New Home Responsibilities

 

In late August of 2020, I sold our house in Arizona and in September moved to Georgia where my husband and I had lived before, near Atlanta. I have now lived in Georgia three times: first, with Tom and our two children, from 1996-2003; then, with Tom and our daughter (our son being at university in Texas) from 2007-early 2011; and now, I alone have purchased a home where I plan to stay until I can no longer care for myself. That's the plan, anyway.

The move has been difficult, but I have managed it. Within the first month or so of my move, hurricanes landing on the coast of Louisiana brought torrential rain to the Atlanta area, and a portion of my crawlspace/basement flooded twice. The roof also leaked. I was somewhat prepared for the roof; the inspection had indicated its need for replacement. The basement, however, was a surprise. My first priority was having the roof replaced, which was done quickly and efficiently by Rock House Roofing. Then I spent weeks interviewing representatives from basement waterproofing companies before deciding on a company recommended by my friend and real estate agent and her husband, a contractor. I had the basement encapsulated, with a sump pump installed and a de-humidifier plugged in.

The house I purchased, built in 1954, is much smaller than the one Tom and I purchased in Eagar, Arizona. Most of what could not fit in this house went into storage, and I arranged to have shelving and cabinets built to add storage space for books and other items. I had blinds installed in the large windows of the sunroom (once a carport) to add privacy to the room which is now my craft room and exercise room. And I ordered bookshelves for that room to hold my huge supply of craft material. When this pandemic is under control, I hope to locate a creative reuse store to which I can donate craft remainders from projects I have completed (or not). I need to downsize my stuff, beginning with the storage unit. Then I should do a thorough evaluation of all the stuff I have managed to cram into this 2/2, 1300 square foot house.  (Zillow lists the house as having 1092 square feet, but that's incorrect as that square footage does not include the now-enclosed carport.)

I have spent months watching how the water flows from the street, down into my sloping front yard and into my back yard. I am planning a dry rock bed to divert water that flows down the driveway and collects at the front of the sunroom/craftroom. I already removed grass and weeds, laying bare the soil that serves as an outline for the bed of the diversion, and the water now follows that pathway rather than collecting at the sunroom front door. Erosion has already done my work at the side of the house where the slope of the landscape encourages more rapid water flow toward the backyard. The top soil is deeply eroded, exposing roots from a neighbor's tree. 

Now solely responsible for all the tasks that Tom and I once shared, I have risen to the occasion, but not without anxiety. Tom was quite a handyman, and I am not. So when I ordered a shelving unit for the bathroom, I had to assemble it myself, a task that Tom once would have taken on and completed in short order. It took me several hours, but I got the job done. Same with the compost tumbler I bought. There are tasks I do not want to tackle, such as removing and replacing ceiling fans with lights. One ceiling fan/light fixture broke shortly after I moved in; the light and fan pull chains locked up. The fan switch locked up while on; the light switch locked up while the light was off--so I can turn the fan on at the wall switch but not the light.  Another ceiling fan is awkwardly arranged: the pull chain on the fan comes down through a small hole in the glass lamp shade of the light fixture, making it difficult to pull and operate. Once I am two weeks past my second covid shot, I will be looking for a handyman to deal with these issues as well as a few others.

Now that spring has arrived, I have begun planning how to garden in my urban yard. Gardening was an activity that Tom and I shared with great pleasure. Both of us enjoyed the manual work, but now I am feeling my age. I dug a round bed for herbs recently in one of the sunniest parts of a largely shady yard, and my right hip has been hurting since. I also dug a flowerbed near the house where I hope to plant some amyrillises that I have grown from bulbs since 2011 or 2012. The original bulbs multiplied many times, and I gave plants away before I left Arizona. However, the two large pots of several plants remaining I hope can be transplanted successfully outdoors and survive Atlanta winters. 

There are days--actually, every day--when I wonder what purpose do I have to carry on. Tom and I were married for 41 years, and our marriage--though not perfect, as none is--was a happy one and one in which I looked forward to being a part of into our retirement years. I so miss Tom's wittiness, his humor, his love of puns, his intellectual and emotional companionship, his love of the natural world and his knowledge of it. And I miss his ability to perform those many handy tasks that I never cared to learn to do myself. 

But I do carry on. The cats do their part to make sure that I do: every morning between 6:30 and 7:00, Cassie begins caterwauling for breakfast, and Mimi begins crawling all over me while I am trying to sleep. I rise to feed the cats, and the day begins. Purpose being perhaps overrated, tackling and completing ordinary tasks gets me through each day. And one day, after my second covid shot and after my adult children are thoroughly vaccinated, I will once again be able to visit family I haven't seen in over a year and meet for the first time our first grandchild. If only Tom were here to share that last event.

First herb bed in the new home: rosemary, lavender, regular thyme and lemon thyme, chives

the compost bin I assembled

My yard is full of violets