Holidays are for Family

It's quiet this morning and I'm all alone in the house, well, me and two cats.  It's a wonderful time to sit and drink coffee and think.  This is the time of day I read my emails, Facebook and make out my to-do list for the day.  Today I'm thinking about Christmas.  We'll be leaving soon to drive to Georgia to spend a week with my daughter and her family.  I'm always torn at Christmas because I have one child here and one there.  Do mothers everywhere feel that loss?  I want all my children together for the holidays.  For Thanksgiving I didn't have my son either, he had to work.  I think back to the days when life was so much simpler, when families were all together for the holidays and lived not too far from each other.  Now, jobs take them half way across the country.  You don't really get to see your grandchildren grow up.  You get to visit once or twice a year.  It's sad really.  My grandmother was such a huge influence in my life and yet we'll be but a small memory in our grandson's life.  How do we change that?  How do we, as a society, change and become more involved in our families lives when they live so far away?  We know we are only a phone call away so we can talk to them but those phone calls can't wrap us in the warmth of a hug.  I feel the distance more and more each year.  I know that I will not always be here to watch over my family and that scares me more than anything.  The last two years have made me face the fact that Gary and I are getting older and life for us may come to an end even though neither of us are ready for it to happen.  I think both of us feel we still have so much life to live and plan on doing so, we are facing and preparing for our "twilight" years.  I don't intend to go out easy, I'll go out fighting all the way but I'm going through each room and getting rid of stuff I know neither kid had any interest in.  Trying to get our life in order so that when it does happen the kids won't have to spends months or even years sorting through everything.  I still have things of Mom's that I haven't finished going through yet because it makes me cry and it's been over 10 years now.  I'm transferring all photos to digital so they each have a copy.  I'm making Greg a copy of all of Mom's photos.  It just makes it easier to preserve and to store.  Some I will use for some craft projects for the family.  Little by little I'm getting the house in order.  Gary really doesn't want to move to the country so I'll make this house work.  There are things about this house I love and there are things about this house I hate.  The things I hate, I'll change.  I've made a list of things I want to change and we'll make the changes a little at a time.  I don't want to go into debt doing it, but Gary and I had a long talk and I told him I'd remain in this house and it could be our forever home if we could make these certain changes and since he's agree then I'm on board.  Now, he was ready to get started but I don't want to refinance to do it, we can do each project and save and do the next.  It may take 3 to 5 years to get it all done but I would rather do that than to owe any on it.  The biggest project is to add a bathroom well really to convert our closet to a bathroom and make the hallway/master bath into a half bath or powder room ... insert a wall after the toilet and then rip out the tub and that's where the closet is so the shower will be where the tub is now only it will now be a part of the new master bath.  Right now the master bath is shared with the public as it's also the hall bath, the only bathroom downstairs.  I want a private bath for the master.  This way we'll have a powder room for the public and a master bath for us.  We'll be using the same plumbing and it should work out fine.  The master bath will be small 8.5' X 5.5' but it'll be ours and private and that's all I really need. It'll be costly, we'll have to move the closet door over to the left about 6 to 8 inches to make it work but in the long run it'll be so worth it to have our own bathroom.  Eventually I'll get the kitchen the way I want it.  Right now it's workable.  When we moved into this house there was no overhead lighting in the downstairs areas except the kitchen.  Little by little I've had that updated, adding light here and there.  I want a whole wall of cabinets put in the utility room for storage since there is no storage in the kitchen.  When we moved in this house in 2008, there was old wall paper from the 70s  still on some of the walls, I've stripped that and hand textured those walls.  I've added crown molding to some of the rooms.  I still have some to finish.  There was the old paneled walls that I got rid of and hand textured those walls.  The fireplace was just a mess yet it should have been a show piece.  I restored it and made it a show piece.  Eventually, all the windows will be replaced.  The sliding glass doors that lead out to the sun room will be replaced with french doors.  These are things I want but for now they are just items on a long list.  They aren't necessary.  The living room floor is carpeted and will be replaced with hardwood.  That will probably be my next big cost item.  That's what I'm saving up for.  Let's hope no more trees fall on my house or anything else costly happens.  I look around my living room and I still see so many things I want to change and I realize I always will.  I love change.  I love moving, updating, renovating.  I love getting my hands dirty and getting involved in the changing of whatever is going on.  This house was such a mess when we bought it, tired and worn out.  It had changed hands so many times ... hands that were not so very loving with it ... hands that didn't treat it with care or love.  It was sad and I swear it begged me to buy it.  I have been restoring it since we bought it ... a little here ... a little there.  She seems happier now and seems to work with us and not against us.  In the spring I'll be giving her a face-lift.  I'm going to be giving her a German smear finish to the brick.  I've always hated that orange brick on the outside and that will tone it down some and give it a nice finish.  I don't like the heavy smear but a light one.  She's come a long way from the down and out barn look she had when we first bought her.  My family all thought I was crazy when I decided this was the house I wanted, so very different from any house we had bought in the past.  Even then I didn't realize she would become our forever home.  I thought we'd live here 5 to 7 years and move on.  It's funny how things turn out.  The more you pour yourself into a home, the harder it is to let go of it.  The only other house I was this attached to was the house I raised my kids in, way too many memories.  Anyway, we were talking about Christmas and leaving one child here while we go off to Georgia to visit the other.  We have to figure out a better plan for the holidays.  Some way so that we can all be together again.  It breaks my heart to leave one behind.  What will happen when we're gone?  Will they never celebrate together?  That saddens me more than I can say.  Holidays are for family and our family is so small.