairs,

and crusty, mildewy baseball gloves!

So much junk!  (But I admit to being a little torn about tossing

those stinky old lacrosse pads on top.  Sniff!) 

We pretty much filled a huge dumpster, so you would think that afterward we would find ourselves clutter-free and junk-free, would you not?  Well, you would be wrong!  (But more about that in a future post.)

ANYWAY--

So in preparation for a sometime-in-the-near-but-not-too-near-future move, we started getting a whole lot of work done around the house.  We had those glorious floors put in upstairs; I freshly painted most of the rooms and removed the last of my 80's-era wallpaper borders.  (Yes, I liked wallpaper borders once upon a time, I admit it!  Don't judge me!)  And my husband went into handyman mode, doing demo work on the bathroom, tiling the floor, and putting in a new vanity, mirrors, and light fixture.  (We also had a new tub/shower unit installed.)

Our house was starting to look almost pretty enough to put on the market, but we weren't really there yet. We were looking at a lot of VA listings, but just for fun, with the vague idea of buying a house there sometime down the road. But you know what?  If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.  Because some really crazy things happened to us--things that can only be taken as signs that we were meant to move, and meant to do it now.

We flew down to the DC area on inauguration weekend to visit son #2 and his family, and that Saturday, on a lark we went to look at one of the houses that had caught our fancy online.  Our son and his wife (and their one-year-old boy) drove over to look at the house with us, and we just loved it.  The price was right, it was located exactly in the middle of the two cities where our children live, less than an hour from each...maybe, we thought, we should make an offer?  But was that insane?  We weren't even ready to put our house on the market yet--how could we buy a new one?  Could we rent the new house out until we were ready to make the move south?

We returned home to NH and went through the mail that had been delivered in our absence, and there was a letter from a local real estate agent in the pile.  She said she had clients who were longtime residents of our town but had always wanted to live on our street, and she wanted to know if we were thinking about selling.  (Also, these people were ready to pay in full.  In cash!)

Everyone on the street got this same letter; but still, it seemed like some kind of sign to us!  So we called the agent and arranged to have her come and look at our house.  She gave us a few suggestions--pare down the books and knickknacks (especially the porcelain dolls!) on the shelves, put away the countertop appliances in the kitchen, and give the dated master bath the update we'd been planning to give it.  She told us that if we could do this as quickly as possible, that would be best, because if we waited too long her clients might start looking elsewhere.

Meanwhile, we decided to be bold and put in an offer on the VA house.  For a while, it looked like we wouldn't get the house; we were outbid and decided we wouldn't go any higher, so we bowed out of the race.  But the sellers ultimately accepted our offer, because they were in a hurry to move and ours was the only one that came without contingencies.  Okay, we thought; we must have been meant to get that house.  But what were we going to do if our NH house didn't sell?

Well, we went into hyperdrive getting it ready to show.  I cleaned and painted and purged and staged.  Here are photos of the built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace in our living room.  (They're still pretty busy shelves, but can you see how much worse they were in the photos on the right side?)

While I was playing (poorly) at being Joanna Gaines, my husband was busy tiling our master bathroom floor and putting in a new vanity.  We got the house looking showcase-ready in record time, and we arranged for the potential buyers to come over and see it on a Saturday morning (last Saturday morning, to be exact) when we were going to be--where else?--in VA, for our granddaughter Princesa's birthday party.  That same day, we drove over to our new house with sons #3 and 4 and their wives, as they hadn't seen it yet.  As we were getting close, our real estate agent called to say that the people who'd been shown our house definitely wanted to buy it--and not only that, they wanted to offer us the full asking price!  So without even listing it, our house has been sold.  We got out of the car at the new house and told our kids the news, and we all marveled that things were falling into place so beautifully.  Serendipity is what I think they call it.

So life is good, but my head is spinning a little.  We've had to do so much work in such a small amount of time; and yet there is still so much to do.

Perhaps you can see why I've had trouble blogging lately.  Not only have I been very busy, going through my attic and storage spaces and trying to figure out what we will take and what I must finally let go of, but I have also been somewhat emotionally overwhelmed.  There have definitely been tears.  Although I know that this will be the best thing for my husband and me and for our family, it's really, really tough getting ready to say goodbye to a house that has nothing but happy memories in it.  It contains so much of our history as a family within its walls.  For instance, there's this.

If you look very closely, you'll see a faded ink stamp on one of the bricks of our family room fireplace.  When we were just down in VA, son #4 reminded me about it and said he'd looked to see if it was still there when everyone was here for the holidays. He told me that he remembers that they got Jurassic Park ink stamp kits in their stockings one year, and that the brother just above him in age promptly stamped the brick with that picture of a velociraptor's head.  I LOVE it that that mark is still there, and that our 29-year-old son looked for it the last time he was home.

I have so many blog posts in me, you wouldn't believe it.  Great renovation posts, with "before" and "after" pictures of our bathrooms (they are gorgeous now!).  Posts about preparing your home to sell.  Posts about the angst a mother feels about tossing out any item from her children's past that has a happy memory attached to it, no matter how useless that item has become.  Posts about finally learning to let go, and to feel peace about it. 

The other day, I was finally able to let go of some of my boys' lacrosse helmets.  (Some, not all; I'm not crazy, you know.)  I brought three of them over to Goodwill, along with a load of other stuff.  But you know what?  Goodwill doesn't take old used sports helmets.  They aren't up to code anymore, their integrity might be compromised, they might have hidden cracks.  It's too bad that I didn't just donate them a decade ago, when some young lacrosse player could have put them to good use.  But unfortunately, I didn't.

Note the floors: aren't they awesome?  They sure beat the worn-out carpet we

used to have!

So we had five of those helmets in the attic.  Now we have two, and three of them are on their way to the dump.  But at least I have this picture to remember them by.  And I'm taking pictures of other sentimental items, too--a technique for holding onto things without holding onto them, which I've found to be really helpful while going through this painful process.  So that's another post I'll be working on, too.

I have so many things to share here.  I will be back.  Hopefully sooner rather than later. (But in the meantime, you can check out Instagram for more about our house projects and our move.)

Blog Blessings (Books and More Books!); and Dumpster Diving

Blogging...it's still a thing, right?  I hope so!

I just don't seem to have the time (or maybe it's the energy, or the mental focus, or a combination of all those factors) to write lately, in case you're wondering why things have been so quiet here at String of Pearls.  Life seems a bit too hectic and out of control these days--even though these are supposed to be the slow-moving empty-nest years, when we finally get to kick back and relax, because we no longer have school and sports schedules to keep up with and the care and feeding of five growing boys to worry about...

Wait, is that how it's supposed to work?  Because the opposite seems to be true, and my husband and I seem to be busier than we ever were when our five sons lived under our roof with us.

When we're not on the road, for any number of reasons (visiting our boys and their wives and children, going to Notre Dame games or family weddings, taking care of my aging parents as they become more and more dependent on the help of my siblings and me, checking up on and/or cleaning our VRBO house on Lake Champlain, etc.), we're home in NH, working to get our house ready to sell--after calling it home for the past 26 years. 

Phew!  Do you think we're tired?  We are!  (And by the by: there will be some fun posts in the near future, with before and after photos to show you how our house renovation projects are coming along.  As I write this, laminate wood flooring is being installed throughout our upstairs, replacing the sad and tired 26-year-old gray carpeting that my husband and I tore out ourselves.  Our bedrooms are going to be absolutely beautiful!)

Anyway, as hard as it is sometimes to find the time to write a new post, I really want to do my best to keep at it, because in the five-plus years that I've been a blogger I have received an inordinate amount of blessings.  Through this little blog of mine, I've made online friends that I truly cherish, some of whom I've had the pleasure to meet in person, and others whom I would love to meet one day.  And I've been contacted by folks who never would have known I existed if not for String of Pearls.

For instance, not too long ago I got an email from a young gal at Beacon Publishing, who'd stumbled upon my site while doing a Google search for potential Catholic bloggers who might make good book reviewers. What was really neat and almost unbelievable is that in a true "it's a small world" coincidence, this girl wrote that she had actually gone on a date with my youngest son, when he was a senior at Notre Dame and she was a junior, about a week before his graduation.  She went on to thank me for raising a respectful and chivalrous, Godly and genuine young man.  She said that I must be a proud mama (oh, I am!).  The purpose of her email was to ask me if I would be willing to accept a review copy of one of Beacon's titles, and of course I was thrilled to do so.  But it was what she said about my son that made my eyes well up with tears--THAT was the real gift.

Not long after I wiped my eyes and blew my nose, look what showed up in our mailbox (two books, not one!)--and this never would have happened if I hadn't shyly dipped my toes into the populated waters of Catholic blogging back in 2011, with the encouragement of my first daughter-in-law.  I am one lucky blogger, and don't I know it!

Stay tuned for reviews of these two books (Matthew Kelly's
Resisting Happiness and Danielle Bean's You're Worth It!)
in the near future!

So I do love blogging, both for the writing outlet it provides and the opportunities it gives me to connect with readers, other authors, and other moms with whom I share so many common interests and experiences.  Realizing that this cyber-community existed back in 2011 was life-changing for me, and I've loved being even a small player in the Catholic blogosphere all these years.  But about a year or so ago, I noticed that many of my favorite bloggers had made the switch to Instagram, and at first I didn't understand the appeal.  However, as my life has gotten busier lately, I find that I'm much more likely to 'gram than to blog.  It's so much quicker!  So I get it now.  (BTW: when there's nothing going on here at my blog, you can click on the Instagram icon on the side bar and check out my Insta-posts, if you're so moved.)

As if my blog blessings haven't been abundant enough, there have been Instagram blessings, too.  This social media phenom has put me in touch with people I might not have otherwise met.  One of them is Catholic author Stephanie Engleman, with whom I recently did a book exchange.  I sent her a copy of Erin's Ring (and threw in one of Finding Grace, for good measure), and in return she sent me her highly recommended YA novel A Single Bead--which looks SO GOOD.  I can hardly wait to read it.

Stay tuned for a review of this one, too.

So I've got some reading to do--which is always a treat for me rather than a chore.  The trick will be trying to find the time for such a guilty pleasure in the midst of the chaos and demands of my current life.  Right now, my husband and I have a huge dumpster sitting in our driveway.  We've already loaded it with the sad old carpeting that we tore out of our upstairs bedrooms and the outdated toilet, vanity, and tile flooring from our recently demolished upstairs bathroom.  Now we're going through our garage, basement, and attic and disposing of all the junk we've managed to accumulate in the past quarter of a century, items that are too mildewed or broken or rusted or worn-out to donate to charity.  Sometimes it's a bit painful ("You want to throw out those plastic sleds?" I ask pathetically, remembering the little boys who once sat on them, red-cheeked and smiling), but other times it's the best feeling ever ("I had no idea how we were going to dispose of those broken mirrors, and those remnants of construction materials from long-finished house projects!" I say, relieved beyond measure).

It's a process.  And it's coming along.  And I will write more about our renovations and preparations for the big move, I promise; but today, I just don't have the heart.  So I'll leave you with a few pictures that tell the story better than I ever could.

This bathroom was good enough for five growing boys to

share; but it needed a facelift for sure--it was hardly ready

for its HGTV close-up.

My husband and I tore up all the carpet in the upstairs

ourselves, and removed every tack and staple.  (Ugh!)  But 

we saved $1,000 on the new floor installation by doing so. 

First thing in the dumpster: that nasty carpet!

Try as I might, I could not come up with a good reason to keep

this catapult project that our youngest son made for his high

school Latin class.  (Note the TMNT cereal bowl--a

nice touch!)   So into the dumpster it went...sniff!!

For a family with NO baseball players in it, we sure had a lot of

gloves!  I was going to donate them, then realized that they

were covered with mildew and mold...so into the dumpster

they went, to join all the moldy, deflated footballs and

basketballs that we found in every nook and cranny of the

garage!!

Our master bedroom floor, ready for its make-over.

Oh, baby!  Aren't these floors gorgeous?!

Our whole upstairs is getting floors  like this! 

As if I didn't love this house enough already,

it now has the floors of my dreams!

So that's a taste of what's to come.  I'm going to post before and after pictures of all of our bedrooms; my husband and I are trying to give them a "Fixer Upper" vibe that will appeal to savvy house-hunters.  (We'll see how we do with that...)

Until next time, you can find me on Instagram.