This Present Rawness

It's a lot easier for me to be "raw" about the past than it is about the present, I'm finding.  But I'll give it a shot.

While trying to maintain a measure of discretion here, I just want to say that things are a bit rough at our house right now.  Peter isn't doing very well.  Our new house isn't ready to move into.  Our current home is a mess and I've barely begun to pack.  I think "ransacked" describes it pretty well.  After frantically preparing for a garage sale and pulling out a bunch of stuff, then getting the flu and not having time to put everything away, then my husband being up at night for 4-5 nights in a row, and the kids then spreading around the house what we had pulled out previously...it's a recipe for the disaster before me.  I can't really ask for help, either, because I have to figure out where all this stuff goes and start putting a lot of it in boxes.  Oh, and our landlord decided tomorrow was a great time for them to bring a prospective tenant to tour the home.  Awesome.  I let them know it was a really bad time for us, but if you refer to paragraph 19 of our rental agreement, you will see for yourself that no heart is required in these decisions...only the letter of the law.  Hey, I warned them.

So I cancelled my Hawaii trip.  I cancelled our housewarming party.  I cancelled Thanksgiving at our house for 20-some-odd family members.  I went to the Columbia District Office to see about getting an inter-district transfer (since we're one house away from the district line) so Alex can go to a small country school his cousin will be going to a few miles from our new home.  I wish I could afford to put Aaron in preschool, but then again I would miss him too much and kindergarten isn't that far off.  Anyway, I'm just trying to simplify what I can, shedding the extras and holding onto what's more important and possible right now.

I won't lie, this is no fun.  But it could be worse and it has been.  Much worse.  I'll be pretending I know what I'm doing with med management until Peter's doctor is back from vacation on Monday.  And we'll go from there.  One day at a time.  We can only do what we can do and we can't plan these things, so I keep trusting God to see us through these trials and remind myself that this will pass soon.

Persimmons ~ The Foreign Fruit

This morning I saw a Facebook post by a friend that said she had juiced persimmons.  Juiced persimmons??? Honestly, persimmons have only ever been the mystery fruit my grandmother made cookies out of when I was growing up.  She used to mail them to me in college and I would share them with a friend who thoroughly appreciated the treat.  But I never knew what a persimmon was, what it looked like, or what it tasted like all by itself.

Since I began receiving a weekly produce box from Abundant Harvest, I've had lots of persimmons laying around.  Up until today, all I had done was puree and freeze them for some later unknown use.  I was intimidated by them, I must admit.  However they have made a pretty centerpiece for my dining table...

Since I haven't been feeling 100% for the past couple of days, I'm taking a break from sanding, painting and packing and making an effort to use up every bit of produce I've stored up.  I actually started feeling much better after a fresh glass of pomegranate-carrot-orange juice! So I did a little research and discovered that fuyu persimmons can be eaten raw as a snack.  Good to know after my failed attempt to snack on a raw hachiya persimmon, which basically turned my mouth to fuzz.  I saw a recipe for fuyu persimmons sauteed in butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and decided to go for it.  I was out of bread to make sandwiches for lunch, anyway, so I had to come up with something for the kids.  I peeled about 4 persimmons and sliced them.  I munched on a raw slice and it was actually really good! Then I added them to some metled butter in my skillet and voila...

I'm thinking these could be used to make a variety of delicious Thanksgiving treats ranging from a savory puree to a baked dessert.  And that's all there is to it--the foreign fruit is no longer so very foreign to me.  The kids loved the sauteed goodness, by the way!

Deja Vu

Yesterday we had a family garage sale at my parents' house.  Because Peter has been so busy with working on our new house and I've been busy holding down the fort at our rental home with the kids, we didn't have a chance to totally get our act together for a full-blown moving sale.  I was able to haul one truck full over to my parents' and made a few bucks, so at least our load is a little lighter before we make the move.

While at the sale yesterday I had a strange feeling that I'd been there before.  You know, that deja vu feeling? So many of the events in our life this month have coincided with last year, I told my dad, "I bet it was this weekend last year that I had my moving sale in Hawaii." I just looked back in my BeenUp2 archives and yep, I was right.

My brother and his family came to Kohala to help me pack up and also helped with my moving sale.  They were such lifesavers! I could never have done that on my own.

Last year's moving sale in Kohala

In case you wonder why my heart aches for Kohala...here is reason #341 (normally we could see the ocean under that frequently-appearing rainbow).

The last time I enjoyed the view from our bed in Kapa'au 

 Many of our friends have heard us talk about the infamous rooster farm (aka cock fighting establishment) across the street from our house.  You can see a portion of it off in the distance on the left.  We spent lots of time with the kids flying kites and learning how to ride bikes in the field.  It was a great life we had there.

Our container arrives

 The kids thought the container was the best thing ever.  It's crazy to see how much they've changed in a year.  And how their tans have faded!

The Johnston 3 band photo, from inside the container

 While not able to be with us in body, he was there in spirit and in Skype.

Peter directing the move from Mammoth

After my brother and his family left, my parents tag-teamed and helped me get the container loaded.  Then began the oh-so-not-fun process of cleaning that huge house.

It started out organized and ended up like this

And to top it all off, our projected moving date here in Redding is exactly 1 year to the day that the kids and I arrived in Redding with my parents, the day before Thanksgiving.  Like I said, deja vu.

Birthing Bliss

As October came to an end and November rolled around, I already knew it would be a doozy of a month.  In fact I told Peter, "I'm totally okay with you knocking me out and waking me up when November is over." With Peter's album release and our home remodel and holidays and moving and lots of other events on the calendar, there's just no way around it.  It's a crazy time for us.

Today the stress level was through the roof and so I loaded the kids up in the car and drove out to our new home.  I love it out there.  The drive alone is enough to soothe my frayed nerves.  While the kids jumped on their new trampoline in the backyard, I checked out the progress in the house.  For the quick minute I was able to endure breathing inside of that fume-filled box, I could see that the texture was done and the place already looks completely different.  Then my eyes started burning and my throat was closing up, so I joined the kids in the fresh air and sunshine.  I don't know how Peter and our texture-painter guy can stand being in there all day! Wow.  Peter sat outside with me for a few minutes and I had my much-needed venting session.  

I caught Alyma's cold.  I'm tired.  I'm stressed.  I miss you.  The kids miss you.  I'm constantly torn between trying to keep my head above water at home and letting the water cover my head for just a bit while I sneak in some work on painting our cabinets.  Oh, the cabinets.  That job that feels bigger and more overwhelming by the hour.  And I have a field trip in the morning and plans in the evening and a garage sale the next morning and more plans that night.  I think I'm losing my mind.  Mark keeps texting me desperate for some cash.  How much responsibility do we take for our almost-20-year-old's decisions? Do we bail him out or let him feel the consequences a little longer? Are we even able to bail him out? Oh, and homeschool.  Yeah, that.  I think we'll be doing school through the summer to catch up this year.  Which is fine, but I don't like feeling behind.  I'm just so tired.  And I really, really just want to be done with this move and enjoy living in our new home.  It's so peaceful here.  Do you think we can really pull off hosting Thanksgiving? I don't know if we can do it.  Everything feels so crazy right now.  Twenty more days of this month.  And then I'm off to Hawaii.  But am I? It seems like it's not working out right now.  The cost to fly out of Redding is more than the points we have saved up.  And the flight times from other cities are rough.  Oh, to be in Hawaii.  Right.  Now.    

I painted a couple of drawers and called it a day.  Time for naps back at the house.  I laid down with Aaron and gave myself permission to rest for a while.  And I realized I've had this feeling before.  Three times, actually.  Wait, I've changed my mind! I decided I actually don't want to do this.  What, you mean there's no going back? But I can't do this! I'm telling you, I really can't! It's too hard.  I can't take it anymore.  This is much more difficult than I ever anticipated.  I give up! And then that final push comes and, in a moment, I realize that it was all worth it.  It's called transition and it's no fun.  It's intense and exhausting and painful and takes everything within me and then some I didn't know I had.  But what comes after that is pure bliss.  And I imagine "blissful" is exactly what it will feel like when we are settled in our new home, ready for the next season.

If the number 11 represents transition like everyone says, then November is holding true to its number.  Tomorrow is 11-11-11 and Peter's album will be available on iTunes.  And that's it.  We're done with that project.  Thank you's and albums have been sent to the appropriate people and now we're enjoying giving albums away, laughing when our painter tells us his teenage daughter would like to meet the man behind the music. 

It's just another transition in our lives, one of many, a finished chapter in our book, a new beginning.  Lord, help me finish this chapter well.       

Hawai'i, Here I Come!

Well, my birthday weekend is over and I have just a minute to write about it.  If you read my Redemption post, you know that Peter left Hawaii on my birthday last year.  It was not his choice, by any means, but it's just the way our situation worked out at the time.  A few of my sweet friends in Kohala had a mini kid-included birthday celebration for me.  I remember being so relieved that we were all safe and my husband was on his way to getting the support he needed.  Even though it was probably my worst birthday ever, I still received my birthday wish:  my husband was going to be okay.  Funny how a crisis can bring what matters most to the forefront of our desires.

Enough about the past... I had almost no expectations for my birthday this year because it just came at a really busy and money-tight time, sandwiched in between Peter's album release and the baby shower of a dear friend.  Peter has been consumed with our remodel lately, so I didn't expect so much as a card from him.  I headed to the mall in search of new shoes and was welcomed by the sound of Hawaiian music.  I followed the wonderfully familiar sound to the center of the mall only to discover a most unusual sight (in Redding, anyway)--hula dancers! Smiling as I watched them, it felt like Hawaii came to me on my birthday.  Yes, even though almost all of them were haoles.  So I posted this photo on Facebook:

Hawaii came to me on my birthday!

Satisfied with my birthday experience up to that point, I later walked out of the mall in my new Danskos.   For dinner I decided to invite my family and a couple of friends to join us at Grilla Bites, my favorite place to eat in Redding.  I ordered six slices of various raw pie gloriousness to share around the table in lieu of a gluten- and sugar-full birthday cake.  While waiting for our food, I saw a stack of birthday cards in front of me.  I grabbed the first one and ripped it open without even looking at who it was from.  There was a folded piece of paper in it and I just quickly skimmed it, noticing the word Hawaii in there somewhere.  I'm not sure why, but I quickly closed the card and went for the next card.  And the next one.  Then I went back to the mysterious Hawaii card.  What is this and who is it from?

Oh wow.  Oh wow.  {uncontrollable sobbing ensues without warning}  Really overwhelmed.  I didn't even know where Peter was.  Finally I found him behind me playing with the kids and, when he saw my face, he knew I had opened his card.  He just started laughing.  And I could faintly hear my sister next to me.  Um, are you laughing? Or crying? Are you okay? But I was lost in my own world of disbelief that I would actually be visiting my beloved Kohala.  And soon! The sadness hit when I saw my boys' faces and how badly they wanted to go to Hawaii with me.  It doesn't feel right to go alone.  I had hoped this would be a family vacation, a time to visit a place we once called home together.  I left Hawaii without my husband and really hoped we'd return together at some point.  But that moment will have to wait a while longer.  This trip will be short and sweet, but I will savor every moment of it.


Best.  Birthday.  Ever.

Redemption

Life changes so quickly.  A single moment can alter the rest of a person's life.  And a year of those moments has brought our family from the brink of destruction to seeing dreams realized like we never imagined.  You see, a year ago today I discovered something that threw me immediately back into the nightmare we had experienced a few short months before.  It was something my husband had done that let me know he was not okay.  Again.  While I had already set the ball in motion to move from Hawaii, that moment was a game changer.  Peter would not be staying with the kids and I to help us make the move.  I had to get him out of Hawaii.

So I booked him a flight and called his dad.  Please be in L.A. in the morning to pick up your son.  Our friend Sully drove Peter and I to the airport.  I watched as, like a child who had never flown before, he stumbled through the check-in process.  I don't know what to do, Jen.  How do I do this? I stood as close to the security check-point as I could, coaching him through each step.  With a knot in my stomach, I watched him eventually walk away towards the airplane.  This is not good.  No, not good at all.  I just knew that he was not okay to travel alone.  What if he becomes horribly confused while in the air and does something drastic? What if he's arrested? And what if he gets lost when he has to change planes? After much wrestling back and forth in my head, I went to the ticket counter.  My husband isn't feeling well, so here's my number in case anyone needs to reach me.  No, he's not sick he's just...confused.

A flight attendant was sent to check on him.  Then the captain checked on him.  And he was deemed "unable to fly." Great.  Now what? With a victorious expression, my husband was led off of the airplane by a team of security agents.  You don't understand, my husband HAS to get off this island! I promise, he will be okay once he leaves Hawaii.  This has happened before.  Just please, please take him to California.  I'm desperate.  No go.  I had an hour on the drive home to think about how I would get through the night.  Already so sleep deprived, I just knew I couldn't husband-sit another night.  Thankfully, Jenny and Sully took him back to their 30-acre property for the night.  Knowing he probably wouldn't sleep, they decided to take turns keeping an eye on him.

The next day, Plan B:  Peter's dad drives through the night to L.A. from Mammoth, catches a plane (after missing a plane) to the Big Island, rents a car and drives an hour north to Kohala.  This is the second time he has made an emergency trip to the island to apprehend his son and escort him back to California. My hero.  However, before he can reach the island, Peter goes missing.  Two hours go by before we realize no one knows where Peter is.  Panic nearly overwhelms me.  How could he get lost walking the one mile from Jenny and Sully's house to home? There's nothing but dirt road and bushes between here and there! Unless he went the other direction...towards the cliffs...oh God, where are You??? And where is my husband??? {a sudden sensation of liquid peace and two simple words:  he's okay} It takes everything within me and then some to hang on to those two words for the next five hours.  I drive around in our Landcruiser on dirt roads with our three children in the back calling out, "Daaaaady! Where are you???" They have no clue how serious this is.  I can't believe this is happening.  I can't believe this is my life right now.  What if we don't find him before dark? What if we never find him?


After our friends and local law enforcement officers spend hours searching for him, Peter is found not far away and taken to a small local hospital down the road.  I race to drop off the kids at a friend's house on the corner and then race down the highway in hopes of finding my husband unharmed.  I arrive and run to him.  He seems good, much better, despite some large bumps on his head.  Knowing that his dad will arrive at any moment and they have a plane to catch, I ask him to leave with me.  Unable to keep him there against his will, the police officers and nurses let him walk out.  We go pick up the kids, we visit with our friends, we go home, Jenny makes us dinner and my father-in-law arrives in time for a quick meal before he turns around to make the return journey with his son.  Whew.  That was a close one.


Later I found out that my husband nearly took his life during those five hours he was missing.  That is a story for another day, but let's just say he suffered greatly during that time.  Thank God he really was okay.

I promised I would write about something good today, so here it is.  Tomorrow night at Redding's first Unearthed Arts Event we will be celebrating our friends and their completed works of both musical and visual art.  We will also be celebrating the release of Peter's first album, a timeline of songs about his life that he's written since the mid-90's.  And here's the really cool part.  Although it was completely unintentional, the very moment at which Peter is slotted to begin his portion of the event will mark the 1-year anniversary--down to the minute--that he was found after those excruciating five hours in Hawaii.  That's right.  The moment at which he nearly took his life last year is being marked by stepping into the realization of one of his biggest dreams this year.  I'm pretty sure that's called REDEMPTION!!! Here we are in the thick of remodeling our first home and seeing a long-awaited dream of Peter's be fulfilled.  And so we shake the dust off and step into a new season here in Redding, California.

So make sure you come on out and celebrate with us Friday, November 4th from 7-9 p.m. at Bethel Church's Twin View campus.  And as a thank you for reading my blog today, I'll let you in on a couple of secrets:  1) there will be free childcare provided for the evening and 2) we will be handing out free CDs to everyone there towards the end of the event!

Extra Grace Required

Prepare yourself for my first really raw blog entry.  I don't even know what I'm going to say, but I feel it coming on as I sit here snacking on a bowl of chocolate chips as a means of self-medicating. *kidding*  

This week is just TOUGH! And yet it's so very good.  I don't want to whine and complain because I have so much to be thankful for and plenty to be excited about.  What's happening this week is a convergence of major anniversary dates from our traumatic week in Hawaii last year, on top of our remodeling project, on top of Peter's album being launched this Friday at the Unearthed Arts Event, on top of having family in town, on top of my birthday being this weekend, on top of just trying to manage our normal everyday life as a homeschooling mom and a work-at-home dad.  If I learned anything at all last year, I learned that grace abounds where grace is required, and I need a whole lot of that grace right now.

Most of our friends and family know that my husband was confronted with his own personal hell on earth last year.  What it felt like to me, watching it and going through it with him and the kids, was something similar to being a main character in a real life horror film.  I hate horror films and the feelings associated with even watching a preview for one.  Take those feelings and add to that the realization that this is not just a movie, this is actually my life.  For real.  

Episode I of this horror film began on Peter's birthday, June 29th.  It was also the day our oldest son left home.  This resulted in us leaving the island for 2 1/2 months while we came back to California to sort things out.  He really did seem fine once we left Hawaii, so we returned to our beloved island home in Kohala believing that we would see the fruit of all the promises we went to Hawaii with.  Instead, Episode II began on November 2nd.  With my husband trapped in a seemingly inescapable whirlwind, I was left on my own to decide how to handle it.  We were too far away from family and our support network to get the help we needed at the time.  Our Kohala ohana, however, was everything that a family should be and more, making my decision to leave them even more difficult!   

Knowing that Hawaii wasn't going anywhere and we needed some serious help, I made the choice to move after consulting some trusted advisors.  My hope was that we'd really get to the bottom of what was happening, figure it out, fix it, and return to Kohala.  With five of my dear friends about to give birth to new babies, I was determined to make it back in a few months for a visit.  Sadly, almost a year has gone by and I haven't made it back.  And now here we are buying a house in Redding! 

It's all very confusing, but I am trusting that God knows what He's doing.  I fully believe that He made it possible for us to buy this home at just the right time.  But my heart is broken in two, half of which remained in Kohala and the other half is happy to be here.  My goodness, if I hadn't left Kohala I wouldn't be enjoying the new friendships (and some old) that I have here.  I wouldn't be living with my entire family within a few miles and I would't be anywhere NEAR a Trader Joe's.  :) I also wouldn't have access to all the homeschooling support we're enjoying here.  I can't think of a better place for us to plant in this season of our lives.

I realize that this may be a sad post, and that's probably because I do feel sad.  I'm reminding myself to focus on the good things that have come from our trials, to press into Grace--the kind that I know can carry me through even my worst nightmare.  So tomorrow I promise to write about some of those good things.  

Entry & Fireplace Makeover

Well, hello November! Us Johnstons just love November.  We love it so much, in fact, that we always choose this month to make a major move.  I was thinking today...I can't remember the last time we weren't moving or somehow in major transition at this time of year.  Which makes the holidays interesting and sort of crammed in there between unpacking and trying to juggle everyday life.  The good thing is that this time it's OUR house and we won't be locked into moving around lease dates.  Soooo niiiiice.

After a morning field trip to the Coleman Fish Hatchery, I took our three kids + one more to deliver In-N-Out to our hard-working men.  Today Peter has some helpers, which is wonderful! Thank you Dad and Grandpa!!! Wasn't it so nice of my grandparents to move to Redding just in time for our move? Not only were we able to inherit all of their moving boxes, but my grandpa is a great handyman.  Reminds me of last year when my dad retired from 37 years at the City just in time to fly over and help me move here from Hawaii.  The way they all plan their lives around mine is just amazing.  *wink*

Grandpa Cannon, Dad and Alex (in the background)

While Peter was pulling up carpet, prepping the bedrooms for paint and carpet and making runs to Home Depot, these two Cannons were busy covering our cinder block with sheetrock.  After much research as to whether we should attach the sheetrock to furring strips or directly to the cinder block, apparently it was decided to forego the furring strips.  It was would have made our already-narrow entry even more narrow (not by much, but some).  So now when I decide to hang something on that wall, I'll have to get a screw through the drywall and the cinder block behind it.  So I'll be carefully choosing what I decide to hang there! But I can already tell that the space is going to look so much softer and less, well, cinderblocky.

This brick wall was one thing about the house we really didn't like when we first looked at it.  It made for a very uninviting welcome.  But with the new sheetrock, the right wall art and our door re-painted Georgian Brick, I think it will be so much better.

On the right side you can see where the cinder block has been covered with sheetrock already.  I thought about even covering the top half of the brick fireplace with sheetrock.  Hmmm... how does one cover a curved brick fireplace with sheetrock? I'm very excited to see what this is going to look like after we paint it.  And hopefully we can have a nice curved mantle built, as well.

My man has blisters on his hands and is feeling sore and tired, so he'll be taking the evening off.  Tomorrow begins the re-texturing process in some of the rooms, which is a new skill for Peter.  Fingers crossed that it turns out great!