After taking a detour on Route 66 for a couple of posts, I am back on track with the promised blog on our settling in process. I must say first of all that this transition back to the States has gone more easily, more smoothly and with a lot less trauma than the first one when we returned from our first missions tour on St. Croix. We have experienced no culture shock on our return. (Yes, ex-pats often experience more culture shock on their return to their home country than they did when they traveled overseas.) There are a number of reasons for this.

 

       The first reason is that it is our second time around. We learned a lot about transitioning home again from our first experience. I even used those hard lessons learned to make a  radio program for Memcare to help other ex-pats as they make the same journey. We aren't returning with the emotional trauma that occurred when we left St. Croix. Jon continues in his same job, just from a different location. The finishing and closure of the mission work on St. Croix had left him feeling rudderless and the loss of the socially and spiritually rich environment there also made that change a painful one. In our present move back to the States, the dearth of those qualities is what led to our change of locale. So, though we haven't found a church home yet, there is the hope and expectation of finding one soon. ( We are presently attending a very likely candidate.) We have left the land of cloudy skies to one of endless sunny days. That has helped me particularly since three days of cloudy grayness in a row makes me gloomy. You can imagine what months and months of it did to my spirit. Until recently I have been happily nesting, and patiently dealing with domestic difficulties, roadblocks and detours.

       There are process people who just enjoy the process of doing things. They don't necessarily need to complete a project to enjoy it. These folks can often be happy just planning  something. Then there are product people. They work for the finished product. I am strongly the latter and I am finding my "product" coming painfully slowly.

      One thing that has become difficult in the move is that even after six months we are still not settled. I am used to being unpacked within a week and pretty much settled in by the end of a month - the curtains are up, pictures are hung, and the move is complete. This time has been another story. I am ready to be done now and go on to doing other things.

      The house has turned out to be a bit of a fixer-upper, so there has been some semi-major projects. Or at least that is what they have turned out to be. Not enough storage in the bathroom, so the huge plain mirror went out and medicine cabinets went in. We decided to do it the right way and cut holes in the wall and insert them. Except there were now holes in the walls and pipes going up behind them. So that got a bit complicated. 

       We decided to paint right away. I do not like the boring beige that everyone is told to put on their walls to sell a home. Used to be the wall of choice was white, so I could easily live with that and take our time to paint. Jon has worked like a Trojan warrior and painted and painted. We now have a sunny yellow in the finished attic where my craft room is, blue in our bedroom, a deep bluey-purple in the dining room and a fresh green in the foyer. There is still some beige, but I can live with what is left. 

       The open concept floor plan (which we did not prefer, but which was pandemic in the housing market) meant we needed to make some decorative changes. Our living room decor with its jewel tones of cranberry, blue and purple somehow didn't jive very well with the earth tone greens of the kitchen countertop and floor. Fortunately we had some things in storage with various family members and I had inherited some interesting objects from my parent's home, so we pulled out of this mixed bag, things which would work in our new room. And hopefully one day before too long, we can replace the twenty-two year old floral loveseats in there. Somehow they just dont seem to go anymore.

       Our bedroom furniture which was made of plastic and pressed wood products has been across the sea four times now and after thirty years it was looking pretty beaten and worn. A new bedroom set would be expensive, and I still liked the lines of it, so I decided to paint it. My plan was to paint it a light color, hence the deep blue of the bedroom walls, so it would really pop and then decided it was time to retire our bedroom comforter and curtains that had served us faithfully for thirty years. (Can't believe it has been thirty years! Okay when I find something I like I stick with it.) I found some lighter blue fabric at a discount fabric outlet and my plan was to make the bedspread and new curtains from this. 

      This is all the happily nesting part. I like to be busy. I need to be creative in some way every so often, so I have enjoyed this. Unfortunately many times I was taking two steps forward and one step back, except for the days when it was one step forward and two steps back. The rest of the time I seem to just tread water.

      I thought there was sufficient blue fabric for the bedroom. Turned out there was not enough for bedspread and drapes. I had purchased all they had and a phone call let me know that it is discontinued and no more can be found. So a fruitless hunt for some fabric to coordinate with what I had ensued. I finally had to buy ready-made drapes, disassemble them, cut and paste parts together to make the size I needed. Lots of extra time with that.

      I had to hang the curtain rods in our bedroom three times including twelve molly bolts and the corresponding holes, four which needed to be patched up and repainted.

      Our bedroom furniture, carefully painted (and I even did some decorative painting on them) began chipping before I was quite finished. This in spite of careful sanding and the use of a good primer. the paint expert at the home improvement store was stumped by this. Now I will need to strip off the paint and start all over again. (Maybe that counts as three steps back.)

      I ordered some posters to fill frames we had with something to go with the new color scheme and theme. Some didn't work. I returned them, but three phone calls later we still haven't gotten a full refund because they can't seem to do the math. A fourth will be necessary because they forgot to refund the taxes.

      We got a highly recommended phone system that works over the internet ( it is super cheap), but ours doesn't want to work right. So time spent with emails and making adjustments to no avail and just as we found out that it wasn't going to work, the time to return it had expired. So we will need to purchase new phones and a probable replacement of our router to try to get what we have to work.

     A new soap dispenser, dispenses not.

 

      Though I carefully measured, I somehow made the bedspread a little too short, so we removed the wheels underneath the bed to compensate. Now the leaves to the table wont fit underneath which is where we were storing them. Gotta find a new, but less desirable place for them. Later we need to remove the little foam mattress we had added off the top of the mattress, but that makes the spread is too long. Back go the wheels and the table leaves. I had sewn a tassel trim around the edge of the bedspread which I really liked, but when the fabric from the curtains doesn't look good with the bedspread fabric leftovers that I used for a valance, I need that trim on the valance to make a visual barrier between the two colors and need to remove it from the bed. Now the bedspread is too short again. I wonder how much a hydraulic lift would cost?

      Stuff breaks, it doesn't work, it doesn't work out. I feel like I spend half my time trying to get what we need and the other half in line or on the phone or in someway trying to return them.

      I could go on and on., but you are glad I don't.

      Then there are the things which aren't house related.

       Jon lost his keys along the way. This included his office keys, his house key and the keys for the car. Since the car has a remote, it isn't a simple or inexpensive thing to replace it. And it forces a decision - get one from the dealer, or try to save money by getting one from a less expensive source and hope it actually works. It's been over a month and we still haven't decided what to do. Meanwhile we only have one key to get into the house and the car and with the way things are going, this is frankly a bit unnerving.

      We buy light bulbs and they don't work and have to be replaced. 

      The new weedwacker wont feed out string and has to be returned.

     We buy a throwaway cell phone and cant find the cord for months. Finally find it and it wont charge the phone.

      I bought a smoothie maker  to make my breakfast drink and in four months it was broken.

      Our GPS had only European maps, so we had to buy American maps for it. I think this is a simple thing. Buy the maps, download them to the unit and we are set. Instead we get the maps and they wont upload to our GPS, so there are emails back and forth only to find that the maps cant be replaced. I now need to go find an SD card to load the maps on and run them from that. I take the GPS with me because it has an unusual size and I want to make sure it fits because I am tired of having to return things. I then proceed to leave it in my cart at Walmart and drive off without it. Though I realized it was missing within 15 minutes and returned to look for it. It was gone. How do I know we left it in the cart? Because we made three trips and several phone calls to the management of the Walmart and they finally checked their security cameras and they could see me rolling out of the store with the GPS sitting happily in the cart. I would have sworn I had put it back in my purse. 

      Yada yada yada. On it goes. It didn't bother me for the first five or so months, but I am getting tired and would really like to finish up. I've made a commitment to start making programs again in January and know myself well enough to know that I need the things which are in limbo to be completed so my mind and focus can be clear for writing and making the programs.

     This sounds whinier than I feel. As I said, I was happily dealing with these things for the first five months. Now I am just tired of doing and redoing and would like to get to done. We are finding that we like the changes in the house and the fresh colors, updated decor and even the open-concept floor plan has grown on us. Though we haven't finished a single room and they all have things half-done, in process, or torn apart. It has gotten far enough along that it is beginning to feel like home and one in which we will be very comfortable and enjoy.

     So this is how we are doing, aren't you glad you asked :-)