"How Did I Find My Rock House?"

"September/2015"

  “The Buck Ridge House” – Oro Valley, Arizona

Those of you who know me, know there is always a story…  This one begins on September 17th, 2015… five days before my 71st birthday. I had been sitting in my favorite rocking chair talking to daughter Shelby in Flagstaff, when it happened…

I had stood up to put the phone away when I had this slight sensation that the left side of my face was sliding down my cheek.  It lasted maybe only a few seconds. There was no pain or anything else, but I went to the mirror to see what was happening.  Nothing was different, yet it was disturbing enough to call my neighbor Joanne to see if she could take me to the nearby Urgent Care.  In a moment she was waiting for me in the driveway.  I’m not even sure if she took the time out to brush her hair.  At Urgent Care they ran an EKG and found all was normal.  However, they sent me to the nearby Oro Valley hospital to get totally tested. There I was checked in for an overnight stay.  Tests were scheduled with all those letters: MRI, CAT, EKG, etc.  Except to give birth to my two daughters, I hadn’t spent the night in a hospital, so this was going to be an experience.  Daughter Erin had joined me when the MRI results were delivered by the doctor.  She began by saying they thought what I had had was a TIA. These three letters “spelled out” Transient Ischemic Attack; a brief stroke-like event.  We were told that they couldn’t be sure because it takes 72 hours before anything shows up on the scans.  Just as I was feeling that I had dodged a bullet; she dropped the bomb: “But this isn’t your first.  We can’t see if it happened last week or ten years ago.  However, there was only minimal damage.  It showed up in the cerebellum,” she said, then added… “Not much going on in there”.

I was discharged the next morning after an “ECHO” and other tests proved normal.  There was nothing more than the directions to take a low dose aspirin and get a mild hypertension prescription filled.  Physically there was no fallout, but emotionally and spiritually I was shaken.  For the first time I really realized that I had less time remaining in this lifetime than the time I had already lived.  Hum-m… sobering.  For a while I had been struggling with how to go about serving God using the gifts that He has given me.  I knew they were to be an integral part of my ministry.  Of course, I didn’t have a clue what that was going to be, but somehow, I knew what it included: music, writing and evangelism.  And now it had become increasingly clear that the next chapter of my life was not going to start until I sold the house.  Tick-tock, tick-tock. Time was moving on and I had just been given a providential kick in the pants!

I must admit I had been dragging my feet with putting the house on the market.  One particular morning I was looking out my shower window at the rugged Pusch Ridge Mountains when once again I was struck by their majesty and beauty.  In 1999 with an architect and contractor, husband Tad and I designed and built our third home in Tucson.  It was situated on a rocky edge that jutted out some 40ft above the Pusch Wilderness Wash.  While it was a wonderful house, it was the view… a truly once in a lifetime glorious view that captivated your attention.  

It was the season for the native Brittle Bush to bloom. The hillsides of our wash were covered by bushes that looked like huge bouquets made up of brilliant yellow blooms.  “How can I leave this?” That persistent thought kept creeping into my mind.  Except for the four years that daughter Shelby had stayed with me before she and Keith were married, I had lived comfortably alone in the “Buck Ridge House” since 2008 after Tad had died.   My plan was to live there till I had to be carried out, as they say, “feet first”.  Though I was financially okay, it was becoming evident that the house was too big for just me.  Plus, there was a “baby” mortgage making it possible to have a sizable amount of equity that was doing me no good.  However, additionally there was this something else… Tears began to flow with the realization of what laid ahead…  And then, came the assurance: “Don’t you trust me?”  I would have been on my knees had I not been in the shower.

It was a Saturday; the store would be open until 4:00.  Guess I was in a kind of frump when

I got there because as I told Erin that it was time for me to put the house on the market, she said, “Aw-w Mom, just go to Realtor.com, plug in some zip codes and go for it.”  As I still entertained, I knew there would be a limit to my downsizing and if one took into consideration where I had been living for the past 15 years, it was evident that I was not going to be happy with a “cookie cutter house”.  Because of the view there was no doubt that even in a difficult market the house would sell fast, so I sat down and got started…  After two hours and six zip codes later, I barely had had reason to even slow down.  There was nothing!  There was not one listing that I had paused for more than a moment to consider, and now it was time to close the store.  Great!  I’ll have to move in a hurry, and I won’t have any place to live!  I was bummed!  I don’t get down very often, but this time it was not good.  “Oh, come on Mom,” Erin said, “Come with me.  I have to make a delivery out east.”  It was on the way back that we stopped in Shadow Hills, a development off Orange Grove Road. It was where we had built our second home in Tucson and where the girls did most their growing up.  We had heard the folks who had bought the house had some construction going on. As it was only a mile or so from the store on Oracle, we wanted to check it out.   It looked like it was going to be a casita or maybe, a pool house.  Okay…I’m still frumping, so we decided it was time for Dairy Queen.

Now for a little back story…  When we first moved McBride’s Framing Gallery into the plaza on the southeast corner of Oracle and Orange Grove, there were only ice cream cones available inside the Wienerschnitzel that was close to the store.  Periodically we would partake… until a Dairy Queen was built just south of the store on the same side of Oracle. There was a time when we realized we were making way, way too many visits to the DQ.  Some parameters had to be set.  So, we instituted “Ice Cream Fridays”.  Every Friday afternoon, whoever was in the store, usually it was me that would take orders and make an ice cream run. I would go out of the plaza making a right on Orange Grove, taking the next right onto 1st Ave, followed by another right onto Rudasill Road, arriving at the DQ on the same side of Oracle.  Leaving with ice cream, I made a right onto Oracle, then a right turn into the plaza…a perfect square.  And, I had been making these trips for about five years.

So, heading west to DQ from Shadow Hills, we had turned onto Rudasill Road when Erin said, “Look Mom! There’s a house for sale!” Sure enough, there was a faded realty sign.  It was an easy right turn onto North Canyon Drive as it was a dead-end road.  We were quite intrigued. It was obviously an older area with about twenty-five houses of different vintages; some new; some much older; some really nice; some funky, but all set into the natural desert on various acre-plus lots.  We continued down the road with growing interest.  As we followed the street numbers we were surprised and then disappointed to find that it wasn’t a house, but a lot.

Again, a back story…Seems that four years previously the landowners were planning a 3,000+ sq ft. spec house when the market tanked.   The lot had been cleared and leveled with a brick retaining wall; all the utilities were in which included the buried overhead wires (We know where they would have been if not buried); and there was a generous U-shaped gravel driveway with plenty of natural mature desert landscape.  

Pulling into the driveway, though initially it being just a lot was a letdown, we decided to get out and walk around. The unobstructed view of the Catalina Mountains was gorgeous!  It was not spectacular like the Buck Ridge House, but it was in the same category… yet different.  I can’t tell you how much there had not been even a hint of a thought to build in my mind. This is hard to describe, but as we started to take a few steps, there was a feeling like a warm blanket that came over me: “I could do this… I could do this…”  Erin looked at me with a dubious look and said,” Mom, you’re not thinking of building, are you?”  I answered with a certain amount of confidence: “Erin, I can do this.”  Later she told me at that first moment, she was doubtful, but then she remembered me all afternoon going through the real estate listings: “Boring, boring...”.  Then, and after that, both the girls were all over the idea and totally supportive.   

My vision from the very beginning was a real rock house that looked as if it had been there “Forever”.  The months following were almost a blur.  But first, I had to put the Buck Ridge House on the market…