Letting Go

Had a sale at mom's house this last weekend. The "Estate Sale." Sounds like a big deal deal to say it or write it like that. Can't you hear the deep, loud announcer's voice? Estate Sale. In fact, when I mentioned we were having a sale at mom's most people asked is it a just a garage sale, or is it an Estate Sale? Sounds like a big deal, but it looked like a garage sale to me. Or a yard sale, whatever. Tables with lots of stuff on it. Yes, in the garage, but all through the house as well. The last of it, every cabinet and closet emptied and laid out for everyone to see, to hold, to take. If you see something you like make an offer. Everything must go. Here's my offer, it's not much really, just my thoughts from the weekend.

I took some stuff over on Thursday night to add to the sale and to help move stuff up from the barn. It didn't take very long to do, and I ran back home to get the last of what I was going to sell. Jeff decided to come with me on the return journey and on the way he asked me what it was like at Granny's house now. What was different, had the furniture moved etc. I didn't really know what to say. I just told him, "It's a little sad." He asked what I meant but I couldn't explain it and told him he'd have to see for himself. So, we spent a few minutes looking around the rooms a little and his only comment was how different everything was from before. Well, we hung around long enough that when we went out to unload the truck someone driving by that saw the garage door up and the lights on pulled in and asked to look around. She oohed and ahhed about everything and went through all of the rooms many times and wanted to know a little history about it all. A few of the items she picked up and asked about caused a little tug at me. I began to think that it might be pretty difficult to let go of things, but truthfully I had been through the house so many times and had what I wanted that letting go just wasn't that hard. (Mostly. More on that later....) She looked and looked and piled some stuff up and paid for it and with a promise to return in the morning she was off. And Jeff and I headed for home, about 2 hours after arriving to do a 3 minute job.

It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. I think we met one of each kind this weekend. Old and young, near and far, collectors and the casually interested, we really met a lot of interesting people over the weekend. Friday was a steady stream of people all day long, with a big rush I'm told early on before I arrived including my rather eccentric shopper from the night before. I had a good time meeting people and hearing and telling stories, enjoyed helping people with their purchases and so on. I really enjoyed the moment of panic when Richard said I need your help, and proceeded to tell me that some man said "Why don't you give me one price on all this here." (Making a big motion with his arm). I think Richard got a chuckle from the look on my face, (I didn't know what to say). All of what? I asked. Well, everything on this table, on those shelves, in the toolbox, you know, everything. Wholly Crap! (not speaking of the holiness of the crap you understand, but rather in its entirety). So we came up with a price and were once again shocked when he said, "OK", and then shock dissolved into dismay when we realized we had to box all of this up somehow and then load it all into his Cadillac Escalade. I don't know how it all fit in the vehicle. I think Cadillacs must be bigger on the inside than they appear on the outside. The day passed by quickly and we all thought it went pretty well.

Saturday was a different story altogether. No one showed up until 9:30 or so. Sheila and I had arrived at about the same time that morning, 6:30, in anticipation of the flood of people that would be there like the day before. I also wanted to get the tractor started up and moved out by the road. Eventually we did get a trickle of steady traffic and the day went by. Nothing nearly as exciting as the day before though. It was very interesting to me some of the things that didn't seem to generate any interest at all. There were just a few pieces of furniture to sell, but some of them were really nice pieces and I thought they would get snatched up right away and for some reason they just sat there. Eventually most of it went, but it was just strange to me what some people would pass over with hardly a glance. Of course, there was a lot of stuff that I thought was junk that got a lot of interest and flew out the door quickly. The toolbox got a lot of looks. "Not for sale." They were short looks.......

A typical conversation about the house....
Is the house for sale too?
Yes, but it is currently under contract. If the contract should not work out then the house will be on the market in about 3 weeks.
So, why aren't one of you buying it? -or-
So, which one of you has the contract?
I do. -or-
My little brother does.
Sure is a beautiful place. Did you live here?
I grew up here.

That's just a sampling, there were many variations on that theme. A lot of people wanted the bell in the backyard too. It was just as not for sale as the toolbox was. It was a good weekend. A good time to be with family again. Somebody asked about the dining room table, if one of us was going to keep it. I said yes, I am. He said that's good, some furniture is just furniture, but the table that you sat down at as a family and ate together, that's where the memories are made. It's a very biblical thought actually, reclining at the table together. So, I got to thinking about the table a little. I don't know how long it's been there, but I know that I can't remember it not being there. All that means is that there were hundreds of meals at that table with my family and with them are the memories as well. There is still some stuff left, but not a whole lot I guess, compared to before the sale. I'm going to try to E-bay a few items, see how that goes. A lot of memories came up and were spoken of, and a lot of memories (memorable items) went out the door, and it wasn't that hard letting go. Except for one thing, one small thing. There's always that one thing isn't there? And of course it was a surprise that this thing was so hard to let go of.

The mailman stopped by and asked about the tractor. We talked for a bit and he went on his way continuing his route. He seemed interested but it was hard to tell how much. We had seen a lot of people that seemed interested in something or another but just weren't buying. Well, I was a little bit surprised when he came back at the end of the day, that is, about 1:00pm. He asked a question or two and then asked if he could hear it run, so I started it for him and raised the lift, started the blades of the brush hog, etc. We did a little jawin' about the price and by 1:30 the tractor was sold. As I was walking back to the house with 100 dollars down money Tandy asked me if he bought it. I think I told her, yes he did, but I don't remember. Suddenly I felt as though the wind was knocked out of me, and I just wanted to sit down and cry. Most of it passed just as suddenly as it came on me, but not all. I don't know why either. That was a 40 acre tractor on a 5 acre plot. There was no need to hang on to it, it was far too big for any job on that land. Dad had that one I think because it reminded him of, or was part of, his growing up. Maybe it was because it was dad's tractor. Maybe because that's where it belonged even though we didn't need it. Maybe it's because I can picture my dad "tinkering" with it and working around the yard with it. Maybe because the sights and smells associated with tractors and tools remind me of dad. I don't know why but I know I wasn't the only one that was hurt by this one. I think I said that it felt like some little part of dad within me was going away, lost. Funny how such strong feelings can be attached to objects.

Richard and I had to wait around a little while for the man to return with a trailer to pick it up. We had a distraction or two while we were waiting which helped some and by the time it was loaded on the trailer and all the implements loaded we didn't feel quite as bad as we did at first. In fact, Richard commented that it wasn't nearly as hard to do as we thought it would be. We pulled a few things inside and locked up. My big brother gave me a hug when we were done. The perfect end of a good weekend.

Craig

A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma

When it comes to mystery gifts or mystery dinners I'll take my chances with the gift every time thank you. We had a party thrown for us (Tandy and I) by the Search office for our wedding. It was Kerry's doing and he is very inventive. Maybe I'll get him to share some of his ideas at holiday time someday. Anyway, he put together a mystery dinner for us. I guess it's not a new concept, but it was sure new to me. Basically, it's a good meal gone all wrong. You may enjoy a meal with a salad, sandwich, and dessert, but if the same meal is served: salad with caramel topping, ice cream with italian dressing or mustard, powdered drinks with no liquid and no plate or utensils to eat with, you might rethink the enjoyment of that meal. We ate at the "Better than Road-Kill cafe." Uh-huh, that's debatable. We ordered from a special menu a 3 course dinner. The menu consisted of words, some sensical and some not, based on the phrase supercalifragilisticexpialidocious even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious.......etc. The idea was too order items for each of 3 courses to be served one at a time and that course had to be eaten before the next could be served. The first course was 6 items, then 10 items, then 6 again. For my first course I ordered and received:
1 The --Chocolate Ice Cream
2 Sound --Whipped Cream
3 Is --Water (no cup)
4 Even --Spoon
5 Super --Dill Pickle
6 Enough --Chocolate Sauce

Second course:
1 I --Chicken
2 Ex --Salad Lettuce
3 It --Bread
4 If --Caramel Sauce
5 You'll --Swiss Cheese Slice
6 Sing --Tea Drink Packet (powdered)
7 Of --Salad Cheese
8 Quite --Mustard
9 Precocious --Tomato
10 Pi --Plate

Third course:
1 Something --Vanilla Ice Cream
2 Long --Chopped Nuts
3 Always --Sandwich Lettuce
4 Frag --Roast Beef
5 Ali --Fork
6 Fragil --Brownie

I got cute with the words and tried to make some phrases with them. I did alright starting out, I was fortunate to get a spoon to eat the ice cream with and had to drink my water from a bowl. I don't however, recommend dill pickles and ice cream together. (I had a little dill pickle juice in my chocolate ice cream)

The second course was ok too. I made a pretty decent sandwich, but it was really dry and I had nothing to drink except dry powdered tea. First I tried a big swallow of the powder and honestly that was just a stupid idea. So I mixed the rest of the tea mix with the caramel sauce and took big swallows without trying to taste it. A spoonful of sugar and all that you know. It actually went down pretty easily. Easier than trying to dry swallow a tea packet. Anyway, I was a little nervous about round three but it came out alright too. I was really one of the lucky ones. There were some terrible combinations that came to the table. Many things were tried to help get the food to go down. Donna had a fruit drink packet and no water, so she used the pickle (moisture) to help. It wasn't a good idea. Great picture though. Kendal really seemed to enjoy Donna's discomfort.

Tandy mixed her fruit drink with Italian dressing I think. She said it wasn't all that yummy.

Mack tried the dry swallow technique on his packet of lemonade, the result was his perfection of the "old-man pucker." Aaaah, Kerry's Better than Road-Kill Cafe. On a scale of 1 - 10 stars, 1 being twinkle, twinkle little star and 10 being a supernova I give it a rating of.......

0 - A Black Hole.

The gift card from the staff was nice though. Well, I'm off to have a snack. I think I'll have Something Isticexpi Precocious. That's Vanilla Ice Cream with Tomato and Baked Beans.

Craig

Black Saturday (the crash of Inspiron 8600), Bids and Rebuttal, and Noteworthy Items

Well, I'm really not doing so good with the one-a-day post thing. Here I am at work with not so much to do that I can't blog it up a little but, alas, notes that I need to finish one blog are sitting at home right next to my camera, which is needed to finish some others. Sigh......

One reason I'm so far behind these days is the result of a crash. I was pleasantly working away on a project at home when my laptop b e g a n.......t o................ w o r k......... v e r y............. s l ooooooow l y. Then there was the groan, rattle and finally the dreaded BSOD. That's blue screen of death for all you non-I-Technical minds out there, and it refers to that lovely blue screen that pops up to tell you that your computer has experienced a fatal error and is indeed no longer functional. Subsequent reboots yielded the error message; Hard Disk not found. I began to hear a consistent, very loud thumping noise that went on for a few minutes before I realized it was just my forehead banging on my desk repeatedly. I then resorted to weeping, wailing, and finally the all time champ, gnashing of teeth. Luckily I have a nifty little device that I can insert a laptop drive into and read it on my desktop computer through a USB cable. After some patience and care I was able to get no results trying to read the drive this way so I went to more wailing, and then banging of hard disk on desk before giving up. After some time to cool off I started over and went through all the steps again, patience, wailing, banging, and was finally able to read the contents of the drive. This kept me from losing all of my information, in fact in the end I only lost most of my information, say 98.5% instead of 100%. So I was lucky there. After a few minutes of copying, the drive again groaned, (its last groan) and produced this error; unable to read disk: all contents have been lost.

So then, one quick e-chat with Dell and a new drive was on its way. To the wrong address. So instead of working one day without my laptop it was more than a week without it and it was just miserable. Fortunately, the majority of the files that I was able to save were files for work and I was able to continue fairly smoothly. I did have backups of the files I needed but a lot of them were older and not up-to-date, which made life interesting at work. If you have, or are going to have a Dell laptop, get the completecare warranty, it's sure worth the money when it comes to repairs. Anybody need a hard drive shaped coaster?

Chara has blogged lately of her and Josh's house hunting experiences. Fortunately I don't have to hunt for mine, I've already found it. But, I am experiencing the joys(?) of the other side of house buying, which is selling a house of course. After weeks of hearing how much so and so "really likes the house", (which means nothing, nothing at all), I finally heard "so and so wants to make a bid on the house." To which I replied of course, "I want to let them make a bid." This is the week before the wedding, the week of the crash, (see above). The bid was low so I countered. Meanwhile someone else wanted to make a bid (which never actually happened), and then the counter offer fell through. Ups and downs. Well the next week, wedding week that is, someone came and looked on Monday, liked it and wanted to come back on Tuesday with spouse, then the first lady called back and said I'll take the counter offer if it's still good. So after giving the others a chance to make an offer, I accepted the originally declined counter-offer and now my house is under contract. That's one hurdle, now if the appraisal comes in at the right amount all I have to worry about is what the inspector will tell me I have to fix. Oh, and how to pay for it.

Speaking of Chara, and I did (albeit briefly), apparently she has news. Wonderful news. Non house hunting related wonderful news. Tandy and I found out by the addendum to their signing of the guest book at the wedding and what a great surprise it was for us! I won't give it away here, as I don't know if she is ready for the entire free world to know yet. Those of you that know, already know and don't need me to tell you, and those that don't know will know when all is made known by Chara and Josh. It was so cool that they made the long journey from Tennessee for the wedding. I mean, I'm just an uncle after all. Good luck with your offer on the house Chara, and congratulations!

Mark asked me on Monday, "So, how's the married life?" "Better than I remember it." I replied. I think Tandy might say the same.

Cheers,

Craig

Whew!

For a while we thought that Noah might row up in time for the wedding, but I guess he missed the turn at the I-40 junction. The current was pretty strong on the new I-35 and I-40 riverways. It stands to reason that for as long as the drought was that when rain did finally come, it would all come at one time. But, after a brief stay in a sheltered room, we got started on time and everything went off without a hitch. Well, Tandy and I got hitched but other than that....

I have much to catch up on. There are pictures to post, stories to tell, laptop crashes to recount, etc. and so on. I'll try to work in one a day here for a while, postwise that is, so stay tuned.

It feels good to have a helper again, and surely if anyone needs a helper, it's me. We spent time with God Sunday morning, just the two of us. Prayed together and had our first communion as husband and wife.

Wife, friend, confidant, helper.........Tandy Marie Dodgen

Peace,

Craig

Pear Season

The pear season in Oklahoma is pretty short. Usually it is anyway. My pear trees (Bradford) are in full bloom these days. Unfortunately, most years they begin to bloom and we get one more freeze and they all fall off. Or, they'll go full bloom and you say, "Hey, I should take pictures of those pretty trees." But, alas, the next day the wind is 50+mph and all your blooms end up in Kansas with Dorothy. Not so this year. I have really noticed the last few days just how many (a lot) pear trees there are in Edmond. They are everywhere and they look like little fuzzy white-haired old men. From a distance that is. Wind is up today a little bit and I've noticed some "bloom-drifts" on the lee side of buildings and such, but I did manage to drag the ol' Canon pixelator out and shoot a few this pear season. Here are a few of my favorite shots:

Happy Spring Everybody!

The Cycle

The funniest thing happened the other day. I can't tell you about it though. I don't know what it is, but I'm not making it up. Something funny happened the other day somewhere, and if you had been there you would have been rolling. No kidding, it really happened.

Somebody somewhere is sad beyond belief right now. I don't know who and I don't know where, but I'm not making it up. It's really happening.

It's raining now too. Somewhere. Isn't that great? Somewhere there's snow, somewhere the sun shines, somewhere the wind blows, somewhere it's dark. No kidding, I'm not making this up.

Somewhere, right now, someone has passed away, someone is dying, someone has just been born. Someone mourns, someone rejoices. Some are eating, some are playing, some are working, some are sleeping. There is war, there is peace, there is love and there is hate. Somewhere. Right now. No, I'm not making this up. It's really happening.

We are so linear in our thinking. Mom died last August, therefore I am sad (but doing better). I am getting married at the end of March, and there will be love and happiness. My niece will have her first child in the summer, therefore we will rejoice. Every event marks the passage of time. We refer to it as the "cycle of life" and we think it linear. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end for each of us. The big picture is this; the cycle is happening right now, every facet of the cycle, in all stages, all over the world. Rain and shine, hot and cold, birth and death, light and dark. All set in motion by the one that has no beginning and no end.

It's beyond comprehension for me, eternal life. No more death and no decay. No more sadness and no more sorrow. No more cycle. Everything that happens now is just a preamble to get us ready for when real life begins. We sing about heaven a lot, streets of gold, never grow old. One of my favorites:

In the land of fadeless day lies the city four-square;

It shall never pass away, and there is no night there.

All the gates of pearl are made in the city four-square;

All the streets with gold are laid, and there is no night there.

And the gates shall never close to the city four-square;

There life's crystal river flows, and there is no night there.

There they need no sunshine bright, in the city four-square;

For the Lamb is all the light, and there is no night there.

Chorus:

God shall wipe away all tears;

There's no death, no pain, nor fears;

And they count not time by years,

For there is no night there.

The grand irony is that I can't sing this song without crying. A lot. In fact, I can't think of this song without getting teary. No, I don't understand Heaven, and I can't comprehend life without the cycle. But the thought that God Himself will wipe away my tears is one that I can really get my arms around. I think about that one all the time.

No more tears......

Can't wait.

One Last Walkthrough

We took a final tour of Mom and Dad's house weekend before last. It was a "take it if you want it day" because anything left at the end of the day is going in the estate sale. This is what life comes down to I guess. You can't take it with you so what were once treasured possessions has now become "stuff." A lot of the items though have become treasured possessions in other homes, thus being saved from "stuff" status. I thought this might be a difficult day, but it wasn't. I got to spend the day with my family and that overwhelmingly beat out any sad memories that came my way. I suppose in a few years I'll be gone and all my possessions will turn to "stuff" unless my kids or someone else in the family decides to rescue them to remain treasured for another cycle and so on. I think eventually all the "stuff" in the world ends up in some old barn somewhere and stays there until it gets sold in an everything must go yard sale and some of the "stuff" becomes treasured possessions again. They have a show about this on TV now, it's called "Antiques Roadshow".

It's remarkable the way my family gets along. Really it is. I've heard stories, just recently, about other families trying to divide up the "stuff" in the estate and they can't do it without threatening to sue each other. That's just crazy. I mean, not one item of all the stuff I "had to have" could in any way replace one more conversation with my mom or dad. I'd sue for the chance to do that again, but not for stuff, give me a break. It's the memories we want to hold onto anyway, not the item itself really.

What's funny though is out of all the "stuff" we have gone through (and there is a lot of it) we've only really struggled over one thing. We divided the cutlery, the furniture, books, dishes, kitchen supplies, appliances, tools, dolls, even mom's paintings with nary a disagreement among us. In fact almost every item requested was preceded by, "well, if no one else wants *fill in random item here* then I think I'd like to have it." Eventually my brother kind of got the giggles and said I think we can dispense with that and just say, "I'd like *item*" and we'll go from there. The only thing that we never could get together on was dad's airplanes. It was hilarious. We'd get them out and just stare at them. We'd go through long reasonable discussions about how we should divide them up, we'd all say yes that sounds like the right thing to do, and then we'd move on to something else and they would remain unresolved. We just couldn't stay focused on the issue. It's been this way since August. We finally faced the issue during this last walkthrough. Let's just get it done we said. Ok, we all agreed.

It took a little over 2 hours.

It's all dad's fault. He didn't make enough. Think about it this way. When we went through the house taking down mom's paintings and dividing them up, everybody that wanted one got one. Or two. Any disputes, (paintings that were desired by two or more people) we drew names and that was that. Everyone was happy and it only took a few minutes. The planes however, ugh, there were only 5 or so. And only 3 that were wire planes handmade by dad. But, there were 8 or 9 of us that wanted one. What was really funny was how we danced around each other trying to be polite but at the same time saying, "I want that one!" That's why it took so long to get this done. We did get it done and I'll post a picture in a day or two, if I can remember to take my camera to the storage unit (yes I pay for additional space to keep MY "stuff") and take a picture of my plane. Not only did we get it done, we still like each other. That's the best part.

So here's the lesson. Listen up now. If you've got yourself a hobby, (mine happens to be woodworking) and you're going to make things that people will want, especially family, you better make enough to go around. Dad failed to realize, you see, that one day his 6 kids would have 19 more, and those 19 would get married, and then they would have kids.........He should have made 50 planes or so, then everybody could have had one. Mom was the smart one, lots of paintings, she was thinking ahead there. Then again, dad's planes will be much more rare since there are fewer of them and that will make them worth a lot more when they finally make it on "Antiques Roadshow."

That's all for now, I'm "stuffed".....