zen_kick 的个人资料PoetasterSalad - M e l o...照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
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8月27日 Dreaming of dreaming.Having passed the one year anniversary of our new place I realize that here, just like before the project list is endless. Big difference is that for the first time all our projects are within walking distance of each other. Last month we had a friend helping clear brush and he got a bit overzealous on the blackberry thicket - taking it all the way back to the fence. While our late summer blackberry harvest was decimated, a huge amount of new flat space appeared between the goat shed and the fence.
The new vista inspired in me a desire to design and build a sleeping porch back there and to remove the marginally useful goat shed. I envision a raised, covered deck about 10-12 feet wide and about 30 feet long with a set of stairs at each end. The deck would have a closed back and be covered by a sloped shed roof to protect it from the rain. About every 5-6 feet would be a round support post. Each of these posts would host eyebolts from which would hang a nylon sleeping hammock (About $30 at the local hardware store).
I have seen films of South American tribes who use hammocks as their only furniture - laying crossways functions like a lounger. Great way to entertain or relax. 12月11日 How are we doing?In general I find that photo posting is the catalyst for driving new posts. Unfortunately with the impending move I have been way lax about tracking new images - just dump the card and clean up later. I think part of the issue is that I have this idea of building a master backup system (picked up a new LaCie backup drive) for all the computers but have yet to implement. I think I am waiting on two things: 1) when we actually move since I'll need to backup and then re-setup at that time anyway 2) purchase and installation of Vista.
I may have said it before but maintaining a single machine is roughly equivalent to the time required to maintain a room in the house.
This is all a long-winded way to say that there are many images to come - just not right now. 11月13日 Ramping up the complexity.So there has been a marked gap in my postings since August. As per the usual blogging cliche "things have been really busy" with lots of big changes in the wind. Things were kicked off by the realization that we were tired of being landlords coupled with a re-organization at work right about the time that my wife and I went to the Strawberry festival. Now we have been talking about moving into a more rural place for some time and have even looked at North Bend, Index, Whidbey for potential cabins or getaways. Around the first of August my wife came up with the bright idea of looking on Vashon - close but yet so far - a solution more attractive by the ferryboats at both ends. My oldest has family in T-town so a 15 drive to drop him to the ferry boat is much preferable to the 2 hour stop and go on the 5 every other weekend. Believe it or not, in my 30 years as a resident I had never been to Vashon so we figured we should check out the strawberry festival and see if we liked it. The following week I found online an interesting house and land plot and we were off. In the past 90 days we:
Not to mention the job change, new dogs etc. Each of the line items is a saga in itself, there are many more to get through before we can move and a bunch of people are pretty irritated that we are moving out of Ballard (I've been here 11 years) but we are still doing it. I know the commute will be longer and I will be at the mercy of the ferry schedule. I know we'll miss our neighbors, kids and family who are close. I know it will be a struggle for me to pare down my remaining boxes and piles of equipment as we move to a smaller location. None of this worries me. I had some good advice from a friend of mine in the middle of the summer. He told me that if you practice sitting still for awhile and listen a voice will come to you from when you were much younger that can tell you what you should be doing. I had forgotten but I have always wanted to live in a place with enough space to have a bunch of little buildings and tents and treehouses and ropes and stuff. I spend hours every day growing up in the watershed near my parent's house and this place is pretty much that exactly. I guess my voice spoke up. 8月2日 Painting the house.We are finally getting the awful, patchy 70's brown off the house. My wife, the color picker extrordanaire, chose a wonderful dusty purple for the body and a dark red for the trim. Since the last paint job was a do-it-yourself by the previous owner, I hadn't realized how spotty and worn it was until I saw the results of the first coat. The body is complete, trim nearly done and we just need the accent colors and the decking finished. Of course with the siding looking so good I am starting to see the surroundings in need of a good upgrade. Staining the fence, planting the beds, pressure washing the patio and driveway. Seems like house improvement only begats more house improvement.
I'll post photos when it's done. 4月12日 Taxes are done.As of 7:32am this morning, our 2005 tax return was signed, sealed and ready to deliver - just in time for vacation. This is the first time since getting married that I have made the April 15th deadline. I don't know what I am going to do with myself until June without worrying about finishing my return every weekend... 4月3日 Tax Time results.Wow. It's so weird to be nearly done with my tax return two full weeks before the deadline. With a late night session Friday, and several shorter pushes during the day Saturday, I have a small list of items left to complete for deductions (finding vehicle tax records etc.) then I am ready to talk to the accountant. Last year was tougher since there were so many new things to work out with the baby and my wife's business, and the fact that I lost my previous returns in a computer backup disaster. This year, nothing new and TurboTax has improved their software to make some of the entry much quicker.
Looking forward to going on vacation with this work behind me. 3月31日 Tax Time!This weekend has been designated tax weekend by my lovely wife. When we first got married I had embarassedly fallen behind at least three years in filing my income tax return. I didn't see it as a big problem since I had been careful to always overpay through withholding at least a bit every year and thus I wasn't cheating the IRS out of anything. That said, I did have this nagging concern every weekend where I would say "This weekend I'll get it finished!" and inevitably would find something more exciting to do.
Through diligent effort and a ton of work sifting through papers I finally reached the point where last year I filed only 3 months after the due date. This year my wife has vowed we will file on time and she has definitely been a big help in cleaning up paperwork, organizing my workspace and clearing the schedule. I certainly appreciate her efforts and I must say that failing to file on time always feels a little bit like failing at being an adult. Given the relatively recent work to file and organize from last year, this year should be much less complex. We'll see how it goes. 11月7日 Weekend box score.Finally assembled the built-in for the closet the baby and I will share.
This is a big deal since it opens the way for several other projects to be completed. I now get to walk through my wardrobe , culling unwearables and I will be able to use the closet without smooshing all my clothes. Baby will be happy to have a place to hang his clothes (he has a bar just his height) and put his toys away since...we can then buy him his own bed.
Best part of the project was having baby Bodhi help. He made sure to climb into every shelf I put up, informed me repeatedly that he was working with his "Godatoo" (Screwdriver) on various parts of the closet and he went nuts standing on my legs or trying to squeeze under my arm to get at whatever it was I was using - level, pencil, power drill.
No pictures but I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. Weeded through my hats & shirts already - shoes and trousers are next. To save space I removed the bi-fold doors and my wife is going to sew a curtain. By next weekend I ought to have enough for a Goodwill run. Two closets down, one to go. 10月3日 Measure twice, cut once.Didn't get the closet built this weekend as my wife and I started discussing the design and realized the plan - created before we had a toddler - didn't apply to our new situation. After coming up with a new layout, I made another trip to the home depot to exchange parts the following day. Best part of the Home Depot dance was that I was able to return enough unused materials from our last remodel project (found in the garage cleanout a few weeks ago) that the new closet parts cost me $3.06 out of pocket! It's all about recycling.
It's just as well I didn't start the closet since there were many other projects on deck and I was inspired to finally hang the dining room light that has been sitting in a box in the corner for the past few months. Every evening at dinner the empty socket and dangling wires gaped balefully at me from the ceiling from where I removed the old light but my wife has kindly endured the dim dinners and inconvienence of dragging floor lamps around for temporary illumination. Needless to say my wife was pleased to have a working light in the dining room again. Forgot to snap a photo but will add one soon. We cleaned out the upstairs as well and between the brighter light and less stuff, it feels like a new main floor.
Weekend tally:
9月30日 Weekend agenda.On the roster for this weekend:
We'll see how it goes. 9月28日 Bass is here!Whoo Hoo! New Kona bass showed up yesterday (previous shipment was munched by UPS). Beautiful construction and materials, easy to play and I love the convienence of acoustic without the bulk of upright. The bass showed up outfitted with copper round-wound strings - not my first choice these days due to the excessively bright tone that doesn't feel like it has enough low-end for a bass. I used to love these 20 years ago playing punk rock and running through sundry effects pedals but now they don't sound bassy enough. As the copper begins to tarnish, I am sure the tone will dull down too so these will be ok for now until I can replace with some flat-wound nickel strings. In the meantime the round-wounds will help me build up my finger callouses.
Was happy to see that I was able to nearly reach the extent of my playing abilities within minutes despite a decade layoff since I've seriously or regularly have played bass. This probably says more about the limited scope of my playing rather than indicating some sort of musical brilliance. Practice, practice, practice. 9月21日 Kona BassThe dormant musician in me has begun to stir. The frenzy of thinning undertaken this summer included selling the upright acoustic bass which has been gathering dust as I lug it from house to house - unplayed for the past 6 years. From the bountiful funds raised in sending the upright to a new home, I invested in a Kona acoustic bass - just like the one my hero Murry Hammond plays in the Old 97s. Thus I expose my yen to be alt country.
Unfortuately UPS ran over the package with a truck or something because the body was cracked and damaged despite a formidible case. Fortunately the kind folks at http://www.justguitarsonline.com are showing exemplary customer service and are sending a replacement.
Will he rekindle his love of backbeats or has the House ofJ oy merely gained another comfy spot for the cats to sleep? Stay tuned to find out in the next exiting installment of "Rockstar:Ken." Box score: garage 0, me 1Forgot to post results from the garage project last weekend.
2 wagon loads Friday night.
4 truckloads Saturday (including 1 of building materials & 1 that was mostly odd-shaped stuff).
1 truckload Sunday to a pal's carport with donations for their new island cabin.
1 vintage truckload Sunday to my father-in-law's house with an obscenely heavy piece of cabnetry - containing an icebox - salvaged from an old hotel. Thank god we managed to pull it into pieces.
Vacated rental garage - check.
Passed off no longer needed items to where they'll be used - check.
*Didn't even fill up remaining space in garage at house* - double check.
Guess my wife's influence is working. By the time the kids leave home for school I'll be down to a robe and a begging bowl. 9月10日 Garage is wobbly.On deck for this weekend: Clean out the rental garage so we can stop paying for it.
Got the house garage straightened up today. Mainly recovering from unpacking the labor day weekend trip and getting the laundry done. The garage is far from complete but I have to say the it has reached a new pinnacle of organization since I:
Since we found another (Cheaper) garage for the Studebaker, I have one open side to stage the rest of the junk from the storage garage while I go through it. I made a couple of runs tonight and am pretty confident I can have the other garage cleaned out with maybe a couple of truckloads. Once the stuff is staged I just need to weed through it and then do another pass through each of the sections. The wierdest thing is that I am approaching a state of owning the least amount of stuff in the past 10-15 years. It feels good. Really. 7月26日 Weekend disaster?Had a sudden cancellation on my previous plans for the weekend so I made great strides in yardwork and decorating tasks Saturday and Sunday. With the not-graciously-recieved albeit ultimately-very-useful direction of my wife, I hung two, large heavy mirrors and moved a painting to it's optimal spot in the dining room. After a year and a half of living here, it's finally starting to feel like a home. Of course my wife points out that under her direction we have more art hanging on the walls and less piles of detritus in 18 months here than I managed in nearly 10 years of living in my old place.
Inpired by the delivery of our new yardwaste bin, I finally retrieved the gas mower from the other house to replace the enviro-friendly electric one that gave up the ghost after being left out in the rain. (don't ask who did the leaving) Mowed the lawn, cleaned out the head-high weeds and pile of ivy from the back bed and was so inspired I made plans for a second vegetable garden bed, steps from the deck down to the yard and a bench for the entry way. Now all I need is a month of weekends to execute on all these plans.
The only downside to the weekend reads like a newbie toolsmith's cautionary tale:
Swapping hardware on the mirror frames, I carelessly left the drill on the floor (lesson 1: leave tools in safe, easy to retrieve locations) as I went in search of a tape measure. Focusing on not stepping on the mirror itself, I inadvertently kicked the drill right in the bit with my bare foot (lesson 2: Wear shoes on the job site) breaking it off and giving myself a nasty puncture wound in the ball of my left foot.
Fortunately the bit was not embedded in my foot (brief moment of panic) and I was able to quickly apply appropriate bandages and my favorite injury panacea - mediquick - without bleeding on the white carpet (don't say it, the carpet came with the house).
Box score: 5 line items crossed off the "home projects to do list", 17 new ones added.
7月19日 Holiday week results!As per usual, my final box count for the holiday fell short of prior expectations. In hindsight however I am pretty pleased with the final results. My wife predicts 4 more passes in the garage to truly weed it out and be organized. I don't know that it will take that many. At any rate, we are in much better shape than before.
Final completion list is as follows:
7月5日 Holiday week progress.Taxes finished, found railing for the living room, filing nearly complete (but when is it ever truly finished?) , 11 year old's room cleaned out and updated, old bed sold. Pretty good start for the holiday weekend. Tomorrow tax accountant, drop off motorcycle, pick up railing maybe finish filing. 6月29日 Work week.Next week I'm leveraging the independance day holiday for a week of home projects and getting to all the things that never seem to make the todo list but are annoying nonetheless. I schedule this time every year and my usual approach is to draft a list, proritize by annoyance factor, visibility, and dependancy chain, then adapt as the week goes by, I find each task growing beyond the planned scope and I get invited to social functions. While this process works for a crew of one, my poor wife gets driven to distraction because she never knows what is next on my plate, when I am available and our priorities don't always sync.
In an effort to avoid this situation this year, I sent my wife a prioritized list draft with the caveats that I didn't expect to complete all the items in a mere week. I asked her to send me her version so we could compare. I also tried to flag the fun activities I wanted to attend (4th of july barbecue) and let her know about appointments already made (moto guzzi service).
So far this appears to be going swimmingly. She asked me for the top two items on my list (Finish filing 2004 taxes - {I know bad, bad, man} & clean out garage) and gave me hers (finsh fixing and decoupaging new bed for 10 year old, get his room cleaned up). She scheduled some other 'must do' errands (optometrist for all of us, car service) and we started pre-staging items around the house so the projects could start as soon as I was off work. I came home this evening to a detailed but achievable schedule for the week that we both feel good about.
I just have to say that her approach was additionally admirable as scheduling does not come naturally to her. When we met I was 'Mister list o' projects and social functions' and her ideal weekend was begun with no plans whatsoever. That she can translate to my language and go against her nature is a testement to her adaptability and just one of many reasons why I am so pleased to be married to her.
I'll let you know how it goes. 6月5日 Detritus in the basement.My wife's sister is coming to visit in a week and, like before leaving on a trip, this impending event is inspiring us to whistle through all the outstanding home projects we have been procrastinating on. Problem is with a new baby to play with, 10-year old to wrestle and a wife I don't see enough, maintenence and even unpacking take second place. In addition I have been slowly working through a couple of decades accumulation and my weeding process seems to require an uninterrupted block of 6 or 7 hours to really make headway. I find that when I have the time to really touch, consider and select a place for the things am trying to organize, it's pretty easy to build a system that stays organized. Unfortunately there is a critical mass factor that has yet to be achieved in the new house. This means I have isolated pockets that are put together pretty well, items covering the organized sections and zones of pure chaos. Knowing I still have to put in my requisite 6 or 7 hours for an area means i don't put much effort into maintenence and I have a tendency to stage stuff by piliing it up - sometimes burying the sections that are organized. We currently sit in a state where the downstairs - garage and rec room - have been collection points for all the stuff we don't know what to do with, need to file/organize or is on it's way out of the house. To top it off, the baby and I go downstairs in the early mornings to let mom and brother sleep so there is a fine scattering of baby toys on top of everything else. I find there are dependencies that grant a domino effect to the organization. If I get the shelves up in the garage, we can store the stuff we want to keep there. If I find the "long term filing" box, the regular filing cabinet becomes managable. If we can get the rec room lightened up, it should be the start of one of these domino effects. My goal is by the end of summer to have addressed the areas of chaos and have reached that critical mass state so the whole house is usable. |
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