Good for the soul

Call me naïve. No, really -- go ahead and call me naïve.

But I think our society's unique maladies and general loneliness are closely linked to our departure from the back-breaking acts of growing and making food, raising children, and making the things we need with our own hands. Yes, of course I realize that the industrial revolution has made life a lot more livable for everybody, especially the poor. And this is the point at which you might want to call me naïve, reminding me that if I had to make my own bread and my own cheese, and if I had to grow all my own food and live at the mercy of droughts and floods, I would feel very differently about such things.

I don't doubt it, and I probably am being naïve. It's awfully cheeky of me as an affluent Westerner to idealize subsistence farming -- of course "getting back to the land" sounds wonderful when you have all the options in the world.

Nevertheless, I believe that gardening, baking bread, attending to children, washing diapers, making cheese, building furniture -- the things we used to do with our hands but now delegate to other people and companies and machines -- I believe that these activities feed us in ways our society never realized. And now that all our stock is in efficiency, ease, and quantity, it's nearly impossible for us to return to a lifestyle that asks so much of us, body and soul.

We're lazy now. We've separated ourselves so much from the back-breaking toil that our great-great grandparents knew. And really, you can't blame them for trying to make life easier, can you? It was hard. But there are a few things that they didn't count on. Like that the hard work of making a life was good for the soul. There are lots of studies out there these days about how therapeutic these activities can be, and more and more people are "discovering" the joy of getting their hands dirty.

I'm one of them, I guess. And it may be naïve -- or even arrogant -- of me, but I think that hard work does a body (and a soul) good.

Welcome to Brubaby's room

During Thanksgiving week, we finished Brubaby's room. Not that he or she will be spending a whole lot of time in it for a little while, but it feels good to have it done. At least there's a place to put all of the baby stuff! Mr. Incredible worked hard on this room, with very little help from me--partly because of the fumes and partly because, by the time we were ready to paint, I was too big to be climbing up and down a ladder!

He gave up his study, moving his desk into the dining room; then, with his dad's help, he put new drywall up on the ceiling (it looked like the plaster would give way sometime soon). After our favorite local drywall finisher did the dusty, nasty work of taping and spackling--we hate that part--Mr. Incredible painted the room with the help of a generous neighbor. And then, almost on a whim, he decided to refinish the floor--a feat he accomplished in one day with a pretty cool tung oil-based product. The result is a nice, warm, natural finish that we're pleased with. We headed to Ikea last week for a fun rug, and now all we have to do is hang some pictures!

The chair was a random yard sale purchase that my mom made; it's surprisingly comfy!

The baby's closet is already getting full.



















The crib also came from my parents.

Country roads / take me home

You’d think, living in the middle of one of the most backwoods cities in the country, that I’d have just about enough of the country here in Pittsburgh. Also, considering that our fair city is one of the most tree-lined in the nation, I really do have a lot to be grateful for when it comes to shade and freshly made oxygen balancing out the oppression of the urban jungle.

But somehow, it just ain’t enough for this country girl. On our way home to Dillsburg last weekend to visit with friends and family, Lewis the mutt and Mr. Incredible just about got drunk on fresh spring air flowing through the car as we passed into Central Pennsylvania (it smelled good to me, too, but I was the designated driver and had to control myself).

We love our neighbors, the diversity of the people around us, the many events and opportunities the city offers (especially for foodies like us) . . . but this is what we miss:

The willow tree in our old backyard. It was probably destined to die sometime soon anyway, but the way it swayed in the breeze, thrashed in thunderstorms and provided a 15-foot diameter of dappled shade—I will never stop missing that.

Driving down the road in the dark. The city never sleeps, so they say, for which I’m grateful, when I’m a pedestrian after dark. But on the other hand, it never really gets dark. There’s something seductive about driving down a main country road in the dark: it makes you want to run away with the person you love and follow whatever crazy dreams you’ve always had, but never acted on.

Having a yard where our dog can run around and poop. That’s probably enough explanation for that topic.

Seasons in the country. We have spring in the city, yes, and it is stunning in its own way, as flowering trees and shrubs lend extra grace to century-old architecture that you’d never find in the country. But spring in the country means that when the trees begin to leaf out, you see masses—even mountains—of bright green tips against dark bark. And when trees bloom, there are clouds of white and pink blossoms filling the sky. You can’t miss it, and you can’t help being overcome by the drama of country seasons.

That’s probably only the short list of what we miss. We also miss our friends and our family . . . although in some cases, moving away has only shown us how strong our relationships are.

We’ll move back to the country someday to start our commune (any takers? I’m serious), and when we do I’m sure we’ll miss the comforts of city life, like only filling up our gas tank once a month, only needing one car, not having a yard to mow and living on the same block as our friends from church. We’ll miss Trader Joe’s and the other three grocery stores within a mile and a half of our house. And the convenience of the farmer’s market.

But overall, when we move away from the city, I’m pretty sure that those country roads are going to take us home to the place where we belong.

(Not West Virginia, though. I hope.)

Work in progress

Because I am tired of everyone badgering me to post photos of our new bedroom . . . here they are. As you can see, we're lacking all the finishing touches: trim around the windows and doors, art on the walls, curtains, etc.

But we're really enjoying the carpet, which has a great texture to it, and our super-organized closet. Hopefully someday soon I'll be able to post photos of the completed project!

Houseguests, etc.

I already know I'm going to get in trouble for not having taken photos . . . I'm sorry! I just keep forgetting to pick up the camera!

We had the pleasure of entertaining some dear friends last night and this morning -- Mr. & Mrs. Smith -- and it was the first time we'd had guests since moving into our new bedroom. (It's so much nicer to have guests when it doesn't involve uprooting yourself from your super-messy bedroom to sleep on the futon, and washing the same set of sheets three times during the weekend. Not that it's not worth it when you have to do things that way; it's just not fun.)

Anyway, it was lovely to sit around the dinner table, enjoying Mexican-ish comfort food with an old friend and her husband, and then to hit the local bagel place for breakfast this morning before a little tour of CMU's campus and the surrounding neighborhoods.

And tonight . . . we were planning on going out on a date -- a super-rare occurrence -- but a couple from church just called and asked us to go with them to a Lebanese restaurant on the South Side. Do you think we could pass that up? I think not.

Weekends like this one make all the other days in between worth living.

Postgame carnage

Yes, those are napkins. I had a tight decorating budget.

And a lot of fun sniffing Sharpies.

The bedroom project -- before

This footage was taken a few weeks ago--October 14, to be exact--and boy, have we come a long way with this project! It's now painted, carpeted, and some of the trim is up, plus we have super-awesome organizer in our amply sized closet. So, since we were getting close to completion, and because the guest bedroom was getting increasingly small and cluttered, we made the move last night! All the bed linens were washed in preparation, and we spent our first night in a new, clean, huge bedroom!

I'll post the "after" photos soon--maybe even some video footage--but I want to wait until I can get some good morning shots of the room. Situated on the second floor of the front of the house, it gets some lovely morning light, especially in the colder months. But for now, enjoy my cinematography.

Update

We have heat!

Highland Park: a photo tour

Hooray for Highland Park! This week, our neighborhood got itself on the National Registry of Historic Places -- and it's not hard to see why.

Sending down roots

Mr. Wonderful is at school right now, experiencing anew those glorious days known as freshman/transfer orientation week. Part of me pities him the 18-year-old folly he'll have to deal with over the next few days (and years); the other part of me is very proud of him for taking the plunge and going back to finish college.

The house is looking and feeling a bit more like home, as you can see from the dining room photos . . . and although the master bedroom had to get a lot worse before it could get any better (it's currently ripped apart!) we're definitely on our way to transforming our new sleeping quarters into a peaceful, organized haven.

Lewis seems to be struggling with the transition -- he's been displaying all sorts of unpleasant behavior lately -- and I'm not quite sure what to do with him. If you think of it, please pray for him and us; we're just not sure yet how to help him.

We're getting used to riding the bus now -- learning the subtle art of when to pay, where to get on and off, and how to walk steadily and gracefully up and down the aisle while the bus is lurching forward.

We're also trying to figure out precisely what neighborhood we live in; we seem to be just barely on one side or the other of several dividing lines. Does that mean we're in a neighborly no man's land? Or that we have multiple citizenships?

I'm still looking for a job (and not being too successful -- at least, no one except for Trader Joe's has called me for an interview). But I'm holding out hope that something will come through soon. Specifically, I'm hoping and praying for a phone call or e-mail tomorrow, because as much fun as it would be to work at Trader Joe's, I'm pretty sure it won't pay the bills for long. Anyway, I'm committed to working for the good of this city, and I will give just about any job my all -- so it's just a matter of time before someone sees that and decides to try me out.

We visited a new church today -- Eastminster Presbyterian. Sometimes I think the Pittsburgh church situation is a little like the scene in The Blues Brothers when Jake and Elwood enter a bar and ask what kind of music they play there -- "Oh, we've got both kinds: country and western," is the reply. Well, here in Pittsburgh, they've got lots of church diversity: there's Reformed Presbyterian, Presbyterian Church in America, Presbyterian Church USA, and even a few Orthodox Presbyterian congregations. WOW! It's a good thing I'm basically O.K. with Calvinism (Mr. Wonderful, however, is not -- he's an Arminian through and through, hence the dozens of late-night arguments we've had over the past seven years regarding predestination, free will, and the sovereignty of God. So this should be a little challenging for him).

Anyway, Eastminster seemed like a friendly church, and I like its tagline -- "Christ-centered and intentionally cross-cultural." However, today was an atypical service, as the pastor was on vacation (August is a terrible time for church-shopping). So we'll probably go back some other Sunday, and see what we think then. I'd still really like to go to Friendship Community Church (also Presbyterian, heh heh) but we promised ourselves we'd look around first, so we will.

It's easy for me to feel down -- and alone -- here in our new place, with no co-workers or small group or good friends nearby, and the house in such a state. But tomorrow will come, as fresh and full of surprises as the farmer's market I go to on Mondays. And thankfully, the God who surprised me last week with the sweetest and most tender beets I've ever tasted -- purchased from a rough-looking crowd of teenagers in a torn-up parking lot -- that God has an imagination vaster than mine will ever be. So if I can find farm-fresh beets in the hood, who knows? Maybe even I will find a place here in Pittsburgh to send down roots of my own.

The dining room: before . . .

. . . and after