Moving Day!

This may be the last post for a while since today's moving day and the computer will have to get dismantled. We've got an army of people coming to help, so if they all show up, things should go quickly.

The transition between the guest bedroom and the study used to be virtually raw wood. We think the main back door came off the guest room, therefore the threshold and doorjambs are much wider here than in interior doorways. As you can see, the study is panelled in knotty pine, so we're thinking we'll turn this into a jungle or safari-type room.

***I've added a picture below for comparison next to the old floor and the sanded floor.***

You can see the grain detail so much better now that the old wax has been stripped off and the new stain applied.  

Look at the difference!!! We chose a nutmeg colored stain (whatever that means). Fortunately, it still let some of the red tones of the red oak come through, but isn't orange. 

There's a zoo in our backyard!

We went over to the house yesterday to see the floors. They aren't finished yet, but the stain is on throughout the house. It looks wonderful; virtually like a brand new floor rather than one that's more than 60 years old.

The most interesting part of our visit didn't happen inside, however. Since we didn't want to walk on the floor while it didn't have any polyurethane down, we went in each exterior door and looked at what we could around the edges of the house. As we left the back door, we looked up into our enormous pecan tree. About 20 feet up we caught a glimpse of a red-headed woodpecker! As we watched him search for bugs underneath the bark, he flew right down to the crook in the tree not 10 feet from us.

Even better than seeing this bird was looking over to another branch and spotting 2 or 3 small striped birds acting very much like woodpeckers searching for bugs. They didn't have red heads though. It seems we have a whole woodpecker family including little baby wood peckers.

Just then a bright red cardinal flew across the backyard right in front of us and a group of tiny Finches high up in the pecan tree began making the most amazing noises.

All we can figure out about why we have so much wildlife in our backyard is that our pecan tree is the biggest tree on the block and has lots of fruit for animals to eat. Our cat is going to have so much fun watching out of windows.

Comparison photo to those below.

Poorer picture, but you get the idea. 

Compare to earlier pictures to see the difference. 

On Friday the plywood covers got replaced by a fully laced-in patch. (Laced-in is the technical term for varying the lengths of board to blend in the repair.)

This seemed to require a bit more creative randomness to blend in. 

A guest post from my friend Leah currently travelling in Bolivia

Hi all! I´ve made it to Bolivia! I´m now officially travelling on my own, although since Michael headed back to the old US of A I really haven´t done much travelling alone at all. Yesterday in Cusco I was adopted by my grandfatherly taxi driver, Victor, who took me to meet the extended family. I had tea and mango pie and cheese sandwiches with them, watched some soccer, and had a place to dump my pack until my bus to Bolivia left that evening. Victor then firmly scolded me to never trust strangers again and sent me on my way.
I just spent the last three days in Copacabana, which is actually quite a laid back little town. I´m now tagging along with two American sisters from Colorado. They´re both quite the adventure types (one is a ski instructor, one is a trek guide) so we went sailing on Lake Tititcaca (we had no wind and rowed an awful lot), and hiked to the Temple of the Sun (I am now officially sick of Inca ruins). Does anyone remember the Lake Titicaca song from Animaniacs?
There´s large scale strikes in Bolivia at the moment demanding the nationalization of the gas and petroleum industry, which really hasn´t affected me at all, except that the main roads in and out of La Paz have been closed, so we had to take and infrequent, more expensive, roundabout bus into the city today... but it was totally uneventful and fine.
I survived the Inca trail and a mini-expedition into the Amazon basin of Peru with only about 3.2 million mosquito bites to show for it. The Inca trail was the poshest hiking I´ve ever done... the porters carry all the big stuff, set up everything, including a dining tent complete with dining table, camp stools and hot four course meals. The porters-- mostly local quechua farmers making some money on the side-- are amazing. They run up and down the steep trails, at about 3000 meters altitude, wearing little leather sandals and carrying these giant packs, and still always beat us tourist hikers to camp by at least an hour. Our group was a crazy pack of Brits, Aussies and Irish. Apparently everything us ignorant Americans would say meant something dirty in British or Aussie slang, for everyone´s entetainment. But I learned my share of slang, and wanker and root have now been incorporated into my vocabulary.
Our jungle excursion was mostly a nice leisurely motorized canoe ride down the Pariamanu and Madre de Dios rivers for two and a half days... but we saw macaws and lots of river birds, a bunch of monkeys, tons of lizards, millions of mosquitos, giant metallic blue butterflies, tarantulas, we caught a baby caiman (adn then let it go), and saw giant river otters from quite a distance. Not bad at all. I also saw the biggest pig I´ve ever seen being walked on a leash, and saw a sunbathing turtle with a butterfly perched on his head, which I found quite delightful.
Tonight I ate alpaca (llama) steak for dinner... it´s pretty common here and supposedly like a third the fat of beef... check it out at your local neighborhood grocery store.
On that note, I will say adios, and I will do my very best to be good at keeping in touch.
Love,
Leah

So maybe the freak-out wasn't so warranted...

After our discovery of possibly faulty primer, things looked pretty grim. But it seems to be just another case of me overreacting. We talked to the original paint store, a different paint store and a trusted interior designer friend who all said latex paint can peel like this for at least a month until it is fully cured. My designer friend said in high humidity it can take longer to fully dry and bond. She indicated we should really wait until the dry weather of July before we make any expensive decisions. Whew.

The sanding began in earnest today. I stopped by the house on the way home from work to check on the progress. There are now no signs of any tack strips or any of the millions of staples left in the floorboards from several different rounds of carpeting. They've also got most of the living room and half the dining room sanded completely. I'm amazed at how new the old wood looks. You can't tell the difference between the 60-year old stuff and what they put down last week! (see the pictures of the repairs above.)

It's really nice to not have to be over there night and day working. Granted, we're now busy packing, but at least we can take a break to sit on the couch and watch TV for a while.

Packing, while it can be overwhelming at times, can also be one of the most cathartic exercises. It's relatively easy to encounter clothes, perfumes, junk as it makes its way to a box and throw it away instead. Most of this stuff I haven't seen since I unpacked it over a year ago. Why am I keeping it? Into the trash it goes. But then I feel guilty for sending so much garbage to the dump. There's no winning this fight.

On a totally different note, here's a story about how there's a first for everything. I was on the phone at work the other day speaking to a customer about holding a book for her. She was obviously on her cell phone, but that's unremarkable. I'd found the book, gotten her name and was getting her phone number just in case when I hear:

"Goddammit! Somebody just hit me!"

Wow. I'd never been the auditory witness to a car wreck. I figured if she was able to curse in a complete sentence she was probably ok physically. She did call back later to apologize for her language. Not that I was offended, but it was nice to know she wasn't hurt. Turns out she was at a stop and somebody drove into her. Unfortunately, I don't have any other details.

Waiter Rant

I just discovered this blog and whether this person is really a waiter doesn't matter. He or she is an excellent writer. The stories made me laugh and I really needed a laugh right now.

Waiter Rant

Can someone please explain why this happens?

While I am not a violent person (I've never been in a fight in my life), I feel as though I could strangle someone at the paint store right now. It seems very likely that all of our hard work over the last six weeks cleaning, sanding, scraping and priming the blue trim may have been completely in vain. So far as we can tell, now that we're approximately two thirds of the way finished with the trim, the primer never stuck to the blue paint.

Right after we bought the house, I took a drawer covered in blue paint to the paint store that everyone I respect recommended. They told me the blue was latex and that to paint it white we needed to sand the gloss off then prime it. We bought the materials they suggested to do the job, then spent virtually every waking moment at the house following their instructions to a T. We did this because it was going to cost nearly $1000 to have a professional strip and repaint all the trim. We thought with a little effort, we could save a lot of money. Paint is not so cheap, however, and we spent hundreds of dollars on paint that we may have to have stripped off before it really even has time to set up. So, to make a long story short, we should have been lazy bums in the first place and just paid someone to come strip the blue paint the week after we bought the house. We'd be out $1000 dollars, but neither would we have been so exhausted or cranky and irritated for the last month and a half. Emotional peace is suddenly worth so much more than the pride of having done it ourselves.

We're going to call the paint store in the morning and see what they say. Hopefully they'll agree to send someone over to see for themselves. Maybe we'll get really lucky and they'll tell us that it just needs more time to cure, but after at least one week and in some cases two, I seriously doubt that will be the case. They can refund our money for the primer and possibly even for the paint that went on top of the primer, but how will they refund our time and effort?

*************

On a lighter note, the floor guys start tomorrow. They came in on Friday to repair the fake fireplace and floor furnace holes. They seem to have done a good job. Come next Friday afternoon, we should know how we stand about our move in date.

Bozos on the Highway

I usually take the highway to get to the house from the apartment. I did that today expecting it to take the normal 5 minutes to get there and start working on a closet. As I got a bit more than halfway up the on-ramp, however, I noticed a long line of cars to my left moving extremely slowly if at all. Ok, there'd been a wreck. Unfortunately, they're a common occurance. Even more unfortunately for the driver in this wreck was the fact that the truck was almost upside down with hood and doors in very unnatural positions. I couldn't tell if anyone was hurt from my vantage point parked behind a police officer standing at the top of the ramp (the accident was about 50 feet away).

As I sat waiting patiently for the officer to wave me on, I noticed off to my right a Buick Riviera driving, or rather bouncing, along the grassy shoulder (it's very wide at that part of the highway). At about the same time I saw it, the cop standing five feet in front of my car turned and noticed it, too. He crossed his arms in a gesture of "You stupid, stupid person. What on earth would cause you to commit such idiocy?" There were emergency vehicles everywhere with lights blazing. It's not like this person could've seriously thought there weren't any cops around or they wouldn't care that this Buick was off-roading on the shoulder to get around a wreck. So one of the cops just behind the accident jumps in his car and takes off after the Buick. I was then able to get on the highway, and sure enough, not more than a mile later the cop had pulled the Buick over.

Patience, people, is a virtue.

The Gambler and the Monk

Once upon a time, there was a gambler and a monk. No, really, there was a gambler at one signing table and a monk discussing How to Solve Our Human Problems in the cafe. The formerly notorious Oklahoma gambler extraordinaire Pody Poe was signing his memoir at the signing table while a Buddhist monk gave a talk on peace at the other end of the store. At the beginning of the day, I though nothing of the relationship between the two people I scheduled to sign that Saturday. Later on, however, one of my colleagues pointed out what a great book title The Gambler and the Monk would be. I vowed to write that book. I don't have any idea what the plot would be or even if there would be a gambler or a monk in the story, but I will write that book. I guess every writer has to start somewhere. Any ideas?

We pulled up the nasty carpet today with a buddy's help. This was the first discovery: signs of a former fake fireplace. The plywood here must cover where the hearth used to extend into the room. This explains why we'd seen different baseboard along the wall here. Otherwise, the floor in the living room is in pretty good condition. Lots of staples, but no real damage.

We knew where the plywood patch over the floor furnace hole was. It was the only spot in the entire house that squeaked when you walked across it. This won't be too hard to fix. You can see into the dining room here; again, no major damage, but definitely some worn spots.

We also knew this nasty, dry black padding was under the green carpet in the guest bedroom (actually it was under a beige carpet that served as the pad for the green shag). What we didn't know was how hard it would be to get up. Not all of it comes up, even with plastic scrapers. Hopefully the rest will sand off with the refinishing.

This was the most disheartening and potentially expensive discovery. Evidently, the master bedroom had the same black padding, but when it got taken up, no care was taken in scraping it off the floor. Unfortunately, these gouges aren't superficial. Some are probably 1/8 inch deep and can be found across the room. We'll see what the professionals say about repairs.

The new green room minus the ugly curtains. This color green went on the walls in both bedrooms. 

This is the living room, but the color scheme continues like this into the dining room and the hallway. Note the dingey acoustic tile ceiling that now looks great after gallons and gallons of paint!

This is the green room, actually known as the guest bedroom. The master has the same carpet but not the drapes. Ironically, even though we're removing the green curtains and carpet, we have put a nice green paint on the walls of both bedrooms.

A Little Background...

A woman I work with recently told me not to undertake more than one traumatic life experience per year. A traumatic life experience would be a wedding, buying a house, having a baby, things like that. This year, I've managed to do everything but have a baby. I got engaged last November to be married this September, bought a car in February and bought a house at the end of March. I love the house and it's in a great neighborhood with a park right around the corner, but it needed to be painted on the inside from top to bottom. (I'll try to post a picture for reference). Who knew that such a painting job would take weeks? Just about everyone but me. All this on top of planning a wedding.

I'm having a hard time having fun with the whole home improvement process. Somehow, I've got it in my head that we have to have all the painting done before we get the floors refinished in a week. Yes, I'm sure it's tecnically possible, but it'll kill us first. Yes, we run the risk of getting paint on the newly refinished floor if we aren't done, but as my dad said, in 15 years, is it really going to matter? So my goal today is to paint one doorway and door, then clean the brushes and leave.

First, I think I'll go to Target. They've got some awesome skirts I want to look at.

I'm reading Bleak House by Dickens. It's long, but it's a murder mystery! So far I'm actually enjoying it. I'll post a review when I'm done.

My very first blog entry...

Even though I'm much more a paper-person than a gadget person (I much prefer my Filofax to any PDA), I'm not much of a journal writer. I've got several really cool journals that I write a few pages in and then ignore. So I'm going to give the blog thing a try. There's lots of stuff I want to vent about right now and I think this could be a good outlet. Things I'll be discussing: wedding issues, work pros and cons and all the minutiae of buying, painting and living in my first house.

Books I've Finished

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

12/01/05: I finished this a couple of nights ago and I agree with the Random House rep: this is the book for spring 2006. It's literary but not boring, philosophical without being preachy, and vividly imagined. I don't know if it will be a popular hit because it has too much to say about climate change and its take on the afterlife definitely doesn't synch with the masses.

11/23/05: I started really reading this tonight and so far it lives up to the hype. Futuristic with a similarly creative take on the afterlife as Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zavin.

This came wrapped in a translucent paper tied with twine. A cheap trick, but it caught my eye nonetheless. It also passed the first paragraph test. I don't know much more about it, but when the Random House representative visited the store a few weeks ago, she said this was her favorite pick for the spring. To be published in February 2006.

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Sharp North by Patrick Cave

To be released in April 2006

Although written for young adults, Sharp North is both written well enough and has a story interesting enough to keep adult readers engaged. Set about two centuries in the future in Great Britain, global warming has wreaked havoc on the environment of the British Isles by eliminating the Gulf Stream current. A Glacial age has settled on Scotland and most of England is flooded. Society is ruled by the Great Families, who maintain their power by keeping illegal "spares" of themselves secluded around Europe.

There are lots of great chase scenes, intelligent characters and a lot to say about the state of society, the environment and the consequences of sciene misused. As an added bonus, there's a great twist at the end!

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Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

Sequel to Inkheart. Although written for the middle school crowd, I love this series (ultimately a trilogy). It's set firmly enough in the "real" world to appeal to readers like me who aren't huge fans of dragons, witches or wizards.

Meggie and her father Mo have the ability to read aloud so well that they read characters out of fictional stories and into our world. Long ago, Mo read his wife into a story called Inkheart. Her place in this world was taken by nasty villains. It took ten years to find the author of Inkheart to read Meggie's mother back out of the story.

In the sequel to Inkheart, Meggie has listened to her mother's stories about the Inkworld so much that she has the uncontrollable urge to visit the Inkworld herself. Not only does Meggie have the ability to read characters out of stories, she discovers that she can rewrite the story to read non-characters in at will. Of course, as a precocious 12 year old, she promptly reads herself in to Inkheart without a good plan as to how she'll leave.

***

I absolutely love the Inkheart series. Cornelia Funke was right when she said it had to be a trilogy because her readers would never forgive her for how Inkspell ends. After reading Inkspell, I've come to the conclusion that Funke has written The Princess Bride for a new generation. The imagery is amazing and the story is epic. They're written for middle-schoolers, but adults will enjoy it just as much.

There's a movie in the works.

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Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

I finished this Young Adult novel last night and I'm still pondering whether I liked it or not.

At fifteen, Liz is hit by a car on the way to the mall and dies. She wakes up on the SS Nile. When the Nile docks in Elsewhere, Liz is met by her long-dead grandmother.

In Elsewhere, time doesn't stand still, it moves backwards. If you die at fifteen, in fifteen years, you become a baby again and are sent back to earth to be born as a new baby. This is the most Western take on reincarnation I've ever heard of, but I always enjoy a book with a new perspective. I also like that it might make young adults rethink or just think about the way the world and death work.

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The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde has written a multi-volume series based on Thursday Next, a female literary detective who originally has to track down a missing Jane Eyre. I read that first mystery and enjoyed its creativity. But I never got interested enough to continue through the next 3 or 4 books.

Fforde begins a new series starring Jack Spratt this July. The jacket copy from the advance edition reads in short: Humpty Dumpty fell of a wall; his wife is the primary suspect, but she's inconveniently killed herself. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt must convince Nursery Crime Division of the Reading Police Department, still reeling after its inability to convict the Three Pigs of Mr. Wolff's murder, to help.

You know me and creative fiction. This new Fforde series looks like it will be even better than the first.

***

The Big Over Easy was even better than I expected. Fforde has woven in so many nursery rhyme references and puns, each page was a chuckle or outright laugh. All these references give the book so much depth because the backstory behind each nursery rhyme character, while not really explained in the story, helps flesh out the plot. As in The Eyre Affair, you don't have to have read the stories Fforde references, but you get a lot more out of his books if you have. Brush up on your nursery rhymes before you read The Big Over Easy and the story will really come to life.

I enjoyed Jasper Fforde's first novel, The Eyre Affair, but not nearly as much as The Big Over Easy. This is one of the books to be read this summer. It's light, it's fun, it's a really good murder mystery with lots of twists and turns, and it's like nothing I've ever read. I love discovering the next great book and I think The Big Over Easy will be a huge hit.

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Fallen by David Maine

Almost two years ago, David Maine wrote a book called The Preservationist that told the story of Noah and the flood in a much more interesting manner than most of us learned in Sunday School. We hear the story from all the members of Noah's family - most of whom think Noah is more than a bit off his rocker. The Preservationist is a wonderful book that I recommend for almost anyone.

This September, Maine will release his newest novel, Fallen. In the tradition of The Preservationist, Fallen tells a biblical story from a new point of view. Fallen deals with Cain and Abel. I haven't read it yet; in fact, I just got the advance copy 15 minutes ago from a staff member who just finished it. I'm going on her word here. It's all Eve's fault and it starts when Cain kills Abel at Chapter 40 and goes backward to Chapter 1. Sounds like good David Maine creativity to me.

***
Having finished Fallen about 15 minutes ago, I'm not completely sold on the success of this story. I enjoyed the creative structure - the backwards movement of chapters and chronology - but if it weren't for this fun gimmick, I don't know if the story would have held my attention. I suppose it doesn't matter if it would have or not; the story progresses backwards and such structure adds depth to Maine's tale.

I need to ponder this a bit more before I reach my final conclusions.

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Freakonomics by Steven Levitt

I finished this book a few days ago. Levitt isn't trying to teach economics as such; his main goal seems to be asking creative questions and encouraging the consumer to think for themselves. He has a healthy distrust of experts and points out the agendas "experts" often have. The one thing this country might lack more than anything else right now is a healthy skepticism. Too many American citizens on both sides of the political spectrum swallow whole everything they are told by government officials, church leaders and the media. We are still allowed to think for ourselves. It is by no means unpatriotic to question authority and make sure we understand exactly what is being done on our behalf.