A Constant State of Change

    The weather cycles through a few options here at the house. We're close enough to the beach that we get all the fog, but w're far enough up and in the hills that we also get the dip in temperature. Every morning is a battle of cold toes and hot blankets. While we had a guest in the house staying in the living room we had to close the bedroom door every night and it helped keep the room really well insulated.
    We don't usually sleep with the door closed because Elvis is quiet but usually very active at night. He runs around a lot, doing laps, exploring windows, but while we had guests we had the door closed, and our windows have busted screens so they stay closed. I just don't want to be that friendly with the wildlife.
    Despite that, I love spending time outdoors. We've got a front porch that you saw in my second post, Mom has a small porch outside of her bedroom, which leads to a set a large cement slabs in the backyard! All three are pretty nice for certain things. The front porch is the most easily accessed since it's the front door, has all the chairs and is flat, but it's also in direct view of the road and neighbors which leaves us uncomfortable.

The back porch (above) is nice and flat, and stable, but it is above the neighbors fence so we see pretty directly into their yard by one of their doors and they see right up to the porch, not so private, plus it's quite small. All three of us can stand around comfortably there, but there isn't room for sitting around and anything. It's best for viewing the creek.



    The cement slabs are best for privacy, 100%. The backyard fence is nice and high in all directions, and we've got a large enough yard that we get some sound insulation from the road, but the slabs aren't flat… they're oddly stair-stepped. and unfortunately they're not 100% stable, as they are growing moss and starting to crumble at the edges. So they're not really the best for doing anything social out there. Not to mention they're surrounded by odd plants and animals all day, and have laundry lines across just under half of it.

Now that we've got the living room unoccupied it has returned to the wonderful state of family room! Mom has joined us to watch some TV and movies a few times now, and I am glad to see she's not just playing on the internet with those crazy people. We've finally managed a little bit of downtime, just in time for someone to ask for a custom dress! Yes, I'm still doing that! My friend Grace asked if we could put something together for a work fundraiser event, and I was very excited to say "of course!" I've worked with her before so I already had some patterns made up, and they only needed a little bit of adjustment because she just had a baby people! I'm excited to be using some beautiful fabric I've been holding on to for a couple years, and am loving the refreshed "creative" work. I love doing alterations with Neimans, but there just isn't the opportunity for creative custom work there that I relish. (Duh, it's alterations, not custom dressmaking). When I wasn't doing that dress work, I was playing Pokémon. Nintendo put out a new free Pokémon game for the 3ds and it is so much fun! I think I'l go play it some more right now! Or maybe finish that dress… So many options!

Spare a cup of sugar?

        One of the huge benefits of moving out here into the woods is the distance between us and the neighbors! I no longer have to hear my neighbors using the restroom or having loud arguments. So far the only ones I've met are the dogs who live to the left of the house. I call them the Barkers, because oh man they bark. They are not small dogs, and they are fenced in completely so I have no idea what their attitudes are like but they are vocal dogs (and not the only ones in the area of course). They don't bark often, it really does require some pretty direct interaction like walking by their side of the fence, but every once in a while it's the Twilight Bark.

    The House to the right is also completely fenced off. Rarely, we see a car come or go, but I never hear anything really and they have no pets that I have encountered. They are the house between us and the local park, and I hear more action at the park than from that house. I did see someone come home the other night, but their yards are all fenced in with a high wood slat fence, and so is their driveway, so that's probably all I'll ever see of them.

        As for internal neighbors, Elvis has a neighbor in the house, Noelle! My mom's couple-years-old Maine Coon. He has been so curious and friendly and well behaved trying to get to know her but she isn't too excited about it yet.



    For the first week, Noelle followed him around pacing behind him, trying to hide in his blind spot, and when face to face freezes and starts growling, and Elvis does a very good job of not making challenging eye contact and sitting and being peaceful when she's around and being crazy. Elvis is very doglike and I think that makes her confused. She seems to be slowly warming up to him as he refuses to stop inspecting every inch of the house. Now Elvis is the one who follows her around, slowly, and not hiding from her. She definitely doesn't like this.



        They had a brief spat where Noelle decided she had just had ENOUGH of his sniffing and following, and she growled, hissed, and they started to fight. Unfortunately Elvis relishes the chase and didn't let her run away to sanctuary like she used to be able to when Merlin was the other cat in the house. You can't really tell in these pictures, but Elvis is significantly larger than Noelle because most of her visible size is from fluffy fur, and it might have contributed to her displeasure with his style of play. She has since become very wary of his presence in the house, and to her dismay Elvis has developed some serious love for mom's bed.

just look at his fat happy face


    Mom closes Noelle in her room with her at night, and realizing this, Elvis quickly returned to his late night running and playing, He was really enjoying having the house to himself at night. . He is so much happier now than he had been in the last few weeks. It was really starting to take a toll on his mental health to have furniture constantly disappearing, and to have Tony and I out and running errands with every spare moment we had. There was very little time left for Elvis, but now we give him the too-much attention every parent gives their babies, furry or not. Also he's got loads of entertainment at the new house! Chickens! Another Cat! Wildlife! Neighborhood Cats! Traffic! (yes, he does pay attention to the traffic if there is nothing else to focus on) and so many new spots to smell and sleep on.

        We've had on and off tenants in my sister's two chihuahuas for a while now. She'd been traveling for work, and now is changing apartments but can't leave the dogs unwatched, so here they are. They are why I have put up a make-shift baby gate to our rooms, not just because I don't really want them in here (I have some slight dog allergies), but also because they are under strict diet control and they will demolish Elvis' food and then we would have to clean up the repercussions. No thank you! So the baby gate went up! It's two sterilite bin lids, wedged behind a boxed bookshelf and some picture frames. It's kind of perfect honestly. We were using a large art frame last time the dogs were here, but it was so tall that elvis wasn't able to travel between the rooms, and this way he can see over the lids well enough to jump back and forth, but it's still tall enough to discourage the dogs from jumping.

The "baby gate" is to prevent the dogs from coming into our bed, but elvis loves to hide behind it as well

A photo posted by @flickster94087 on Apr 12, 2015 at 11:59am PDT

They keep to themselves pretty well once they realize you're not going to interact with them too much, and they cuddle with each other on their bed. They did get to enjoy a good hour outside in the sun and fresh air last sunday when Tony and I sat out and enjoyed the warm weather, so it's not like I'm neglecting them, they just love to get right up in your space and they don't have trimmed claws. They also are really jumpy, Olive is kind of retarded, she doesn't listen to instructions very well, but is always very social and happy. She gets really whiney when separated from Scarlet, or Elvis, or me, or mom.. Scarlet on the other hand really loves to be the only dog in your lap, but will run and bark at the first noise she doesn't immediately recognize. She doesn't seem to love the cats like Olive does, she listens to instructions very well, but she gives you the most pitiful look, like you're this giant monster who's sole purpose is to crush her under your giant foot but if she makes her eyes wide enough you wont do that, so she shrinks down, faces away from you with her body but turns her neck to you and stares with the buggiest eyes I have seen since that squeezed hamster.(source)

Overall, the weather has turned milky here as of late, but I figure it's the last dregs of winter/spring that we get here before the heat really turns up. I drive through a lot of fog and sunshine in the mornings, switching quickly between the two is a little jarring when driving with good speed, but I know the roads well enough now that I'm not panicking and it's pretty cool looking. it's like driving through a horror movie, with no murderer. Things are starting to finally fall into a rhythm and I'm glad that everyone seems to be settling down (except for the cats, of course) because it should help stress levels drop significantly.


Until next week, friends.

Making it Home

        One of the first things we did with the house was make it habitable again (with the exception of Mom's room). We cleaned everything we could reach. I vacuumed at least twice in every room, I washed the walls, I washed the windows, I swept every hard surface, I lysol'd, I febreezed, I poured baking soda (to deodorize, it was very effective), I did everything but steam clean the carpet. Before we could make it our home, we had to wipe the slate clean of how it had been before. My dad had filled the space with so much stuff that by the time the house was ready, we had thrown out more trash than stuff we had to bring in.

        As soon as we cleared the space we began to rearrange. We didn't add much furniture to the living room that wasn't intended as temporary because there already was: Two leather couches, two coffee tables, four bookshelves (assembled, two unassembled), two leather sitting chairs, one very large and very old pantry(?), one floor lamp, one ceiling lamp, one rocking chair, one incredibly old dictionary (on it's own stand), a side table, all around a fireplace. The living room is only 16' x 24'. It was… cozy… way too many pieces of furniture, so we got rid as much as practical. Rearranging has helped a huge amount with how the room works as a midway between our bedrooms and the kitchen. There are five entryways into the living room and only a few were readily accessible they way it had been rearranged, so we moved more furniture against the walls, changed the direction of the couches, and tossed things about.

        The most significant change was what I did in the closet/office. The bedroom is small, so is the other bedroom we've taken over. They are both too small to hold all of our bedroom furniture, and as a separate issue are both too small to contain all of our clothing. I knew early on I'd need to devise a way to create closet space where there was none, but before I could do that I had to know how much space I had to work with. We tossed around a few sketches of furniture layouts and decided to make the east facing room the bedroom, in hopes of inviting early morning wake ups with natural light (trees are too tall for that unfortunately), and that the west facing room would be the "other" room. I knew the "other" room would be the closet room, but I had to get tony on board.
        Once I convinced him that the way I drew up to arrange the room would allow for the best space usage, and most efficiency for all involved. we put in the dressers and bookshelves, and then I built an exposed closet! I needed more room than the built in closet provided, and this way I could really get creative with the height, width, and style of the set up. We went down to orchard supply and grabbed an extendable metal closet rod and three wall brackets. My friend Athena came over and helped us locate some of the studs, and most of them ended up being weird nonexisting ones, but we found two that worked and screwed it all in! Now I've got an awesome exposed closet to hang all of my work clothes and dresses. I still get really excited about it, because this is the first time I've ever lived anywhere that wasn't rented, and while we are still renting per se, I'm on great terms with the landlady and she lets me do damn near whatever I want!


Also in the closet room, I took advantage of Tony's aversion to the closet nook by moving his desk next to one of the windows, and I moved in my own table and things! Luckily, we had lots of notice that this would be the situation and I took advantage before the big furniture move. So what is the first thing a person who has rented their whole life wants to do? PAINT! So I filled in drywall holes with spackle, I sanded.... some of them down, I primed, and I painted! I even taped off the outlets and edges! It needed a full two coats of paint but it's totally worth it.




ok so I may have gotten really excited and started painting before taping.. but I stopped early enough to tape everywhere necessary. I will fully admit to doing a passable but bad job of really taping it off. After two coats of paint, it looks so good.



Now I've got the mirror hung, my makeup organized, and my jewelry displayed and it is awesome! I've still got my hair tools hanging out on the floor, but until I can build something for just under the table to holster there, they've got no where else to be that isn't totally in the way so whatever!




        So far, I haven't had much in the way of "down time" since it's still been a real battle to clear up everything and anything, and there are still boxes of stuff that we've been neglecting. I feel like we'll end up like that scene from the incredibles were Bob gets a call from his wife informing him that they are "officially" moved in because the boxes are all finally unpacked, even though they moved in months ago. I only finally found my 3DS today, and I was genuinely starting to get concerned that I had lost it. I think 90% of the stuff that hasn't been unpacked is the rest of the living room stuff that were wanted to keep, but now that we've got it here in the house, we don't know what to do with it.
TO give us a break from all of that, Tony and I went on a nice sunday drive through 236 and it was quite an adventure, very cool. Here is the only picture I took from the last third of our drive, there was so much more to see, but this wasn't a hassle to pull over and photograph.




        We also had our first guests sunday night! One of our friends was desperate to catch the premier for Game of Thrones and knew that I always wanted to host a viewing party, so we had a teeny little GoT party and it was a lot of fun, we had wine & beer, and meat and cheese (actually we had meat and cheese and potatoes because Steve brought over leftovers from a portuguese club meeting, and they were delicious) and we watched some incredible tv! Of course the first episode is never enough, what happened to Aria? where are Sansa and Little Finger going? Of course I don't want to know these things. I like to wait and see how the plot develops, kind of like my own life, actually. Now please excuse me, I've got some serious catching up to do on Animal Crossing.

She'll be coming round the mountains..

Tony and I did a test run of a potential new route home from work for me at the beginning of March. An hour earlier than my early shift ends, we took Sand Hill Road up to skyline, and skyline down to highway 9. It was at the point in the year that sunset was happening around 5:30 and we had the pleasure of one of the most beautiful drives we have ever taken. It was the day that big storm came through with heavy rain and a good fifteen minutes of hail. After about fifteen or twenty minutes of east facing views into the bay area we reached the aptly named Skyline Boulevard. It was gorgeous.

After driving it solo in the morning and evening, I have to say I'm loving it. There are so few cars along the same commute. It's all one lane each direction until I get passed 280 heading into Palo Alto, but the drivers all seem to know and follow the "courteous drivers" rules (someone come up behind you, going faster than you? Pull over! Flash your hazard lights as a thank you to those who pull over and let you pass!). The views were stunning again, here's just a few of the spots I was able to stop in on my way home Monday evening. 

the same view, at night, on a terrible iphone camera

I took a wrong turn, stopped multiple times, and still made it home in an hour. I can't drive too incredibly fast through a good two thirds of the drive, a lot of it is windy and narrow, but it keeps the drive interesting. My car has the awesome feature of telling me my average miles per gallon and heading up the hill to Skyline I get about 32 mpg, but once I hit the real skyline, it's mostly a decline towards the north so I can cruise at high speeds (when safe) and my mileage goes up! By the time I got down by the Sand Hill - 280 overpass my mileage was at 37! Of course that meant that coming home was the reverse of that a little bit, but it still averaged to around 36 by the time I got home. My car is a small city car, good for parallel parking and commuting, but it feels like it was made for this drive. 

We were really worried that tony would face a lot of traffic going from Boulder Creek to Milpitas every morning, but it only took him a little over 50 minutes. Coming home was equally timed and simple on monday, same as mine, and around an hour and fifteen minutes the rest of the week. He does get stuck in stop and go traffic on the freeways, but once he exits for H9 it's a smooth and relaxing drive. 

Tony credits the podcasts with helping make the drive not feel so long, and I totally agree! I love listening to a few when I'm tired of all my music, and they really do help while away the hour(s). Hollywood BabbleOn, Fatman on Batman, and Pointless podcast are Tony's favorites right now; It's two by Kevin Smith, and one by Kevin Pereira. All comedy. I'd definitely recommend Star Talk, Stuff You Missed In History Class, and Ask Me Another. I didn't learn anything in history classes, so that's obvious, and Star Talk covers a lot of  science ground including a lot of sci-fi and theoretical stuff, with comedians and science celebrities. Ask Me Another is a trivia show from NPR, and it's so much fun to listen to and play along in the car.

Honestly, I'm grateful that my drive is so peaceful and beautiful. If it was as busy and as rough as the freeway at the same time, I'd be miserable, and it'd be really hard to keep putting a positive spin on things. 

Baby Steps

The small incremental movements you make, not to be confused with steps taken by infants, are what begin this chapter in my life.

Unfortunately none of us are immortal, and my dad was the first in our immediate family to prove that. He had been sick for more than a few years, but this winter was the hardest one he, or we, had ever faced. He was in the ICU for a week right before Christmas, and then again for about a week in the middle of January. He died on the 21st. Before he died, he realized what was happening and he handed over all the essential information my mom needed to run the household. This is how my mom discovered that she could not continue to afford the house they had lived in together on her own.

Rather than force her out of her own home, or force her to invite strangers into the house, I stepped up and volunteered to move myself and my husband into the woods. I am very lucky to have a husband who was willing to do this for me and for my mother, but that does not mean it was easy for him, or for me, to pack up everything we own and leave. The first thing we had to do wasn't pack up our own things, it was packing up my dad's. You would be surprised how much one man can accumulate; I am tempted to use the word "hoarder" but it feels too harsh.

It took about 6 weeks to really clean out his half of the house. A lot of it went straight into the trash, but there were so many computers. He had at least six computer towers, two monitors, three laptops, so many external hard drives I lost count (literally), at least 15 USB drives, and three mice. Like, dang Dad. I know you love computers but there is no way you need that many! Along the same line of excess were the guitars. There were at least 15 of them, not including the ones he had already dispersed amongst his children and friends. Guitars, amps, teaching dvds, printed out tab sheets, strings, picks, cases, straps... so many accessories. We took it all down to Guitar Showcase in Campbell. Shout out to those guys for being really helpful throughout the whole process. they gave us 50% retail value for most of it, and for whatever I wanted considered more closely, they set up for consignment, where we'd get 75% of the sale price. Sweet deal, really quick and easy to work with them for everything.

As we finally cleared everything out, we started moving things in. Small things, like our extra clothes, things we'd already set up in neat containers (like paperwork, and extra electronics), and dishware. Then we moved onto larger things, like a desk, and my precious ottoman. Everything else must wait now until we get a moving van this coming friday.

Tony and I have lived in this little apartment for nearly six years now, and just in time for our one year wedding anniversary we are moving out. I'm not going to miss quite a lot. For instance, the upstairs neighbors who seem to have sex that is inhumanly loud, the parking that disappears after 3 pm, or the lack of any outdoor space. It's been a long time since I've lived anywhere as isolated as Mom's house, even longer for Tony, and it's going to be a huge adjustment, so for now we're just taking baby steps.

Food

Tony and I ate out for dinner almost every night last week. It was so much easier than trying to cook food without buying more than exactly what we needed, and without using dishes we no longer had access to. While more expensive than preferred, it was also nice because we got to enjoy one last round of food from the great variety of restaurants that are in the immediate vicinity. 

It's not that Boulder Creek doesn't have much, actually for such a small town they've got quite a lot: they've got one taqueria, one Chinese place, a Brewery (which burned down Saturday night! So much for that! Such a shame), a deli (in a liquor store), a sushi joint,  a small pizza place, and two grocery stores!  Anything else is literally out of town; You have to drive through at least one city to reach it! The nearest McDonalds or Starbucks is in Scott's Valley... That's a 20 minute drive away, but Scott's Valley is pretty well developed and worth the drive. They've got a movie theater, a goodwill, a KMart (yeah those still exist), Safeway,  and a Nob Hill. We're not living as isolated as it feels, but we're going to have to work a little harder for everything now. 

Luckily, my mom is pretty good at cooking, and I am willing to get creative in the kitchen if Tony will deign to eat it. We no longer need to buy eggs since Mom got chickens last year (they are right outside the closet window) and they produce way more eggs than the three of us can eat for breakfast. She donates a lot to a local food bank when they build up, and gives away a lot to friends and other family members. I may not like the chickens but I do love home grown eggs. Mom also loves making bread, so we get the extreme pleasure of homemade fresh bread on the regular!

Something my dad used to say a lot was a paraphrased Jacque Pepín quote: "I will not skip butter so that I can be healthy when I die" and he really lived that that way. He let his health become very poor and suffered for it in his final months, so I think this is an excellent opportunity for me to reevaluate how I  consume. I'm not a skinny woman, and I have a feeling getting healthy is only going to get harder. Cooking food at home, and doing yard work, will hopefully help me burn off some of the excess and the pastries that someone always brings to work.

We've already had a few delicious meals at home with my mom and I am glad to say they are significantly healthier than what we usually resort to. I'm excited to start doing meal plans for the week with mom, and to get everything in the rooms together!! This weekend was incredibly stressful, but things are really looking up!

Hello & good morning from the new home!