Moving Day

Kenny knows what he is doing!

Yesterday, Wiltfong Movers (United Van Lines) sent Marcus and Kenny who spent six hours packing up our stuff.  I expected a couple hours of packing dishes and artwork but the procedure was far more involved.  They sealed the boxes we had filled and packed up lamps, glass table tops, electronics, mirrors, and more.  They worked efficiently and cheerfully.  My job was to label what was going and what was staying.  However, at some point, I lost my sticky note pad and had to use Kenny's blue tape.  In my defense, the house was a maze of boxes.

 Meanwhile, we kept finding things we had neglected to pack.  I found a handbag used once for Laura's wedding, a wooden vase, a large woven basket.  Jim found  foreign coins, old watches, and his Teamster honorable withdrawal card.  We were tired too when the packers left.

The house smells like
cardboard

I woke up this morning at 3:54 am with the thought of our ironing board and was it worth taking with us!   It just shows how crazy this whole process is.  I lay awake for the next hour and kept popping up to write down items hoping to reduce my mental clutter.   It didn't help that I had to find a pen and paper downstairs--and then I decided I needed an Aleve for my sore knees.  I dozed again around 5 am for a short while.  And after looking at Amazon at 6:30 am,  I decided to leave the ironing board here and get a table top one in New Jersey.

Great care being taken
for the hutch
from Shipshewana

The movers came around 9 am today.   Kenny and Marcus were back along with two young men, one of whom was the owner's son working on his summer break.  Another group of three went to Jim's office at Notre Dame with Jim to get his books.  Many items needed to be taken apart, shrink-wrapped, and packed.   Our stuff filled only about 1/3 of the huge van.

I made coffee for everyone but then realized we had no coffee cups.  Jim got a dozen donuts and a few styrofoam cups from Krispy Kreme and that was appreciated!

We will fill about 1/3
of this truck

It's not impossible that Kenny will be driving the truck and meeting up with us again in New Jersey in six weeks.   We would like that.

Tomorrow we move into the Airbnb.  We hoped to check-in earlier than 3 pm but were unable to contact Doug, the owner,  because Verizon said his number was not in service.  Airbnb put us in contact with their "resolution specialist" who had another local number for Doug so now we have the check-in procedure and we hope it works out perfectly! But that will be a story for another blog.

South Haven 2019

The view from the bathroom!

Will this be our last vacation in South Haven?   I said that we could come next May; Jim said it was a long trip and maybe we could find another place on the water closer by.  I know we can.  Ocean Grove has been a great place to stay and is 40 miles away from Princeton. 

But South Haven is lovely and being right on Lake Michigan is wonderful any time of day.  Renting before Memorial Day makes a big difference in price and is usually fine with us.  This week has been somewhat cold and rainy but we had two glorious days.  And in the colder days we had great company with Dan and his friend Alexandra.

On Monday evening we had an early supper at Clementine's.  During the summer season that would have meant a long wait with folks lined up along Phoenix Street.  As good as Clementine's is, nothing is worth that to us.  Later in the evening we got ice cream at Sherman's, again a place with long lines in the summer.  Alex and I were both beaten by the size of our portions and took some home for the freezer.

 On Tuesday we went to Taste, a tapas place that was new to us.   With Dan and Alex's guidance, we chose three cold plates and four hot plates and what a feast it was!  Best of all were the Michigan cheese plate and maybe the salmon with jalapeno rice.  The blueberry-pear cobbler was a great dessert to share.

Dan and Alex were pleased to be upgraded at the Old Harbor Inn to a large corner room right on the harbor.  They both had work to do for several hours each day--Dan on the book he is writing and Alex on several conference calls.We watched some NBA semi-finals and enjoyed Fox News' interview with Mayor Pete.  Unfortunately, Dan and Alex had to leave on the first nice day of the week.

Jim golfed once at Hawkshead where he had the course almost to himself on a cold afternoon.  His annual game with John, our brother-in-law, had to be cancelled because of rain.  However, the rain cleared enough for John and Lois to join us for our traditional lunch at Captain Lou's.   The menu has changed-- no Mike's Hard Lemonade available but with more options that were not deep fried which was good for me.

Lake Michigan is at very high levels.  Our condo has beach but Parkman Beach, the city park next to us, has only about six feet of sand before the dune. It is sad for all those who use public access beaches.

It has been a very pleasant five days but now I am ready to go home and tackle the packing and get on to the next stage of this big move.

Dan Clears Out His Room

Over the last few months, I tried to purge the boxes of stuff in Dan's old room.  I threw out high school French notebooks and calculus worksheets. I found a $50 bill in a box with lots of coins!  But at some point, I gave up making decisions and asked Dan to come to do the work himself.

Dan and his friend Alexandra arrived late Friday night.  He spent much of the next 2 1/2 days on the floor in his room going through six boxes of stuff.  He winnowed it down to 1 1/2 boxes with a large black trash bag full and the recyclable bin in the garage half full.  Sometimes he would say that I was the one to decide what to keep of the cards congratulating us on his birth or what artwork to save from 5 year old Danny.  Of course I kept the Mother's Day card in which he was quoted as saying he loved his mom because she answered his questions!

There were treasures or at least curiosities.  There was a photo of his first grade teacher spanking him--his choice for his birthday as most boys chose--spankings over kisses!  There was a booklet entitled Eight Reasons I Don't Like School in which he complained that kids didn't get paid and teachers did and they had the answer keys! 

He saved two Math Counts trophies--one of my proudest moments as a parent when I coached his team to a 6th place in state competition.  He also saved the South Bend Tribune's article featuring his team. All of his high school yearbooks were saved but he had looked in vain for photos in which both he and presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg were present.  He did find Pete's film review of r-rated Eyes Wide Shut. 

 Two volumes of Mac World Mac Secrets were salvaged because his name was in the index. He found and saved notebooks in which he had written computer programs by hand because our equipment didn't support the languages he knew. 

It was wonderful to have Dan home for a few days.  He was happy to add to Alex's list of states because as a confirmed New Yorker she had never been to the Mid-west.  He gave her a tour of Notre Dame and downtown South Bend.  I loved having both of them go to church Sunday with us. And they shared their  electronic expertise showing us how to use our blu-ray player, hook up a laptop to the TV to watch a you-tube video, find my flash drive items on my laptop, and more.  There is so much they do easily and we don't!

Sunday night Dan commented that it would be his last night in our house.  He mentioned that again in the morning.  I have been so caught up in purging and packing that I failed to recognize the significance of that for him.  Alex was perceptive enough to take photos of Dan and of us with Dan in front of the house.  His visit has been another big step in our process of downsizing and moving to a new life.

St. Matthias Day

The bishop's lectionary this morning from Acts 1 was about choosing Matthias as the 12th disciple in place of Judas.

Facebook sent me a memory from ten years ago today--a photo of Jim at Campion Hall,
the Jesuit house where we spent a week while Jim gave the Speaker's Lectures.  These two things jogged a memory for me that I want to record.   Maybe I wrote about this before but Blogspot has just saved entries from the last five years.

I got up early to attend morning mass in the chapel.  I expected a room full of Jesuits but I was the only one in the chapel.  Soon I was joined by the celebrant, the assistant and the reader--all of whom had parts in the service.  The homily given by the seated celebrant as if it was a conversation was about Matthias and his ordinariness and yet he is mentioned in Scripture and has a Saint's Day.  I felt as if my ordinariness was being affirmed.

Then it came time for Mass.  I am not a Catholic and I assume the celebrant knew that.  Maybe not.  Was I going to be welcomed to participate?  I carefully noted that the wafer was broken into four pieces--I must be included.  It was a participation in the supper of our Lord that I will always remember and cherish.  "The body of Christ broken for you."

A Favorite Place

I was struggling with what to call this post--My Place for Contemplation, My Sacred Space, My Special Place--but I will leave it as it is with a less specific title.

Jim is bothered by insects when he sits outside--but strangely not ever on the golf course!  So that is why he had the three season room built which I do love as well.  But outside the garage on the backyard deck sitting on the chaise lounge looking up at the branches of the very tall trees--that is my favorite place.

I often use the app "sacredspace.ie" there, the Jesuit method of contemplating the scripture of the day.  Sometimes I try to practice mindfulness.  I can feel the breeze and hear the birds.  Often I hear children playing and the far off sound of traffic.  Less enjoyable are the sounds of lawn mowers and leaf blowers.  They can send me back inside!

It can be my time to pray or just to sit quietly.  I will miss this spot when we move.  I wonder where I will find my favorite place in Princeton where I can set my chair and look up at the sky and try to feel God's presence with me.