Pneumonia Sucks

Yup. It just plain sucks. This is my second day in bed. I don't do sick-in-bed very well at all. In fact I don't do it at all unless I feel really rotten. I feel really rotten. Thank heavens for my lap computer so I can at least get a few things done. And portable phones and cell phones. I may be sick in bed, but I'm not entirely cut off from the world.

For amusement I went to the American Idol site and rated this year's 20 candidates for The Song. What a bunch of schlock. Not the songwriters' fault. AI wants schlock. There were maybe 2 of the 20 that didn't make me cringe. Must AI insult our collective intelligence this way? The (cringey) Song is one of the reasons why I didn't even watch toward the end of last season. The contestants are much better this year, but the winner will deserve a better The Song than he or she will get.

Almost Pneumonia

Yup, that's what I've got. Almost pneumonia. That's the official diagnosis. And I thought it would be another one of those cold/viral-icky/bronchitis things. And you didn't even know I was ailing. Oh well. Life goes on.

We checked in with the attorney to get my power-of-attorney for when Randy is away. In case anything gets screwed up with the house in his absence.

We selected 3 concrete roof tile samples at the lumber company. The samples will come in a few days. This is mostly for color selection.

We talked with the window lady about windows. Again. This is a BIG issue in a passive-solar house since most windows aren't set-up for anything other than artificial-heating-in-the-winter and air-conditioning-in-the-summer. We want to avoid both.

I told you. Life goes on. And it was way more fun today than having almost pneumonia.

The Cost of Car Juice

It's been too long since I've written. Still no photos. But there's something I've just got to mention.

I can't believe how much we're paying for gasoline here. I mean right here. California coast, half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The big cities have always been higher, but as near as I can tell, short of Hawaii, we're paying more right now than anyone anywhere in the USA. Within the last couple of weeks we've been in San Francisco and New York City. They're paying less than we are. Good grief! Even Manhattanites are paying less than we are for gas! We've always been lower than at least those 2 places. What is going on here? My last fill up was at 3.899, with some stations as high as 3.999 for regular. You know: the cheap stuff. We'll be over $4.00 a gallon shortly.

You could editorialize about this from a number of different angles, but I'm thinking of working people who are just barely scraping by as it is. Do you go without food to pay for the gas to get to work to pay for the gas to get to work? Just wondering.

Oooops! We've done it this time!

We've purchased those metaphorical non-refundable tickets for the Big Ride. We signed the contract with the builder this morning. Of course, the house, as currently configured, costs about twice as much as originally planned. Surprise, surprise. We still have to see what the bank says about all this. And the city has yet to cough up a building permit. But, it would appear that a major step forward has been taken. I sort of feel like Randy and I have just married the builder. Stay tuned for further exciting adventures.

Report From a Field Trip

Good grief. In an effort to bring this cabinet controversy to some kind of resolution, the estimator (who came up with this idea), the architect, Randy and I all took a field trip this afternoon to the local cabinet maker (hereafter known as LCM), with the upscale (i.e. ones I want) sample cabinet doors in hand to see if the LCM could indeed recreate them at a lower price. To make another very long story short, the answer is, "Maybe. Kinda. We'll see." The upscale doors are like nothing the LCM has ever done before, but they will take a crack at making some samples, somewhat reluctantly. The other unknown, of course, is this: even if the LCM _can_ make appropriate doors, will they be any less than the cost of the upscale doors from the original provider? I have a feeling this story line is going to drag on. And on. And on. And I'm not sure there will be a good outcome.

The upside is that we all learned a whole lot of stuff about cabinetry that we never knew before. How the pieces and parts get made in the first place, mostly. And we did select a countertop material and color for the laundry room, whoever ends up making the cabinets. Zodiac. Astral Pearl. Cool.

The Tale of the See-Through Door

It's been a very, very long week and a half. To make a very, very long story short-- First we hit a major stumbling block with the city planning department in getting the permit for our house. The major stumbling block was an incompetent planner, but it took a lot of time and energy on the part of a lot of people to get that rock, and I do mean rock, out of the road. Then the builder has started giving me grief about the cost of the kitchen and laundry room cabinetry I've selected. That issue is not yet resolved, but I can't help but ask, "Whose house is this, and who's paying for it?" I'm forever asking questions like that. Does he have some hidden agenda? Darned if I know.

But on to the see-through door. We're constantly going through new houses to hunt for ideas. Mostly we learn what not to do. We went through 5 spec houses Sunday afternoon. Mind you, they are a stone's throw from the ocean. But they do cost $1.25 million, more or less. Not large, but supposedly somewhat luxurious. For that money, no matter the location, I would at least expect basic competence (there's that word again!). Our favorite of the 5 houses had a see-through door. No, it wasn't supposed to be that way, but you could clearly see light in numerous places coming in between the boards that made up the old-mediterranean style round-top door. Which means that cold air will be pouring into the house, and warm, heated ($$$) air will be pouring out. You'd think that kind of money would at least buy you a decent door.

Otherwise, a week ago Saturday I had a grand time judging high school forensics contests in Atascadero. Kept my mind off house problems. I'm pet-sitting 2 toy poodles this weekend. Today I'm getting the block-of-the-month ready for my quilt guild meeting tonight. A good, red-blooded American thing to do.

Friday in Santa Barbara

It's late. I'm pooped.

My girlfriend Georg and I went to SB today. We looked at lighting fixtures, cabinetry, and more lighting fixtures. Also, a fellow who was out and about with his dog, cat and rat who were all stacked up one atop another. I'm not kidding.

I could go into details, but...

It's late. I'm pooped.

Stone Forest

It's late. I'm tired. Wait! That was my line yesterday.

The Stone Forest boulder sinks for the master bathroom arrived today. They are sitting in the driveway, all swaddled up on a pallet. At 90 pounds a piece, I don't think they're going to go anywhere. I'm really thinking concrete countertops under those sinks. I'm SO glad I decided to go with them. I loved them several years ago when I considered one for the bathroom remodel in our present home, and I still love them as much as ever. Maybe more. Love, love, love.

We also purchased a Stone Forest vessel sink for the library bathroom when we visited the corporate showroom in Santa Fe in December. Those people do really, really good work. Maybe we can get one of their outside fountains later. Drool.

Otherwise, I spent a lot of time on email today, communicating this, that and the other bits of information to various players. I'm trying very hard to keep everyone up to speed on everything that I know about and everything I'm even thinking about. At the same time, I couldn't resist just going on line some to hunt through various things like outdoor furniture, exterior lighting fixtures, and chandeliers. Shop, shop, shop.

Oh yes! I also spent some time buying tickets for our trip to NYC next month. This will be "play 'til you drop." We have left front mezzanine tickets for The Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theatre, first row on the inside aisle. Then there are center orchestra tickets at the Shubert Theatre for Spamalot. Also, Carnegie Hall tickets, second tier, for the Orchestra of St. Luke's. Bobby McFerrin is the conductor. At that point I was suffering from sticker shock and quit, although I'd still like to see November with Nathan Lane. Maybe from the rest rooms? Those seats should be pretty cheap.

I've Always Loved the Scent of Gardenias and Bargains

It's late. I'm tired. But I promised....

I love to shop. I REALLY love to shop for bargains! We're building a house. I have LOTS of opportunities to shop. And a need to shop for bargains.

Yesterday I made a return visit to Tuesday Morning and bought something I'd spotted there a couple weeks ago. A line of "pretty" (Jen's word and I agree) but discontinued bathroom fixtures by CSI (Moen) called "Gardenia". I purchased 2 towel bars, a towel ring, a toilet paper holder and a robe hook. Half price. Yeah! And they weren't dreadfully expensive in the first place. These will go in the library/guest bath where the vanity and sink (already purchased) are smaller in size and scale than items in much of the rest of the house.

Jen and I both came, independently, to the conclusion that this design would also look good in the laundry room where we need a towel bar or ring or something, so I may go back and fetch some additional pieces.

The piggies' parents are home, so I'm done with this current pet-sitting job. The AI elimination, David Hernandez, was no surprise. I like his voice, but I found him a little scarey to watch as a performer. Wonder if he was scarey to watch as a stripper? We'll (probably) never know.

American Idol - Week 1

Shoot. I forgot to blog last night. I'll make up for it today.

Last night was all about American Idol. Week 1 for the top 12. Davids Archuleta and Cook have been my favorite guys all along, but Archuleta was dreadful last night. Among other things, he forgot his lyrics. Twice. Reminded me that forgetting lyrics was the kiss of death for those who exited at Week 1 both last year AND the year before! Cook, on the other hand, was one of my 3 favorites last night, along with Chikezie and Amanda Overmyer. I love how the rockers kicked it up with the Beatles songs. We've already heard those tunes ballad-ed to death over the years, but rarely rocked out.

Archuleta wasn't the only Idol in trouble last night. Syesha, Ramiele (you'd throw away a shot at being the AI whining over the loss of a gay kid? huh?), David Hernandez, and Kristy Lee were all weak. Well, Kristy Lee was beyond weak. I never could even figure out where the beat was in her ill-conceived "country" version of "Eight Days a We(a)k." It was a train wreck for the girl who was in danger in the bottom 3 females the last 2 weeks anyway. Bye-bye, Kristy Lee. Or should I say, woof-woof, Kristy Lee. Throw the girl a bone.

Terror-to-the-Bone Monday

Today we met with the builder to get his "final" estimate for building the house. Of course, it's terrifyingly much larger than we'd originally intended. Well, I'm terrified. Randy isn't. Who knew that I would terrify over money more easily than my husband?

Next step is to take this information to the bank and beg, on hands and knees, for a construction loan. Which will be based, in no small part, on whether or not the bank's appraiser thinks the house will actually be worth what it cost to build. Never mind how totally volatile and weird the current housing market is. Never mind how weird our house is. As built, it will be a 1-bedroom, 3-bath house. I'll explain that some other time.

Basically, I'm stressed.

Otherwise, I bought a belt at Ross Dress-for-Less (a $30 Calvin Klein for $10) so my jeans don't fall off. And a pair of one-size-smaller jeans for the day I can get into them. The belt will work with those jeans, too. It's a plain belt, so I can just keep punching new holes in it until I disappear.

The piggies grandmother, Elsie, received a belated 88th birthday present and card today from me and Randy. Her birthday was last Tuesday. I stopped at Trader Joe's and bought Elsie a big bouquet of flowers. Elsie is a gem.

From one of my favorite beadmakers, Luann Jamison, a string of her orphan beads arrived in the mail. I've been trying to buy some of her orphans for a long time, but some other buyer always beats me to it. I got some this time and I just love them. Orphan beads are fun to play with.

Well, back to work. Whatever that is.

Nose-to-the-Grindstone Sunday

Randy was off working all day today, so I took advantage of the situation to clean up a couple of messes, the kind of messes where you have to make a worse mess first in order to clean up the mess.

First, I cleaned the dining room. Doesn't sound like that big a deal, but in our house, by virtue of its geography, the dining room is the center of all activity. It always collects the most cat fur and gets the messiest.

Second was straightening up all the New House stuff. We have files, books, blueprints, samples, you name it. The stuff had gotten messed up and spread around to the point that I no longer could put my hands on particular items. I was looking for the window catalog the other day and had not the foggiest idea where it was. So now I've gone through all the files and recycled a lot of stuff that is no longer relevant (I once had nearly 20 kitchen cabinet catalogs, for example), gotten things re-organized, and everything now is all in one place, on the House Table, as I call it, which is in a corner of the living room.

Third, I cleaned out the kitchen junk drawer. Every kitchen has one. It's where pencils, scissors, take-out menus and other such paraphenalia collect. Over time the collection gets a bit TOO large. Like the New House stuff, I could no longer find anything in the drawer and could hardly even close it half the time. I took everything out, got rid of half of it, and reorganized the rest. Yippee!!

My friends Barry and Leabah are out of town for a couple of days, so I'll be pet-sitting their 2 pot-bellied pigs. When I went there for lunch, I met Barry's 2 daughters. Cool, since I've heard so much about them. At piggy dinner time, it was just me and the pigs and Leabah's mom Elsie and her caretaker.

I Hang My Head...

I swore up and down that I would blog every day. I haven't. I'll try again.

Status of The House: We're waiting for the builder to finish his final cost estimate, which then goes to the bank where they have some appraiser recreate the wheel. The theory is that the construction loan will be approved and ground will be broken at the end of April. In the meantime, I've continued to shop. Although generally, the architect and I have actually reached the point where we can't move forward until the cost estimate is finalized since the next step is to make specific choices re: things like light fixtures.

My recent purchases were from Pacific Kitchen and Bath's annual spring parking lot sale: a Native Trails round copper prep sink for the kitchen island, and a faucet for the upstairs bath. Saved significant money this way. In addition, the punched tin pieces made by Marian Moore in Taos have arrived: 2 large sconces for the great room, 2 more (custom designed for us!) for the master bedroom, and a cat door surround that will go on the wall between the back hallway and the laundry room. (We may have her make some additional sconces for the foyer.)

What I accomplished yesterday: Finally finished filling up a new address book. The old one was shot, but getting all the current info into a new one took F-o-r-e-v-e-r! AND, the info is all in my computer. Phew!

What I accomplished today: Did ALL the laundry, totally caught up with ironing, and "installed" fresh sheets and towels. Don't have to do THAT odious chore for awhile.

Saving the World

Think you have to save the world? No; it's not your job.

Think you can't do anything at all toward saving the world? No, that's not quite right either. Take a lesson from Edward Everett Hale. I love this thought. It's why we foster little batches of kittens every summer.

"I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But I can still do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

Is there some little thing you can do today to make the world a better place? Share a ride? Show someone a kindness? Read a little so that you can speak intelligently on some subject? Prepare to vote in your next election?

I believe that if you do a little something every day, or nearly every day, you ARE saving the world.

Kermit Was Right

It's not easy being green.

You would think that building a "green" energy-efficient house would be a no-brainer. Easy. After all, there are all kinds of environmentally "friendly" products available now. Wheatboard cabinets. Bamboo flooring. Low-e coated thermal windows. Energy-efficient appliances. Solar panels. It's all out there. But when you start doing research, you find out that all these decisions aren't so easy and obvious.

Take wheatboard cabinetry for example. In some installations, the cabinets have been literally falling apart in 5 years and have to be replaced. What's green about sending cabinets to the landfill after 5 years? I've chosen cherry cabinets made from all of the cherry tree, cracks, blemishes and all. Those natural characteristics will give me the rustic look I want and ensure that little or no wood is wasted. (Leftovers go to the local high school shop class.) They are somewhat higher end cabinets, made by a small company in Minnesota, Plato. Yes, they will have to shipped 1500 miles from there to here, but these cabinets don't look like the mass-produced stuff we commonly see. Because they aren't. Plato is a small company. Employees get a living wage with benefits. We will end up with high-quality, made-in-America-for-a-living-wage cabinets that wil be in style andl last forever. Or as close to it as one can reasonably get. I think that's green. You may differ.

Our Friday meeting with the architect focused on some remaining structural issues. But also on heating, cooling, window, and energy issues, all of which are tangled together like a ball of worms. We have Jen's energy calculations. And Randy's. Will the twain meet? Eventually. In the meantime, we still are struggling to figure out how much supplemental heating we need and where. And what window coatings to choose to optimize heat gain in the winter and heat lose in the summer. It isn't as easy as just slapping in low-e coated windows and a gas stove here and there. Wish it were. We have a long ways to go to deal with those issues and make those decisions. And 2 meetings scheduled with Jen the architect next week after she meets with the engineer(s) and the builder twice earlier in the week. Did I mention that we now have both a structural AND a civil engineer on this project? Never mind the surveyor who played out his part some time ago. And here I thought we were building a structure that was just a house. Sigh. Live and learn.

A Window on the Truth

An astute reader, and probably my only reader astute or otherwise, has inquired, "What is a truth window?" Truth windows are, as far as I know, unique to straw bale buildings, although not all of them have one while some have more than one. I haven't the foggiest idea where this straw bale construction tradition started, but I think it's pretty cool.

You really can't tell that a straw bale building is a straw bale building. If you look closely, and the architecture has highlighted this, you might notice that the walls are thicker than normal, but, frankly, you can get thick walls with any number of construction techniques. You can also choose to finish the walls to highlight the undulating qualities of the bale stacks, but most people don't. So, many owners incorporate truth windows to prove that the walls are, indeed, actually made of straw.

A truth window is on an inside wall and shows the actual straw beneath the finished wall. Frequently a truth window is in the form of a frame around a piece of glass behind which, you guessed it, is the straw bale wall. Another oft used approach is to have a little door in the wall that opens to reveal the straw which may or may not be covered with glass. (Some folks want to feel as well as see their straw.)

We will have (at least) 2 truth windows. One is the little door approach, the small antique Mexican framed pantry door. (Turns out that small ones are rare; who knew.) That one will be in the library. In the laundry room we'll have an oval brass porthole. This is an actual porthole that would normally be installed in a yacht. And if my warped imagination comes across anything else too cool to pass up we may have another one somewhere.

Clothes Hangers

Remember me telling you how I'm slowly cleaning stuff out of our garage, and either getting rid of it or cleaning and packing it up for storage until getting moved into the new house? My objective is to deal with some pile, piece, box or stack of stuff most days that I'm at home. Apparently some piles, pieces, boxes and stacks will be a bit more challenging than others.

For reasons I won't even go into now, I had a huge collection of nice clothes hangers in the garage, all totally coated in dust. I spent a lot of time Tuesday cleaning them all, running batches through the quick clean cycle on the dishwasher, sorting them, and getting the hanger situation in our existing closets straightened out. Today I packed up all the ones going to the animal shelter thrift shop. Phew. I also have a small box of clean black hangers for the closet in our new library/guest room. And another box full that will go to the laundry room.

What a dopey, time-consuming job. But necessary. And with a really good set of outcomes. Joan Crawford would be proud of me, and I'm rather happy with myself, too.

2008: Week One at The Estate

You know. The Estate. Well, we have to have something to call it. Our land is 3.7 acres, but except for a small building pad, it's so steep you can't even walk on it. Deer can walk on it. Not people. '"The Building Site" has too many words. "The Estate" is short and simple.

Randy spent a lot of time January 1 and 2 planting at The Estate. He hopes to return the land to its former vegetal glory on the one hand, and increase the number of oak trees on the other. Eventually the existing mature oaks will die, so it's important to have young 'uns to take over. In anticipation of predicted rain (it came, a LOT of it!), he planted coffee berries, toyons, and something else I can't remember. And acorns. Hundreds of acorns. Acorns we harvested from the trees on site a while back, that have been resting and wintering in our refrigerator.

While it rained, we were in San Francisco at Pearson's national sales meeting. Pearson being Randy's publisher. He attended to launch the second edition of his first book. I tagged along to eat, socialize, be a bum, and shop. Damn, I'm developing a taste for Italian leather bags. Now we're home again. Randy's teaching full-time this quarter. I'm pursuing my clean-out-pack-up-and-move-stuff-to-the-storage-locker project. And generally working very hard to get and stay organized. It's going to be an intense year.

The Garage and The Storage Locker

Happy New Year! I'm so excited! 2008 is the Year of The House. I doubt there will be one boring day out of the entire 366. Even the last few days have been lots of fun. One night was dinner at Jan and Kirk's house with Nick. We talked of Nick's involvement with SLO Green Build, Jan and Kirk's wonderful RV trip to southeast Canada, Randy's trip to India, and, of course, The House since we are all interested in environmental and energy issues. Followed the next day by lunch at the Madonna Inn's Copper Coffeehouse with Wayne and Scott, friend Jim, and their wonderful beagle Eddie. Capped today by lunch with my cousin Marty and her daughter Julie who was visiting from Denver. I love these people. It was so great to see them all.

I promised a few words about the garage and the storage locker. One of the many reasons for building this new house is so that I will finally have room to pursue all my creative interests, especially weaving. I have 4 looms, but there isn't room here for 2 of them: my father's rug loom, and my 16-shaft Macomber. At the moment, like good Californians, our garage is packed with stuff that won't fit in the house. Obviously, boxes of weaving yarn and looms in pieces jammed into the garage aren't of much use to me here and now, so I'm bit by bit going through all this stuff, tossing and organizing where necessary, and carting things to a storage locker just a couple miles from the new house site. Bit by bit, nearly everything in this house will end up in storage there as we prepare to move.

There's nothing easy about this phase of the task: the garage. It's often overwhelming and frequently emotional as I shed stuff that just isn't relevant to my life anymore, however much it once was. I recently read a bit of clarifying advice about cleaning out: if it isn't immediately useful or deemed beautiful, get rid of it. I'll admit that my definition of "immediately useful" is a little loose. For example, I probably need never buy more weaving yarn, other than some basic black, of course. And beauty is clearly in the eyes of the beholder. Still, I love getting cleaned out, cleaned up and organized. When the house is ready for us, all we'll have to do is move stuff from the storage locker into the new house. Everything will be boxed and labelled. So far I've moved my basic weaving yarn into the locker along with boxes of fabric for weaving rugs. To-be-dyed yarn is now organized and boxed, ready to go into storage. Each day I resolve to tackle another box or pile or stuff, making that fateful decision: useful or beautiful? or not?