Stained Glass Crow

Office Remodel - Day 6

2010-11-12T09:49:00.001-08:00

Big day. Once the Easy Mat acoustical flooring was flattened out, the sub-floor had to be primed with a special glue that comes with the mat. SPF painted the floor in the early morning so that the glue would get tacky and affix to the wood before we put the Easy Mat down. Painting the whole surface didn't take too long.

Though, of course, it was important that we mark our territory. So to speak.

Once the whole floor was painted, the purple color of the glue started to fade as the glue dried. Still shiny and fantastic! It's a weird process, but very effective.

Once the glue dried, the mat has a sticky backing that is removed and the glue and sticky back cling together for dear life. SPF cut the mat and fitted it perfectly around each corner of the door and along our ridiculously un-square walls. Notice his acoustical prowess, the mat doesn't go all the way to the wall to prevent additional unwanted sound transmission. :)

SPF followed the instructions on the mat, which included details about how to lay the mat out, cut it to size, and then hold it in place while you cut part of the sticky backing paper off . . .

. . . peel it back and reveal the sticky backing and then smooth it down in place.

You then repeat the process with the remainder of the mat, which is at this point sturdily held in place on the one side and slips neatly into place on the other.

The piece is cut slightly longer than necessary and cut to fit at the last second, once everything is down, so that you can be certain that all cuts are perfect for where the mat will end up.

Once in place, you scrape along the surface to get any bubbles out of the glue/backing joint and ensure solid contact for the entire mat onto the floor surface.

Perfect. (He's very meticulous.)

While the Easy Mat was drying and sticking and doing it's thing, we started to talk about how we wanted the tile to align on the floor. Where you place your first tile dictates everything else about the floor, so we wanted to be sure that it was perfectly laid. We measured the existing linoleum faux tiles, measured the new tiles, accounted for grout lines, spacing from the wall, and the unfortunate lack of squareness of every surface in our house to try and determine the best possible location for the first tile as well as it's perceptual square. We determined that by measuring the length of the kitchen and office and finding the ideal line down "the middle" which is fairly loosely defined by cabinets and appliances. Once that was accomplished, we marked the center line for each side of the tile so that it would be "square" as well as aligned according to our visual preference. (Notice the difference between the linoleum and the Easy Mat.)

We then laid out tiles until we found six that we believed would make up the best center floor. (All of these will be uncut tiles, so how they look next to each other matters.) We traded several out, changed the orientation of the tiles so that they worked well together, dropped one (or two) accidentally and had to swap them out, but ultimately came up with six perfect tiles.

Using our marks, we drew out the perfect level lines for the tile so that we had something larger than a little red arrow to define our placement. Once that was done, we started the mortar process, first taking a small bit of mortar and working it around the area to burn in the top of the Easy Mat and create an ideal surface for mortar to mortar to tile joining.

The burning in process.

Once that's done, all we have to do is apply fresh mortar over the burned in square with the appropriate trowel and we are ready to place our first tile. We were careful not to completely obliterate our red lines so that we would know where to place the tile. We aligned the first tile (with marks of its own on the center point of each side) with the red lines and the floor alignment was set.

From there, placing the rest of the six was quick work. Mortar for burning in, mortar with the trowel, place the tile, place the spacers, repeat.

The tile was going to well, that in the midst of this I decided to start painting the walls. Maybe not the best idea seeing as how you can't put weight on the tiles until the mortar has cured. So I got a decent start with the edging, but not much more until I could no longer use the stool I was standing on to reach the high places.

But the edging is the hardest part. And that was already complete.

So I tiptoed around the rest of the tiles and painted everything that I could reach. If you look closely, you can see that I couldn't reach the middle portion above the door or some of the other edges. But, considering my constraints, I actually got a lot accomplished. And I proved my exquisite balancing skills.

You'll also notice that, at the beginning of this blog, it was early morning, and at the end, late, late at night. We closed up the paint bucket, cleaned up the materials, and crashed on the couch until we convinced ourselves to try and go downstairs to bed.

Office Remodel - Day 5

2010-11-12T09:14:00.001-08:00

With the sub-floor prepped for the new tile, one of our main concerns was sound attenuation between the new flooring and the ceiling below (bedroom closet.) Allow it isn't as big of a deal in the closet, it is a much bigger issue with the rest of the floor in the kitchen, which is directly over the master bedroom. So, SPF nailed down any squeaky portions of the floor and we purchased an Easy Mat sound attenuation material that sits between the tile and the plywood and reduces all the noise inherently created by walking, rolling (new chair), or jumping down off of the counter tops (bad kitties.)

The instructions with the Easy Mat were to lay it out and place several tiles on it to try and get it to relax. (It comes in rolls.) So, here we have laid out two portions of mat and several of the new, large format tiles.

A closer look at the mat and tiles.

An important step in any process for this household is family approval. Osiris was giving the tiles a walking test. He approved.

Office Remodel - Day 4

2010-11-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

After ripping up the linoleum in the office, SPF used several different scraping mechanisms to get the floor to be entirely free of old linoleum glue, scraps, and particulate. This is our sub-floor, and as of this moment in time, it was 100% ready for the new flooring to be laid on top.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 6

2010-11-10T11:13:00.001-08:00

I know it has be a while, sorry. The progress has actually been moving along better than I have been able to blog about it, but I won't ruin the surprise. I'll just try to be more diligent about progress.

After I stained the framing as seen in the last remodel post, I went back and stained once more to make the final color richer. The lighting in here is pretty awful, but you can see the difference between the previous stain (which actually is more of an amber than the greenish yellow it looks here) and the new stain (the deep red.)

As you can also see, the floor is a casualty of this process. Yet another reason that it is important that we pull up the linoleum and replace it with lovely new tile.

Office Remodel - Day 3

2010-09-22T13:42:00.001-07:00

The office needs to be done. No two ways about it. So today was dedicated to a lot of the prep to prepare the floor for the new office and start the prep for the painting as well.

Here is where we started. Osiris doesn't know what is going on.

Here is the floor, which is the real problem for the office. Most of the other elements we can adjust as we need to, but we can't put the furniture in this space until the floors are done. That means no linoleum, new floor sound proofing, and new tile.

So, no time to waste. The linoleum pulls up pretty easily. That's great, considering that we have little time to get this project done before the new bedroom furniture arrives and the office has to move upstairs to this space. (Keep in mind, this stage actually happened a while ago, about a month as of this writing. So, I know more than you do.) :)

Once the linoleum was pulled up, SPF scraped the remaining glue off of the floor to prepare the subfloor for a clean, flat surface for the next stage of the project.

These images make this look easier than this was. A lot easier. In fact, this was a huge time consumer. SPF tried lots of different methods to find the best way to remove the glue without splintering the subfloor or creating other problems with the wood. We already have to deal with some squeaks in the floor, but we don't want to have to replace the plywood as well as the rest of the floor.

When it is done, though, the floor survived and SPF did too!!!

Now that the floor is prepped for part 2, the walls need some primer for the new, brighter paint color. The walls have dried completely with the new joint compound, so they are ready for the white primer. The color for the walls is going to be light, so the light primer is important here.

At the end of the day, the I did the remaining edge work with the primer after SPF put up the painter's tape to protect the new doors. (Newish. Look to previous blogs to see the change in doors and windows.) Yet another step closer to getting the office done!!

And then they waited, and waited, and waited for the next step. Due to a wedding, some other travel, and the in-laws delivering the new furniture, we were at a stopping point for a while. Too much of a while. Stay tuned.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 5

2010-09-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

Today the second coat of stain went on to the cabinet boxes today. Not a lot of work, but it is the last step before the boxes are sealed with the new, custom polyurethane blend.

Plus, I really like this photo, so I thought I'd share. Nice job, SPF. :)

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 4

2010-09-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

We have been doing a lot of experimentation with this cabinetry refinishing project. One of the main issues that we want to address is the final finish of the cabinetry. We don't want it to be too glossy, because then the whole kitchen would basically be mirrored. But we can't have it be too matte either because it is a kitchen and matte will more easily show grease splatter, stains, and trouble.

So, I bought a book. My grandfather always used to say that if you wanted to learn how to do something right, you should get a book and read about it. The book described trouble shooting ways to get rid of some of the issues that we were seeing, namely bubbles in the finish, thickness of the finish, and the final look that we were after.

So I am now mixing my own finish.

It's awesome. (Not because I made it, but because it works to fit all of our needs.)

At this point it is important that I start stripping and sanding the cabinet boxes as well as the doors. There are two places where the doors go all the way down to the ground, so those boxes have now been stripped, sanded, and prepped for stain.

This is how the stain looks on the stripped and sanded wood. You can see the unstripped side of the box (to the right) and see how different the colors really are. Keep in mind that this is only the first coat of the stain, so it is actually much darker in practice.

First coat on the cabinet box for the HVAC is done!

Six Years Ago Today

2010-08-28T16:07:00.001-07:00

As I am waiting for the stain and polyurethane to dry I thought I would see where I was six years ago today, the first August 28th post I had available on this blog.

This is fascinating. (Click the "see original post" link.)

Guess I got back around to photography and writing after all.

Office Remodel - Day 2

2010-08-28T15:27:00.000-07:00

The office saw less progress on this particular day as we were waiting for the joint compound to fully dry before applying the primer. A couple of missed spots were caught and refinished so that we could have smooth, beautiful walls. Compare this image to the one from Office Remodel - Day 1, where the joint compound has been applied but is still wet. Even without the primer, these walls are starting to look fantastic!

My new office is going to be bright, airy, and lovely. My current office opens out onto the very busy and very loud street, whereas this door opens onto my courtyard garden. I'm very excited to be able to open the door and have a quiet breeze as well as look onto my flowers. I think the cats will also enjoy sitting with me as I work, but not be so worried that I am boring them because they have a wide array of lizards, birds, and bugs to keep their attention from this spot. At least, Isis seems to think so.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 3

2010-08-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

Even though I have trouble finding the time to write about our progress, I assure you that it continues on a nearly daily basis. I am trying my best to document the progress both in images and words to share with you.

After the first group of cabinets was stained, I started the process of applying the requisite three coats of polyurethane that are necessary to protect the cabinets from the hazards of the kitchen - grimy fingers, splattering oils and sauces, or the inevitable cookie dough slinging off of a beater as it is too hastily removed from the mixing bowl.

This polyurethane is straight from the can Satin finish. We applied semi-gloss on the back of the tester door and weren't happy with how reflective it was, so we opted instead for the satin. It is still a little bit too shiny for our tastes, but bear in mind that we have not yet completed the finish, this is just another stage.

As we also determined that, to lay the tile in the office and the kitchen, we needed to finish the cabinet boxes as soon as possible in the two places that the boxes go down to the floor, I started to strip the boxes and begin the refinishing process in a vertical manner while the polyurethane of the previous step was curing.

You can see in this image a stripped cabinet door leaning against the as of yet unstripped cabinet box. You see where the cat is poking her nose that particular part of the cabinet comes into contact with the floor, so, to protect the future tile, the stripper, stain, and clear coat will all be applied prior to floor installation. As for the other cabinets, they can be refinished with the use of a canvas drop cloth on top of a plastic sheeting. (The stripper has an unsettling way of eating through just the plastic, so I'd rather double up on these.)

As I am not stripping all of the boxes at one time, but rather just the two areas that come into contact with the floor, I stripped beyond the boundaries of the area that I am going to refinish to ensure that when I come back and strip these areas in the future, I won't accidentally go too far and strip my new stained and finished areas. It may seem like a better idea to finish the boxes all at once, but so long as I have a defining edge where I can stop the stripper, stain, and clear coat, I can do them in stages. I would need a solid block of time to strip them all at once, and I just don't have that at the moment.

This is sort of awkward lighting, but you can kind of see the stripper starting to work on the front piece and side piece of the box, though only the front piece will be stained in this go around. The other piece will have to wait until that particular box set is stripped at a later time.

I still think we can handle this. We haven't run into anything yet that we haven't conquered, though the fumes are something to behold. Don't worry, we are taking all necessary safety precautions. Which I am particularly happy about at the moment, as my safety goggles have a drip of stripped plastic down the middle of the left lens. I could be a fancy scarred pirate lady now, but I think I prefer my photographer's eyes.

Tips of the day: ventilate, cover your fleshy parts, honest-to-god safety goggles, protective gloves, and a fume mask. Done.

Office Remodel - Day 1

2010-08-22T13:16:00.001-07:00

Soooooo . . . you know how you start a project to do one thing and then, all of a sudden, you realize that you just got in over your head? Because, for instance, the cabinet job that you started led you to remove some base board (which, no to pick, is actually just poorly applied quarter round) in order to get access to the full depth of the wood cabinetry for staining and realize that the baseboard was holding down the crappy linoleum? Like, it was the only thing holding down the crappy linoleum.

So, our linoleum is coming up. We had a choice to make: ignore the linoleum or replace it. Seeing as how we are, very soon, going to be receiving the 1940's bedroom set from SPFs grandmother we decided to refinish the floor, because we are going to be moving my office (you remember my new office?) upstairs into the nook between the kitchen and the courtyard. We are going to have an official spare bedroom and (hopefully at some point in the future) a room for a little one. So, why not get the new office up to speed right away?

So, like we have done before, our one project has turned into two, and our kitchen cabinet project may be turning into the kitchen project. More to follow.

The original problem begins:

The office without the horrid baseboard. (In this case, the 'baseboard' was actually chair rail. So it wasn't really doing anything at all. We have hated those stupid crappy boards since we moved in. So it is kind of awesome to be getting rid of them. :)

The other side of the office. (Notice how the pantry has no doors!) It isn't a huge space, but all of my office furniture will barely fit and then we will have a fabulous spare bedroom and I will have a nice little office that is all my own.

Removing the baseboards also led us to the realization that the walls hadn't been finished to the ground initially, so we have to refinish the walls as well. Dang.

Of course, there were other problems with these walls, so this isn't the worst consequence. So now, I will have a beautiful new office with new walls, paint, and tile.

SPF putting new joint compound on the walls. They will be a completely smooth finish, which is exactly what I wanted! Thanks you, dearest. :)

The wall with new joint compound, drying.

We can handle it.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 2

2010-08-22T12:30:00.002-07:00

Day 2 has us already well under way with the new project. The initial set of cabinets has been stripped, cleaned with mineral spirits, and sanded at this point. (We are doing the doors in stages for lack of space. Even though we can do a bunch at once in the courtyard, turns out that I don't want tons of tiny bug corpses stuck to my new stain. Lesson learned.)

This cabinet is prepped and ready for the next step!

This is the new stain color for the cabinets. Minwax Red Mahogany 225 oil-based stain. This is the first coat. It's rich, lovely, beautiful, and exactly what we want!!

After the cabinet is stained and we wait for five minutes, we pull off the excess stain with a clean rag and make sure that the stain has been applied evenly. It is pretty easy and fun, though messy, and we have gone through a lot of rags. Which is good, because we had a lot of rags and we prefer to get rid of things in a functional use as opposed to hold onto things as pack rats. Our intention is to reduce where possible, and find uses for everything else. We are currently working through years of accumulated fancy bath soaps, lotions, loofahs (I had a strangely large supply of these), spices, ingredients, supplements, etc. Less is more, especially when something that we no longer want can be re-purposed to be useful.

Refinishing Our Kitchen Cabinets - Day 1

2010-08-20T15:16:00.002-07:00

We have decided to start another remodeling project. Yay! I think. Every time we start one of these projects we end up working very hard for months and months on end. The good thing is that every time we start a new project, we learn new skills. With the 1/2 bath we learned how to lay tile, move in-wall plumbing, reinstall a toilet, fix drywall, and apply one kind of texturing. (We already knew how to prime and paint.) With the master bath we learned how to install wall tiles, lay concrete, install a closet, and apply a different kind of texturing. This time around, we chose to learn how to refinish wood cabinetry, which has proven to take more patience and attention to detail than any of our other projects.

To make sure that I could actually do this before we started the whole kitchen, I took down one door that is rarely opened and stripped, stained, and finished just the back. The logic was, if I couldn't manage it, I could strip it again and stain it to match the original without too much trouble. It worked, so we decided to give it a try.

So, here we go.

As always, we need to have a starting image. This is the state of our kitchen as it has always been. For 30 years. We never liked pretty much any of it, but always thought that it would be extremely difficult and expensive to update. Well, it will be difficult, but it is not going to be as expensive as we thought. So long as we do it ourselves.

Day 1 - Before anything.

This is what the back of the doors look like to begin with. Notice that the installers placed the hardware on the unfinished doors before spraying on the varnish. Lazy. So many issues with our kitchen that can be directly related to the original manufacture or the homeowners that directly preceded us. We're not fans of either of them. Also notice the color. That sort of amber, high gloss finish we really don't like. The whole design of the kitchen is very dated.

So this is stage one. The stripper. It is incredibly toxic stuff that burns a lot if you drop it on your toes. Don't worry, I didn't drop it on my toes. It was my leg. And my leg is fine. It works like a charm, though, and basically liquifies the entire surface of the cabinet - anything that isn't wood.

Once the stripper does its job, you scoop it off with a plastic palette and then give the whole thing a mineral spirits bath with a steel wool loofa.

So, we have no idea how this will turn out in the end, but we have no choice but to keep going now! Stay tuned.

Decaffienate Me

2010-02-18T00:57:00.000-08:00

My beautiful Darjeeling is to blame for this one. Note the time. Almost 1:00 and still wide awake. WIDE. Brimming with awakeness. Awakeitude. Awakeiny. Hmmm. Spell checker doesn't seem to like any of those.

I did just write my first Book Review for my new job. I guess that's good, though my copy editor isn't awake to tell me if it makes any sense. I edited it already. A lot. I took out 1/6 of it after I finished writing because I am too wordy. Much, much too wordy. He will undoubtedly take out more words and tell me if it reads like I was on speed.

I had two pots while I closed out season one of Dexter on Netflix on demand. I had already seen it, of course, but it really gets you going in those last three episodes. I remember watching it the first time through and thinking "They can't possibly wrap this up in time!" And yet, with mastery and a beautiful precision they did. And they have done it twice more since. Although I can admit that sometimes I wish one of the best-written shows on television wasn't about a serial killer. It makes me feel unnecessarily desensitized. Though I can also appreciate that using a psychopath as an interpreter of our human experience is brilliant. And a psychopath can't exactly be an ordinary, fun-loving surfer. He has to be, well, a psychopath.

But I digress. The point of this particular entry was to try and come down, to deflate the balloon of my alertness and sink into repose for the evening. Now I can't stop thinking about serial killers. Which isn't great seeing as how SPF is out of town until Friday night. Late. And so I sit here, typing typing typing. Perhaps a bath? Or some wine? But I have a rule to never drink alone and I'm certainly not going to go through a whole bottle in the next two days, so I may as well skip that. If I weren't out of rum I'd make a rum and coke. Though that is more caffeine. A conundrum indeed.

This isn't really a problem, actually. I had to get that article done and it would have either been tonight or tomorrow morning. Now I can sleep in as long as I like. As long as I need, without that nagging sensation that I have something to complete that I haven't done. Though there are plenty of other items on my to do list, this one was bothering me the most. The others are under control. This one I hadn't even started until today. And now the second draft is off to my copy editor. One would think that the relief of having accomplished something major off of the list would help me to move into unconsciousness. But no.

Cest la vie. I have to leave anyway. My shoulders are cramping.

Blather Blather

2010-02-10T09:41:00.000-08:00

I pulled "Write" out of the wheel of punishment just now, but I am seriously not in the mood to write. Which is a shame, because I have one chapter introduction to rewrite, one to write from scratch, a book review due, and other articles that I would like to get started in case one particular editor ever decides to respond to my emails. Ever. Even though he said he wanted the articles.

But no matter how I try, I can't focus on any of those things, so I am taking this blog as an opportunity to fulfill my obligation to the wheel of punishment and then I am going to go back to the bowl and pull something out.

Of course, the wheel itself might be mad at me. Yesterday I pulled three tasks but only completed two because I went down to the Community College to shadow my supervisor in a class that she teaches. Which was awesome fun and I'm glad I went. But it took me a really long time to get home because the rain started up again, and I stayed about an hour longer than I intended to at the CC in the first place, so I didn't fold the laundry like I should have. Don't worry, it is only a load of towels, so there is no worry with wrinkles. So I guess I should fold them now. Maybe then I will be freed up to write. I really should. I make almost as much money from writing as I do from teaching, on a good month. On a really good month, I would make almost double . . .

The Artifact

2010-01-14T16:17:00.001-08:00

Ever since the Kindle came onto the market I have been worried about the loss of the artifact. To be fair, I should have been already, with digital photo files overtaking the average household computer in place of plastic sleeved albums and hastily labeled boxes full of mismatched negatives and one hour photo prints. Something about the kindle made me worry for the artifacts associated with the creative act of writing. I look upon my bookshelves as ever changing sculptures of varying textures and colors and have, in my whole life, given away only a handful of books. (Not including those University Texts that I sold back to the bookstores at the end of the semester in the hopes of funding a nice dinner out or another months rent on a storage unit.)

A few months ago I started to understand the benefit of the Kindle. My sister, who appreciates the written word far more than I and has thusly collected a library that oppresses the small condo she shares with her husband and two cats, demonstrated the balance between maintaining the artifact and maintaining the art. There are books, she explains, that you should keep on hand. They are either sentimental or contain some specific purpose, such as sewing diagrams or imagery, that cannot be appropriately duplicated by the Kindle. There are still books that she wants to lay on a table and hold open at the crease with a weighted tape dispenser. Beyond that, however, everything that she can get on a Kindle, she does, and her walls have been unburdened of their over cluttered and sagging bookshelves and replaced with squares of paint color to be tested on the new space revealed.

I realized that I am surrounded by Artifact books. It's why I am reserved about the Kindle, even anachronistic. My books primarily have images. Books patiently printed with precise color plates from the likes of Leibowitz or Salgado. The Revelations of Arbus. The Americans of Frank. The artifact of these books, often printed under the careful supervision of the originating artists themselves. Seeing an image in print, be it on the wall at a gallery, in a quality book, or even on the pages of an art magazine, is an entirely different experience than seeing a low resolution image beamed to your optic nerves from an illuminated screen.

I often wonder how many family generations will be visually lost due to catastrophic hard drive failure. How many people take the time to print out their favorite images anymore? How many rely on the albums provided by Flickr or Picasa as opposed to the leather-bound tome on the coffee table? It might not be an issue now, it might not ever be. I may be completely off base. But it seems as though, at some point in time, the orphaned images, whether or not they are maintained in the protected servers of the world, will lose their identities. What images will we show our children and grandchildren in our sunset years? Where will the artifacts be? Or will we remember ourselves differently in the future and the artifact be a thing of the past, considered additional clutter from a wasteful time in human history?

All I know for certain is that I intend to continue taking images and printing them.

Wheel of Punishment

2010-01-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

Now that the agree is official (I promise, I've seen the MFA conferred on my transcript and everything) the act of picking up my daily life begins.

Since I started calling in favors in about October of last year, I have landed four jobs and connected with some very interesting people. The jobs are intermittent but long running - writing as a book reviewer for a respected magazine, writing as a coauthor for a new photography text, working as an assistant for a well connected photographer, and teaching a wet lab lecture at a local community college - and together they provide just enough money to stay afloat until my student loans kick in.

But they don't offer me a daily routine in the least. As a book reviewer I write four columns a year. I get a lot of free photo books out of the deal (which is awesome) but very little pay and very little busy work. For the co-authorship I may very well be busy in a few months, but as of right now I am waiting for the flag to drop. The assisting job has been a great connection, but I don't actually work for him until March, so there is a great deal of waiting on that as well. And for the teaching, it is a entry level position that meets every other Friday for six hours.

All told, I am very excited about each opportunity. But I have realized something about myself over the last few months. I need to have something to keep me busy. The thesis was great for the days when I felt like working because it kept me dedicated and focused for hours at a time. But now I am listless and unmoored. I need something to keep me going until I get back into a steadier routine.

Which is why I created the Wheel of Punishment. It actually isn't punishing so much as motivating, but I reference Avatar: The Last Airbender (the TV series, not the upcoming Shaymalan farce) because it is so wonderful. (For those of you that are curious, refer to the episode "Avatar Day.")

The Wheel of Punishment consists of tasks written down on strips of paper that are to be completed when pulled out of a bowl. They range from doing laundry to submitting imagery online for stock sale. My intention is for the Wheel to be a two week cycle, so that my house will always be clean and orderly, I will work through boxes of accumulated stuff to determine what to keep and what to give away, I will be encouraged to write and shoot, and I will not be left idle.

This morning I pulled "Master Bathroom" from the bowl and proceeded to remove every element from the shower, vanity, and floor in our master suite so that I could scrub, mop, polish, and organize every surface. The shower curtain is currently drying on the banister and the floor mats in the dryer.

After the completion of what I could accomplish linearly for the first task, I drew the second - write. This isn't really a specific task, nor should it be. Showing up at the page, no matter its significance, is important to me being able to stay frosty with my writing. The intention with most tasks is to complete them before I move on to something else - as with cleaning the bathroom literally from floor to ceiling. With writing, though, the definitive "end" is more elusive. I am currently writing a fiction novel for fun, but I am certainly not going to be able to write the whole thing in one day, nor would I want to. I am trying to conceptualize more articles, it's true, but have none in mind. Besides, writing can extend to journaling, editing, fiction, job related, or even blogging. The important step being that I must engage in writing something. The determination of when that task is "complete" is up to my state of mind, I suppose. But when I am done here, another task awaits me in the bowl, so it can be a balance between what I want to do, what I need to do, and what I don't want to do. In this case I have already cleaned the bathroom and therefore know that it is no longer in the bowl, so I am not as reluctant to return to the bowl. I also don't feel as though I have much to say today. I am still thinking too much about yesterday.

What does not kill me . . .

2010-01-08T10:30:00.001-08:00

I am taking issue with that saying. I understand the metaphorical implications, but I am tired of being tired, run down, in pain, and generally feeling useless. And that is just in relation to the surgery.

There are so many other aspects of life that have that same taste - that of being difficult, inconceivable, seemingly unfair - that the adage is growing weary. I am starting to wonder if the promised strength builds up over time, like banking karma points, or if it is more like a video game character that has a certain life span that can be replenished and then drained, but only in certain amounts.

I guess what I am wondering is if I have had a chance to recover from any of the obstacles of the last seven years to really get to take advantage of my garnered strength or if the repeated slap downs from the universe are in such rapid succession that the promised integrity has ultimately been squandered before it could be utilized. (And as a side note, wondering if we broke a mirror . . .)

But I have also realized of late that I have developed a thicker skin. I don't take it nearly as hard as I have in the past when prospective job leads don't call me back, or when odd little gremlins despise me based on where I received my education, or when really nice photographers don't think they have a place for me in their ranks because I am not really one of them. Eh. I have had successes, I feel like I am on the road to something that I will enjoy - be it working as a writer and finding temp work to pay the bills or actually teaching I can't be sure - but I have faith. Maybe that is the strength. Maybe the mythic fortitude comes in the form of slowly growing a skin to the point that you don't care anymore what lies on the sides, or even in the way of, the path but instead see with a precise tunnel vision that there is a goal, a light at the end of the road.

Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

I think the real genius of Dori isn't the inherent perseverance, but the inexplicable joy. I am going to try and maintain that despite everything else. At least until we lose the house.

Come on, New Decade!

2010-01-06T10:07:00.001-08:00

I'm ready for things to go right. Seriously. Since we moved out here in 2000 things have not been unicorns and butterflies. We have had some wonderful times like our wedding or some wonderful trips and meeting new people, but we also seem to have had greater than our fair share of turmoil, loss, and frustration.

But that was then and this is now. Not just a new year, but a new decade. One ripe with the promise of a new degree, a clean bill of health (we're hoping), and abounding opportunities, so long as you know where to look and who to talk to. But I do, I think. So I have faith. I am trusting that if I continue to do, try, and persist that I will find a job and everything will be okay. But I have to keep the faith. I have to keep busy. I have to keep contacting people who don't respond until they do (while maintaining a delicate balance between being persistent and annoying.)

I have to. What else can I do? There is no purpose for me to be sitting here doing nothing. I am meant to do something, I am meant to work, I am meant to apply myself. I must have purpose. Simply sitting and breathing is not enough.

Difficult Cat

2009-10-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

Osiris has always been a difficult cat. Always. He ate a poisonous plant when he was two, developed kidney crystals (that requires an exclusive diet of special food) when he was three, escaped through a not-perfectly-latched screen door multiple times, fights with every cat he can see (even if he can't reach them), and he even attacked me and SPF on two separate occassions when we were trying to stop him from fighting other cats. So I don't know why our current situation came as a surprise.

We have been trying to deal with his aggression issues for some time. We have tried pheromone therapy, homeopathic stress reduction, and even "corporal cuddling." As a last resort a week and a half ago, and with the supervision and advice of our vet, we started him on some medication to help with aggression. I gave him the medication on Monday morning and he stopped eating. Entirely. I tried to encourage him to eat when I noticed that he didn't seem to have a great appetite, but I didn't realize how bad it was until after I gave him the second dose of medication.

After two and a half days of not eating, I took him to the vet so that we could figure out what to do. I stopped the medication and she agreed that we would need to find an alternate way to manage his aggression. She gave him some fluids and an anti-nausea medication and sent him home. Two days later, he still wasn't eating. At this point the vet became more concerned. I, of course, was frantic. Osiris may be an angry, spiteful, moody cat, but he is my baby. I love him.

At this point it was Friday. I took him back to the vet and she gave him some more fluids and anti-nausea medication and suggested that we do some bloodwork, just to be safe. I told her that he has been picky and difficult when his stomach was upset in the past (reference the poisonous plant) and didn't eat for several days even when he had already passed the plant material. She said that she felt better about that but encouraged that we hire a pet sitter for the day and a half that we were going to be in Santa Barbara to remove my final show. We called the pet sitter, packed, and left.

Twenty minutes into our drive North, the vet called and told us to turn around and take him to the emergency room. Thankfully, we decided to do the blood work which revealed some possible liver problems.

Liver problems.

So we took him to the emergency hospital in Sorrento Valley which is half an hour South of our home, and an additional half hour from our ultimate goal of getting to Santa Barbara. We stayed with the emergency vet for almost two hours filling out paperwork, meeting with various vet techs and Internal Medicine specialists, and getting him examined for the fourth time in two weeks.

It turns out that a "rare but documented" side effect of the aggression medication is liver failure. Combine that with a cat that doesn't eat when he doesn't feel perfectly normal and you get a cat that takes an "acute hepatic event" and turns it into potentially permanent liver damage. Hooray.

So our six year old cat spent three days in the hospital under constant supervision. His liver enzyme levels were ten times higher than normal. He was on an IV with b-complex, a liver protectant, an appetite stimulant, and more anti-nausea medication. We got to visit him during visiting hours. He looked horrible. He was scruffy, dirty, shaved on his belly (oh, did I forget to mention the ultrasound?), and shaved on his leg where an IV catheter was STILL IN HIS LEG when we visited him. When they brought him to us he was shaking horribly he was so scared. It was awful. We spent about half an hour with him and then had to leave.

As of right now he is back home. I have to give him six pills a day. I say "I" because SPF is off on a business trip in Arizona. Have you ever tried to give a pill to a cat? Now imagine that times six. Times "until all medication is gone." There are a lot of pills. Liver protectants, appetite stimulants, antibiotics (because it might still be a liver infection), and I don't even know what else. Six pills a day. He hates me. But I love him enough to let him hate me as much as he likes. What other choice do I have?

New Window Installation

2009-07-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

The day of installation arrived. According to Pam, our project manager, the installers were supposed to arrive between 8:00 and 10:00 am. Seeing as how our track record on this project was not going very well, I decided to be up and ready at 7:30, just in case. But, like thoroughly reasonable and responsible people, they arrived at 9:20, prepared and ready to go.

Again, like professionals, they first took the order paperwork that corresponded with all of the doors and windows that they had brought with them and went around to each door, measuring, for the third time, every window and door. Within four minutes they had discovered that the paperwork for our kitchen door was incorrect and that the reverse door had been ordered. The two of them, extremely nice guys originally from some Eastern Block country with muted but recognizable accents, looked over the paperwork together to be sure that nothing was missed. They shook their heads and looked at me.

"Did you want this door to open in the same way that it does now?"
"Yes, all of the doors should open in the same way."
They shook their heads again.

The taller of the two told me that he would call his supervisor and report the incorrect purchase order (based on the paperwork that he was holding in his hands that had been sent to the window manufacturer) and that a replacement door would be ordered and shipped overnight to correct the issue. This process would take about a week, he told me. I thanked him and told him that I would call Pam and apprise her of the situation, just so that everyone would be on the same page. He sort of shrugged in a "do whatever you want" kind of gesture and I nodded. They started dragging in drop cloths, ladders, and a variety of tools while I dialed the all-too-familiar phone number.

Pam answered with the same sickly perkiness and I explained what had happened. She sighed and said, "Oh, why does this keep happening?" I didn't reply. "We have had this same problem recently, but I can see on my paperwork right here that we ordered it correctly." My ass. "But I will be sure to send out the new order right away." Yeah, right. I didn't cross my fingers.

So, another minor delay. No worries. The bulk of the work would be done before my family was to come into town for the San Diego ComiCon later in the week. The two workers (yes only two, and no I didn't catch their names) were amazing. They were quick, precise, intelligent, and very sweet. I would often hear them speaking in their native tongue, which I know wasn't Russian, German, Swedish, or Danish, but which may have been Polish or Czech, but as soon as I would enter the room, they would switch into a near perfect English. I thought that was nice. It made sure that I didn't feel uncomfortable with them speaking secrets that I couldn't understand.

I let them go about their job and tried to stay out of their way. I didn't think twice about answering a phone call from a number I didn't know about an hour and a half in to the project. The somewhat irate woman on the other end of the line was the property manager of our complex. Apparently, she had received an email from one of the HOA Board Members that morning saying that we had started work on our windows in violation of the CCNR's.

Crap.

Now I knew that we had not been completely in line with the rules, but when I realized that we had skipped one step about approval prior to work, I put together all of the paperwork and filled out all of the necessary forms to be sure that we didn't step on anyone's toes and didn't break any rules . . . well, any more rules. I had sent that paperwork over a week prior to the workmen arriving and hadn't heard a peep. Until now.

The property manager was furious. She began threatening us with lawsuits, fines, and other implied actions that I didn't really follow. She was incredibly rude, abrasive, and unrealistic. I apologized and explained that we had never before done any exterior improvements and weren't familiar with the protocol, but upon realization that I had missed a step I tried to complete the necessary paperwork and meet all requirements that I was aware of. I contacted their office to get the appropriate forms, so I was trying to be proactive.

She wouldn't hear it. She just talk at me huffily.

I tried to assuage her fears by telling her that, according to the paperwork that her office had sent me, our windows and doors were in compliance with the community regulations as well as in keeping with the new windows that had been installed by our neighbor only a few months prior.

She informed me that the HOA Board member who had contacted her (we will discuss this woman later) had told her that the window that she can see "from her unit" was not in compliance. I assured her that they all were. She replied, "even if they look like they are, that doesn't mean that they comply." Okey dokey.

So, trying again to find some sort of compromise, I asked her what she would like me to do.

"You need to tell your contractors to stop work immediately. You need to submit all of the appropriate paperwork including sketches of each window, exact locations, dimensions, specifications, and manufacturers information. It will be a minimum of thirty days before you can resume work."

As I stared out of my unit through the new breezeway created by the vacancy of metal and glass in my living room I laughed. I know I shouldn't have, but I couldn't help it.

I tried to swallow my laughter and I replied, as nicely as possible, "Yeah, that's not going to happen." I explained that I had giant holes in my walls where there used to be rickety, shoddy, single-paned glass windows and doors that shuddered audibly in their frames when a big truck would roll by. I was not about to send away my diligent workers, especially with the provided information (threat?) that no work would continue for thirty days. I thought, with an amused shake of my head, of my guests staying in my new guest room with a tarp stapled across the gaping breadth of the open wall.

She started to threaten me again with fees and legal consequences and I interrupted her, explaining that I would try to put together the additional paperwork that very day and send it to her. I preemptively ended the conversation with a "Thank you for contacting us, I will speak to you soon" and she gruffly said goodbye and hung up.

The actual consequences of my actions now beginning to take hold, I started to panic and nearly ran to my neighbors house, the one who had just had his windows redone earlier this year, and explained the whole situation. He laughed and laughed and laughed, then looked at me sternly and said only, "You should have given them thirty days to reply."

He went on to explain that he had followed protocol to the letter, but his thirty days came and went with not so much as a squeak from the HOA Board. When, in a frothy lather, he went to bang on the President's door asking for some answers, it turns out that the HOA hadn't even been given the paperwork from the property manager. Apparently she only reacts to crises and disasters as opposed to proactively maintaining her client needs.

Needless to say, I scheduled the final door installation one month from my most recent submitted paperwork. If they choose not to get back to me, they can bite me.

And so, the work. I went around the house the morning before the workers arrived taking pictures of all of our exposed doors and windows. I wanted to have a record of the starting point.

Master bedroom.

Spare bedroom.

As a side note, I keep moving the furniture in and out of this room. Lesson? Try to complete every project for one room at one time!! Alas, I had to move all of this yet again. . .

Living room and dining room.

Once the guys came in, they had every door and window out in about two hours. It was amazing. Two guys! I was incredibly impressed by their work, but also incredibly impressed by the amount of air that moves through this open window. It was kind of nice, like living in a castle or a Greek temple.

I liked this window being out as well. The air just flows down the stairwell. It was very refreshing.

And the crappy sliding glass door in the bedroom is gone!!! GONE I TELL YOU!!! Even if they had left it like this it would have been an improvement. Love it.

Of course, I wasn't the only one that loved it. Once I realized that I had three cats itching to get out of the house because of the strangers stomping around, I grabbed them up and tucked them away. One in a closet (don't worry, it's a walk in closet and I gave him food, water, litter, and a comfy bed) and the other two in a hallway blocked off with child safety gates. Once they were safe, I started sketching all the doors and windows painstakingly on graph paper. Stupidest thing I've ever heard . . .

And Voilà! The beautiful new three panel third-third-third window! I love this window! I love the beautiful white vinyl and the symmetry and the clean glass. SO FANTASTIC! (Of course, we have yet to hear from the HOA if this is acceptable. Apparently they do want three panel windows - not specified in any of the paperwork, by the way, it merely reads "horizontal sliding picture window" - but it has been indicated to me that they might have preferred quarter-quarter-half. Which I hate.) I mean, just look at this beautiful window!!!

Oh my gosh! And a functional sliding glass door that keeps out the noise, the UV light, the wind! And it opens and closes in a smart way so that the screen door can also open and close without catching on the door handle! SO INTELLIGENT!!!

Ah yes, the culprit. According to the paperwork, this window is to remain a fixed picture window. Remember when I said how nice it was that the air moves down the stairwell? My neighbor suggested that we install a slider here because HE did and loves it. He leaves it open all the time. And it is really nice. On the cooler days since we have had these installed, I have opened this window and the master bedroom door and the whole house stays cool and slightly breezy. It saves money, too, because I can turn the air conditioner off and just relax with nature's fan. Of course, we have yet to hear about this one, either. Though I do have precedent since my next door neighbor, our adjoining unit, has this same window. Sooooo, come on people.

See the pretty spray foam insulator! Cool, huh?

So it turns out that the "HOA Board Member" who ratted us out has nothing better to do with her days that sit and stare out her windows at the other unit owners and determine what they are doing wrong. She is a negative, witchy individual that drove by our unit nine times during the installation to stare and give evil glances, but she never once bothered to just come over and talk to me, adult to adult, owner to owner. I think she was frustrated that I didn't stop work immediately. Oh yeah, and she can only see the "culprit" window from her unit because of the landslide. Although she would have to use binoculars. Other than that, no one would ever be able to see this window except for a tiny little opening view when they drive by our unit on the private driveway into the complex. So yeah, I see why it is such a big deal.

New Window Purchase

2009-07-21T14:26:00.001-07:00

Since SPF and I first put an offer on our condo, we have wanted to upgrade the windows. The existing windows are single paned glass on rickety metal frames. There is basically no insulation and many of the windows have tangible gaps through which you can feel cold or hot air flowing, depending on the season. We spend entirely too much on heating and air conditioning, and most of that money goes right out the windows. Not to mention that we live on a relatively busy street and can hear everything. The worst of our windows, actually a sliding glass door, you can actually see through a gap in the door when it is "closed" because of poor quality and faulty installation.

About two months ago, we went to Home Depot to get some random supplies and saw a table set up at the end of one of the aisles with two guys discussing Home Depots window replacement services. We decided to stop and talk to them, just to see what kind of expense we were looking at for the future, and it turns out that they had set up the table to promote a 10% savings, no tax sales offer. We were intrigued and set up a home visit to talk more at length as well as get more specific figures to determine if we could feasibly get new windows.

The home appointment took about two hours and two friendly guys measured every window and went over all of the possibilities and options with me. It turns out that, due to the economy and a general struggle to get new clients and make new sales, the window manufacturer, Simonton, was also having a deal on top of the previous two offered by The Home Depot. This is beneficial for several reasons. First we would end up paying about 1/3 less on the final product with the purchase of the windows and the installation. Second, according to our neighbor who recently got new windows installed in his home, our electric and gas bill will be reduced by about half its current cost. Third, the value of our home will be instantaneously increased by the amount paid on the windows, resulting in a 100% return on investment. Fourth, since our previous windows were so poor and these new ones are top of the line, we will get up to $1,500 as a tax credit for upgrading. Lastly, we have a year to pay off the bill with no interest, no payments. All in all, over the course of this year, the overall cost of the windows will equal about 1/3 their original cost, we will see the benefit in our home value as if we had purchased them at full price, we can enjoy a more efficient home with better sound quality, and we don't have to pay it off for a year. (Of course, we will have it paid in full by the time the 0% financing option runs out.)

So, we decided to go for it.

The troubles are many.

Our salesman, a very nice but not entirely together individual, misquoted us on two of the products, one of which is our largest sliding glass door (we have three) which needs to apparently be made of sturdier and thicker glass because of the nature of its size. That would have set us back an additional $350, but as it was his error, he convinced them to let that slide. The other we were misquoted, and paid for, an additional $250, which was returned to us. I know this doesn't seem like a problem, but it delayed the windows by two weeks, meaning that we have paid our bit without seeing any return for that much longer.

As part of The Home Depot in home installation services, you are assigned a project manager who contacts you about the status of the order, helps set up the times for the final measure (done by someone more specific than the salesman, who merely measures for approximates), sets up the final install, and ensures that the customer (me) is happy and content with the progress and timeline of the project. Of course, the project manager's effectiveness is only theoretical. Ours, it turns out, was vapid beyond description. She was friendly with that sickly sweet film that lingers around the really mean popular girls in high school or the sorority girls at the house that is exclusive to perky blonds. You know the type that I mean, every phrase is nice, but the tone is derisive and arrogant. She used words like "super" and "girlfriend" and phrases like "this is going to be so spectacular." I know I sound petty here, but it wasn't so much what she said as the way she said it. She was icky. And ineffective, which bothers me much, much more. (As a side note, I hired the pushiest, bluntest, most arrogant wedding planner that I could because I wanted things to get done, so I can appreciate the occasional need to that type of behavior, but not when it comes to customer service.) She called me to set up the secondary measurement. And then never called me again.

But let's, for a moment, return to the secondary measurement. I was asked to be available between 10:00 and 11:00 for the appointment. No worries. I planned to be ready at 9:45, just in case the would be measurer was early. Don't get me wrong, I don't laze around in bed all day, but I have a bad habit of sitting at my computer in a towel for half an hour or so to check emails, play Farm Frenzy 2 or Wordscraper, and do anything else that I feel needs to be done before breakfast. Of course, none of these things are actually necessary for my survival, but it has become a habit. Don't judge me. This fellow showed up at 9:00. An hour early. I was lucky, really lucky, to be out of the towel and into real clothes. It bothered me that he was early by that much time. But what bothered me much, much more is that he spent about 8.23 minutes with me, running around and measuring all of the windows, handing me paperwork, and dashing back out the door. He actually seemed annoyed when I wanted to verify that he had the correct type of glass, type of window, and the additional feature of the keyed sliding glass door. He very brusquely described all of the windows and doors to be ordered and I barely caught that he didn't have the correct glass type listed. He muttered about the ineffectiveness of the salesman (who honestly did his best) and I wanted to say "well, the reason that you are here is to be sure that everything that will be ordered will meet my requirements in case the other guy missed anything. So, stop running around like chicken with his head cut off and give me the time of day before I spend all of this money." Needless to say, when he left I was less than confident that I was going to get the order that I had placed. He assured me (over his shoulder as he ran out the door) that my order would be placed that day (a Thursday) and that the project manager would contact me to schedule the installation on Monday.

So now let's return to the PM, let's call her Pam. I didn't hear anything on Monday. Nor Tuesday, nor Wednesday. Come Thursday I decided to call the number that (thank God) I had written down when she first called just in case I had any further questions. She made up some excuse (which was very long and intricate) about why she hadn't called me and informed me that there was some problem with the windows. Okay. She "wanted to verify the opening direction of all the sliding glass doors" because there was conflicting information between what her salesman had written and what her measurer had written. "Now, if you are inside and facing out, which way should the bedroom door open?" I told her from the left to the right. "I knew it," she exclaimed with a disgruntled and over-exaggerated sigh. "This one was mislabeled, because all of your other ones open the other way. I just knew this was a problem." "No," I hesitantly said, thinking very carefully about the other two doors. "The other two open in the opposite direction." "Oh, I see. Yeah, we have that written down correctly. Super! Thanks for checking!"

A lot of red flags went off at this point. Had the order even been placed? If yes, were the doors, any of the doors, going to be correct? And why had she not contacted me when this "issue" was first realized on her part. Or, for that matter, when she was supposed to call me initially to set up the install? If I hadn't called, would I ever have received my order? With too much enthusiasm, she assured me (at this point not very assuring) that she would contact me in one or two days time to be sure that the order had gone through and that the correct doors would be arriving. She would, she told me, at that point in time schedule the install. I didn't feel "super" good at the end of the call. Actually, I felt fairly certain that the order would arrive incorrect, if indeed it arrived at all.

I was not surprised when she didn't call back in one or two days time. Or three or four. Again, I called to see what was going on. Apparently there was yet another issue with the order. She couldn't tell me what, only that it was going to delay the order and the install.

The really bizarre part is that the next day the salesman showed up at my door with a form for me to sign saying that they had overcharged us the $250. Okay. I am still not sure if that is the problem that was originally referred to or not. Very strange.

I gave it a week (I had things to do) and then called Pam back, wondering if everything was set to go. "I was just going to call you, I had plans to call you earlier in the week, but then I didn't for whatever reason . . ." my house burned down, my dog ran away, I turned into an alien. I stopped listening and tried to interrupt her to see if we could actually schedule an install. "Sure thing! We can do . . . no, I've already booked that day" (then don't offer it to me) "Hmmmm, maybe we could do this Friday, but then again the doors might not be in yet . . ." (let's shoot for maybe having the product in before installing) "Okay, I can fit you in next Friday or I could probably get a crew in on Saturday." "Monday or Tuesday works best for me, actually." And so it was scheduled for Monday, the crew to be arriving between 8:00 and 10:00am "Though they will probably arrive between 8:00 and 9:00 just to get a head start." Which, technically, is still between 8:00 and 10:00.

We were given a sheet of paper discussing what we needed to do in preparation for the install - take down any blinds or curtains, move all furniture away from the windows, and leave a 4 foot radius around every window to be replaced (inside and out) to be sure that the work can be done. Pam assured me, yet again, that she would call on Thursday or Friday preceding the work to remind me of what I needed to do.

When she didn't call I was half tempted not to take anything down and to, instead, stack all of my furniture against the windows in protest of inadequacy. But, instead, I wrote it down in my date book and followed protocol.

A four foot radius around some of our windows is actually a pretty difficult thing to achieve. I had been wanted to move our bed to the center of the wall for some time. So, this was an excellent opportunity to do that. It is a beautifully crafted piece of furniture, and immobile as a dead elephant. To even think about moving it, it was necessary to take the cumbersome and unruly mattress off of the bed first.

Even with the weightless box springs, the two of us had to shove, prod, scramble, pull, and drag the frame the necessary two feet to the front of the room. I know it doesn't look like we did much here, but trust me, this was no easy task.

I left the drapes up in this room so that we could sleep unmolested by the streetlights and the early rising sun (which gets up about an hour after SPF, but still earlier than me) but this new space is wonderful and bright. We also moved his nightstand and replaced it with a folding chair that I could easily maneuver in the morning.

Everywhere else, the curtains came down (along with the rods because I want to raise everything by about an inch or two so that they don't drag on the ground). Take a good look at our doors. Say goodbye. (An interesting fact - this particular door is mounted so that the sliding part of the door is on the outside of the house. That doesn't seem like it would be a problem until you include a screen on that side as well. Then, you have to scrape the screen past the door handle just to open the one door and have the screen in place. It was one of the more insane aspects of our condo.)

Ahh! So bright! This glass is so thin and has no UV reflectance! So penetrating and evil! I'm melting! I meellttttinnnngggggg . . .

This is the door with the visible gap between the wall and the "closed" door. So stupid. Also, this is the door through which we get the most sunlight, which sets off the thermostat which is right behind where I was standing when I took this picture. So some places in the house are very cold while others are scorching hot. It depends where in the house is too hot or too cold based on what season it is. This doors leakiness as well as the placement of the thermostat are to blame.

So once all of the curtains, rods, and furniture were moved (we moved the garden outside this window after I took this picture) we were ready for the installers.

Check back later for that story. My fingers can't even begin to type that saga just yet. I need a break.

Crisis Mode

2009-07-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

I saw this Discovery Channel show once about how wildlife survives forest fires. We always think about everything running out in a mad panic, a la Bambi's family, but what I thought was interesting is that lots of animals can't escape via land, water, or air because they are too small. I don't remember what they said about small woodland creatures, but I do remember what they said about insects.

All sort of insects - centipedes, moths, spiders, ants - crawl into specific types of flowers that have a sort of insulation layer where the heat of the fire doesn't get them and, if the flower isn't actually burnt up, the insects can survive. What's interesting about this is that they are all in there together. Natural enemies, predators and prey, big and small, they all end up inside the same flowers just to survive. And the really fascinating part is that they don't attack or eat each other during the blaze. They have a sort of imposed truce associated with surviving the disaster, as if they all understand that the future of everything - of their lives and the lives of their spawn - depends on them coexisting harmoniously during the crisis.

The reason that I bring this up is that I have three cats that can't stand to be in the same room as each other without extreme hissing, fighting, and brawling. But right now, now when I have two guys in the house ripping out every existing window and sliding glass door in the place (more to follow) they are coexisting beneath the bed. There is no hissing, no bad blood, they are merely aware of a new threat and deciding, even needing, to be in the same place for safety. Nature is so interesting.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 12

2009-07-10T15:44:00.001-07:00

The Office is nearly complete. The two main problems with moving back down from Santa Barbara is that I lost my closets and I lost my dining room table. I also lost this hallway. As I mentioned previously, the repair work done by the HOA association on our interior walls resulted in our hanging art being taken off the walls. It all ended up here. Any additional art that I also had up in SB (a couple of new pieces that I acquired because I need to have art on the walls . . . need to . . . ) also ended up here. (This is a repeat image, for ease of storytelling.)

I didn't get an image of the dining room table when it had stuff on it, but trust me, there was a lot of stuff. There was no dining. No room. So, YAY to a clean dining room table. I really love it. Makes me happy.

And then the process of decorating all of the other spaces became an imperative. I want to get two other small images of matching size to place on either side of this one to really accentuate the long space. But I always liked this image. Kurt Ross. Really pretty and very simple.

Also, I have a lot of hanging art. This one is from a local artist, but I didn't know where to put it. I had some boxes on the top of this bookshelf, but why not think outside the box? I don't need to hang all of my wall art. Some of it can just be, sort of, leaned up against the wall.

I always liked this image. Once I get around to painting the hallway/vanity area of the office, the yellows here will pop and not be so out of place. This is still the green wall. It isn't so oppressive here, but it still is awful in the hall.

One of my best friends gave me this for my college graduation. I wore it that day. I dried it out and put it in this shadow box. I think it looks nice in the new spare bathroom. Plus, good memories.

This is my favorite. I always like to have one wall dedicated to family photos and snapshots. I am a photographer, yes, but there are different kinds of photographs. I don't always want the perfect, clean, art photo. Sometimes the snapshot of your childhood pet is the best image in the world.

This is also a favorite. My sister painted it of the two of us when she was in high school. She won a Best in Show award for it, it was written up in the local papers, and she gave it to me as a gift. She is incredibly, incredibly talented. With visual arts and with writing. I can only show you this, but trust me on both accounts.

My murder wall. Six ravens with room for an image of more. Different media, different cultures, different styles, but they all work together somehow. I love it. This is new to this house. Three of these were hung in Santa Barbara - one that I made and two gifts - and one was a Christmas present. Awesome.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 11

2009-07-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

So, as I left you the office, hallway, and closet were in disrepair. But, aha! On day 11 of this adventure, the closet has been demolished and can now be refilled, even though not yet remodeled. So, SPF started filling in the crawl space first. The remaining remnants of our musical instruments (now on the wall) went in towards the back. Because now they are out to be played!

But there was still a great deal of junk in the hallway that had to be dealt with.

And in the office.

One of the first things that I had to do was anchor this shelf - which was made originally in Indiana to hold all of the CDs that SPF had at the time with some extra space and has now been overfilled twice over, but still holds many - and that serendipitously fits in our closet with the shelf down.

Once it was anchored, I started to fill it up.

All the way to the top!

And then I crammed in everything from the hallway, the office, and everything else that had as of yet been displaced because of my move back down to SD from SB.

Lots and lots of stuff.

And then I cleaned up and was able to get the office back in working order.

Really nice working order.

With access to the hallway and the bathroom and everything!

Ahhh, awesome. An office/spare bedroom with a private bath and a view of the lagoon. Really, I couldn't do better if I were employed. Except for the whole compensation thing.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 10

2009-07-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

The progress of the office/spare bedroom now moves into the hallway to the private bathroom. The hallway which contains the closet and all of the stuff that doesn't fit in the closet. Which is a lot of stuff. Which is now back in the bedroom and the hallway. We have a lot of crap.

And a lot more crap.

And a crappy closet that has one shelf that is too high and not level. Stupid shelf. Stupidly designed closet. Unfortunately, this space isn't useful or functional at all. Pretty much we can't store things efficiently in here.

So we pulled everything out of the closet (refer to previous image of junk-ridden bedroom.) The empty closet, however, has to be demolished so that we can add some stuff back in. This closet is going to be redesigned just like the other closets in the house, but, financially, we need to save up a little bit before we can order it.

Upon the demolition, we discovered that the carpet was installed around one of the walls. The walls were poorly installed, but now we have a big hole in our carpet. Sigh.

Demoed closet!

And demoed spare bedroom. :(

The closet being out in the hallway and in the bedroom is distressing me greatly. My lovely spare bedroom has, yet again, become a closet in the interim. The major benefit of blogging a couple of days late is that I know the end of this story. You'll just have to wait and see. :)

In Lieu of Pressure

2009-06-26T12:25:00.000-07:00

I have been sort of lost this past week. Most of my time in the past three years has been dedicated to my degree, to learning as much as I can about photography and applying those skills in my art. I am at a loss now that the bulk of that education is completed. At this point I have to put a show together, which I could do with the work I have already created, put together my final document, of which I already have five different papers/prewriting exercises to use as fodder, and complete my defense, which will be done in front of my committee during the show hanging and for which I am already preparing by doing the photography and writing the document.

The show hangs in September (I hope) and I have set a personal goal for myself to get the writing done (first draft) by the middle of August. So I have almost two full months to prep. Which is infuriating to someone like me who prefers to be busy. If I had a job (still looking, no luck), I think I would be further along in my preparation for graduation than I am now. Because now, I have all day every day to dedicate to it and it is much easier to laze around and not do anything. WHAT?!?!? Sometimes I hate my stupid brain because of how intelligent and also how lazy it is. I can convince myself (and anyone else, mind you) that I am fully capable of putting together a show, a document, and a defense without so much as a misstep in a week. I can sit down and write six thousand words in one day with decent flow, continuity, and structure. I have also gotten much better at editing and, with the help of my beautiful and brilliant husband, can tear through those six thousand words to make them more fluid, contiguous, and structured in a matter of days. Okay, so that puts me at approximately two weeks for a full doc if you consider that I will be writing in parallel with editing and polishing.

Soooo, I sit around the house, look for jobs that I want (because I am not yet at the stage where I will apply for just any job, and certainly not at the state where I will go crawling back to my old life), watch TV, clean the house, and stare at the ceiling. Literally. Sometimes I lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling.

And now SPF and I are surfing twice a week, so two days a week I think about that, stretch, stare at the six bikinis that I own and determine which one I am going to wear, make sure the towels are clean and dry, the wet suits are rinsed and ready, the boards waxed, the car full of gas, and some sort of dinner ready in the fridge. (Yesterday I made a beet and caramelized onion salad (thanks JB!) and put it in the fridge and then we grilled chicken to go with it when we got home from surfing. Tasty!)

But what I really need to do is GET MY ASS IN GEAR! But, in lieu of actual pressure for the deadline, I seem to prefer to linger in the ocean, catch up on Avatar, and play Farm Frenzy 2 on Yahoo. (You should check it out.)

The Office - Take 2 - Day 9

2009-06-08T11:36:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in the previous blog, the next major accomplishment for this room is the decorating stage. For the most part we have the elements to decorate with already in hand, but for the room to really look new and fresh, we needed to address our futon.

The problem here is that the cover looks filthy. It isn't. It is actually pretty clean and gets laundered fairly regularly, but the pattern itself has worn out from use both as a couch and a bed. Ahh, you gotta love the futon. Mostly, though, you can tell that the cover was most heavily used, and loved, in the center of the pattern, where the blacks have faded to muddy browns and the creams have disintegrated into beige. You can tell what the pattern used to look like at the edges, especially on the right hand side.

So, it must go. Step one, make futon a bed for ease of removing cover.

Step two remove cover.

Step three, inspect mattress prior to new cover installation.

Step four, replace with brand new cover that matches the new color scheme of the room and is made of a sturdier material. Step five, position futon as bed again.

Step six, push back against wall. Step seven, accessorize.

Once the new futon cover and accouterments were in place, it was time to address one of the walls. One of the many things that I have learned from HGTV is that storage can be found in lots of places and with lots of clever solutions. In this particular case, we decided that this wall space could be used to store, display, and allow easy access to some of our possessions that are not used enough and are also hard to store well.

So we started with the Ibanez base.

Moved to my Fender Squire.

Followed by SPF's Samick.

And lastly SPF's Art and Lutherie acoustic. (As a side note, if you are in the market for a really wonderful acoustic steel string, this guitar is phenomenal. It holds tune tremendously well and has a rich, full tone. Highly recommended. Canada rules.)

This is the view from the other side of the room. It actually looks better in person. I sort of love this wall. And, as the desired result, we played each of them in the process of putting them up. What I really learned is that I need to play my base more and actually learn a real baseline rather than making one up. Although, making them up is awesome.

As of yet unhung is SPF's ukulele. We thought that the guitar holders wouldn't accommodate the small neck and head of the uke, but it turns out that we were wrong. As soon as I make it back out to Guitar Center, we should have another lovely addition to the fantastic new wall. SO GREAT! Honestly, I think I am going to play right now and then head up to the piano as well. I am trying to learn some Rachmaninoff and freshen up some Burgmuller on the piano, trying to remember my Beatles on the guitar (which SPF just repaired for me), and I have discovered that I love to play Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay. I sing along with what SPF calls a "bluesy voice." I am not even really certain how the vocals go and am making it up as I go along. So, I'm a vocal experimenter.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 8

2009-06-07T12:11:00.001-07:00

This will be the monster post. Even though the bulk of the heavy labor work was already done at this point, lots of the details remain to be completed, and the devil is in the details.

There is nothing more nerve wracking during a remodel than installing something on your newly finished walls. At this point, you understand what kind of work goes into any little repair, so any ding, scratch, mar, or hole seems like a gigantic problem. So, you try to prevent that. But, at the same point in time, you realize that you need curtains and curtains need a rod.

We already had this awesome two-fer curtain rod holder from The Office remodel 1. So, it was only a matter of measuring new holes (I wanted them to be a little higher this time because last time the sheers dragged on the ground a little) so I measured, used the level, and installed the first one.

Once the first one was installed, it wasn't that difficult to get the others in place as well. That first one just made me a little nervous. But, I conquered that fear. :)

Installed holders sans rods.

This is the first rod with the sheers. I wanted you to see the whole scenario. I don't know why. I think it is a cool design. At any rate, here are the sheers on the rod without being spread over the rod.

And here they are with even distribution. Immediately the light in the room became soft and warm. The harshness of the direct sunlight was cut down and diffused through the crinkly, cream-colored sheers. So nice.

The second rod installed contained the curtains. You can see at the very bottom that these curtains shrunk in the wash, but I don't really mind because the sheers are longer and more consistent. Plus, I love the brown buttons on the top of the curtains that match the oil-rubbed-bronze hardware. I think this look is really nice. Plus, the curtains are long enough to block the entire window, so when this is used as a spare bedroom, it will cut down the light for extra sleeping in.

The next stage, and often my favorite stage, of the remodel is redecorating. I had to get low on this one to be sure that you could see the image of Jim Lovell. This was a gift to SPF when he went into the Air Force Academy and one of the links between us. We both wanted to be astronauts. So much so that we both went to Purdue to pursue that goal way beyond our cute, initial "what do you want to be when you grow up" phase in life. Purdue has graduated the highest number of astronauts of any other university in the country as well as consistently graduating the highest percentage of female engineers. So, win win. Needless to say, neither one of us are currently employed with NASA, but SPF did get his physics degree. I am still hoping to be the first professional photographer/professor in space.

At any rate, since we both wanted to be astronauts and this is still a room of work/play/dreaming, I thought it was appropriate to hang the picture back up in here, on that wall where it lived for many years. It was serendipitous that the inner portion of the window matt matched already.

The room with everything in its place. Still with bear walls, but I will post any updates on that when I figure out what goes where.

A different perspective.

So, the next big project is going to be finishing the hallway and second closet in this room. At the moment, everything is sort of shoved back there so that the spare bedroom would be "done" for the purposes of pictures. However, this room has to be back in order by the time my in-laws come for a visit in a few weeks.

I also have a stash of various art wall hanging items in the hallway that needs to find new homes on the walls around here. I will have to deal with them as well because they block the walkway pretty severely.

But, at least the cats like the new arrangement.

When SPF got home on Day 8, I gave him two new professional grade outlets to install. One of the two that needed to be replaced had gotten loose (as in the plugs simply fall out when you push them in) and the other was nasty and one of the outlets had stopped working altogether. This one was the loose one. We turned off the power, checked it twice, and then he ripped this one out and had it back in the wall in no time.

Once the oil-rubbed bronze outlet cover was installed, this one was ready to go.

This one, on the other hand, was the one that had one dead outlet and was, as you can see, nasty and old. He suggested that I try my hand at electrical repair. Again, we killed the power, which also killed the only light in this room. I know you can't tell it from this shot (because my flash is so amazing) but it was dark in here and we were working with a flashlight at this point.

But, I got it loose and took it out.

Only to find five wires that we weren't expecting. SPF's outlet had three wires. Mine had eight. Nice.

So we stopped and thought. We evaluated where each wire was coming from and going to, what each purpose was, and what we would have to ensure to get them back in the correct orientation function without blowing a circuit or starting a fire.

Thankfully, we had a class on electricity and magnetism at Purdue with Professor Durbin with lots of circuitry mapping and schematic reading, and so we figured out that the outlet was a pass through in series with the subsequent outlet on the wall, which happened to be a switched outlet, hence the addition of several more wires.

So, I broke the gang link of the right hand side of the new outlet and started to curl the wires to screw them into the appropriate places.

Each wire had to have a little hook curled at the end to ensure that it would hold the screw and stay tightly attached to the outlet. So, I curled all eight of them.

Then I screwed them all in place and shoved the whole assembly back in the wall, screwing it into place as well.

Another oil-rubbed-bronze outlet, and voila!

So pretty. We are so close to being done on this room.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 7

2009-06-06T20:17:00.001-07:00

As expected, the work continues. Now that the mud is more appropriately smoothed over, I primed this wall again. Ahhh, smooth and white with no bizarre bumps or weird surface changes.

After the primer dried, on both the wall and the window sill, I started painting. Again, very excited with the progress, so I took pictures right away. This one was easier because I didn't have to worry about the corners being a different color or worry about overlap. The only place that I had to be careful was around the window, because the sill was going to be a much lighter, warm cream color.

After the that final wall was painted, here is what the room looks like! The furniture is still pulled away from the wall because of the wet paint, but we are at least getting somewhere. I love the new paint. Love love love. So close.

I know it is hard to tell, but the left half of this window sill is painted the new color, over the top of the white primer. It is subtle, but it makes a big difference. The mild orange hues in the wall paint and the soft yellow in this paint really work well together. I like the sill being lighter, feels like a welcome mat for the sunlight into the room.

I Did Not Expect That

2009-06-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

As I was walking around the house turning off lights so that we could head to bed, I glanced over at the couch. Our youngest cat was lounging lengthwise at the edge of the cushion, her belly drooping down over the edge despite that we have tried three different diets, reduced portions of food, and increased exercise.

My husband was lazily petting her as she purred.

With concern, I looked at him and asked, "If we have kids that are overweight, what are we going to do?"

"Use them as pillows."

The Office - Take 2 - Day 6

2009-06-05T13:48:00.001-07:00

Day 6. At this point I am just tired, so my blogging might be a little lackluster.

The paint finally dried with two coats and I was able to remove the tape from around the archway, the ceiling, the wall corners, and the door.

Despite appearances, the room is still a total disaster at this point in time. Everything is still shoved in the middle of the room and away from the now newly painted walls.

Since everything is dry, though, we started moving some furniture items back into place. Or, rather, moved them into their new places. This particular shelf used to live where the futon will soon live, so it has been moved to take up this portion of the accent wall. Once in place, we started to fill it up.

And continued filling until everything that lives on this shelf was back on the shelf and out of the way or off of the floor. With similar logic to our closet remodel, nothing goes back on the shelf without being cleaned and reevaluated. As this is my main photo shelf, though, pretty much everything went back on.

Then we pushed, wiggled, shimmied this shelf back into place as well. We didn't actually take anything off of this shelf before moving it, so I still need to go back and evaluate at some point in time. Just. Not. Now.

At long last, the futon finds its rightful home! Thank God. Now I can get into and out of bed more easily and, with this adjustment, we have a legitimate spare bedroom!

You can tell how many hours in a day we put in with these evolutionary images. By the time the futon was placed, we were pretty much ready to collapse. . . but everything that had been stacked on the futon in the bedroom was now neatly stacked on top of the bed. So, there was that.

Even though this image looks mostly done, that was really just because I wanted to see what the layout would look like. In reality, I still have to prime and paint that wall and the window sill (a different color) as well as hang the curtain rod, curtains, and clean. Still so much to be done.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 5

2009-06-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Admittedly there was a brief hiatus on progress while I returned to my MFA coursework, but this is the fifth day of work, so we continue. First things first, I primed the wall with the window, but I didn't like the results. The primer revealed some flaws with the skip trowel that I had done and I couldn't paint that wall. SPF later fixed this last night, but I was forced to alter my plan for the day and switch to the second wall. I added the painting tape around the doorway and the archway and started to prime with grey primer. (It is best for darker colors as it makes them more vibrant.) I wrapped the initial primer and paint color around the edges of the wall to be sure that there won't be any blank spots where the two paint colors meet. I want to be darn sure that green is gone. Forever.

Partially into my priming, Isis started to cry and cry and cry. Normally she is a very quiet cat and the only reason that she was in the room at all is because she has been fighting with Osiris and I didn't want to force the two of them to share space while I was priming. At first I ignored her, thinking that, despite what awaited her, she might actually just be lonely. But she persisted. So I started looking for her. The room is inverted at the moment. All of the furniture is in the middle of the room, which makes for excellent cat hiding places. I looked for her, but couldn't find her. Until the crying became frantic. At which point I realized that she was above me. On top of my photo cabinet. Call me cruel, but I grabbed the camera first and then proceeded to drag her, clawing and scraping, off of the top of the shelf. Then I just held her so that she would stop thrashing so that I could safely step down off the ladder. She purred and purred and purred. She couldn't figure out how to get down.

After that little incident I finished priming the walls and timed out how long it would be before I could apply the first paint color. In the time I had I decided to run some errands, so I went to the vet to get cat food, went to the bank, went to Home Depot for some more primer and paint, and then went to lunch. On my way back from lunch I went to the grocery store to fill up on essentials. For some reason our house has been out of basics for some time.

At that point, the primer had had more than enough time to dry, so I applied the first layer of paint. I shook the can before I opened it, but I don't think I mixed it up very well, so this layer seemed kind of thin in places. It may actually take three coats. No worries, I applied the first as best as I could, mixing the paint in the tray before applying it, and then covered every surface. At that point in time I reviewed our finances and paid bills and wrote a few emails that I needed to send. SPF got home and applied more joint compound with his patented technique and then, since there was nothing else we could do at the moment, we went to see Up. Beautiful film. I highly recommend it.

And so the first coat of our accent wall looks like this. I know it seems bold, but I like it. There is going to be furniture on this wall and art, so it will just have a bit of color in the long run. Either way, though, I think bold is exciting.

I didn't actually recognize that there was a lurking cat in this picture (or in the room for that matter) until I saw this image here. He is quiet, as well. No worries, he seems to avoid the wet paint, although he did have a sheen of wet drywall on his back and tail. The tail I understand, but the back as well?? It's a mystery.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 4

2009-05-28T18:55:00.001-07:00

Day four. The last day of the long weekend, the last day for progress in strides rather than wiggles. Day four, and finally the drywall patches are dry and we can prime and paint.

I took some photos of the wall after it was primed, but they looked just like every other photo. I tell you the room is green. We are not crazy. In the image below you can kind of tell that the ceiling is also green. I kid you not, they painted this entire room, every blessed square inch in that horrible, sickly, crazy-making, green-tinted white monstrosity. But now, now it is a warm color, a nice, subtle tan with just a hint of orange. I know what you must be thinking, but the hint or orange is so way better than the hint of green. Mostly because it is hinting while in an actual color, rather than hinting behind white. Hinting and sneering. I was so excited that I took this shot after just a few minutes of painting.

While I was busy applying the first coat, SPF was busy continuing with the new drywall edges in the window frame. So nice. Our drill only ran out of battery once. Good little drill. Good little husband.

The finished product. (Sort of, this is after one coat. I know not because you can see defects, but because it is still light outside.)

And the other wall as well. So much progress! And I only had to wait four hours to recoat. I know, that seems like a long time, right? Well, considering when I started the first coat on the first wall and when I finished the first coat on the second wall, I only had to wait three hours. Awesome, right?

So. Pretty.

Once he was done with the drywall installation he attacked the joint compound. At this point I was upstairs and blogging the first of these blogs, cleaning out my tools, and stretching my incredibly sore muscles. When he was done, he invited me down to look at it.

But it turns out that someone else had looked at it first. It wasn't difficult to figure out what had happened.

Nor difficult to find the perpetrator.

SPF immediately repaired the paw marks because the mud was still wet, but the second that he opened the door again, our other little girl ran in and went straight for the window sill. Exposed, helpless, vulnerable. Poor little window sill. I work in this office almost every day. Usually both of the girls are in there with me. They get up on the window sill maybe once every three days for a second or two before deciding that the fun is really in sitting on my open computer while I am trying to retouch images or walking on the desk in front of my face while I am trying to type. So it makes total and complete sense that both of them, within minutes of each other, would sneak into the room and immediately try to climb onto the sill. Yep.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 3

2009-05-27T19:09:00.000-07:00

Update number three on "the progress." Day three was a highly productive day, but now that I am seeing the images here, it doesn't actually look like much. It was, trust me.

Let me try and convince you.

First, the drywall patches weren't quite dry - still - but that didn't stop me from preparing for the actual painting. So I put tape up across the ceiling, plastic on the floor, and started to twiddle my thumbs.

SPF, on the other hand, was busy finishing off the demo of the weird archway and replacing the rounded corners with fresh drywall patches. Tasty!!

Ahhh, cornerbead. These lovely little metal additions are going to change our stupid room to an amazing, modern, crisp, sharped-edged wonder. Love. Them.

I didn't take a ton of pictures during this phase because I was busy applying the drywall tape and joint compound over the new corner pieces. It is a fantastic job that can be quite messy and tiring on sore and not very highly used muscles, but it was so worth it. Even though the mud isn't dry in this shot, you can already see the glorious, glorious edginess of our new walls. Nailed it.

In the mean time, back when I was still twiddling my thumbs, I removed all of the books from bookshelf number two, which at this point had been moved into the center of the room to allow access to wall number two, and SPF helped me move the shelf itself into the bedroom so that I could refill it in its new home. This helps because it gave me something to do and it also provided some aforementioned much needed wall space in the office. A different perspective of the new bookshelf locations. (It isn't as crowded as it appears from here. It's actually pretty nice having something in this room on that wall.)

And while I was slathering mud on the archway, SPF was busy demoing and cutting new drywall for the window edges. So nice.

And if I still haven't convinced you that we worked all day, let me add that we went out to breakfast, went to Home Depot, and saw Terminator: Salvation. But we worked so hard that we couldn't go to dinner before the movie at the steakhouse we were going to go to, but went to Rubio's instead, only they were closed because it was so late at night, so we ended up getting hot dogs in the theater. (So, does that help or hurt my argument?)

The Office - Take 2 - Day 2

2009-05-26T16:55:00.001-07:00

In yesterday's blog I mentioned that we were having a space problem with all of the new stuff that I had accumulated in Santa Barbara that was now being introduced to San Diego. One of the items found its home fairly quickly because it used to live here before I moved. My letter desk quickly nestled against its familiar wall where it is out of the way but still functional while at the same time adds some much needed personality to the room. That got me to thinking.

Even though the rest of the room is crazy crowded and makes no sense, there is room on that one wall at the foot of the bed. The room is crowded temporarily because the futon that was my couch up in Santa Barbara is now wedged between my side of the bed and our dresser. There is barely room to walk, and if I need access to the dresser, I have to drag and push the futon until I get a tiny bit of clearance in the drawers. Not the ideal situation. But, then again, we are rearranging the office to accommodate the futon, so some things have to come out of the office no matter what.

The nice thing is that bookshelves take up a lot of wall space, but not a large footprint. So two of the bookshelves have been slated to move to this room to free up the wall in the office while also providing something to look at, as well as defined "wall space", in the bedroom. The nice thing about defining the wall space is that I can hang some of our numerous paintings, photos, drawings, and posters back on the walls. The painting in the image above I hung just shortly after moving back down because it seemed to fit perfectly in the new bedroom. Not only was it a good size for the available space, its frame matches the hardwood furniture and the color scheme of the painting itself matches the new paint color on the walls. Serendipitous, but not planned.

The next stage was to prepare the office for painting. We moved all of the heavy and large objects off of the left wall in preparation to prime and paint that wall. There was a small, but not insurmountable, hole in the wall where SPF had done some phone line repairs. It needed to be patched, which I did right away, but the dry time of the joint compound pushed back our timeline for the painting. I patched the other random nail holes, staple punctures, scuffs, and scars in the wall and we went to the zoo. As a side note, the San Diego Zoo just opened up a new exhibit called Elephant Odyssey that spans nearly the whole eastern side of the zoo with a huge area for the elephants to walk, play, and swim. Yes, swim. They have an elephant sized pool at the end of the exhibit. Freaking awesome.

When we got back, we returned to the demolition of the archway. The patch in the wall was still not entirely dry (it was fairly thick) and so we watched Young Guns II and Galaxy Quest to close out the day before hitting the sack. Don't judge. The benefit of doing your own remodeling is that the workers are on your schedule.

Fear not, we ramped it up in the next two days.

The Office - Take 2 - Day 1

2009-05-25T20:04:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. You are all thinking, didn't you just finish the office?? Well, yes and no. Since the office reorganization in January, quite a lot has happened. The most major event would be that I moved out of my Santa Barbara apartment and back down to SD full time. This is a big deal for a lot of reasons, not only that I get to spend more time with my husband or that I am unemployed or that I stay home all day, but that all of my accumulated stuff from up there is now down here. If you recall, when we did the original reorganization of the office (and subsequent remodel of the office closet) it was to better utilize the space that we had, which was minimal. Now we have to fit another 300 sq ft of life into this place. A life that I lived in SB for three years. I lived fairly thinly up there, but I did grow to fit the space.

The main obstacles that we have to incorporate into this space would be the futon, the equipment, and all the books. The office closet now accommodates all of the equipment. I know, I'm as surprised as you are. If there was one thing I didn't skimp on when I was in school it was the equipment. So . . . what to do? We felt that another remodel/reorganization was in order.

The starting conditions. (If you look back at The Office blog in January you will see almost the same picture, but with more carpet and less TVs in the middle of the floor.)

One of the things that we realized is that we have hated this room for a long time, for a lot of reasons. The first, which you can't really tell above, but more so below, is that the room is painted this very faint, very sickening shade of white tinted with green. It was subtle, so much so that you actually think you are crazy to think that it is green, but it is. You just know it. In your bones. It is horrid. So, first on the list - repaint the room an awesome color.

The second issue that we have had is that this room has all rounded corners. I don't necessarily have anything against rounded corners. My father's house has them and it is a lovely house. But, my father's house has them consistently, throughout the house, and done well. Ours, not so much. This is the only room with rounded corners, and not every corner even in the room is round. This archway here and the edge around the window are rounded. It is maddening if you are OCD like my husband and I both are. So, second on the list - fix the corners.

And so, yet another project turns from a relatively easy concept (painting) to a full on demo, drywall patching, mud slinging extravaganza. We certainly do know how to balloon our work load. So, the demo begins . . .

Third on the list seems simple enough, but will take some creative thinking. Third is that we need more space in this room. Lots more. Enough to put a futon comfortably against a wall in such a way as it can be utilized as a guest bed. I'll get back to you on that one.

My Garden

2009-05-21T16:53:00.001-07:00

I have always been an avid gardener. When I was growing up, my father had bare root rose bushes lining the back wall of the yard. There were maybe ten bushes, all different colors, and one of my favorite summer pastimes was to tend to them.

When SPF and I moved out here, we first had an apartment with a balcony (actually, make that five different apartments with various forms of balconies) but never a yard. Then we moved into a little cottage by the beach that was where we would still be living today had we not been forced to leave when the owner sold. (We would have bought it, mind you, if it hadn't been running 750K. No, I'm not kidding.) The little cottage had an ocean peek and a giant yard filled with a flowering ivy that attracted the most wonderful butterflies and hummingbirds. Along one of the walls, there were also three rose bushes that I tended because the gardening service hired by our landlord seemed only capable of mowing the ratty lawn and trimming the prolific bougainvillea. I loved that cottage.

In a mad panic, however, we were forced to move. Despite our hurried timeline we decided to purchase our own house. Something practical that would be an investment instead of a financial drain. We have been here now for six years. It's main problem - no yard. I started to long for blooming life again and soon bought three pots and three roses. The first, true to any romantic's heart, was the velvet red.

After that I tried various combinations of other flowers and plants, but the only ones that I could manage were the roses. But I tried, none-the-less. When the landslide struck, we were given, to babysit, a sickly jasmine on a climbing lattice. At the time I was under the impression that we would be returning the jasmine to her owner and was so greatly distressed at how poorly she fared under my care. But, my care was limited. Soon after we got her, I went off to school and the maintenance of the garden was left in other hands. The roses and the succulents did fine. The pine tree that started to grow out of an abandoned pot thrived. The little jasmine struggled and choked for life.

A little over a month ago, my mother came out and we decided to do a project to rejuvenate my little, concrete patio and turn it into something living, something comforting and blooming. In a stroke of miscalculation we ended up with too many small flowered plants and in desperation, I planted the remaining Elysium and blue flowers in the pot with the jasmine. Today, they are all thriving.

Around the rest of the garden we planted geraniums, snapdragons, daisies, petunias, impatients, and the fabulous little flowers that look like orchids but are of sturdier making. They are fantastic. Along one wall we are growing our own tomatoes, limes, mint, parsley, and basil. The whole garden is alive with color and the fresh scents of jasmine, roses, lime, and mint, which together make for a bouquet of inviting life.

And invite life, it did. One of the problems with having the garden would be the pests. In this case, my greatest fear. Beneath one of the pots of snapdragons, Elysium, and blue flowers lived the deadliest spider in North America, despite the fact that everyone I know told me that they didn't live in California. In an interesting twist of fate, my fear of this spider in particular was moderated by my desire to get a shot (and proof) of its existence in the way that I could manage to get close enough for this shot while maintaining a safe enough distance to preserve my limbs. The Macro mode on my G10 requires a certain proximity to the subject of choice, and so I am much, much closer to her than I would normally be comfortable with. But alas, the camera functions for so many of us as a kind of courage. It is an instrument set between us and danger. A wall. A barrier. A shield. It doesn't seem to matter that it actually has no real protective integrity.

The Office Closet

2009-04-28T14:30:00.001-07:00

I promised you pictures of the latest round of remodeling work. We had so much luck with easyclosets.com the first time around, we decided to put another one in here. I should have taken an image of the closet filled, because this single shelf with all hanging is possibly the worst use of closet space in the history of closets. That and it was installed poorly and ultimately crappy. However, this is the before image that I have.

There are several steps missing here. This is due mostly to the fact that I wanted to get things accomplished, so stopping to take images of the process didn't fit into the schedule. I had very little time to demo, repair, prime, and paint. All of that happened before JQ and JB came down to visit. When they were here, the closet was painted, but it was only walls. About a week later, the easy closet arrived and I started to install it.

The system is nice because it comes with a track that all of the vertical shelving hangs on. These images show the verticals in place with some of the cam shelving starting to be installed.

Once the verticals are in place, you lock in some cam shelves (which can really be put wherever you like, beautiful design) and then arrange as you see fit.

I had to move some of the shelves once I started to actually put equipment and other pieces in here because the records were too high to fit the way I had arranged the shelves. SPF is irritated (in a cute way) because they don't run across the whole line, just the one shelf is off the path. He says that he is going to change it someday. I encourage it. We are both crazy.

This is a fairly briskly thrown together composite shot of how the closet functions now. Before the closet was installed, most of this stuff was strewn about the office floor. This is all of my equipment for my business. This is a much, much better use of space and soooo functional that I will be posting the next closet project as soon as we can save up enough money for the job.

The one empty shelf was supposed to be for SPF's linoleum printing supplies. It now houses another three cameras. I have a problem.

Rampage

2009-04-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

I have been on a rampage the last two days. I am not certain if I am manic depressive (oh boy howdy is there some evidence to support that theory) or if I really just need to be active and engaged to be happy. Yesterday I demolished a closet (images to follow), fought for my rights (I almost spelled that "writes", ironically) regarding an article that I wrote and the subject edited, repaired the drywall where I had made new dents during the demo (which was hilarious fun, I should have taken more pictures to show the bizarre, in-between stage where the shelf was stuck in place but there were no more nails holding it to the wall...kind of a puzzler), pruned my whole garden, assembled two metal shelving units, reorganized the garage, went shopping for ladybugs (to eat the aphids that are in turn eating my roses), dinner, and cat litter, changed the cat litter, folded the previously washed laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and cooked half of dinner. It was a thoroughly bizarre amount of work considering that I am usually sitting at this very computer on Facebook or checking email or doing anything that is not manual labor that will make our lives better. Making our lives better makes me happier.

So, today I have primed and painted the previously demoed and repaired closet, painted the third bathroom, started to do the laundry from this last week, wrote a page and a half of questions for a new article, made myself lunch, and am about to start the second coat of paint for the closet and bathroom. The only reason that I am blogging is because I can't apply the second coat for another thirty minutes. Stupid dry times.

Why the sudden rampage of activity? My sister and brother in law are coming down this weekend and I want the house to be nice for them. Nice meaning I want them to have a bathroom of their own, a dining room table to eat at (which is as of this moment still the over filled "craft" table), a clean house (haven't started that process yet), and a gourmet menu of tantilizing treats. The latter would be because my b-i-l is a super magnificent chef and I don't want to throw some frozen dinners or pot pies into the oven when he stops by. At the moment, he knows that I can cook desert and is fairly certain that I will be making cakes and pies for every meal. Until he voiced this concern, that is exactly what was going to happen. Now I feel as though I need to learn how to cook real food. We usually grill real food, but my sister doesn't eat beef, so I need to come up with something other than filets on the barbie. How does a barbeque chicken cheese cake sound?

Spring!

2009-04-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

I am certainly a spring baby. And not just because I was born in spring, but because I am rejuvinated by it. I am enriched by the sun and the green smell in the air. I love being in my garden. I love being surrounded by growth and life.

Best Sentence Ever

2009-04-03T19:40:00.001-07:00

"You're fighting me, you can't be mad at me!" - SPF

Where is the sun?

2009-04-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

I am very sad today. I am actually often very sad. Sad that I don't get out of the house. Sad that I don't have a reason to. And one of the things that gives me the greatest joy these days is being out in my garden, but it is very cold outside today, and my garden has been watered. The sun is out, I am certain, as the world hasn't stopped turning and we haven't disintegrated into debris, but she is hiding. Apollo makes his trip around the world, but doesn't heed the cloud cover beneath him.

Demeter whispers over my roses whether or not I am there to try and listen. There are bursting yellows, vibrant oranges, and, of course, the flawless velvet red. The aphids were destroyed by the ladybugs. The jasmine perfumes the air, though the hummingbirds prefer the lime tree.

In the irony of life, I wept when I felt I had found my purpose. I thanked the man that showed me the way, cried while smiling. I wept again when that purpose failed me and I was forced to see the world through cynical and bitter eyes again. I still weep for the fleeting nature of that dream. I am on a precipice where she is concerned, so often tired and alone by design. I don't want to be alone in this.

Move It, Shake It

2009-03-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I am better now. I do hate being at home all the time and am greatly going to miss my studio up in SB. It serves as my place to go and be a photographer. It is my space. And now I can't afford in anymore and feel irresponsible if I leave the house because I am spending money on gas, money on food, money on existing outside these four walls. But that is just it. Inside these four walls I don't always exist. Outside them, I do. I just need an actual paycheck to make that feel more like I earned it and less like I am leeching. I don't want to leech. I don't want to be a kept woman or a home body. We have no kids, so it is not justified for me to be home all day. I realize that I can use this time to be creative, can use this time to focus on making my work for my final show, but it is hard to do that. It is hard to decide to be productive in the same way that other creative people are productive.

When I was writing my second novel I would come home from work and sit down at my computer for sometimes three or four hours a night. In some ways writing takes you away to a new place, allows your imagination to create whatever you want. It can be a very liberating, very exciting journey. Photography has a very different feel for me. I can create images, sure, I can set up the landscape of my choice, the props, the costuming, but that preproduction doesn't flow as quickly and easily as you can write a story. (I am not saying that there is not preproduction to good writing, mind you, there is a ton of it, but when I write, I write what comes to me and worry about the editing later.) With photography, one of the things that I always mention when I am teaching or lecturing is that you should have a ton of preproduction. You should make the image exactly the way you want it to turn out and do a tiny bit of post to make those elements perfect that didn't come together naturally during the shoot. There is less room for imagination in a lot of ways. Less room to play when the actual creative act is at hand.

At any rate, at this point in time I am using these four walls as my studio, shooting a project that doesn't stimulate my creativity nearly at all. My intellectual side, maybe, but not my creative. Which is why I have to get out of the house. Go anywhere, do anything. That is the beauty of a laptop, the freedom of a G10. I don't need the set up, don't need the studio just to live, just to find that place where I exist beyond this insanity and find some peace in the moment. And the air always feels good through an open car window in spring, driving down the highway.

Home Body

2009-03-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

I have become something I never wanted to be. I cannot find a job that I can actually take and want to take. I am not being picky here, but I think it is important that I find a job either in photography or teaching and most of those jobs I either don't ft the qualifications or they are too far away for me to feasibly apply. Different state far away. Different country. And I am feeling more and more of this pressure to make good on the promise to myself and others that this degree would lead to something. That I would be the better for the time spent, the frustrations endured, the pain, the money, the choices. And here I am, not producing. Not making any money with my hundred thousand dollar education.

I am frustrated equally by the money and tribulations as I am by the failed principles at work. I promised myself that I wouldn't squander this education. When I got my first degree I hit a bump in the road and got scared off the road (Physics) and then got a little bored and stopped working (Senioritis) and ended up with a 3.75 when the honors cutoff was 3.76. I know that may not seem like squandering to you, but had I achieved the easy A in linguistics that I very easily could have gotten, I would have that golden rope. I would have actually been in the top ten percent that I deserved, prior to my poor behavior. I would have been demonstrably worthy.

Yes, these things matter to me. This is why I have a 3.99 GPA now. Over the last three years I have gotten two A-'s. One the session that my grandfather died and I missed a week of classes (keep in mind these classes are seven weeks long) and one in Art History that I still don't know how I could have done better. I don't regret either of them because I never stopped trying. I did my best work for everyone, for every assignment. And if I didn't pass an assignment I reshot it, every time. There isn't a single assignment in the undergraduate program that I didn't pass. There isn't anything that I skimped on, any time when I fell down in my duties as a student.

But now look at me. None of that seems to have mattered. The dedication that I applied, and have always associated with success because that is always what I was told, hasn't led to anything. Out of my classmates, I am not one of the ones that is employed. I haven't been published. I haven't won any contests, been in any juried shows. Even in art, it has always been a balance of talent and hard work that has been the recipe for success. That was always what I was told. But I am getting more and more tired and more and more poor. At this rate, my husband and I can live for another 3.5 months before we need a second income to pay the bills. 3.5 months. Maybe I screwed myself over with my BA too much to recover now. Maybe I should have been a physicist. Maybe I should have stuck that out and the fact that I didn't means that my potential was squandered ten years ago when I left the program when I was third in the class. Now, I am merely another graduate student with excessive student loans and absolutely nothing to show for any of it.

Oh No

2009-02-11T11:32:00.000-08:00

I have just finished reading Chapter 4 in "The Artist's Way", which I have admittedly been reading again for way more than four weeks, but for whatever reason I have not been terribly diligent. I hope to be more so this week, which means that I will not be reading or watching TV for one week. That wouldn't be so bad if I had a job or any sort of hobby that took me out of the house ever but, alas, I guess that is the point. Apparently I should be finding some sort of bubbling up of energy and creativity as a result of taking away the distractions of my life. It makes sense, it really does, but I am barely twenty minutes in and already stir crazy. (This is due, in part, to the very interesting new book I started reading called "The Shadow of the Wind" that my old boss gave me. I don't really want to put it down for week. It is also due to the Dexter Season 2 DVD that we will be getting in the mail, the two "The Office" episodes on the TiVo, and the "Battlestar Gallactica" that we have been avoiding because of the raw emotional state that the returning episode left us in last month. There are three new ones crossing their arms and tapping their toes and impatiently raising an eyebrow at me every time I turn the tv on. Well, ha. I can't watch you, it is my assignment this week.

Speaking of assignments, though, I also have two articles to read for class as well as a midterm to study for. But I realized something about that. Yes, I am a good student, but that doesn't seem to matter here at all. The Academic side is really sad and quite frankly a joke. Individuals who do half the work (the half that doesn't require reading the articles and writing responses) still get A's in the class. So maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe not reading this week is somehow serendipitously tied to my own growth, seeing as how one of the things that keeps bringing me down is how mediocrity is rewarded and hard work is never recognized. Okay, then. Maybe it is time to allow that mediocrity to do whatever it wants while I recognize that it is also okay to not fulfill that particular goal this week as part of a greater growth that I am currently not receiving at school.

Fairly certain that you will get LOTS more posts, though.

Cat Surgery

2009-02-03T22:18:00.000-08:00

I watch too many hospital procedurals. So many, from the ER of my youth to the House of today, that I am familiar with the medical language, the red-tape bureaucracy, the emotional dilemmas. It is something else entirely when you, in real life, are presented with a document that informs you that your loved one will be in the best possible care but you still have to sign a consent waiver indemnifying the doctors if anything goes wrong resulting in injury, disability, or death. It is an impossible signature to make.

Even if that loved one is your cat.

My darling boy, my sweet, loving, cherished one had surgery today. He was under anesthesia for four hours. Longer than they anticipated so he was dosed with additional drugs halfway through. He loves me. Completely. I am his favorite thing in the world and I signed a piece of paper saying that it was okay if they killed him. That I understood it was, as all surgeries are, a risky procedure. Blue ink on a fresh laser print legal document and then they took him away, all smiles and reassurances, and I left him there all day.

He is fine. The surgery went well, despite the delay, and he was reported to have been an ideal patient. All of the nurses and doctors love him. One of them told me that she was jealous that my cat was so sweet and loving. But he loves me. And I can't help but feel that I did him wrong somehow, even though he needed the surgery and would have been a great deal of pain very shortly had he not had it.

It does make me worry about kids, though. It was hard for me to sign that piece of paper. Hard for me to say goodbye. I am a natural born pessimist. I always assume the worst, which means that I am rewarded with good news a great deal of the time. But feeling as if I wouldn't see him again, believing, in a horrible part of my chest, that he was being taken away in a maroon carrier to be laid to rest on an operating table was painful. It was awful. If my cat, even though I love him dearly and would leap in front of a Mack truck to save him, elicited this much of a response, my children will drive me to insanity. My own flesh and blood will permanently raise my hackles in defensive mode. My soccer mom arm will eternally be outstretched in support of the appropriately worn seat belt. My momdar will sense every broken curfew, every white lie, every broken heart with stripped down sensory reactions.

Parenthood is going to be a bitch.

(Side bar to my parents, there is not a little one on the way, this is merely conjecture. Sorry if I got your hopes up.)

Get Me the Hell Out of Here

2009-01-28T09:52:00.001-08:00

I just saw an infomercial for a new fitness regime called "Flirty Girl." On the whole, no big deal. Sexy dance moves that you can use to get in shape, not really a new concept.

Until they encouraged you to ask your infomercial operator how you can try your own Flirty Girl Fitness Pole in your home for 30 days for just $1.00.

Fitness Pole.

I hate being home during the day. I need a freaking job.

Tiny Distraction

2009-01-26T14:12:00.000-08:00

I was supposed to be meeting one of my MFA committee members for a discussion of a job application, my MFA project, and my CV. He was characteristically late. Not to worry. I thought instead I would write a new artist statement to fit with the body of work I intend to send as part of the job app. But, alas, I was more fascinated by the kitten curling about the legs of the wooden chairs on the patio, tangling up her body harness leash and preventing her lurches for freedom in greater increments. She was a beautiful little thing, lithe and golden, speckled like a leopard. She was drawing attention I think because she was a cat on a leash, but her coloring and tenacity should have been more highly regarded. She almost knocked over the leash-bearer’s venti chai three times. He became fairly spry in redirecting her, the leash, and the chai in a fervent dance to avoid disaster. The most amusing thing of all is that he would read a quarter of a page or so of his paperback before repeating the whole scenario again. Perhaps she inherited the tenacity from him.

The Office

2009-01-08T15:26:00.001-08:00

As part of finishing the closet project we revealed the actual state of the spare bedroom, which was not good. The space was poorly used and had been under a heap of closet junk for so long that new piles had formed on the outskirts of the disaster zone, creating little tide pools of mini-disaster. Every available shelf was utilized, but not well or in any semblance of a cohesive or comprehensive order. Little piles of "give away" and "I need to deal with this" cropped up and we were faced with the fact that, despite the closet success, the spare bedroom was still hopelessly useless.

I can't actually impress upon you how much worse it was before we removed the closet droppings, but believe me, these two images are already a 100% improvement of what it was, but that is not to say that the room was in good shape at all. (Notice the table lamp hanging next to the window. That was our only light source in the room. Also notice the inappropriately sized wooden horizontal blinds.)

So we started the process of refining the mess. The nice thing about deciding that you want to reorganize a room is that all heavy furniture must first be cleared of any weight, which meant that all of the bookshelves and the photo shelf had to be cleared of every item prior to reorganizing the room. This process took several days because we applied the same logic here that we did on the closet: nothing goes back on a shelf that is not being kept for a specific purpose and that will be used again.

Clearing the shelves was the first task. We started with the left side of the room. (Again, notice the lamp. Tacky, we know.)

Once emptied, the shelves could be refilled. The photo shelf was fairly easy because it holds mostly images, negatives, prints, and equipment. All of those things are still being kept, so I was able to weed out the few old frames and unwanted shelf debris fairly quickly. SPF's bookshelf was another matter entirely. The heaps of books and memorabilia laid in the middle of the room for another day. (Notice the lamp is gone. That would be because we accidentally knocked it down while moving the corner bookshelf and it shattered. I didn't know paper could shatter, but it can, and it did.)

Once that pile had been addressed, we had new piles of give away books and I started with the right side of the room. We were also able to put the Papasan in a logical and functional place. We were also forced to determine a new way to light the room, so an actual floor lamp that can fill the room with 150watts of light was purchased from Home Depot Expo. It turns out to be a much better, and much more elegant, solution to the lighting issues of the room.

Once the left side of the room was stabilized, we moved everything on the right side of the room to get access to the coveted space by the window. I wanted to set the desk up in this area because it has nice light, it is at the back of the room, and where it was located it was in the way the moment you entered the room. Seeing as how I am going to be staying down here a great deal more but am still self-employed, I needed a space that I could work that felt a little more feng shui. This is much, much nicer. (Notice that the wooden blinds have been replaced with cream colored sheers and drapes that were retasked from the living room as well as a new, and very fancy, double curtain rod that holds both the sheers and the curtains.)

Then I was faced with putting everything in the middle of the room back onto the shelves. I was able to get rid of so many things that we didn't need anymore (for example, receipts from the wedding for flowers and what not) that we were able to take some of the overflow of SPF's bookshelf and put it on mine. Even better than that, we have available shelves for future use, as of yet undesignated.

In these images the room still looks a little cluttered, but that will soon pass as well. The thing about cleaning out what you don't need to this extent is that you end up wanting to clean every space, wanting to weed out all of those old furbies and sweatshirts and novels that you hated or textbooks that you never understood. Good by "Chemistry the Easy Way" (my ass) and hello open, fabulous space. So...a lot of the clutter that is currently in this room is really clutter from the hall closet that has now been emptied so that I can start the demo.

Back in the Closet!

2009-01-08T11:49:00.001-08:00

As of last night we have officially moved into the new closet! We didn't photographically document the process, sorry, but I wanted to give you a brief recap of what we did do so that you can see how amazing this new closet really is!

Remember that when we started the original closet was poorly installed with only two tall shelves and hanging bars along either wall. Also, remember that the electrical box backs up to the shower wall. Yeah, smart. Not our fault, but we waterproofed and protected it from the backside. When the closet was originally installed the shelf supports were not attached to studs, so the supports, the shelves, and the drywall all buckled and sagged. It made for fun times when a large, heavy truck would roll by on the driveway above our unit - things would go flying. And imagine the fun when we had our earthquake. In the images below you have the initial status of the closet. Notice the middle image, where the support structure is peeling away from the shelving. Yeah.

So, we ripped out everything. The shelves were torn down, the drywall cut out where it was destroyed, the old tile removed, the light fixture moved to the middle of the closet (I know, clever, right?) and the whole closet was retextured, reprimed, and repainted. These would be the three steps illustrated below. SPF retextured with a fun little funneling texture spray gun thingy and I primed and painted. We also continued the gorgeous reddish brown tile from the bathroom into the closet. I did a lot of that.

Two major components are not pictured here, so let me describe them.

One, everything that was in the closet was taken out and placed in our spare bedroom for safe keeping until the closet was done. This was the case for months. The spare bedroom became a giant, horribly organized, desheveled mess of clothes, boxes, toys, equipment, gear, a dresser, and junk. It was insane. We no longer had a spare bedroom. Instead, we had another giant walk-in closet that was sadly intimidating. We didn't want to go in that room at all. It was icky.

Two, we ordered and installed a premade closet from the wonderful and highly helpful people at easyclosets.com. If you need a new closet, please go here. These people are wonderful. And be sure that you call them and talk to them before you order it because they have wonderful input and advice. The shipment came one Tuesday morning in fourteen boxes delivered by a very friendly, but initially annoyed, UPS man. He could only shake his head and chuckle when I flung open the front door shrieking, "Do you have fourteen boxes for me?!?" SPF installed the entire closet structure in about an hour, he says. There is no documentation because I wasn't here. However, there is also no documentation of the process of taking the dreaded closet room and transferring it back to the rightful location of actually in a closet. I had one rule. Nothing goes into the closet that hasn't been evaluated and determined that we are going to use it again and actually want to keep it. This process resulted in a car full of items to be sold to second hand clothing and book stores and given to the Salvation Army. My entire car. Bags and boxes, a dresser, a shoe rack, blinds (both vertical and horizontal), toys, frames, art, electronics. Anything and everything that we had been packratting for no reason at all. The result is a full, but entirely functional, closet that we both love and call our very own fabulous new closet.

Sorry

2009-01-06T13:58:00.000-08:00

The following is a recap of true events of the other night.

SPF and I were rearranging the spare bedroom (now the Office) to be a cohesive workspace for me. While cleaning off the bookshelves I found my old Bic lighter.

Me - I love these things, they are so reliable.

I click it a couple of times and a tiny flame ensues. I turn up the flame and a huge flame ensues. Like Goldilocks, I turned it to the middle and it was just right. Until it didn't light anymore.

Me - Hmm. It is making a weird hissing noise.

I click it again and immediately my hand is engulfed in butane-fueled flames. SPF and I both gasped and then furiously puffed and spit at my hand until the flames went away.

SPF - I know you like magic, but that was not cool.
Me - I'm sorry I lit my hand on fire.

The Scarlet OMG

2008-11-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

There were three of them. Beautiful, fashionable, terribly, terribly young. They were splitting a whole grain bagel with light cream cheese between them and each had a varied coffee contraption. I admit that the one with thin, skin tight leather pants caught my attention because I couldn't help but wonder how uncomfortable they must have been, sticking to legs with every movement so that your skin can't move naturally because you covered it with something else's skin. Something that is used to different movements, different musculature. She only served to draw my attention to the table, though.

The one in the leather pants was otherwise unremarkable. Very pretty, to be sure, but her hair was not quite perfectly curled and not quite perfectly pulled into a messy topknot, and her natural chestnut brown had been hastily highlighted. She didn't quite fit the magazine perfection. The other two, however, were picture perfect.

The brunette, who had accepted her beautiful chocolate brown hair for the dark, exotic power it gave her, was wearing a stylish white shirt with peephole shoulders delicately tied just off the collar bone and above the elbows. Her curl seemed more intentional, though still chaotic and mussed, but her make-up was flawless.

The third, however, caught and maintained my attention until the three of them proceeded in a gaggle to the bathroom. Her hair was platinum blond, flat and straight, and cut at seemingly random jagged edges that gave her an air of a supreme fashionista while at the same time had a perceptible in your face, fuck off type of appeal. She was perfectly maintained. Her midnight blue jeans were skin tight on her six foot frame, with black boots covering them up to the top of the shins.

She was the loudest and most vocal of the three. I don't know what started their conversation, but it was one I could not stop listening to, as if I were witnessing a train wreck happening in extreme slow motion. One that will last for the next seventy years.

"But seriously, guys," she protested to an unknown stimulus, "I am like, way against abortion. So if I am I, like, totally have to keep it."

Had they noticed me, which is nearly an impossibility considering their dispositions, they would have seen my features drop with sadness at their nonchalance and youthful hubris. I got lost in my own thoughts until she replied to something that the dirty blond said, which I can only assume had to do with the potential father.

"Oh, my god, I know! He would get in, like, so much trouble. I mean, that's like statutory, right? I could totally bring him down, you know? But I wouldn't do that."

Oh no. So they are not even eighteen. She continued to talk about her cousin who was forced by her parents to get married at seventeen when she got pregnant. I got the impression she was from a different state and that the boy was in his early twenties. What shocked me next was that she was willing to talk about the man that she was sleeping with. How they met was not covered in the conversation, but it became quite clear that he was married and significantly older than her. To her, it was a game. A sordid plot for her teenage soap opera. According to her melodramatic proclamations, she would never tell her parents who he was and they would, surely, send her away to a new school to have the baby to save themselves the embarrassment of her unfortunate condition.

She went on to explain that she would be "like that girl in the Scarlet Letter" who thinks of "him" every time she sees "that kid running around." Although she was also quite clear that she would have to raise it on her own and would not let him do it.

Young mothers have been successful in the past, accepting the consequences of their actions, and I would be the last to judge anyone who made such a difficult decision, but there is something more horrible about this than I can even express. It isn't that she was so young in years, but so immature. She was talking about the married man with which she was having an affair as if he were Robbie from third period gym class. It was as if she were twelve, not the seventeen I am hoping she actually was. This was proclaimed to the world. It would not have surprised me in the least if she had said his name in the midst of all of this, at her normal volume, as if it is all well and normal to begin with.

They were giggling and joking about the whole thing as they left the table and wandered off to the back of the restaurant. I watched as the busboy cleaned their table and realized how thrashed everything looked. There were napkins all over the table and beneath it, a random tea bag staining the sealed wood table top, and a good portion of the bagel left untouched, even though the three of them had been picking at it for some time. It made me wonder what the world will look like when this generation is done.

The Whole World is on Fire

2008-11-13T20:51:00.001-08:00

Before anyone reads this I want you to know that, at this moment in time, I am secure and safe.

However, Santa Barbara, CA is not.

This is the current view from downtown, just north of the post office, the museum, and the courthouse. This is the view looking into the hillside of Santa Barbara, which is strewn with multi-million dollar houses.

For those of you who know Santa Barbara, this is the view from Laguna and Victoria (maybe...) I don't remember which street I stopped at.

These last three are the view from the highway leading to my home. There is no news as of yet if we are in any danger, but from here I can see the moon and the entireity of the fire, so I feel safe for the time being. If there is any sign of danger, I promise I will grab my essentials and leave.

Loved

2008-11-11T16:46:00.000-08:00

You know you have found your match when the following happens.

There is no exaggeration or filler here.

This actually happened. Last night.

SPF - You have to stay out of the living room for a second while I set something up.

(ten minutes later)

SPF - Do you want to watch a movie?!

AQF - Is is the originally edited version of Last of the Mohicans before Michael Mann released only his edited version on DVD?!?!

SPF - You suck! How do you do that?!? Oh, it must be $12,500.00...*

AQF - You set up the VCR so we can watch the original edit!?

SPF - No. I found a Region 2 version on DVD that is the original edit and had my bosses son burn it to a file my computer can read. We need to get a Region 2 player.

AQF - AWESOME! I have no idea what you just said.

*This would be in reference to the time when he came home and asked me how much I thought the range of first edition versions of "The Scarlet Letter" were going for. I said $300 to $12,500. I was right on both counts. No lie. It's our philote.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have so many things that I do, so much to occupy my time, that remembering Halloween - that which had once been a much anticipated night of revelry - has become a thing of the past. Needless to say, I was reminded of the festivities when I went to the lab today to retrieve my prints and ran into Sarah Palin, moose in hand, sitting behind the TA's desk. It was brought home even further when I ordered a sandwich from a man with bleeding eyes. I didn't press him when he exclaimed that they were out of onion. Clearly, he had already had a rough day. The football player at the cash register was breaking boundaries as she was not only female, but particularly short, and the orange and black tabby on a smoke break made me concerned for animal rights. I was particularly concerned, however, and much dismayed when I saw death crossing the street. The large, open hood to his (or her) black shroud was ominously empty. Where there should have been a face, there wasn't. Nothing but blackness. I decided to go home, turn my lights off, and have some hot tea.

Hear no Evil

2008-08-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

My class yesterday got out a little early and as I was closing down the room a cacophonous cheer rose up from the Santa Barbara Bowl. Radiohead had just walked on stage. The reception was astounding. What impressed me even more, however, was the clarity with which the music drifted in through my window and washed over me as if they were not a hundred yards away.

I turned off the lights, locked and closed the door, and sat with my feet up just listening. Being married to an acoustical engineer, I am well aware of how important the sound mixer at a concert is. He actually complimented the sound board operator at the Muse concert because it was flawless. It was loud, but not abrasive; clean and vital. I imagine that the sound board operator from that night would have wept at how beautiful the mix was for this concert, for the music radiated from the Bowl with supreme clarity.

That is until a voice in the parking lot cut into my euphoria. A security guard from the bowl was shooing away the accumulating listeners. It turns out the the bowl is directly below the parking lot of the campus and that, apparently, they feel that they have the authority to tell people to stop listening. To stop appreciating.

My heart fell a little. When did we become so greedy that we need to control not only who can see the band, but who can hear them, experience them as they open their talent freely. Why is it so terrible that people who can't see the band can hear them? How does anyone have the right to tell you not to listen? Where does it go from here? I envision giant sound barriers, massive pulses of sound cancellation vibrations to prevent those who cannot pay from experiencing anything. What is wrong with us? Why must everything be controlled and someone always make a profit? Why should experience, the shared human experience, be limited and cut off? Haven't we blocked ourselves off from each other enough in this world?

I listened to a few more songs, but the oppression continued. The fluid lyrics were constantly interrupted with barked orders or the cackle of a two-way radio inquiring "what's happening up there?" Indeed.

I drove home and watched more Avatar on DVD before the flashlight was shined in my window and an angry voice directed at me. At least someone in this world has a positive viewpoint left. I would elect Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko to run the world. We need some leadership that is playful, intelligent, positive, and effective. They would provide solutions that no one has thought of yet, I can guarantee you that.

How Long Have We Been Slipping, and How Far Have We Fallen?

2008-08-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

When did the bell curve shift? When did an A become Average. When did the process of evaluation start at the top and deduct from it rather than starting in the middle, at the true average, and adjusting based on competency, or lack there of, and excellence? Why have we decided to lower the bar to a place where we reward the lazy and incompetent and do not adequately reward the brilliant and exceptional?

This wasn't an overnight transition, people. We created this problem. We allowed it to happen. How on Earth can an 18 year old high school graduate not know what a verb is? How is that possible? How could we have failed our students so greatly that the basic understanding of our own language is missing? I remember people talking about lost knowledge back when I was in high school. People being concerned that students didn't know when the Declaration of Independence was signed, or being able to locate Austria on a map. When I was in college I remember hearing baffled scholars mocking how high school graduates didn't know who fought in the Civil War, or how to locate China on a map. Now we have to worry about students not knowing what part of speech "War" is and how to locate The United States on a map. What the hell is going on here?

How could we have shifted so far away from supporting our public school systems that one third of every Freshmen class at my institution doesn't have basic, fundamental English skills. They are tested for reading comprehension and writing proficiency, but they don't even know the different parts of speech, let alone how to apply them in a sentence, how to ensure they are used correctly, how to maintain tense or voice, or create proper subject/verb agreements. The disparity between the private school educated and the public school graduated is such a vast chasm that post secondary educational system is being forced to accept highly unprepared students into their ranks just to pay the bills. The system is forced to reward mediocrity with recognition and not allowed to foster true knowledge or discourse because the basics have to be covered again. New classes have to be introduced to bring those students up to speed. Even the grand Ivy League has seen a downturn in the quality of the student body. Everyone's scale has been lowered. The bulge of the bell curve now hovers over an A- rather than situating itself firmly over the C average. And it isn't because we have gotten better, it is because we got so much worse that the only way to address the frustration was to change how we graded.

And it doesn't stop there. This morning I was listening to Fareed Zakaria on a local radio station and was stunned to hear that in 2013, 75% of all PhDs awarded in this country will be awarded to foreign students. Seventy-five percent. To me this makes two comments. The first, we still have the educational system in place to provide a top-notch, globally beneficial education. The second, we just don't have American students willing to do the work.

What are we doing to ourselves? I know too many public school teachers to have complaint with them. It isn't the quality of instructor that is the problem. The problem is the infrastructure of the public educational system. We have fostered overcrowded classrooms, antiquated equipment, absent materials, standardized evaluation, and lack-luster results. The concept of "no child left behind" in reality is more like "every child left behind." Because when you can't instill the basics as early, you can't teach the more advanced later. Which means that even students who would be capable of it are being held to the lower standard because that is the majority standard. Rather than accepting some children will fail (which can be healthy for them, by the way) we are shifting the scale to emphasize pushing the scrapers through and shoving the truly talented into a pool of mediocrity.

Which is exactly why the private school educated students are going to run this country. And that is a horrendous thought from the perspective of the existing biases and disparities that allowed them to attend the private school in the first place. I know several middle class families where the parents work several jobs each to ensure that their kids can go to private school, because if they don't, they fear for their future. But our school system has the potential to be magnificent if we would focus on it. If we don't, we will not only lose our "Superpower" status as a nation, we will lose our integrity, our influence, and our potential. There is so much good that we could do as a nation that watching us squander our future is making me physically ill. If we don't change, and soon, we won't be able to recover.

Off to Sit In on a Class

2008-07-23T10:44:00.001-07:00

It will be strange to be back in the classroom in the Core curriculum at Brooks. It has been a while. For our MFA program we have to sit in on three classes and evaluate the students interaction with each other and the instructor. I am pretty excited to be back in the class I am going to sit in on. I have chosen one of the instructors that I TAed for in another life. :) Hopefully it will be interesting, but at the very least I will get to experience that photo energy again. It is an interesting energy. Electric. I will just have to remember to actually pay attention to what is going on and not listen to the lecture. :)

The Closet

2008-07-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

Ah, my friends, and now we have entered the final post of this phase of the remodeling project. I am afraid that, at least at this point in time, I have no other news to share, no other photos, comments, witty interludes, alas, for those times have not yet come, as this is the progress we have made to date.

The problem here is that we had a useless closet (again, my apologies for the lack of pre-photos) with one high shelf that went all the way around the closet and two hanging bars that went one side to the other. No other shelving, no drawers, no clever double hangers. And the best part about it all was that the shelving was installed into the drywall, not into the studs. I am not even sure that drywall anchors were used, so the shelving all sagged at precarious angles and everything stored on top of the shelf would come tumbling down if a door was slammed or, as we are in California, an earthquake were to strike. So, it all had to go.

The first task was to fix the holes with drywall patches, tape, and a couple of layers of joint compound. SPF managed most of this before we went to Canada. Upon our return, we completed the afore-blogged tasks, which brought us to the point of texturing the walls. In this image, SPF is in the process of knocking down the orange peel texture to create the appropriate matching texture for the rest of the walls.

After the texture had been applied and knocked down, we had to let it dry, which took longer than either one of us anticipated. We were, however, busy with other tasks, so that didn't really matter. Once it was ready, though, I began the process of priming the walls with the deep gray primer to take the dark paint that we had chosen for the space.

Here I am, priming away. You can see on the right the aforementioned electrical box. This should give you a sense of where the closet butts up into the shower room, as the back of this box was eventually covered with two layers of concrete board. You can also see evidence of the texturing spray that SPF did, just in case you didn't believe he was that amazing.

All primed and ready to go!

The up close image of the plastic sheet over the electrical box, the taping, the texturing, and the priming.

At this point SPF went back to his day job and I was left with the duty of painting the closet with the same Antique Photograph paint that we had used in the shower room. We bought more, but it turns out that was a mistake because I was able to do two full coats with the remainder of the gallon that we had previously purchased. Sorry that there are no intermediate stage photos on this part, I was covered in paint.

Similar image above, but this one is painted as well!

I hope to return in a week to give you a new update. I am not even entirely sure what it is we will be doing next. We do need to investigate getting new closet shelving and fixtures, but I am not sure if we are going to go through California Closets or what. We did, however, order a custom door for this space to keep the cats out. They had a tendency to pee on offensive items in the closet in the past. The problem is, I don't really know what a cat finds offensive, so we couldn't remedy the problem. Answer: door.

The Sink

2008-07-09T08:49:00.001-07:00

We are now entering the very recent future in terms of progress. This part of the project was finished only a couple of days ago and so it has been documented much more thoroughly because I was intending to begin the retroactive blog at the time that we started the sink install, so I knew I would need more pictures.

We originally intended to get a custom bath arrangement from Home Depot that is called Master Bath, where you pick the appropriate components to fit the space that you need. In theory, not a terrible idea, but in reality we weren't that pleased with the quality and options, so we (or, to be fair SPF) decided to look around a little bit. Every time we decide to "look around" we inevitably end up at Home Depot Expo to look at their showroom baths. It is fun just to look at the possibilities, but also it does give you a sense of how a sink, or tub, or tile will look in an actual space. We spent the better part of a day there, talking with the bathroom specialists about Master Bath, about our other options, about the extremely high end custom baths, and ultimately decided to get an off the shelf unit that would fit our space and meet our needs. We had three picked out that we wanted to price. We walked around with her and showed her each of our selections, and as we rounded a corner one of us mentioned that the one we really liked had two sinks, but we only wanted one. She suggested that we look to see if it was offered in a one sink option, since the showroom can't possibly hold every option of every style, so we agreed. Not only did it come in a one sink version, it was exactly the right size, had drawers on both sides, the fancy curved front that I wanted, and decorative columns along the sides. All of these were options that I wanted to purchase in the Master Bath custom arrangement, so, needless to say, I was pretty happy. Plus, the colors matched perfectly, with the deep red wood and the almond topper with flecks of brown, red, and white. So, we priced it and were floored to find that it was much better quality and much cheaper than our previous option. Score.

Here is just the base. Notice the fancy columns, the curved front, and the extra deep drawers. Also notice the matching mirror. Bonus!

The only problem was that the wood cut out on the showroom model was in a different place than the wood cut out on the one we received, so SPF had to do a little rearranging and sawing to make sure that the piping would fit through the back. No worries, though. The plumbing was actually another interesting problem. Our old sink was positioned right next to the wall, so that you had twenty miles of counter top on your right, and none on your left. And the outlet was on the left, so imagine the safety issues should you want to dry your hair, or curl you hair, or do anything that required electricity... It was a stupid design. Kind of like the stupid shower. Anyway, we had to move all of that piping from the far left of the wall to the middle, so that we could place our new fancy sink where we wanted it without having piping running through the ever so impressive drawers. Problem, yes. Solution, Cal!

Part of the repositioning of the plumbing put the waste water pipe near a stud, hence the odd angle. Cal wanted to avoid compromising the integrity of the studs wherever possible. Such a nice guy.

Which brings us to the topper. A nice piece of precut granite with beveled edges and specific cut outs that match the columns. So pretty. We propped the sink up on saw horses to install the new Hansgrohe faucet for ease of access.

Which helped quite a lot.

SPF figured out how to make sure that the handles were symmetrical and lined up along the sink the way that we wanted them to, and so we tightened them down in place and started to move them back and forth for fun. Even though it wasn't yet attached to anything, at that point they felt like real handles attached to a real faucet. Yay!

The finished sink, ready for install onto the base.

To ensure that the granite wouldn't move around and that there would be a good seal between the base and the top, we used an adhesive that was rated 10 on both granite and wood. Seems smart enough. SPF made a lovely, lovely bead of adhesive all the way around.

To be fair, I helped move the topper into place, but I let him smoosh it down while I grabbed the camera. For posterity, you know.

This little bit of plumbing is SPFs handiwork. The awkward angle on the waste water pipe made installing the J-trap somewhat complicated. But, I painted the bedroom walls and voile! SPF had figured it all out. Brooks is still not sure what is going on, but certainly admired the handiwork.

The established hierarchy of the cats in this image is fairly accurate. Osiris is always King of the Mountain, mostly because he is the only one that can get on top of the mountain, and Brooks lurks down below, causing trouble, and always looking for Osiris because she longs to torment him. Osiris, by the way, loves the new sink. I keep finding long, black hairs in it. I think he sleeps in it. Honestly.

And this was, of course, the true test. We ran it a couple of times to find any leaks and make sure they were corrected, but with a little bit of tightening, we were good. So, running water on a newly installed sink. That means we were able to use the full master suite bath - shower, toilet, sink - all together for the first time in three years.

So I had to go out and buy new accessories. I mean, honestly, you don't want me using old accessories, do you? That wouldn't be right at all.

So, what do you think?

The Bedroom

2008-07-08T21:08:00.001-07:00

As the bathroom finds its way towards completion, we were also faced with the realization that other associated tasks also need to be completed. Task number 1, the bedroom. There is not a lot to be done in this regard. New carpet, which will happen later when we get new carpet for the whole house, and new paint. Of course, being who I am, a few new accessories can't hurt, either.

This is where we stared, a week ago today. I got ahead of myself before I started to document, so the back wall has already been painted (it is the accent wall, which is really a shame that I didn't get a shot before, because it was boring white) but the others remain to be painted. We had to rearrange the bedroom for a couple of days and sleep on the lazy boy sleeper sofa upstairs until it was completed and we could move back in. Normally this would not be an issue, except that the blinds upstairs are broken in the open position, so we were awake with the birdies at the crack of dawn. No worries, though! Up early to work hard all day!

An additional image of the wall to be painted. The duct wall that comes out on top was also painted to match the accent wall. When all is said and done, I will get an image of that as well.

So boring, so plain and white. Not for long!

We did have ugly and mostly broken vertical blinds hanging here. The biggest problem with these, other than their unsightliness, was that our intelligent cat, Isis, would use them to wake us in the morning when she wanted to be fed because she figured out that if she ran alongside them them would bang into each other and create a glorious cacophony that even SPF can't sleep through. By the time we were up to yell at her, she was usually out the door and waiting by the food bowl. My theory was that we were rewarding her for her bad behavior, but she has so many other tricks, that it is actually worth getting up and feeding her just to be able to go back to sleep.

Also, I wanted new drapes. My mother and I found these at Home Depot Expo and thought that they would go nicely with the new set up. I quite like them. We also found some cheaper ones and Linens 'N' Things that we bought just in case, but I ended up returning them because these were so much nicer.

These accessories we have had since the wedding and the purchase of our nice, giant bed, but SPF usually keeps them tucked away in a corner. So I dusted them off (quite literally) and brought them out to finish off the showroom display. So nice.

And the finished product! Drapes, new switch plate covers, nicely made bed, and paint all around! The overall color of the room is called Mystical, two shades lighter than Dusty Canyon and three shades lighter than Antique Photograph on the same paint swatch. The room feels warm and cozy now, but also elegant and refined. The paint in here is flat, as opposed to the semi-gloss paint in the bathroom and vanity area. I have five outlet covers to replace still, and once there is new carpet this room will need base boards, but even as it is, the room in tons more relaxing and feels finished.

I am starting to run out of things to blog about. I would mind if that didn't mean that we were on our way to finishing the project!!

The Lighting

2008-07-08T20:55:00.000-07:00

At this point in the story we are crossing over stages of the work that is being completed. For instance, with the lights, the old light had to be removed (no pictures, sorry) and the new lights installed, which means new demo, new drywall, new patches, and, ultimately, new texturing and paint. The big challenge here is that we decided against the same old overhead multi-fixture lighting set-up, which is what the old one was (notice the patched hole in the top of the frame) and instead wanted to frame the new mirror set up with some sconce lighting accenting the themes of oil rubbed bronze, metal work, elegance, and classical style all in one. It is hard to tell in this image, but we also had to move the power outlet because it used to be in the wall that is no more. This whole job was a large electrical adventure, and SPF managed it all.

The large white spots on the edge of the wall here are were the old mirrors were attached with adhesive of some kind. So, those had to be patched as well.

And the final result, with Dusty Canyon paint, new mirror installed, and all patching and texturing completed:

They are one of the most elegant pieces of the new bathroom so far. The install of the lights was completed three weeks ago. We are coming up upon brand new work, folks!

The Floor

2008-07-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

The next logical step was to install the tile on the floor as well. When we initially purchased the tile for the shower (9 x 13 vertical tiles with the pretty, pretty accent pieces that you saw in previous posts) we intended on continuing that same tile in the 13x13 format on the floor. We only had enough money to initially purchase the tile for the shower, but we wrote down the manufacturer and style of the tile we wanted for the floor so that we could easily purchase that new tile when the time was appropriate.

Funny thing about tile. Apparently it is a fashion accessory, and as such, certain lines are terminated while others are brought on in place of the "old" style. We did not have that problem, but I just thought I would mention it. Our problem was that the entire manufacturer of our tile was apparently no longer fashionable and went out of business. That being said, they were bought out by a rival tile manufacturer who could supply us with "stock" tile that they had as the remainder of our line. We were told that we could get enough of this tile to finish our bathroom, assuming that they could locate them, ship them undamaged, and that we wouldn't screw up too badly with any one cut and ruin the entire lot. Hmmm.

For those of you that don't know me well, you don't know that I make snap decisions. It is part of my personality type. My sister knows what I am, INFJ maybe? At any rate, snap time.

No. No on the "leftovers." No on the problematic purchase. No on the matching shower and floor. I took about five minutes, found a tile that I liked, and pretty much pointed and said "that one." SPF would have preferred we take our time, look around, evaluate our choices. That is one of the major ways that he and I are different. If it weren't for him, we would be living in a cramped condo with shag green carpet and orange walls that would probably still smell like 40 year old single male. If it weren't for me, however, we may not have ordered that tile on the spot and begun the process of finishing our floor. As I think you will agree, I made a good decision.

In this image you can also see the new toilet that we purchased, which is water efficient and also matches the tub. They are both Kohler, and both Almond colored. It ties in with the original tile in the shower, but I am SO GLAD that we mixed up the colors and got a bright floor. Too much almond otherwise.

In this one you can see the fancy top of the toilet (it has moulding style edges) and also you can see that we had completed the painting of the walls. This color is Antique Photograph. I chose the tile because I had the paint swatch with me that we had chosen for the wall color, so the Antique Photograph paint led directly to the choice of this particular tile.

My feet. And a preview of the sink foot, yet to be revealed!! The paint color on the wall in this one is Dusty Canyon. It is one shade lighter than Antique Photograph on the same swatch. The reason for this is we wanted to start to lighten the rooms, one shade at a time, to lead to a lighter color in the bedroom that would still tie in to the colors of the bath. The master suite and master bath can all be seen from the hallway with the door open, so it was important for me to keep the colors in line.

In this image you can start to see how everything is coming together. The tub and toilet almost perfectly match the discontinued tile, but the rusty brown floor tile really ties together the paint and breaks up the muted almond tones.

The floor was completed only a couple of months ago. We are coming up onto new work that has been done in the last week, so stay tuned! And Little Orphan Annie says, "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!"

The Shower

2008-07-07T19:42:00.001-07:00

At this point in the bathroom remodeling project, we are forced, financially, to focus on one element at a time. So, logically, the shower had to come first. We had already completed the concrete board and joints, so it was a natural step to continue with the tiling job. We had picked out and ordered the tile for the shower and, having tiled the upstairs bathroom already, which was our first project, we were confident in our abilities to cut and lay tile.

Operative word being lay. Turns out, vertical tile is a much different endeavor. We discovered this when the first tile that we "laid" in the middle of the wall, per our tradition of laying the middle first and working out to the sides, began to slide down the wall, mortar and all. So, in a mad panic, I held the tile in place while SPF brought me the second tile and then a tile cut to the appropriate dimensions so that the other tiles would have something to slide into. It is not a great amount of slide, mind you, and the mortar does hold the tile in place on the wall, but it was enough movement to cause trauma and to teach us the ever valuable lesson of stacking vertical tiles where you would lay a horizontal tile.

Needless to say, all hands were occupied in this endeavor and no pictures were taking during the process, but here are some images of the finished product.

This is the accent tile that we chose. Three on the back wall and one each on the side walls. Subtle, yet inviting and interesting. I like them very much.

The shelf that we created with the framing now completed with cut tiles and a specialty tile called sink rail. It actually adds a nice touch to make the edge look finished as well as providing a tiny bit more space on the shelf and slip protection for shelf items.

The tub. Need I say more? Also, this image is the closest to the actual color of the tile. Sorry, I didn't have time to color correct everything and white balance in post. Should have done it in prod, I know, I know.

Accents, shelf, and tub.

Cat on the shelf. For perspective, not just for the entertainment value of seeing the cat try to balance on the shelf while trying to figure out how and where to jump. HA! Uhem.

After the tile was complete it was a matter of installing the Hansgrohe fixtures. Yes, you guessed it, I like saying "Hansgrohe." Our favorite thing about this set of fixtures is that there is no shower switch. You know, that thin in the back of your faucet that tells your bath when to pretend it is a shower? This one is sleek and unobtrusive. If you turn the handle one way, bath. If you turn it the other, shower. Plus, there is a built in temperature manager that lets you set the temperature to whatever you want and it automatically keeps it there, so you don't have to fuss with finding the right proportion of cold and hot water every morning. It is a done deal. So convenient and fancy.

All the Hansgrohe. Shower head included.

A better view of the sink rail topper to the shelf unit. This puppy was a lot of work, but certainly paid off. You can fit X-large bottles of shampoo on there, any kind of body washes, soaps, shaving creams, or razors that you want. And, if you feel the need, a cat.

At this point, we purchased a shower curtain.

The Meat

2008-07-07T14:51:00.001-07:00

The next major portion of the project was installing the hardibacker on all of the walls and framing around the tub. From the first bathroom that we did, I became really good at cutting and installing hardibacker. The trick is that we had this oval cut out that we had to ensure was left open around the piping so that the Hansgrohe faucet handle could be properly installed.

As you will notice below, the hole and the protective red template piece are exactly the same size. I take extreme pride in this particular achievement.

As you can see from this next image, there were also holes needed for the shower head and the faucet, and those were created with equal precision, but not nearly as much flare. This stage was actually fairly painless because we were more confident and familiar with the tools and the raw materials. So, there is not that much to say.

After the concrete board was up, it was a matter of masking the seams and letting everything set for the incredible work to come. The TILE! You can see at the base of this image that we were eager to start that process, so the first five tiles were laid before the entire wall had set.

Such pretty, pretty tiles. With their little spacers and their not-so-level floor resting spot. Sigh. So lovely.

The Skeletal Structure

2008-07-06T17:42:00.001-07:00

After the demolition was complete we were faced with the daunting realization that we had just destroyed our bathroom, and the equally daunting task of beginning the process of putting it back together. A few things were discussed and we decided that neither of us felt comfortable with the plumbing situation, as we had also decided to put in a tub as opposed to the crazy shower stall that had been in the room. The shower stall was an awkward, non-standard creation in all regards. It had a lip that had to be stepped over, 90 degree sides, it was a foot deep, and yet had no door, so required a long curtain. It was stupid. Engineering a tub to fit in the space, however, was a feat of creativity, ingenuity, and paying Cal to do the plumbing. Everything had to be moved slightly more than a foot to the right to fit into our scheme of how the new bathtub would fit into the space. A luxury tub with arm rests and adequate shelving. We often drooled at the prospects. But, at the time, they were so, so far from being realized that we could only piece the bones together.

This image is the before image of the piping after the demo. It has the old faucet on it, see? Not so pretty, I guess, but beyond our abilities to adjust.

Before Cal was to arrive we were challenged with several problems. The first was to create a sturdy footing for the new tub (the reason the stupid shower had broken was that one entire side and foot had not been supported at all) and because of that we needed to either affix something into the concrete, or add more concrete for the tub to rest on. We also needed to frame in the back wall. As it stands in the previous picture, the "back wall" is a concrete retaining wall as this bathroom is embedded in the side of a hill. One problem with this is that we wanted to frame out a shelf that went the length of the tub, which meant that we needed to fix wood into the concrete without breaking into the outer layer of the wall which would let in moisture and creepies. (I do not care for creepies.) So, we found a way to create the framing and created an additional small frame to protect the drain fixtures and we poured new concrete for the footing.

This image is one bit of the handiwork of Cal. Tremendous plumber. Gifted, creative, professional, and, my favorite, prompt. (His card says Master Plumber of the Universe, I do not disagree.) He gave a quote of the time it would take, and had the entire process done in that exact amount of time. The first tasks were to reroute the shower nozzle (which had to be raised almost two feet because, as stupid as the previous shower was, it was made for Lilliputians) the tub faucet, drain pipe, and water pipes. Too big a job for my meager soldering skills, and one that SPF wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. So, again, I mention Cal. At that point, we called Cal to install of not only the new tub that we had ordered, but the Hansgrohe fixtures.

You can see in this image the wood framing behind the tub, and some additional supports under the back feet that Cal installed. You can't, unfortunately, see the concrete that we laid, but it was very nicely done. Functional, crude, but cleverly prevented from intruding onto the drain fixtures so that they are still free to move and can be reviewed from the wet wall if any problems arise. Look at the glorious, glorious tub.

Here is another view of the plumbing work by Cal and at the Kohler drain system that we bought. The funny thing is, we hired Cal and told him to call us when he wanted to install the tub so that we could help, but the next thing we knew, he called us down to see the finished product. He is amazing. Glorious, glorious tub!

Our next individual goal was to frame out and insulate the remainder of the tub. We had heard that you could keep the water in the tub warmer for longer if you insulated the surrounding area, which makes sense, and I do love to have a long, languorous bath. So, we factored in some insulation and created enough framing on the outer edge for a small seat and additional tile. We didn't want an apron front tub because we thought that a tub with tile all around would be prettier, so we conceptualized the additional framing as a rest for more tile that would visually frame the space and match the tiling along the back wall. At our grandest moments we also visualized creating steps leading into the tub that curved around in front and still somehow matched the back wall spacing. Thankfully for us, the space was too small, so we were forced to limit the installation to the back shelf and front seat framing, which is what you see below.

I will freely admit that, at this point, I had SPF install the shower turner onner thingie temporarily and I took a bath in our new tub, filled with hot water directly from the copper pipe sticking through the wall. It was actually both amazing and creepy, because when I leaned my head back, it sat nicely between two studs and I could look up at the electrical box and contemplate my electrocution in heavenly, insulated, tubby bliss.

The Demolition Stage

2008-07-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

The demolition stage is often the most fun of any project. We actually did break out the sledge hammer and the sawzall and went to town. The first to go? The broken prefab fiberglass shower stall from 1975 that the previous owners broke and covered with a brand new sucky-footed bath mat. Shame on us for not looking, I admit, and shame on them for being underhanded and sneaky, but don't you think the house inspector should have noticed? That being said, the reason we started this project was because we had only one working tub, and it was in the second suite. We purchased this house in October of 2003 and used this shower for one week before we found the problem. Nice.

So, the sawzall-removed damaged portion of the tub, and more feet.

Once the tub was out, it became clear that the disgusting, aged linoleum also had to go. It was actually relatively easy to pull up. The nice thing that we learned was that the bath and toilet were seated directly on concrete, so no concrete board. The distressing thing that we learned was that the bath and toilet were seated directly on concrete, so no moving anything around. The piping would have to stay where the piping lay.

Things we undoubtedly shouldn't have been messing with, but we wanted a new fan and light fixture! So, out came the old box, in went the new. (Eventually, we are talking months apart at this point.)

Another somewhat distressing moment. Turns out that the electrical box for the lower portion of the house butts up against the shower. Clever. So, being pragmatic, intelligent, and paranoid, we decided to add extra water and leakage protection to this wall in the form of an additional sheet of backer board and some plastic. Here's hoping...

The crazy ugly linoleum stopped at the doorway to the bath which ran into carpet. The carpet ended at the vanity/sink area where this white tile started. Ugly white tile. I never did like it, and some of them were not seated correctly EVER, so they would wobble when you walked on them. This part of the demo was particularly satisfying for me. I very much enjoyed ripping these up. We were told by our next door neighbor, who has the same style unit as ours with the plan flipped, that the entire bathroom, shower stall, toilet, vanity and closet area all used to be carpet. They knew this, unfortunately, because their unit hadn't been updated since '75 when it was built. I felt a little better, but for some reason desperately wanted to finish the remodel even more. All of a sudden felt like we were living in ancient lands...

I can't explain the icepack, by the way. Must have damaged myself in the process. Don't mock the use of the foot to pry up the tile. I was EAGER to make progress. Injury be damned. Besides, you all should know that I have ambidextrous hands AND feet. I am so amazing.

This is actually a preview of later work, but it also demonstrates two important elements of the project. 1. We decided that having the linen closet open onto the hall was stupid, so we decided to flip it so that it opens into the bathroom. 2. We took part of the wall out, just for fun. No more wall/medicine cabinet/electrical outlet here! We moved, or removed, it all. Fun times were had.

Also unfortunately poorly documented. Where you can see the wood top right now, that was the wall. Went all the way to the ceiling. You can kind of see the overcrowded counter top and the mirror in the background. We didn't really get any good shots of it because we hated it. Sigh. I know now to better document the whole process. At any rate, when you walked into this bathroom, you got a face full of you. Everywhere. Mirrors, mirrors, and more mirrors. It was like an altar to every individual personage. That might be your bag, baby, but it wasn't ours.

And so a great portion of the demolition was done at once. We were eager to get started, and demo happens fairly quickly, but after that, things got somewhat delayed...

A Long Time Ago in a Master Suite Far, Far Away...

2008-07-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

You will have to forgive these initial images. They are old, and faded. Actually, they were just shot poorly on digital and not color corrected, so I had to adjust them manually. However, they are an accurate representation of the past. This is the bathroom that was.

From a slightly different angle, but all the same. So sad. So lonely. So gray.

And a slightly better exposure, with feet.

And so begins the saga. Check back regularly for updates.

Quote of the Day

2008-07-05T19:50:00.001-07:00

SPF - "Oh boy. Here we go. I'm gonna need a hacksaw."

Oh, We Did Make It, By the Way

2008-07-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

Just thought that I would let you all know that we did make it back to San Diego. It was a harrowing, early morning trek. Up at 3:30 in the morning, out the door by 4:15 to catch the 24 hour shuttle that left the hotel on the hour and half hour. Turns out, the 4:30 am shuttle is very popular. When we got there it was already full and he was racing out the door to drop the first load off and come back for us. Turns out, the second load was full, as well. Partially because one couple had fourteen bags (I am not exaggerating, I counted as they put them in the van) and partially because the couple themselves were...of generous proportion. Might actually explain why they had 14 bags. I think they may have also had a little old woman with them, but I am not certain. It was early.

The airport was fun. The "random" search process curiously decided that we were both suspect (randomly, of course) and we had to be thoroughly inspected with all elements of our bags taken apart, opened, and every crevice turned out and evaluated. This would normally not have been an issue except for the fact that I carry on my camera bag. Which has a meter bag inside of it. And a CF card holder. And an SB800 flash bag, a gel bag, a lens bag, battery holders, cord bags, and about forty pockets. We were into that evaluation for thirty minutes. They were as frustrated as we were, though both sides either sat patiently or drudged through the routine with tenacity. I was surprised that the security line was so long so very, very early in the morning. But, we made it to the gate, onto the plane, and eventually to Salt Lake and then to here. We did the math and determined that missing that flight cost us over $400.00. Sigh. Not the best of trip enders, but overall we had such a lovely time that I choose to remember the good, and not only the bad ending. Because you can always find the negative at the end, be it going back to work, or getting little sleep the last night, or the frustrations of travel; but why on earth would you want to do that? We had tremendous fun, and so I shall remember that.

We didn't spend the night in a crappy hotel in Seattle...we didn't spend the night in a crappy hotel in Seattle...we didn't spend the night in a crappy hotel in Seattle...

All Good Things Must Come to an End

2008-06-29T17:19:00.001-07:00

And so they did. Fantastically and with enormous flair and grit.

We intended to leave at 11:00 and had no trouble at all in the pursuit of this goal. We had our free breakfast, enjoyed the final moment of luxury in our room, took some last pictures and headed downstairs to checkout.

The woman at the counter waived us over with a smile and took our outstretched room and mini-bar keys. With somewhat wide eyes, she merrily informed us that our "room fee and taxes [had] already been looked after" and that we were free to go. (This, of course, is because we purchased the room through hotels.com and it was a done deal before we walked in, but none-the-less, it was somewhat amusing to be treated as though we were some sort of mysterious VIPs who had our charges covered by an anonymous patron.)

Off to the car and back to the border crossing 50km east of Vancouver, because we had heard that it was a much better crossing. We laughed again at the sign welcoming us to Vancouver that says "Welcome to Vancouver: A Nuclear Weapons Free Zone." That is awesome, thanks for letting us know. In 40 minutes we were across and only slightly concerned about the time it would take to get from there to the airport in Seattle.

That is until we slammed on the breaks for the dead stopped traffic. Dead stopped. So stopped that people who had been there for sometime were already out of their cars, walking between the windows of other cars and making grand predictions and grim explanations as to why the entire southbound freeway was at a standstill. Oh, to have a Garmin. Had we had a Garmin, we could have pressed "Detour" and magically been whisked away to the perfect and hidden sub-universe just outside of the conscious realm of the average man, but we did not.

After sitting for almost an hour, I called the airport and spoke with four different people until I was able to book an alternate flight leaving tomorrow when dawn is thinking about what to have for breakfast. With great frustration and grim determination, we followed a line of traffic that had decided to go off the on ramp and struggle onto a back road that had no real clear direction or outlet. Alas, Garmin would have told me what we eventually figured out, which is that we could circumnavigate all the trouble, get back onto the freeway, and, in the process, enjoy the view and calm demeanor of a beautiful lake in Northern Washington all in the matter of minutes. Curse you, Garmin! I am ruined now for lack of directionality from the sky. It feels something like navigating by the stars, but instead using geosynchronous satellites with the vision of primitive gods and the power of a pantheon of brilliant circuitry and line of sight navigation. Detour indeed.

At this point we decided to try and find a hotel rather than sleeping it off at the airport. And that would bring us to the Days Inn, Sea-Tac. Ah. It smells slightly like an ill-vented closet. The bed is not so soft. The view not so grand. And, worst of all, it is not my home in San Diego, where I intended to be sleeping tonight. Perhaps we pushed our luck just a little too far this time. Here's hoping the alarm gets us onto the plane this time around.

Gotham Extravaganza

2008-06-29T17:01:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to ensure our timely arrival into Seattle today, SPF and I decided to venture away from Sun Peaks and into Vancouver yesterday to cover the majority of the distance that we needed to traverse to leave Canada. Via hotels.com we found an affordable room in downtown Vancouver that would have been $350.oo a night, but we were able to get it for $170.00. Our luck did not stop there. Upon arrival, we were asked if the room that we booked with two double beds was really the room that we needed. Thinking that they just wanted the extra bed as Canada Day was fast approaching, we said "no" and they upgraded us to a Signature Club room on the top floor (23) with an included Continental breakfast and phenomenal view. This room normally books out at $430.00 a night. Booyah! So we went up to our suite and showered and changed for our one "nice dinner" where I wore my fancy burgandy dress and SPF wore his nice khakis and a button down shirt. (I know, swank, right?)

We ventured back downstairs, looking ravishing and, as it were, ravenous, and asked for a suggestion for a nice restaurant. After a few suggestions, the steak house Gotham was recommended and we eagerly pursued it as it was only a two block walk from the hotel and was already purported to be quite good. (All of the hotel staff seemed impressed that we were going there, and one of them told us how nice we looked and how much she liked my dress.) And so we walked to Gotham and were seated in the lounge (as we had missed the opportunity to book a table for the night) but the lounge was actually quite nice and still served the full menu, so no harm, no foul.

The jumbo shrimp cocktail that we got was phenomenal. I have had a lot of jumbo shrimp and have normally found them to be less tasty and appetizing than their less-than-jumbo cousins, but these were wonderful. Juicy, plump, and thoroughly tasty. De-veined and supplied with a nice horseradish cocktail sauce. For dinner I ordered the petit fillet and some garlic mashed potatoes, and SPF ordered the fillet (normal sized) and a house specialty called Gotham hashbrowns, which ended up being something similar to potato pancakes and were also quite good. The steak was phenomenal, and they didn't even give me any trouble for ordering it medium well. Sweet. It all went swimmingly well with the bottle of Liberty School Cabernet that the waitress would occasionally swoop in and grab to refill our glasses. For dessert I opted for the fresh berries with cream and SPF decided on the Chocolate Bourbon Torte. When the waitress brought them to us she commented on how amazing our selections were and how we should share, as the berries were fresh and tart and accented the creamy, rich torte to bring out the best of both worlds. She was so right. We ate each others desserts trading bite for bite and left the restaurant fat and happy. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone in Vancouver.

Then it was back to the hotel for the most glorious bed and squishy but firm pillows that seemed to defy the possible. The room was equipped with an iPod player stereo, so I plugged in my favorites play list and we were soon jamming to Homunculus, Nick Drake, Toto, and Bedouin Soundclash. We watched a tiny bit of Hell Boy, discussed the finer points of the preview for Hell Boy 2, which we were both pleasantly surprised to find has been directed by the same director as Pan's Labyrinth, and then drifted off into a beautiful, pleasant sleep.

Ahhh, if only we had known.

The Irony of Generalizations

2008-06-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

In the last few days I have blogged repeatedly about the many hazards of the golf course here at the Sun Peaks Resort. However, despite recent interactions with various wildlife on the course, actually playing the course today proved to be quite entertaining, and not as varied as I would have expected given the previous generalizations regarding the additional golf hazards provided by the mountains of Canada.

SPF and I went out and shot the first 9 holes of the course. It was his first time golfing. And yes, you guessed it, just like every other sport that he tries, he was inherently good. However, like my sister said to me when she tied my score the last time we golfed (also her first time) it was undoubtedly because I am a good teacher that my opponents/family and friends always beat me. Actually, to prevent the inherent competitive nastiness that I knew would ensue if SPF were to beat me at the pastime that I have spent the last year and a half learning, we played a scramble game. Best ball gets played, no matter whose it is. Sometimes it was mine, mostly on the drives it was him. No worries, we were cooperative, not competitive. His first drive was incredible, dwarfing my 100 yards or so with probably 170. Straight down the fairway. My short game was generally better. He would get us to the hole, and I would get us in. I did have one sweet drive though, a short hole with woods, creek, and a bridge between the tee and the green. No real fairway on this one, just a halo of taller grass around the green. The green was 126 yards from the tee and my drive was a perfectly straight 118, I'd say. It landed softly in the tall grass just outside the green. That is the only hole that we got par on. Other than that we did quite well on some holes, poorly on others. There was one hole, the sixth, that was a series of terraced and hilly increments upwards that placed the green probably 100 feet above the tee. It was a hell of a hole. When we reached double par, I picked up my ball and walked on to the next hole, instructing SPF to do the same. Yes, there were other golfers being held up at that point, but the hole seemed to have the same affect on everyone.

All in all we actually had a very nice time. The scenery couldn't be beat, and the holes were challenging but (with that one exception) not unreasonable. All in all a very nice day. We were tired at the end of 9 holes, and we both were getting new blisters (no gloves) so we drove the cart back to the lodge and got some crepes for lunch.

We had intended to go horse back riding, but it turns out that golf was less than half as expensive, with renting clubs, buying balls, and getting the cart. You have to get the cart. It makes everything more fun.

Tomorrow, off to Vancouver.

A Day at the Lake: Update

2008-06-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

SPF adamantly is telling me that he was the "pilot" not the "row boy." Just thought I would clarify. Uhem.

A Day at the Lake

2008-06-26T10:06:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was Lake Day. As much as we enjoyed our adventures in the wilderness with the foxes and the bears, we were thinking that trout might be more our speed for the day. So, we rented a canoe and paddled around the tiny McGillivry Lake for two and a half hours. It was actually tremendously relaxing. Well, for me at any rate. I was the "captain" and the "photographer" and SPF was pretty much my row boy. :)

Although we did explore two small islands in the middle of the lake. The first we named Adventure Island. It could be completely explored in about three minutes, but getting onto the lake was an exercise in balance, ingenuity, and the courage to face the possibility of falling into freezing Canadian waters. There wasn't a good place to pull the boat up onto shore, so we pulled up next to a fallen tree and I climbed onto the island via log bridge and tied the canoe to another stump on the land. It was then a matter of climbing over a bunch of other debris to get to the actual island, but it was worth it.

The second we named Wilderness Island. The main wildlife was mosquitoes, but our handy dandy insect repellent assured us a warm, buzzing welcome free from bites. Mostly free, at any rate. SPF fared worse that I, his neck looks like he is pox infected and contagious. But, he is not, I assure you. Merely nibbled a bit. This one we found more land to drag the boat up onto and again I tied us up (sailor's training, you know, I have some knots up my sleeve) and then we explored what we could reach. This island was much larger and we couldn't find paths around to the bulk of it because we were blocked at various turns by thick brush, trees, fallen trees, marsh land, and the occasional swarm of particularly oppressive mosquitoes. Ahhhhh, fun times. None-the-less, Wilderness Island was a great deal of fun. As was the lake.

We then came back to the lodge and played chess three times and he beat me every time. Again. I understand your frustrations, JQ. Although, truthfully, he says I was doing better every game. I thought I had him on the last one but made a really stupid move and lost my rook. After that I had two pawns and my king. I was really close, though. I had him on the ropes, until his pawn made it across and had a sex change/empowerment session and became a Queen. She was not nice.

Canadian Golf Hazard - Part 2

2008-06-25T20:13:00.001-07:00

Admittedly this resort is not yet at peak golf season, but this is just getting ridiculous. These little fellows decided to come out and play on the 9th green at 10:30 this morning. They were quite playful with each other and didn't seem to mind the golf cart that went right past them. I don't know if the fidelity of this image is good enough, but check out the white fluff on the tail of the one on the right. Lovely black foxes.

The golf hazard here would be when the golfer decided to take his shot even though there were foxes on the green and when one of them saw his ball go by it thought that they were playing fetch. We are not sure if he ever got his ball back. Pretty sure the fox stole it as a memento. :)

Hiking with Bears

2008-06-24T15:25:00.000-07:00

We started our hike this morning even though breakfast was provided with entertainment of the bear-walking-down-golf-course variety. Perhaps not the most intelligent thing we have done yet in Canada.

The first bear didn't cause me too much panic because he was pretty far away and we were down wind. That is, of course, until he saw us and was less than thrilled with our presence. So, we walked slowly in the opposite direction, avoiding direct eye contact, just like the brochure told us to, and he left us alone. We named him Rufus.

The second one was a bit more startling. Mostly because we didn't see him, and he didn't see us, until we crested a hill (which, by the way, would be the beginning of a pretty splendid black diamond) and there he was. Giant, arched back, bristling hairs, scrounging muzzle. Luckily we were still down wind and I forced SPF to walk down the mountain slowly while I walked backwards with camera ready to get at least one more great shot, should he see and dislike us. AQF's how to get a great shot while being mauled by a bear to death.

Tomorrow we are getting a canoe.

Canadian Golf Hazard

2008-06-24T10:23:00.001-07:00

I apologize in advance for not having a picture to go along with this one, but it must be told, none-the-less.

First, a bit of context. Our resort is basically a ski lodge, though it has been cleverly allotted the dual purpose of being a golf course and golf resort in the off season. That being said, the course is steep, hilly, and in the woods (as it doubles as ski hills in the winter, which would be its primary purpose.)

So the course has its challenges. Our resort dining area overlooks the ninth hole of the course. It is serene, lovely, and looks impossible. You can see the tee from the tables, but not the flag, as it goes pretty much up from there. Only. So imagine trying to golf straight up. It is a 72 par 18 hole course, though, so it must be doable.

With one relatively big exception. Today as we were eating breakfast, after watching a woman whack the bananas out of her ball into a grove of tall pines, I happened to glance out of the window and see a grizzly strolling down the cart path. Not 20 yards from us sitting at the table. Didn't seem interested in the people who were all backing away hastily with cameras in hand. Didn't, actually, seem interested in the cars on the road that started slowing and snapping shots and driving away hurriedly as it approached the road. It actually walked between the building where we eat breakfast and the building where we sleep. BETWEEN. GRIZZLY!

I wonder what the shot penalty is for refusing to go to your ball because there is a Grizzly on your course?

So, we are going for a hike today. :)

CANADA!!!

2008-06-23T09:59:00.000-07:00

So, SPF and I are now in CANADA! How awesome is that, eh? (To be fair, no one has said "eh" to us. . . yet.)

Favorite moments so far:
Canadian Customs Agent - "You be on your way, now."
Bridge Caution Sign - "Slippery When Frosty."

And then there was this . . .

Nice.

Flightless Birds

2008-05-03T22:57:00.001-07:00

I have been having the unfortunate coincidence of running across dead birds lately. I don't know if it is a sign or not, but it is somewhat disconcerting. The first was a hawk. The sad thing is, in this case, I heard a cacophony of raven cries and looked to see as one of them dove to fend off the hawk (who perhaps had just killed one of their young) and it went somewhat limp and glided to the ground. When I happened upon it later, not intentionally, its neck had been snapped and it had landed in an apparent location equivalent to its last known trajectory. So it was a murder's murder.

The second was equally distressing. On the beach where I was walking to set up a shot that has been rolling around in my mind, I ran across a heron that was elegantly curled around itself, it's thin neck a gentle curve alongside it's limp body. It's feet were draped poetically out behind it, undoubtedly a consequence of the waves that seemed to place it on the shore in reverence. I took a roll of images because of its sad beauty and after the last was taken, my batteries died and I left the beach, the heron, and the purpose of the day behind.

As I was leaving, spent roll in hand, lifeless camera stowed away, I ran across a pigeon who had suffered a worse fate than the heron. If Mother Earth had been reverent to the heron, she had been alternately profane to the pigeon. When I found her disheveled body her feathers were awkwardly still intact, but she had been reduced to skull and beak with slight vertebrae emerging from the fluttering carcass. Where the heron had been lovely and sad, the pigeon was broken and disturbing.

The raven nearby that crowed at me had a ruffled wing that seemed to give him trouble, but he looked me square in the eye and flew away none-the-less. I left the others where they lay.

American Shrine

2008-04-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I wrote an installment regarding the snatches of life that I have experienced, but today I saw something that merits retelling.

I don't often go to McDonalds these days, partially for health reasons, and partially because I have so little money that I would normally rather save it and spend it on something of higher quality, but today I was short on time as well as cash and pulled in to their parking lot at the end of the lunch rush.

I am very tired these days and wanted a moment's peace, so I purchased a combo meal to eat in the restaurant. I was keeping to myself for the most part, with an occasional smile and nod to a passerby, when I noticed something strange.

At the table to my right was an elderly Chinese woman. She was wearing tidy, rust-colored pants, a beige cashmere sweater, a silk scarf tied around her neck in a tight knot, and comfortable shoes. In front of her on the table were three small paper cups with the ubiquitous golden arches logo placed at seeming random intervals around the sides. Besides the cups she had a newspaper written in Chinese script, and a framed image of an elderly Chinese man laughing. The image was partially blurred, having undoubtedly been taken with a slow shutter speed indoors, and the expression on his face seems to denote the kind of laugh that shakes a room. In some ways it was the perfect image of him, I would imagine. Not stationary, not "still", perhaps not captured at all. It was an image of emotion and presence rather than representation.

What caught my attention is that the woman, seated up at a raised table with her feet balancing precariously on the metal bar beneath the stool, was reading aloud from the paper. Reading, it seemed, to the portrait. I found her fascinating. She was simultaneously acknowledging the image, after all it was out on the table and she was reading to it, and not acknowledging it as I don't think I saw her look at it once. A moment later a younger woman, but still in her fifties, I would guess, came and lifted herself in to the seat opposite the elderly woman. There were still three small cups on the table. Three cups, two women, and a portrait.

It was then that I realized that she had, indeed, been reading to the portrait. Just as she had purchased a small drink for the portrait. It was an offering to a modern ancestor in the form of water in a waxed paper cup. I couldn't help but look at them. The strange little trio of colliding cultures from the most honored and revered traditions of one, to the most homogenized and marketed of the other.

When the woman at the counter microphone called for order 128, the younger of the two women shimmied out of the high stool and went to retrieve the food. To my great surprise she came back with one large fries and three sandwiches. All Premium Chicken sandwiches in their individual cardboard containers with bright green swaths of color and text indicating the contents. The younger woman placed all three on the table and handed the first to the older woman and picked up the second for herself.

After opening her own, the older woman reached across the table and picked up the third, carefully folded back the clamshell lid, and placed the open container in front of the portrait. It stayed there long after both of them had finished eating. I stayed until I realized I was becoming intrusive, and when I left, the shrine remained - Premium Chicken sandwich in a folded cardboard box, waxed paper cup of water, and blurry portrait that was both trapped in the moment and forever moving out of it.

Crazy Camera Lady

2008-04-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

My husband made a comment tonight that I was turning into the "Crazy Camera Lady." Pshaw! Crazy Camera Lady, come on! How many cameras would I have to have to be crazy? I mean, every camera I have has a good reason to be had.

For instance, even though I don't use it anymore, the Minolta SRT101 has sentimental value, and I don't really know why I have the Minolta XE-7, so. . . I don't use the Nikon N65 anymore, that's true, but I do use both the the Nikon F100 and the FujiFilm S5 Pro, one for film 35mm, one for digital. I mean, that's just obvious. The CoolPix is just for fun and ease of carriage and use. So, really, that hardly counts. I need the control of the Mamiya 645 and it is a better fidelity negative than 35mm and easier to handhold than a 4x5, so I have to have it. And my grandfather's ArgoFlex is necessary, clearly. The Holga is a toy camera. Literally. And the two pinholes are really only useful as pinholes, if you know what I mean. Then you have the Toyo, Silver, and her uncle, the gifted 4x5 that KH used in his heyday. I use the Toyo all the time. I mean, really, I should have purchased one outright rather than renting one for so long, so not purchasing it was a poor decision. And you are just being ridiculous if you think that the camera in my phone or the camera in my computer count. They don't. I'm not that crazy.

For those of you that are counting, that's 15.

Um. Heh.

Bleeding.

2008-04-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

I feel like I am bleeding. Not in a physical "call the doctor" way, but in a more emotional way. I think part of it is because I am almost 30. I feel like some elemental part of what I was supposed to do up until this point that hasn't yet been accomplished is seeping away. I imagine, also, that this is perception, but it feels somewhat tangible. Feels like bleeding.

I am going to be somewhat alone on my birthday and that is starting to make me lonely. I have friends in the MFA that are asking if I want a party or a "martini crawl" but I am not in a place where those things really appeal anymore. You know what I wanted? A magician. I kid you not. I want to feel like I am six years old again, and that involves me interacting with a magician.

I realize this is not only not possible, it is not practical. It won't happen. It shouldn't happen. I can't expect it to happen, but I want to feel young, not old. I want to be excited and actually spontaneously giggle. I don't want to feel "past my prime" as one friend unfortunately put it, though he immediately said "I didn't mean that like it sounded!!"

The exact sentence was in relation to why I had so many bruises, and he said "perhaps you are like a fruit that's past its prime."

Sigh.

My MFA Buddy

2008-04-01T21:03:00.001-07:00

I have a friend in the MFA program that suggested that I start a blog about my MFA project that I can write about every day. I think it is a kind of awesome idea, but I don't want to start it here, because here I like to think I have maintained anonymity. Stop laughing. You may be able to figure out who I am if you read all of the blogs. Then again, you can probably find out if you read just the last year's worth. Or, truthfully, just search MFA on this blog and you can find out how many MFA 1st year students there are at Brooks that teach English. Crap. Well, so even if you know who I am, not everyone does. At any rate, I may start a blog on another page in another way, but I will link to it from this page. Just not back to this one from that one. Shhhhh.

Call Me

2008-04-01T21:02:00.001-07:00

I just thought that I put my phone in the oven with my chicken and rice.

It's okay, though. I didn't.

Alrighty Then

2008-03-14T18:12:00.000-07:00

The Light Through the Screen

2008-03-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

There is light that comes through the wavering mesh on the hasty wooden frame that is my screen door. It is alive. It has a pulse. It shudders when it breathes, as the light wind moves it around in the late afternoon sun. There are pockets of shadow that make up the tremulous lungs, vibrant highlights the veins and blood, a rickety cross beam the bones of a dark skeleton. She is quiet, patient. She is content to let the black thread run its course before she secures her place in the new light. We have an understanding - for me acknowledgment, for her a possible purpose on the horizon with the changing tide.

Girl, You Are Channeling Something

2008-02-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

I don't want to give too much away. In fact, I am not sure why I am writing at all, other than I am excited. I am nervous. I am experiencing creative bliss. The process that is self-discovery in this MFA program has become momentous. I am barely managing to hang on for the ride.

I feel attached to my project as though it is hooked into the veins on my wrists and tugging towards its own creation. It is a struggle, but it is going somewhere, in a very real direction. It has a mind of its own and I am listening as closely as I can to hear the cues that I am supposed to respond to. In its own tricky way it is silent when I am not paying close enough attention and I fumble my way into accidents that lead to realizations that lead to art.

It is very hard to explain. People have asked. People I care about, but I can only say that it is better seen than explained. Better experienced than imagined. The funny thing is, there are some people that see it and nod and smile and say "Wow, that's artsy." I smile back but am not affected, because I understand, for perhaps the first time, that if you don't get it, it is not my fault, but the way the Universe has spoken to you versus the way the Universe has spoken to me. It doesn't matter if you get it or not. If you don't, thank you for your effort, but if you do, then you really do. And it is not just the art that you understand, but you understand me.

The epitomal example of this phenomenon would be class yesterday where our instructor, a brilliant and inspirational man named Tim, lightly touched the base of my image with his fingertips indicating that it was the image we would be talking about only to initiate a calm silence over the class. After what seemed like a great deal of time passed, one of my fellow students looked me in the eye and said, "Girl, you are channeling something." I smiled and looked into his eyes and nodded once. Because, you see, I am.

I am no longer shoving the process, but acting as a conduit for something that wants to get out. Something that needs to be stated. That, I am beginning to understand, is the purpose of the artist.

I Think They Like Me!

2008-01-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

Did I mention in my last blog that I have three students? My roster originally had six, three showed up the first day, then four, then two, then three again. No two classes have had the same students. No matter, though. I have wonderful students who are enthusiastic, hard-working, and respectful. They are wonderful. Right now I have two "A" students and one...who needs a little work. Those of you who know me well will know that I expect a lot out of everyone. I give 100% all the time and am insulted when others do not, so you can imagine what it means that I have two "A" students. They have been perfect students. They do not previously know and understand the material, mind you, but they are curious, attentive, and dedicated. I could not be more pleased.

As we discussed our vocabulary list, a collection of uncommon words from the essays we have been reading, I offered up the opportunity for extra credit. To gain extra points, all you needed to do was to use the vocabulary words in a comprehensive paragraph that made sense.

Two of my students wrote a song. At the beginning of class yesterday they came like minstrels down the hallway, guitar in hand, plucking out their tune and humming their lyrics under their breath. It was the first time that they weren't fifteen minutes early to class. I believe that they were practicing the song in the parking lot outside, waiting until they got it right, or until they saw the time, and came in to regale me with their newly applied knowledge.

It is quite possibly the best thing I have ever had the pleasure of hearing in my entire life. It had a bluesy riff, no doubt influenced by the vocabulary words "plaintive," "itinerant," and "contrition." Their "narrative" was soulfully expressed, as they sang of the melancholy of their "sojourn" as they waited, with broken hearts, for the "expository" life lesson and commiserated over the loss of their stolen "fez."

I will ask them for a transcribed version to frame. It was magnificent. Indeed, if I could, "A + + + + +!!!!!" and I would dance around the room. As it was I clapped, smiled, and gave them a rousing "Bravo!"

They both did tremendously well on the quiz.

The Universe Has Sent Me A Sign

2008-01-18T22:10:00.000-08:00

There is a modernized philosophy about life that I have taken to heart. I have found it in "The Artist's Way" and "The Alchemist" to name a couple of occurrences, but it is more prolifically abundant than just the two. The concept is about actualizing your destiny. Once you determine your path and are faithful to it, The Universe, or God, or Fate, or whatever you choose to call it, determines that you are worthy to be rewarded for your participation in the greater tapestry. It is a concept that, should everyone actualize their purpose, the universe would flow without obstacle and hindrance. In other words, when you are on your path, The Universe helps you stay there because it recognizes that you are one of the good guys.

Getting there, however, takes work and a thorough demonstration of your commitment to your path. This could be re-described as persistence. It could be interpreted as the lucky opportunity that got your foot in the door. It is the courage and heart to stand facing the uncertainty of your future and say "Universe, I am ready."

The path is hard. The path is full of doubt, demons, and obstacles both external and self-inflicted. My demons number in the thousands. The wickedest of these whispers in my ear, even now, that I am not numbered amongst the worthy. It is getting easier to tune her out.

When I am open to my path my photography shifts and changes. She reminds me, with a sudden gasp for air, that she must be allowed to evolve, to grow, to change, and that trying to capture the same image that I captured yesterday is not only suffocating her, but denying my path. Because of this there is a part of me that thought she was my purpose. I didn't really understand that you needn't limit yourself to one medium, to one voice.

In some ways I wanted to teach because I am worried about the path. I am worried that Fate will betray me and I will be left a quivering mass of blackened failure, my photo spirit dead beside me as I clasp to the cultural trappings that define success that I have also squandered. Fate can have a funny way of slashing your throat when you hug her close.

Part of me, however, has always wanted to teach. The part that eagerly answers my friends' questions regarding life, photography, how to clean a garbage disposal. One of my best friends calls me his Life Coach. I take it as the highest compliment. I want desperately to be helpful. I want to spread knowledge. To me it is not unlike handing out bread at the soup kitchen or walking around the shelter on Christmas Eve with a pitcher of water providing the indigent whatever they need, where they don't need to procure it for themselves. That sounds too righteous, but if you have ever done something of that nature, you will hopefully understand my meaning. It is not self-serving in the least. It becomes something entirely different.

Because of this alternate nagging voice, one that still wants me to succeed, and perhaps still has faith that I can, I poked and prodded the Provost looking for employment at Brooks. I wanted desperately to be an educator, true, but to be an educator at the institution to which I owe my photographic rebirth was the greatest prize. I spoke to anyone and everyone who could offer me any sense of guidance. As you know from my previous blogs, I got the job. I am not going to suggest that I got the job due to the aforementioned great will and perseverance. In fact, I think that I got the job because The Path saw that I was straying and gave me a kidney punch to get back in line.

The reason I believe this is because the last four days have been sheer joy. When I last wrote I was terrified. Worried they wouldn't respect me, concerned about my abilities, my knowledge. Could I control the classroom? Could I inform them of something they didn't know? Could I help them succeed? Indeed, would I succeed? I didn't have much of a choice beyond gathering my materials and facing the moment in which I would face my future. It was the moment of do or die, sink or swim, school or be schooled.

As I sat in the classroom, which I had entered almost a solid hour in advance, I brought up my website, looked over my notes, tried to log in to the school computer system, failed, became nervous, and again forced myself to breathe. I was expecting them all to be late. I was certainly not expecting three of them to be early.

The first student through the door walked straight up to me with his hand extended, said hello, and told me his name. He had a Cheshire grin that splits his face every day in class. He is currently my top student. The other two behind him were of equally good spirits and gracious demeanor. They are a gift. They are making my introductory experience not only positive, but life altering. I am unable to contain my enthusiasm at teaching them for the next six weeks, and in some senses already melancholy that it will soon be over. Too soon. They have made such a positive impression that no matter what happens in courses to come I will always have my first class, my baptism, my wondrous angels. Universe, God, Destiny...thank you.

English Teachers

2008-01-14T12:05:00.000-08:00

I begin my new career today. There is an immediacy, and an inherent panic, in that statement. I am preparing all of my materials, reviewing my schedule and syllabus, and occasionally reminding myself how to breathe. I have written about that before. Just breathe. Force the air in and it finds its way out, hopefully taking some distressing remnants of desperation, concern, and fear with it.

I am trying to remember those individuals in my life that I have learned from who kept me alert and alive in the face of new, and often daunting, material. Those people are my models, yet I remember a shadow of an image of how they looked; how they carried themselves in class; the casual confidence with which they delivered their information; and what ultimately led me to believe whole-heartedly in their expertise, focus, and competence. Right. I can do that. Force the breath in...

I suppose I will discover the courage tonight, at 7:00, when my fresh young minds come in and look at me with precaution and maybe even doubt. I can dispel their concerns. I can. Force the breath in...