Casa de Sueños - Quick Update

A friend reminded me yesterday that I had not posted anything about the house since October, and he was right, October 22nd to be exact.  It's not that there was nothing to post.  Things were just going so slow that you could not really see the day-to-day progress.

Then everything seemed to just happen all at once.  It had been MY goal to move in before Christmas Eve.  Note the emphasis on the word MY.  Macho Man didn't want to pin moving to a definite date, but I decided I wanted to have Christmas in my own house.  So, I just started packing things up and getting ready to go.

Well, I was ready, MM said he was ready, but the house, not so much.  We moved in with the kitchen sink set up on concrete blocks, but we do have hot water. The windows have no glass in them, just screens and security bars.  So what's new?  We haven't had actual windows in over two years.  We have two functioning bathrooms, as far as toilets go,  and the shower and tub are working in the master bath, but no bathroom sinks in place.  Okay, so I am using the kitchen sink to wash my face and brush my teeth. 

There are no kitchen cabinets  or bathroom vanities, but that's not new either.  The baths in the condo have a mirror over the sink, but no vanity; and the kitchen has no cabinets or counter space, just one shelf over the stove and one over the sink.  Here I have a big pantry.and for the present a full sheet of plywood set up on two sawhorses. doubles as counter space and kitchen island.

I have plenty of room to work in, so I did.  We had our first Nochebuena (Christmas Eve) at  Casa de Sueños, and not one person complained about the kitchen not being finished.  We just ate and had a good time.  Nobody fussed because there are no doors in the master bathroom, just a shower curtain over the opening.  Nobody went into the bedroom when someone else was in there.  

We did have a Christmas tree, the first in two years, and Christmas decorations.  Two of the nieces helped me decorate, and they did a great job. I almost hate to take it down after the 6th. Christmas trees in Latin countries stay up until after Three Kings Day, or Epiphany.  New Year's Eve the family here in Trujillo came up and spent a little while.  The balcony is a great place to congregate.  It is big enough for all  ages to find a place and enjoy each other while still being together.  Ditto for my birthday yesterday.  The only thing missing was the family from Tocoa.

Now it is time to get back to business.  Right now my living room and bedroom look like the storeroom at Goodwill or the Salvation Army Store.  We have boxes everywhere, and the answer to  "Where is _________?" is still, "In a box somewhere.".  The good news is, by tomorrow afternoon everything will be out of the condo and into the house.  Then Friday we will spend the day cleaning the condo so we can return the keys.

So, family and friends, we are in the new house, and it is ours.  It might still be a work in progress, but it is our work in progress.  Best of all, it took us two years to get here, but there is no mortgage, IT IS OURS!.

Oh. where are the pictures?  In the camera.  Where is the camera?  All together now....The camera is in a box, somewhere.  When I find it there will be a new profile picture.  It will be the view from our balcony.

We are truly blessed.

Florida Visit, Part II

This has really been a productive trip.  The basic medical check ups were good, although I may have to make a quick trip back in a couple of months to finish up some procedures.  We have been to WalMart, Walgreen's, and Home Depot.  Coming up tomorrow is CVS, and yes, the Salvation Army Store.

We bought fans for the upstairs of the new house, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, and paint samples.  Tomorrow we get the hot water heater. We bought razors, shampoo and conditioners, hair color, clothes, and as many other things we can't get in Honduras as possible.  Throw in canning lids and rings, doggie treats, spices, OTC meds, napkins, and much, much more.

We have had a wonderful time with our children and the Grandbrat; we visited Macho Man's former boss, Don Armando; and my sister comes tomorrow.  I had a chance to talk to my brother this morning.  We had a very good lunch today in little Havana with the two girls.  The only problem with Latin restaurants is they put too much food on the plate, and it is so good you clean your plate (Gro-o-o-o-an).

Tomorrow we are going to figure out what we need to ship and what we have to take in the plane.  We definitely will ship more than we carry.  We went by Rapido Cargo today, and they will send someone to pick the boxes at my daughter's house, ship them to Puerto Cortes, process them through Customs, and deliver them to our door in Trujillo, all for $.70/lb.  How is that for service?

We have had five days filled with love.  The companionship and family closeness has been inspiring.  There has been no bad weather.  We have had no accidents.

We are blessed.

We Have a Roof!!!!!

We have a roof!! It is such a great feeling.  To celebrate, we had the first, but not the last, barbecue on the balcony.  What a great day Sunday was!!

Macho Man, Pablo, Marvin, Jose, and two others actually started this project on Saturday, but it rained really hard and they didn't get much done.  Sunday morning we woke up to a glorious, bright, sunshiny day and back to work they went.  Here is what it looked like Saturday morning. 





The boards laying across the rafters are what the men are using for scaffolding.  Pablo, my brother-in- law, is the one in the Honduran Safety harness.  It consists of one heavy duty extension cord wrapped around the waist of one person, with another person holding on to the other end.  It works.  Pablo fell and would have hit the ground from about 25' feet up if he hadn't had it on.  OSHA would have shut this down a long time ago, if they had anything to say about it.

Sunday morning was so beautiful that the crew was working in overdrive.

 After the guys were a little over half way through, we fired up the grill and my sister-in-law Chena cooked us a stupendous barbecue.  We had chicken, beef, beans, tortillas, chips, and Pepsi.  My niece, Jeisy and my grand niece Nicole, were there to celebrate with us.

Chena is cooking tortillas on the grill, and heating up the beans   while Jeisy plays with Nicole.  If anyone went away hungry, it was their own fault

Then it was back to work.  The guys got all the lamina  up on the trusses and screwed down in a couple places.  MM, Jose and Marvelous Marvin have been up on the roof yesterday and today putting in more screws. They should  be finished by tomorrow.

We never could have done this job without all the help from MM's family and friends.  It almost felt like an old fashioned  barn raising.  They sure did eat a lot over three days, but it was worth it.  :>D

We are blessed



Why We don't Kill Our Teenagers

I have been blessed with exceptional children.  That being said, there have been times I would have gladly pushed any one of them down a flight of stairs and told God they fell.

The oldest son is Daniel.  Daniel is my American child, born to me and my first husband.  Definitely one of the good things that marriage produced.  He is a long distance truck driver, based out of Omaha, NE.  His wife and family live in Miami.  He is father of three, grandfather of five.  He started early ;-D.  This post is not about Dan.

My daughter is Elisa.  She has been mine since I married her father almost 25 years ago.  Elisa came to the US when she was not quite 14, did not know a word of English, and had been abruptly informed that she was moving to Miami to live with her Papi and his new wife.  She graduated high school with honors, went to college and obtained her master's in child psych and special education.  Elisa now teaches special needs children in the Broward County School System, getting them ready for mainstreaming into the system.    She is the mother of one of the Grandbrats.  She is an American citizen.  This post is not about Elisa.

Then, there is Alex.  Ah, yes, Alex.  Alex is Macho Man's son from his first marriage, and he has also been mine for more than half his life.  He is a Gunnery Sergeant in the USMC.  He has done his time in Iraq.  He is the father of  another Grandbrat.  He is an American citizen by choice.    This post is about Alex.

Alex was 15 when he came to live with us.  In Honduras that meant he was a man.   Of course, to me, the Gringa, also referred to as 'that woman', he was an adolescent child.  You can imagine the conflicts this brought about.  The first years he was here, he would tell anybody that asked that he hated the US; he hated Miami; he hated the food; he hated the schools, but most of all, he hated me.  Alex was my gang wannabe.

Alex and I fought over his long hair.  We fought over his pants hanging down so low they were in danger of falling off, and being so baggy the entire family could have fit in them.  We fought about what time a teenage boy should be in for the night.  We fought about his choices for friends.  You get the picture.

Thank goodness, as we both grew older, we came to really love and respect each other.

Last night we were talking to Alex and he said the most incredible things to me.   He said he wants me to know I am his real mother.   He said that he really regretted that when we were still in the States he had not called us more often.  He said, "Now that you are in Honduras, this country feels so empty!".

I am so glad I did not push him down those stairs!

Today is a Wonderful Day

Today is a wonderful day in Trujillo.  When I look outside the sun is shining, and even as high up as we are, you can see how clear the bay is.  The wind is blowing at about 5-10 kph and is cool.  In fact, it is cool enough to need socks on my feet,  which is really cool for me.

I found two of the mosquito nets.  They were the ones for the single beds, but I have one spread out over our bed, and it will work for now.  No new mosquito bites for the last couple of days, so my irritability level is down tremendously.  Macho Man is happy about that.

Our tickets to the States are bought and paid for, and yes, they are both round trip.  We will be in Florida for 10 days.  My son-in-law is receiving an award from the Hollywood (Florida) Police Department for being Officer of the Year, so that's a good thing.  We will be getting our taxes done, not so good a thing.  We will also be seeing one of the Grandbrats, so that is a wonderful thing. 

The other Grandbrat is having her quinceñera in California, a good thing.  Unfortunately, we can't attend, so that is a sad thing, but we will be thinking about her that night.  For those of you who are not familiar with quinceñeras, that is an elaborate party which is a combination of a 15th birthday party, a debutant party and a right of passage.  It is very important in the Latin culture, and I am so sorry we cannot attend this one.  It is when a young Latina is recognized as no longer being a child, but a young lady.  Good for you, Grandbrat!  You deserve a beautiful day.

IN MEMORIUM

Sarah Josephine Griffin Chapman

31 July 1918 - 28 February 2010

My Aunt Josephine died yesterday morning.  She was 91 years old.   This was not unexpected, nor was it a bad thing.  I admired my Aunt Josephine.  There were times we were at odds, but I never stopped admiring her courage and her tenacity.

Aunt Josephine was an amazing, strong woman who lived an extraordinary life on her own terms.  She even managed to die on her own terms, in her own home, in her own bed, with people she loved and who loved her around, some of whom only she could see.

Josephine was born outside Americus, Georgia, a small farming town in Southwest Georgia.  After graduating from school in Americus, she went to nursing school at the University of Alabama, Birmingham and joined the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps.

She served during World War II in North Africa and in Italy.  She was assigned to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo, Cuba in the mid 1940's.  While there she had an unfortunate accident which ultimately cost her her left leg below the knee.  

Josephine was the first amputee ever called back to active duty by the Navy.  She was recalled to serve at the rehabilitation hospital in Oakland, California during and after the Korean War, to teach young servicemen to walk with artificial limbs.  I was told that when  a patient said "I can't.", she would pull up her skirt, show her artificial limb, and say, "Yes, you can.  If I can, so can you." 

And she could.  She could bowl, she could dance, and she could ride a bicycle,  One of my earliest memories of Aunt Josephine must have been when I was about six.  Santa brought me my first bicycle, and
Aunt Josephine decided to show me how to ride it.  She could pedal the bike forward, but she had not yet mastered backpedalling, and as a result, had not mastered the art of braking.  Her artificial foot slipped off the pedal, going through the spokes on the front wheel, and she hit a tree.  Didn't stop her, not for a second.  Back onto the bike, and that day we both learned to ride it.

After her second time retiring from the Navy, Aunt Josephine and her husband, Kenneth J. Chapman, moved to Atlanta.  Josephine worked as a civilian nurse at St Joseph's Hospital when it was still located  in downtown Atlanta.  Uncle Ken died in 1993, and she lived alone, and later, with a caretaker until her own death. 

As I said,  an amazing, strong woman who lived an extraordinary life on her own terms.

Rest in Peace Aunt Josephine.  I will miss knowing you are here, and that you loved me.

An afterthought:  My Great-Grandmother Sallie died when she was 85; my Grandmother, Ruth Pennington, died when she was 87; my Mother, Kathleen, was 87; my Aunt Josephine was 91.  Do you suppose Macho Man really knew what he was saying, when he said, "Until death do us part."?  When I am 87, we will have been married 44 years,  half my life, more than half his.

Blessings My Father Left Me

This post is one I have been thinking about for a long time, wondering just what to say.  I have decided to just let it speak for itself.  This is about my Father, and our relationship.  I am not talking about my beloved Daddy.  That is a post all of it's own.  I am talking about the biological factor in my gene pool, Richard.

Richard Nathan Stone, Sr.

March 1921 - April 2009

I jokingly say that for the first years of my life I thought my Father's name was DamnYankee.  That's all my Grandmother ever called him.  I was almost grown before I knew that was two words, and it was not his name.  Some of that was his fault.  Richard decided about a week after I was born that he was not father material, and he left.  The marriage was officially over before I was a year old, and so, apparently, was Richard's interest in his first born.

For the next 62 years of my life, except for a one day visit when I was 21, I never saw him.  His abandonment went so far as to cancel a trip to his mother's house when he found out I would be there.  I was 15.  I can tell you that I am the poster child for why the most precious gift a mother can give her daughter is a Daddy who is part of her life..

"Any male can be a father.  It takes a special man to be a Daddy."  Unk.

In November, 2005, the week that my Daddy died, I received an email from Chet Stone saying he had seen a post on a genealogical message board asking about descendants of George and Anna Stone of Ohio, and he thought we were first cousins.  We are.

After a few months of emails, Chet asked me if I had any contact with "Uncle Dick", and my answer was, "No, and I have no interest in one .".  He persisted that I needed to contact my father, and I finally told Chet I felt that I had a brother, and probably a sister, out there somewhere, and I was willing to contact them, if he knew how.  He did.

In April, 2006, I went to Talmo, Georgia to meet with my father and my brother, Rick.  It was scary.  I have to admit, I stayed in a motel, just so I would have a bolt hole if things did not go well.  They did.

We had a long 'sit down', and came to the conclusion that we could not change the past, just the future.  I was very clear that I could never call him Daddy, because I had a Daddy, and it wasn't him.  I finally realized that what happened in 1943-44 was not my fault.  I could see that he was not the cocky, dashing young Army Air Corp pilot my mother married; he was just a sick old man without much time left.  I found out I not only had a brother, but a beautiful sister.

In 2007, Pop came to Daytona Beach to live with my sister, Pam.  She was kind enough to let me visit several times in Daytona, and to let me bring him to Ft. Lauderdale for a couple of weeks at the time.  We took the opportunity to get closer.  What a blessing!  I would not change a minute of this time of healing.

In April, 2009, Pop's health deteriorated to the point that he had to be put in hospice care.  I went to Daytona the weekend after Easter, and after seeing his condition, decided to stay a few days.  Early Monday morning, Pam received a call that we needed to come quickly.  When we got there, Pop knew us, if little else.  He did tell us that there were angels in the room, and he was not afraid.  He died with a daughter on either side, holding his hands, praying for his journey ahead.

My father left me with a deeper understanding of the peace  forgiveness brings, not only to the one who is forgiven, but to the one who forgives.  He gave me an opportunity to heal old wounds.  He acknowledged me as his daughter.  He gave me a sister and a brother.  He brought sunshine, after years of darkness.  He was a blessing.

New Years, 2009

I just spent the most amazing New Year's ever! Learning new customs is always good, and I had such fun doing it. We went to Tocoa to my brother-in-law's house. The eating started the minute we walked in the door and didn‘t stop until tonight when we ate the tamales Magda sent home with us.

Magda

Magda made three kinds of tamales, each one the best, depending on which one you were eating when asked. These were served with carrots, onions, cauliflower and jalapeños steeped in vinegar. Then there was the barbequed chicken, and the sandwiches and the cakes.

There was also lots of loud music, drinks, joking around, and just plain good times. We were lucky to have three generations of family present. Magda’s father, Don Ramon, is almost 100 yrs old, and still getting around without much help. Javier, the youngest, is about 11.

Three generations of Ramirez men, L>R Maynor, Pablo, Don Miguel, Juan Carlos, 'Lito, Javier, and Juan

                    



Patty and Don Ramon











One really fun thing we did was to make a scarecrow out of old pants and a shirt. This scarecrow was stuffed the newspaper and 1000's of firecrackers. He was then labeled with all the bad things in 2009. He is set alight at midnight, and as he burns and explodes, he takes those bad things with him and leaves room for the good things to come. You can imagine the noise as these things go off all over town.
                                                                                                   
                                                                   

Giving El Muñeco his bang.  Yes, those are wads of firecrackers.

                                     

The short life and fiery death of El Muñeco, 2009

Of course we spent the night. I really did not want to come home today, but Chico was here by himself. The only sad part of this was that Princess Baby Girl and the rest of our American Family was not here. Maybe next year.

The street back to the highway

Homesick!

Today I am homesick.  Not for South Florida, never happen.  I am homesick for the Grandbrat.  That is her sitting on the balcony with me, only now she is 14 and a beautiful, smart, young lady.  No, I am not biased, even if she is mine.

I was text messaging her, when I thought of all the times I have sung crazy little songs with her and to her.  I wish so much I could do that today.  I told her that, too. 

Then the tears started.  This is one of the few Christmases that she will not be at our house Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day.  I will miss baking Christmas goodies with her.

Then I thought about the day we flew to SPS.  Her mother would not allow her to skip school and go to the airport to say goodbye.  The last thing she said to her mother before she got on the school bus was, "I hope you know I will never forgive you for this!"  At that point both Mama and Papi broke down and cried.  I had not seen Macho Man cry like that in years.

I can't wait 'til Summer, when she is coming for a stay.