So Nice!

Thank you! I never imagined anyone was going to find me here, at least not for a while. So, it was a nice welcome back to get comments.

Did I ever mention a big construction project? Really big. I may not have got into it. (Whoa! I did mention it actually. Of course it was ages ago.) Wow. Coming in here, at the 11th hour, everyone can breath a sigh of relief because I have spared us all of my trauma drama. Deconstructing a pool, digging septic pits, adding septic tanks, rerouting electrical and plumbing, moving out-buildings! The logistics and orders of operations, the crews, and equipment, dust, mud, noise! And for what? We are completing an accessory dwelling unit, aka a "granny-flat." It has been in the plans for 7-8-9 years, developing, evolving, falling apart, coming back into shape. Even its purpose has had a million iterations, and it will like change again, and once more. But first and foremost, we have created more living space, and that is a good thing, for the 7 of us, for whatever the future may hold. We have built options!

Here we have the kitchen, and the cabinets that Mike built. After the foundation, framing, and roof were complete, he came to do everything else, which is a lot! This is a two room house, with a bathroom and a powder room, a utility hall, a covered front porch, and wood floors, and arched niches. I love arched niches. This last picture is from Maria, who sweetly endured my angst and waffling through paint chips. She took each of my paint choices and digitally painted them on her iPad. It was, essentially, a Blue vs Green debate for the kitchen cabinets. And, can you tell? Maria and I were in Sweden last summer! Folkpainted furniture is unequivocally my everything.

Green is our winner! Incidentally, the house is green, too, with brown trim and some stone siding that goes about half-way a quarter-way up the front. Essentially, my design goals have been to create a place that might be found in a California State Park. A cabin in the woods, near the ocean, or a creek. Something with rustic hints, and homegrown charms. Blues, greens, browns, stone and tile and wood, and arched niches.

Here is just about where we are today. Mike went home for winter, and when he returns, we have some things to finish, including doors, trim, baseboards. Today I am meeting with two contractors, who will give me estimates on kitchen counters. That job was supposedly going to be taken care of, but I am being ghosted, and have had to start all over. And the doors? The doors is a whole other story! Don't ask me to say anything nice about Home Depot.

Here is something very nice! This is how things looked in July, last summer. That was just about a year into the start of this... the physical labor, messy start. It's been a journey!

I Wonder...

Walks into space, tentatively. Looks around. Hello?

I am taxing my brain, trying to remember all of the steps and numbers, the order of operations, just to make anything appear on the page. Besides figuring all of that out, there is the question of writing, and what to write. It's been so long since I post Too long. I feel anxious and uncomfortable, like hives are coming on, thinking of all the things left unsaid, all of the moments I didn't share, record, make note of. I know, better than ever, how much I depend on the archives here, and it makes me sad that I have not kept up. Maybe I can do it. Maybe I can diligently, sparingly, catch-up. Then again, maybe I will just keep moving forward. I am unsure.

One thing I do know... time has warped since 2020, maybe even since the last days of 2016, and everything since has become a muddled tangle of events and passages, of happenings that I never could have predicted. It seems a universal experience that we have lost perspective and can hardly distinguish the last 6 months from the last four years. Maybe that is part of what makes me miss Chickenblog. I need an anchor a signpost, something apart from social media algorithms and the fast-paced blurr of life, where I can reflect and process, and... And breath.

We are all here, in our BirdHouse. The youngfolk, and our cats, the goats, the chickens, the laundry. We are well, in the ways that matter. We have had good days, and that matters, too. Sometimes, so little changes, I forget that a lot has changed. A lot has happened since November 13, 2022.