Make it Amazing! | Prickly Pear

Make it Amazing blog written by Jeannie Bruenning

 

Today I repurposed a Jade plant. It’s most likely the largest succulent plant I have every seen. It took hours to thin it down and load it in my new Gorilla Wagon, the coolest wagon in the world! 

I took my awesome wagon down the hill to replant the pieces I had removed and trimmed. I dug small holes, gathered two or three stems and carefully placed them in their new home, patted the soil back around them and with each new planting said, “Today, I give you new life…make it amazing!”

We’ve had a lot of comments about this multi-generational living thing. Many who think it’s wonderful. Others who wish they could do the same. Some who want to movie in with us. And several who say, “I couldn’t live with my kids.” 

I get it. Jeff and I would have said the same thing a few years ago. But our kids have been through real life. They have had trauma, pain, difficulties, success and they made it through. If we were really faced with the situation of having to choose who we’d be stuck on a deserted island with, it would be our kids…including their spouses.

“I couldn’t live with my parents. They are too controlling,” is another reason we hear of this impossibility. If you’re in your twenties and figuring out life, you most likely shouldn’t be living with your parents. But usually, I’m not talking to 20 somethings, rather, forty and fifty year olds. 

Why as parents is there the need to control our kids? The common commands that are barked out such as, “It’s my way or the highway!” or “If you live under my roof…” or the tough love thing that says, “Live my way if you want my approval!” are the acceptable ways of raising kids – even when they are adults. As parents, why is raising obedient children the focus over raising kids to become amazing adults who know how to control their own lives?

One reason our multi-generational adventure is working is because this isn’t Jeff and my house. It’s truly our house. Our son-in-law and daughter-in-law have as much ownership as we do. I love that! I love watching them making decisions. I love having them take control. 

In twenty years when my newly planted succulents have spread across the bottom of the hill and have made a new amazing life for themselves, we will be watching the next generation of adults making choices, a new generation of toddlers figuring out life and I hope I’m still saying, “Today, I give you new life…make it amazing!”

A Few Too Many

We did realize that the kitchen is one of all of our favorite places. We have 4 food processors, 3 blenders, 4 crock pots and more spices than Trader Joe’s. In fact, we tossed out 1/2 of the spices and still have too many. 

Not only do we have the supplies and equipment to prepare mega meals, we have enough dishes, glasses and silverware to set a table for 50 with complete place settings.  

If you are having difficulty envisioning this, here’s some images…

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Prickly Pear

Just in case we decide to open a meat market, we’re set with carving utensils…

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Spices anyone?

Prickly Pear spaces

Best of all we have our very own greenhouse, minus the house. There are citrus, avocado, and almond trees, succulents, and starter plants for our garden. In the multitude of citrus trees there isn’t one lime tree on the lot. This clearly means we aren’t done, who doesn’t need limes?

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Best of all, a few years back Jeff and I took all the grandkids to a local store to buy baby succulents to be planted in the “Neenee Garden”. Each succulent has been cared for and some have grown so large they required a house of their own. The rest of the collection have been cohabitating in this, now over-grown, planter. The “Neenee Garden” is coming soon.

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The Oven Night | Prickly Pear

We seem to be having a lot of these breathless adventures…

Do you remember that night after we moved into the hacienda when we were all out doing things separately and suddenly our phones began to beep because Brian and Austyn found a new oven that was a floor model and had been marked down from $1400 to $850 and they were asking if we all wanted to go in on it and 60 text messages later we all decided it was a good idea so Brian said he could fit it in the Subaru and when he went to check out was told that the floor model had been marked down to $499 back in November but no one had changed the sign so it had been sitting on the Costco sales floor for four months waiting for us – us the people who just moved into a big blue house on the hill and are trying something called generational living and we love it so far except for the smell of what we believe was a rotting carcass in the kitchen and had been unable to locate it but now we were forced to pull the old oven out and when we did found lots of grease and dirt but no creature which didn’t stop Jeff and Austyn from putting on gloves and bleaching every surface that could reach including the nob to the exhaust fan and when the new oven was put in place we were all amazed that it had two ovens, a top and bottom, and came with a big orange warning sign that the oven could tip over if a baby were to crawl into it but we knew if a baby were to crawl into the over there would be greater danger than it tipping over – and now the kitchen smelled like bleach and a rotting carcass so we pulled the refrigerator out because it was leaning backwards and there it was, a small four legged critter lying lifeless which we removed and used more bleach and then felt the need to use this opportunity to remove the magnetic knife holder from the wall which was being held up with six inch screws and a bolts on the other end which wasn’t the reason the refrigerator leaned backwards but non the less seemed odd –  once the carcass was removed and the refrigerator was replaced we celebrated because our refrigerator didn’t lean any longer and the kitchen didn’t smell like rotting carcass and best of all, Brian looked up our oven on his phone and it retailed for $1700 which we had just purchased for $499 and best, best of all…it’s blue inside…that was a great night!!  

 

The Annoyance Jar | Prickly Pear

jeannie bruenning During one of our countless discussions while deciding if we could really live together, our daughter-in-law suggested that we have an Annoyance Jar. 

“Annoyance Jar?” Jeff said, “that sounds great! We’ll make a lot of money!!’

Annoyance Jar? I thought, that’s not going to work. I’ll be broke!!  It’s not that I’m really annoying, I just live with someone who is easily annoyed and we may have successful raised one kid to be as well. 

I hate this idea, it’s never going to work. This is only going to give the annoyed the right to be more annoying…

“No,” Megan clarified, “you don’t put money in if you annoy someone, that wouldn’t work.” Megan is very endearing when telling us that we may be wrong. “You put money in if you allow someone to annoy you.”

Jeff was silent and I began to laugh. That would be perfect! I thought. We are going to make a ton of money!!

I told our friends about the Annoyance Jar during dinner that night. They had the same first response we had but after more explanation, the idea sunk in. During the rest of the evening we all pointed out moments we would have to pay into the jar because someone in the restaurant was annoying us, and these weren’t even people we knew.

We don’t actually have an Annoyance Jar, but I’ve thought a lot about it. Closing on a house creates anxiety for two people, having six adults required to sign off on every detail is mind boggling. Moving is stressful, moving three households in the same week boarders on insane. 

There have been plenty of opportunity to get up-set, to allow someone else’s actions to frustrate and annoy. There are also the same amount of opportunity to decide not to allow annoyance to be the reaction. It really is that simple. 

Crazy Morning | Prickly Pear

Prickly Pear blog written by author Jeannie Bruenning

Do you remember that morning when we were unloading a truck at 6:00 in the morning because there was a thunder storm the night before and after we finished with the truck Brian checked on the trampoline and found it had blown over during the night because of the crazy winds and when he went to move it realized that it had landed on an irrigation pipe and water was pouring down the hill which is why there was no water pressure in the house and I stepped on the pipe with my shoe and stopped the water but had to stand there for an hour while Brian ran to the hardware store to get a top and when he got home and stopped the eruption of well water flowing from the pipe we realized that all the kids were late for school so I took all five in the car and dropped them off – except for Amelia cause she’s only 5 months old – then we tried to get the mud out of the truck since it’s been raining in California forever which means the song about it never rains in Southern California is a lie but anyway we filled the truck up with gas which took a long time cause we’ve moved three houses this weekend and the guy on the other side of the pump notice the jeep and said he had replacement windows for the back and we were really excited then we went to the last house for a final gathering of all those little things that take so long to load and it was still raining and there weren’t windows in the back of the jeep cause we had just met the guy at the gas station and he hadn’t called us yet but we kept going and emptied the house and on the final trip back to the new house had to stop at 3 different gas stations because the tires were looking a little low and two of the air pumps were broke and when we finally got home and unloaded for the last time in our entire life we realized we were really hungry cause it was NOON!!! That was a cray morning!!!

The Crew | Prickly Pear

 

family hacienda and the prickly pear by jeannie bruenning

A friend of mine commented that our family hacienda adventure should be wonderful since our personalities are very similar. I nodded a blank nod and later, as I recalled the conversation, I had to chuckle. 

The same personalities…us? The same? Have you met us? We are a very diverse crew, some may argue we are six opposites. 

I thought I should take inventory of just who are these people I’m going to be living with…

We’ll start with the old people.

Jeff has a soul of a musician and a heart of an actor. He claims to have only had 3 bosses in his thirty plus year career which proves he’s quite stable. He isn’t exactly an adventure seeker and is a natural at pointing out why something (mostly my ideas) won’t work. 

Next is me, a writer who is grateful that we will never, ever run out of the color orange. I love adventures and the thought of walking on water makes my heart skip a beat. Where most people have a thought, I have an idea and they never stop coming. It’s just how I’m wired.

The next generation starts with a brilliant philosopher who has a cynical sense of humor. He knows how to brew beer and distill spirits. He makes the most amazing cinnamon whisky thing I’ve ever tasted. There’s been some amazing brew creations that have been consumed at Oktoberfest and a wedding reception.

He’s attached to a chef, she’s the newest to the cast. She’s a bit angelic and if she were my daughter, I’d claim she got her angelic-ness from me! She creates amazing delicacies that we can eat all day. She loves to fry things!! Best of all, she doesn’t suffer fools.

That brings me to the photographer/artist who sees all of life as though looking through a camera lens. Her ability to understand color and light is genius. Recently, she tried her hand at creating websites and they are amazing. She never tires of the crazy moments in life. She is strong, intelligent, opinionated, caring and free.

She’s connected to a pilot who knows how to fix airplanes ( and just about anything else that breaks). He is also an engineer and knows how to install high speed Internet on private jets. There’s a big fancy name for what he does, but I’m sure I couldn’t spell it. He’s creating our very own server so we don’t have to depend on internet for our entertainment at the hacienda. I don’t have a clue how this works but it sound very exciting.

The third generation begins with a 16 1/2 year old who is discovering life and will be getting her drivers license soon. There’s an almost 10 year old who loves building robots and baking pies without using a recipe. He assures us that an ATV is in his future and he’ll be responsible for taking the garbage down the hill. We have our very own 8 year old Pokemon expert who requires lots of snacks and a 5 month old who loves to sing and laugh and pretty much takes center stage when she enters a room. There are currently 2 cats and 1 dog who have never met and we expect will keep their distance once living under the same roof.

That’s our crew. A musician and a writer, a brew master and chef, an artist and engineer. It’s about as diverse as they come. Our only true similarity is that we love each other’s craziness and appreciate what each brings to the table. We need each other’s strengths and can laugh at our own weaknesses.

Together we make one crazy – and very diverse – family.

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