20/20 vision, psychics, and growing close thru social distancing

Pediatric masks donated to Cooks Children's Hospital

Yesterday, on the way to a doctor appointment, I passed a little house sitting off the side of the road. A big sign in front said 'Psychic / Life Coach'. I thought to myself, hmmmm, I wonder - did you see Covid coming at us? If not, then I think I'll pass on asking you for advice on how to run my life. *

I mean, seriously. If you're going to be a psychic, see something in the future that will be terribly helpful to say, maybe, the entire world. Then coach us through it.

I'd venture to say nobody, nobody, nobody - except God - saw this year coming. It's already almost half over and most anyone I'm talking to is somewhere between just wanting it to be over, or is of a mind to just start over completely, or hoping against hope that the second half will look different than it has so far.

Back in the fall we, being brilliant planners, versus psychics with a side job of life coaching, decided to sell our Texas home, and move closer to our kids and their kids. To accomplish that we had to get Cub Sweetheart a new knee, so he could help pack and unpack the 99 gazillion boxes we'd be dealing with. The plan was surgery in late January, a week before Super Bowl so he could feel up to watching the game, (some things are important) then recover for about six weeks, and we'd list the house. Well, he had the surgery, he watched the Super Bowl (which I swear I not only don't remember who won, I don't remember who played.) (I'm not sure I remember what it looks like to turn on the television and see live sports playing.) Then he recovered like a superhero so we listed the house even sooner than planned.

That was right after we pulled down every single item in our home that made it look cozy, or like real people lived here. We put out fluffy towels you don't really use, and bowls of fake fruit and other touches that made it look like Joanna Gaines had moved in with us.

Right when Cub Sweetheart was recovered, and we were ready to leave the house for the constant showings we were hoping to have, covid happened.

So nobody came to look at houses and that's good because nobody could go anywhere while strangers walked through your house. So we sat home in our perfectly staged home and didn't cook cabbage or broccoli or make deviled eggs just in case.

I'm confident a home being permeated with the smell of deviled eggs has never prompted a single offer ever in the history of the world. But don't take my word for it, because as I already explained, I clearly am not a psychic.

Somehow in the middle of this - possibly partly due to the 'don't make deviled eggs rule' - we got an offer on the house. From someone who hadn't sold theirs yet, because they actually hadn't listed it yet. But not to worry, they would, and it would, and it would all be fine.

Then covid really hit. So they didn't and they didn't and we sat at home some more not making deviled eggs and using the old towels that were hidden behind cupboard doors.

Then in the middle of that someone else heard about the house and decided they would kick out the first people, which made us very popular with the first people, but we were off to the races of negotiating and terms and inspections and all those other lovely parts of selling a house that make you want to smother someone or go stand out in the middle of oncoming traffic.

Everyone loves sheetrock issues, because they're so fun to have repaired

DON'T ASK.....

And all the while we're driving over to what is supposed to be our new town, looking at houses, making offers on houses, getting houses inspected, etc. then cancelling contracts, so we can look at some more houses.

We finally found what we believe to be the right one

I know Cub Sweetheart counts himself a blessed man to have been here for every single second of this process. Especially right after going through knee replacement and rehab because the first couple months of the year were such a blast, why not keep it up?

What packing looks like when an engineer undertakes it

After being stuck inside our home together for six weeks of painful rehab, why not continue it for the foreseeable future? And also argue with other people about money and repairs and pack up every single item in your house?

What labeling boxes looks like when an Admin Asst goes at it

But no matter what, it still is just a holy mess

I will be scalding my body here the night of move in, so blinds were installed to not scare the new neighbors off

Our so welcoming guest room

So now here we are - we close on our current home this Friday morning and two hours later we close on the new one. Then we start moving in, come back to our old house to keep moving out, back and forth for a few days until we finally come back to the old house one last time, to clean it top to bottom, then drive away to the new house, which will be a dirty disaster from all the moving in of the 99 gazillion boxes we packed.

We definitely didn't have 20 / 20 vision for 2020.

Maybe I should have stopped at that psychic / life coach place.... (just kidding, they scare me to death.) (I'm 100% confident I'd walk in the door and the Rapture would finally happen and Jesus would see where I was and change his mind about me, and there I'd be, having to ask the psychic for advice.)

What we also didn't see coming was the group that formed in the middle of this crazy time.

Very early on in the Covid pandemic, our 55 + neighborhood put together a little group we named the Merry Mask Makers, and we managed to sew and distribute 1500 masks to northeast Texas; tonight, in the middle of packing and reading closing statements, and running over to the new house to see if they're getting our list checked off, the mask makers group had a little driveway goodbye thing for us.

Masks donated to the Nat'l Guard to distribute food to the needy

How blessed am I to have married Cub Sweetheart?

A list of our neighborhood volunteers, and the little bin

Roses from Kroger to thank us for the 276 masks sewn for their employees

Cub Sweetheart had this closet converted for me when we built; who imagined how much use it would get?!

Our DIL's sister, a physician's asst, who we started sewing masks for & it grew from there

When we walked up the street to join them, there they all were, lining the sides of the driveway in lawn chairs, and someone had brought cookies and such. For over two hours we sat in the driveway and talked about the project we'd all pulled off as a group, what it had meant to each of us, and to our neighborhood collectively. I sat and looked from face to face, struck by the fact that three years ago I didn't know a single one of these people, and here we were. Through the strangest of times, and a time of social distancing we'd grown close without ever touching. We'd shared patterns, and techniques, we'd fixed each other's sewing machines, helped each other come up with supplies, we'd shared funny jokes about how all of us were going to be pug nosed from wearing masks by the time this was over. We'd shared with each other which grocery stores were adjusting their hours for our demographic, who had toilet paper and germ x on their shelves.

Being a part of this collective effort had caused us to grow together, sometimes by donating money, or by ordering elastic, or cutting fabric, or sewing for hours a day, or putting together kits, or delivering masks. We were brave for each other, we cheered for each other when cheering was in very short supply.

Tonight's social distance version of gathering blessed mine and Cub Sweetheart's socks off. And aren't those the things that are so precious right now? Those moments we used to take for granted, but now we know better; we didn't see them coming, then there they are and we realize how blessed we truly are.

*Deuteronomy 18:9-13