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Tag Archives: we love our home


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golden. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

“as we walk in fields of gold…” (gordon matthew sumner (sting) – fields of gold)

it is the grasses that thrive in our yard. the hostas have mostly yielded to the daylilies and the ferns have volunteered into a bigger garden out in the corner under the trees. the peonies hold their own – their blooms ever the sweetest. but the grasses – planted in our sandy soil near the lake – multiply and thrive.

were we to be dropped out of the galaxy into our yard, we would at least be able to identify the season – based on the ornamental grasses that grace our gardens. they are stalwart and enduring, coming back despite whatever is happening in our own universe, in the world. they are tuned to the sun and the moon and they set a high bar of appreciation for their renewal, their robust, their willowy feathered plumage, their verdant green in summer and this golden glow in fall.

we sit and gaze at these gardens of gold, particularly as dusk’s setting sun plays over them. we are smitten.

i am planting two new roots of peony, a generous gift from my sister-in-law. carefully we have decided where to place these tiny plant souls. they will flower in white blossoms, different blooms from each other. i will cluster them with one of our hot pink peonies – the one that hasn’t yet budded. and, hopefully, the grasses adjacent in the garden will keep an eye on these newcomers. we can gently plant, water and feed, be mindful of recommendations, but the garden will also tend itself and my sister-in-law has reassured me that peonies are so tough and hardy that they don’t necessarily need anything special. welcome words, as we are really neophytes at this.

there are many gardens with much more variety, that are more exquisite, more elegant, lavish, even opulent. yet, each time we come home – or finish our day on the deck or the patio – now that we have passed by the equinox and autumn is sweeping in on the departing wings of summer – i am grateful for these fields of gold in our yard. the steadfast spirit of these golden grasses aligns with us.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY

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go away. come back home. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

by this time i am likely a little bit homesick.

no matter where i am there comes a point when this happens.

when i was little – and everyone else went to sleepaway camp – i tried it on for size. twice. the first time it was ok. we went to camp koinonia in upstate new york and i was with my best friend susan. we stayed in a screened-in cabin with bunkbeds and there’s not much else i remember, save for the lanyard-making. the second time it was another upstate sleepaway camp and, again, i was with my best friend susan. that time did not go well. it rained a lot that week and that contributed to my wistful homesickness. i remember kickball and crafts and i remember a bit of weeping. i didn’t try it again.

i guess – as much as i now love going away – traveling and adventure, immersing in new places – even my favorite places – i am also kind of a homebody. i miss our house, our routines, my feet on our old wood floors, our dogga.

paradoxically, i feel fortunate to have gotten away from home. we needed a little bitta time out of town, a little bitta time away from the usual stuff, a little bitta time near family, a little bitta time in the mountains.

i think even a short stint of time away interrupts us. it grants us fresh air. it pokes us to not take loving our home lightly. it stirs up the wish-we-were-closer proximity yearnings. it gives us fresh eyes to return to our routines and the projects and challenges on our plates. it makes coming home sweet.

i am really, really familiar with the view out the front door of our house. this tree has been there the entire three and a half decades i have now lived here. and i have seen the sky and the seasons change through the arc of its branches.

the trees next to the sidewalk on our road have been aging out. one by one we wake up or arrive home to the roar of heavy chainsaw sounds. it makes me worry about our tree. it would be tough to see that tree removed.

going away and exploring – meandering around – is good for the soul. it’s invigorating and can take you out of your comfort zone. it’s rejuvenating. it gives you space.

coming back home – after going away and exploring – is also good for the soul. it affirms the everyday, the mundane, everything you consider ordinary, the very-familiar. and it elevates appreciation of all of it.

*****

MEANDER from AS IT IS ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

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add9 winky moon. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

the sliver of moon was suspended in the sky like an add9 chord. hanging out there, being all gorgeous.

add9s are my thing. extending the chord, a little bit of tension, unresolved.

though i am often astounded by a full moon and i love all the phases tugging at those of us here on earth, it’s the sliver that always charms me. just this wink of a moon out there, inviting me, luring me to stop and stare, making me notice the stars gathered, like a moon fan club, all vying for my attention. like an add9.

we spent most of the weekend at home, save for a bit of celebration time friday evening and an impromptu sun-urged lakefront sunday afternoon. with home our rock, we reveled in it. we worked in and out around the house on this glorious weekend, alternating chores with the adirondack chairs placed strategically on the deck or the patio, depending. it’s only april, so this weekend was unexpected, its weather a winky-moon-add9 gift.

and walking down the driveway under the night sky – a clear night in the ‘hood – heading into the backyard, right by the ghetto fence, right before we turned, i looked up. the moon glanced down, tapping me on the shoulder, saying, “it’s all good,” and then it danced back into the galaxy.

and – like a shooting star – the add9 lingered, fading eventually into black.

*****

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not our forte. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

the sink is clogging. the fridge is leaking. the hall needs to be painted. the dishwasher stalled years ago. the sitting room floor needs refinishing. the doorknob fell off the bedroom door. there are deck screws to tighten and weeds to weed from the patio blocks. the window sash rope is broken. the mailbox needs repainting. the front rail needs sandblasting. the hydrangea needs to be tied for support. the garage needs to be cleaned, the basement storage culled. the vinyl siding needs to be washed, the gutters emptied, the chimney redone.

all in due time. like everyone else’s houses.

slowly but surely we get it all done. we are not brilliant masterminds of DIY home repair. my reticence to start a project has less to do with laziness or procrastination and more to do with grokking this lack of savvy. i utter, “i don’t think we should do that,” to his “and then i’ll just….” and we stammer through a few ridiculous heated words about manhood and ability and blahdeeblah till we start laughing because – really – we rarely have any idea what we are doing in these repairs – even with youtube at our beck and call.

i try to channel my daddyo; he was the king of repair. at least he seemed that way to me – always invoking in me confidence and trust that things were not going to get worse. my big brother was like that too.

but – the two of us? well, not so much. it’s all guesswork. sometimes it goes well and sometimes….? well, suffice it to say the sink is leaking now too.

*****

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the back garden. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

bunbun et al seem to love the new hosta. we added them to the back garden – along the new fence – last summer. and then bunbun’s momma added her family to the backyard.

it’s not that we don’t love hardy purple-flowered hosta. they are the hosta of my youth, the stalwart souls of shady gardens everywhere. they come back, despite pretty much anything.

but those white-flowered hosta – big solid-colored blue-green leaves – and the waterfall of white flowers bent under the weight of their blooms. i’d see them in nestled in mulch on our walks. i’d see them in peaceful garden center strolls. ahh, i was in hosta-desire.

most of our yard – prior to last summer – has come from others. plantings, cuttings, full transplants from people dear to us. so it has been less about landscape-planning and more about gratefully accepting gestures of friendship and generosity.

and then, when it was time for a fence, it became about planning.

our fern garden is tucked into the back left, over by the garage, under a canopy of many big old trees. we dug up and transplanted all the hosta from along the back fenceline to over by barney – kind of a vintage garden, old-fashioned flowers tucked in next to each other, next to our almost-100-year-old piano. it’s where our sweet peonies are and all the daylilies.

along the back fence, though, we now have various-sized ornamental grasses. switchgrass and zebra grass, blue sedge and a big piece of driftwood that tiny birds seem to love. they perch and linger, eyes on the birdfeeder, waiting their turn for the birdbath. we added three of the darker-leafed hosta. these are the ones bunbun loves. tiny bites of leaf – evidence of bunny snacktime.

each day – with the coolest watering wand and hose gifted to me by my niece – i wander slowly around the backyard, taking note of new growth in each of our plants – the gifted ones, the carefully-researched, chosen ones. it’s simplicity at its best – a slow walk nurturing all the living things back there. we fill the birdfeeders, knowing the chippies and the squirrels love them too. we clean and refill the hummingbird feeder and late dusk watch the hummer fly in to do its feeding circuit. we scrub out the birdbath daily, refilling it – just as the woman walking through the parking lot told us to do when she enthused about our purchase on the rolling flatcart and i asked her about things we should know.

it’s a slower summer. because of circumstances, we don’t know if we will be able to travel much. but that makes dogdog happy. and, in my imagination, i can hear the house wrens and the cardinals and the robins and chickadees and sparrows clapping. and bunbun’s ears perk up too.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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the same old tool with a whole buncha history. [merely-a-thought monday]

it charmed me to think that the tool that was used on our sidewalk when the latest iteration of it was poured – decades ago – probably in the 1960s – was the same tool that they used last week.

he said, “i think i still have the tool my dad used. i was a little kid, but i remember this house. i remember the sidewalk and how he scribed in the concrete. i think i know exactly where it is!” a full circle story.

there was one sidewalk square left after the world’s longest water line get-the-lead-out replacement project, which literally started in november 2021. nevertheless, it is now completed, merely a year later. these things take time, i have learned. and nothing moves fast when the city is involved. and no one wanted to pour this last square. until them.

we loved the sidewalk-square-concrete-contractors. full of stories and some parallel experiences, david shared how his dad was also a concrete guy – in colorado – and g, one of the two gentlemen pouring and shaping and scribing and finessing our front walk, knew his company. d and fb, the owner of the company and just the nicest guy dedicated to good work, chatted together about – well – cement and stuff and fb clearly was eager to scribe the lines his dad had scribed way back when. the torch had passed and it was easy to see that his dad would be proud.

now, these guys clearly live by my own sweet poppo’s rule: don’t get rid of anything; you might need it later. my poppo always wanted a big ole barn to be out back so that he could put everything in it till it came ’round again.

maybe the concrete guys have one. a big ole barn or workshop. someplace where this tool sat on a shelf or in a toolbox – unused for decades – until one day when it made all the difference on our front walk. a piece of history coming back to be used for our home – again. something about that is truly heartwarming.

*****

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we’ll see. [saturday morning smack-dab.]

i read it on facebook. her daughter had fallen in love with the perfect home and had made an offer, only to lose this perfect house they had been saving and saving and saving for to someone who offered $200,000 (that’s two-hundred-thousand-dollars) OVER the asking price. all cash. it’s insanity!

we ponder the next chapter often. we have dreamy homes in our mind’s eye and on my laptop screen, plans i have saved, photographs of houses over which we have lusted. out the window are mountains and space, oftentimes water. and never perfect grass. i’ve noticed a theme of more natural settings, without the greenscape of manicured lawn, edged and treated and de-dandelioned.

but i cannot imagine how any of that is possible. we are fortunate to live in our old house in a beautiful old neighborhood near a giant great lake. we don’t usually have tornadoes or hurricanes, ice storms or lengthy periods of time over 100 degrees with feels-like humidity pushing us to stay inside. we have winter, yes. we have snow, yes. we have very-late spring, yes, sort of. we have gorgeous fall, yes. we have thunderstorms and sometimes windy derechos, which are scary as heck. every now and then we have ice and every now and then there will be a period of time with hotter-than-heck temperatures. and we love our home…the creaky wood floors, the fluted glass doorknobs, the high ceilings, the six-panel doors, the nooks and crannies, the light. even with all its idiosyncrasies and the ever-present maintenance list, we are grateful for it.

but…the next chapter. i hear about people retiring and moving south – to florida, most often. i hear about people moving southwest – to arkansas, to arizona. these aren’t places we would choose. we have a short list at the moment: colorado, north carolina, vermont, maine. i think that’s about it for now. i’m not sure how we could afford any of those places. we don’t have two-hundred-thousand-dollars-cash-money-over-and-above-the-selling-price to entice a seller to accept our bid. my heart goes out to my friend’s daughter. buying a home these days cannot be easy – for most.

so every day, really, i tool around online looking at our top destinations, dreaming. i jaunt over to airbnb to see what it would be to live in those spots for a couple months, enough time to immerse and feel like we have gotten out of dodge. i show david pictures and we chat about the possibilities of someday. i look at calculators and equations and budget projections. yikes!

and we start to make a plan. our roadtrip. i guess we’ll see.

there’s a lot to consider and, clearly, we need a much bigger piggybank.

mostly, though, i’m guessing we will follow our hearts.

*****

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SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2022 kerrianddavid.com


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la vida. [two artists tuesday]

i don’t remember what grade i was in when it was assigned: a project detailing what your ideal life would look like. it was either later junior high or early high school years. if i could find it in one of the bins in the basement i’m sure it would be predictably naive. i remember designing a house, writing about family, but not too many other details come up for me. designing an ideal life is never really inclusive of actual reality, difficulties, disappointments, hardships. i think it would be interesting to find this report anyway. the 1970s were a different time and this project would reflect that. were i to write a report now to reflect my ideal life, it would be a much simpler picture than i would guess that old paper would paint.

i remember columbus saying that he worked his whole life to have weekends with his family. to enjoy his backyard, his garden, a little fishing, time with the masons. he was living his ideal life each day, though the look in his eyes when we took him back to iowa and he stood in the fields gazing out at maize corn and blue sky would belie that. his dream was to raise his family in his hometown and, though he ended up in colorado, his other life was, i’m sure, somewhere in the farmland daydreams that swirled in his heart. he was wise, though, and didn’t wait to live until he was back in the midwest. instead, he set his sights on now. he didn’t wait. and each time his children or grandchildren visited he would cry upon their leaving, giant tears falling on this rugged man’s face. dolce.

some people are fortunate enough to have both: real life and the other life, la otra vida. crunch always felt that way about his boat too, so he’d understand the boat owner who named his boat ‘the other life’. moments of escape away, drifting, piloting to block island and fishing in long island sound, these are crunch’s ideal moments. though many of the boats and yachts in our harbor never leave their slips, perhaps just sitting on them in fresh lake air yields much peace for these boaters.

a house with lots of windows and open space, lots of repurposed old stuff, a kitchen in which we love to cook. nothing fancy. wood floors and a lot of white paint. a fireplace, my piano, david’s easels, places to sit and write and room for our beloved children, family, friends to come with significant others and visit. mountains and a lake out the window, a couple horses grazing.

last night as we sat on the deck in waning light turning to dark, tiki torches and our tiny firepit burning, dogdog sprawled out at our feet, we listened to the soundtrack of richard curtis’ movie about time. arvo pärt’s piece ‘spiegel im spiegel’ came on, a long piano-cello interplay of simplicity. we both had tears. if contentment was a piece of music, it would look like this.

though there are not mountains, a lake and horses out the window, perhaps someday there will be. it’s my maize-corn-blue-sky vision. but columbus was right. there’s the rest of it. the other life is always right there.

andrea wrote to me in 2009, “nothing is idyllic. i think we have idyllic moments. we have to take time to savor what is around us.”

la otra vida = la vida. ideal living.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY