Celebrating Three Summer Goals Reached

by Bruce • October 18, 2011 • LifeStuff • 0 Comments

I stopped for a moment this last Sunday night between chores and thought back over the summer, and was filled with a deep sense of gratitude for how those months worked out heading into this fall. I recalled that I had set a few goals for myself at the start of summer that, at the time, seemed like they would be pretty hard to reach. Now, a few months later, I was wowed. With God’s grace, some persistence, and the help of friends and family, I realized this weekend that all three goals were reached. For a guy who doesn’t set a lot of goals, it was a pretty amazing realization. And they were…

1. Buying a house.

After a lifetime of renting and moving, renting and moving, and then just renting for the last 10 years, with economic conditions as they were this summer and the market favoring buyers- and a helpful nudge from my apartment complex (“Your lease is up and we want to renovate your apartment, so even though you’ve been in this apartment for 7 years, you have to get out…”)- it seemed right to get into a house.

In my mind, I didn’t really care about what the home was like, except that it was in the right place, for hopefully the right price. I had one area in mind as where I hoped to live, and when I told my realtor where I hoped to find something, she laughed a little and said “You won’t find something in that area for that price!” (She’s a great realtor and family friend, but I wasn’t totally deterred by her opinion…)

One evening after I decided to look for a house, I was in a local coffee shop and I hopped online and decided to peruse the said area on Zillow.com for a potential place. My brother called at the time, and asked me what I was doing. I told him. He started a search online as well for a home under my price range in my selected area- and the first home both of us pulled up in our search results was the same house- which we both thought looked and sounded like a great house. AND it was within $5K of my meager price range.

Well, a long story shortened, I ended up deciding to buy that house. I was sold by the 20 foot high ceiling in the living room, which was dotted on the north wall with windows that let in natural light. The kitchen was long with plenty of counter space. The back of the property was up against an arroyo, meaning no neighbors were behind me. The backyard was small and enclosed under a full awning. And the house had 1600 sq. ft. of space, along with a 2 car garage.

A castle for an apartment dweller like myself.

At first, I was a little concerned about trying to buy the house because it was a short sale. The previous owner had bought it as an investment property right before the real estate market crashed and the economy tanked. I had heard how buying a short sale home could take forever. I had a deadline to be out of my apartment, as well, and either into a house or in a new apartment. The home seller was incredibly gracious, and let me move into the house before it closed.

Getting financing went very easily. I was able to take advantage of being a First Home Buyer to get a good fixed mortgage interest rate. And with a great group of friends around me, when moving day came, everything was out of my third-story apartment in an hour and a half, and in my new home’s garage in 30 minutes. All told, I had a month-plus of rent-free living because the short sell was delayed. But the shirt sell closed in less than 4 months. Not bad, so I hear.

Since moving in to this palace, I’ve had to adjust to open floor space and high ceilings in my home. It has been really nice.

I thank God for helping me find this house and to get into it. I got it for 60% of its peak value, and for $5,000 more than I planned to spend on a house. The neighborhood is quiet, I am very near great amenities and with quick access to the West Side and to the freeway downtown. I feel pretty fortunate. The house was right where I hoped to live. Praise God.

Entry View

Living Room

Kitchen

2. Running the Chicago Marathon.

Ever since I left Chicago back in 2002, I always entertained the thought of coming back and touring the city again by foot. This idea was planted because on the last St. Patrick’s Day weekend that I lived there, I did a 10K Shamrock Shuffle that wound through downtown Chicago- and it was awe-inspiring. The downtown of Chicago- the mighty skyscraper-ladened Loop- was empty of cars, horn blasts, and the hustle of workday employees skittering here and there among noisy traffic. Instead, streets on the race course were awash in a sea of running bodies for as far as the eye could see, and all you could hear was the patter of feet echoing off of the buildings.

Remembering that experience, I wanted to come back one day and see what it would be like to tour the city again on foot.

For several years I entertained signing up for it, but always found a reason not to. Well, coming into this year, the time seemed right. And unable to find takers to join me running it the last few years, I talked my young and naive friend Ben Lolli to run it with me. Ben had just finished college in Ohio and when I persuaded him to join me on this adventure. Spring took Ben to Florida, and then summer took Ben to Yosemite for work, but across the miles, we both ran- and then met up at his aunt and uncle’s apartment in Chicago 36 hours before the race.

Well, after a day of leisure in the city and a short night of rest, we got up, took the Red Line down to the Grant Park and the race start corrals. The sun rose, we joked and fidgeted and scanned the crowd for signs of movement, and come 7:30, the race was on.

I’ll cut to the chase. We both finished, the tour was awesome, and I wasn’t dead. It was a great experience.

3. Building a quilt rack.

While the last two accomplishments were pretty huge, I hold this one as the best (and most meaningful) of the summer.

I have a friend that I love deeply who shared with me a story about a quilt that grabbed my heart, and provoked the whole project. Six years ago, her sister was diagnosed with cancer. At that time, she and her sister began a quilt project as something they could do together while dealing with the issues related to dealing with the sickness. They worked on the quilt together, picking a pattern, and then selecting fabric for each square and border. However, her sister became more ill, so that they had to quit working on the project. In a short time, her sister died, and my friend gave up quilting all together. For five years.

Well, this year, my friend decided it was time to quilt again. And she found this project waiting for her, unfinished. She finally was at a place emotionally that she could finish it- and she did. It was a big accomplishment for her.

Hearing her story and then seeing the finished quilt, I wanted to make something for her to celebrate her accomplishment in finishing that quilt, to celebrate her return to industry, and to celebrate her love for her sister and what completing that quilt meant in her own processing of her sister’s death. She is a woman I have grown to really love deeply, and so I just wanted to give her something that recognized her accomplishments in finishing that quilt.

Well, it pretty much came like a flash. She finished the quilt in July, and I knew her birthday was in October. Not being a skilled craftsman, I asked among my creative friends if they knew someone who might help me with this project. And I ended up connecting with a valued friend I knew from a church connection class I hadn’t seen in a while, Brad LaFleur. He had the know-how and the workshop we could build it in. He also liked the idea of the project, and said “Yes” to helping me. Brad put a lot of time into the project with me.

Well, Brad coached me along the way. I designed the rack on graph paper from dimensions I remembered from talking to her about her quilt. I wanted the rack to contain an element or two that would match something in her quilt, and the most prominent item that stood out was the unique star in her quilt. I went through a number of design attempts before coming up with one that looked like it would work, and that fit her quilt. I got together with Brad, showed him my drawings, and he took them and made an AutoCad drawing of the rack which would provide templates for cutting the pieces. Once we felt the AutoCad drawing fit what I was going for, Brad turned me loose to find some wood.

The rack is made of oak. It took one 6′ by 32″ by 1/2″ board to get all of the pieces out of it.

Board selected, Brad helped me with making cuts of all of the pieces, helping me to know how to use a few saws to get to special cuts (the inset stars).

From there, I picked a stain I thought would work with the walls in my friend’s house, and with the quilt. I ended up going with a dark cherry stain. It turned out to be the right pick. We stained the wood one weekend.

Well, I didn’t quite get the rack finished by my friend’s birthday, but it turned out great, and she was happy with it. I was overjoyed at how well the project turned out, and that she loved it. It may be the nicest thing I ever make in my lifetime. I have loved two women from the bottom of my heart in my lifetime- in that kind of love that flows from the deepest and purest part of you, which makes you want to do whatever for them, because you want them to be happy. She has been one of them.

Here is the evolution of the rack, from concept to completion. I am so thankful to Brad for his help and guidance on this project.

The Quilt

This is the design image I had to work from to come up with a rack concept.