Stepping away from the swirling vortex of life for a minute ...

Yikes, this blog dates my entries, so I know just how long it's been since I posted, sorry.

Life here has been a never-ending stream of things that HAVE to get done. Moving in is mostly done, except for the stacks of boxes that can wait for more time to really focus on what's in them and where that stuff should go. Moving out is also nearly done. Things got left at the Oly house that either we weren't sure if we wanted them there to stage it for sale or if we wanted to store them at the Yelm house or what. The Yelm house garage -- even though it's big enough for 3 cars -- was so full of Mom's old stored stuff that we've had to work at winnowing that down, getting it over to her garage, and making room for all the stuff we had stored in the shed in Oly. That process is nearly done, too.

The thing that has been a big focus has been fixing up the Oly house to put it on the market. There were unfinished projects (ceiling texture, painting the trim in the main room) and there were projects we had planned but chose to wait on until we were out of the house (a complete revamp of the main bathroom, painting the Master BR). I'm happy to report that most of that is done. As Dad has said: "Why is it that we don't do these things when we live in a house, but then have to do it for someone else to buy it?" It has me scratching my head sometimes, the thought of making the house really nice so that someone else can have it. But we're close to putting it on the market -- YAY.

On top of all that activity, I have been continuing my studies. I took 4 classes this quarter: Practical Accounting, Circulation Services, Serving Diverse Communities, and Library Administration and Management. Whew, has that been a load! I've really enjoyed Circulation and Diversity. The information in Management has been good, but the structure of the class doesn't suit my style. Accounting has made me tear a few hairs out, but I resolved to learn some good skills by taking it, so persevere I must! Since we moved to Yelm, I've also had the opportunity to get ot know a new library. (My school work often requires either talking to library staff and administration or examining the library for a report.) I'm due to start volunteer work there in a few weeks, when I'm on Winter Break and I have more time. I recently took what you might call a self-guided field trip to Seattle to tour the Washington Talking Book and Braille Library for my Diversity class. Mel went with me and we had a great time and learned so much about services for visually impaired and blind people.

The only other news I have to report is that two weeks ago, CJ had a close call when he ran his truck off the road (sharp curve + wet road + teenage driver unfamiliar with the area = wrecked truck) but he's OK since he missed a telephone pole by a foot -- thank goodness! But now I drive him to school and about 50% of the time I pick him up too. All part of the fun, right? He's worth all the effort.

And in case that leaves you wondering what Katie is up to: She's so busy with school, life, and work that we hardly see her except on the way in, on the way out, or asleep on the couch in front of the TV. I guess that means life is good for her; she seems to be enjoying herself.

I should mention Mel, who has been hard at work making the 5 acres here in Yelm secure for the dogs and arranging the garage, plus working on the aforementioned projects in the Oly house. He's itching to fish and hunt, but the priority has been getting the house up for sale, so he's practicing a little "delayed gratification." Whatta guy!

Since this blog post has mostly been a catch-all recap of the past few months, I'll make a BONUS post about marching band since it deserves to shine on its own. Stay tuned...

Progress report

We're slowly moving things into the new house. There has been much painting done, some light demolition in the kitchen to make room for the larger refrigerator we have already, cleaning, arranging, etc.
We're taking our time since we don't want to live there full time until the cable is installed for phone, TV and Internet. However, we're enjoying spending our days there and taking the dogs down most days to get used to the new digs (um, let's hope they don't take that literally).
School has begun and there is much reading and adjusting to new computer systems, but so far so good.
Katie left today to go to Aussie Nationals with Stacie in Colorado. She hopes to meet up with family there on her quiet days. She really seems to be enjoying massage school so far. I seem to see CJ in passing since he has marching band two nights and Scouts one night every week. Things will calm down soon, right?

Home Improvement, Take 2

The old porch lights ...
The new lights Mel and I chose to replace them with

In my last post I mentioned the waterfall. Here’s the view from the back patio (and the kitchen window). This waterfall runs about 12 feet down a small slope. The plants on the slope are sadly overgrown with weeds, but we’ll remedy that in the fall and winter.When we have the windows or sliding glass door open, you can hear the water from anywhere in the house … I love it!

Home improvement

I haven’t moved in more than 12 years, but before that I moved much more often. Whenever I moved into a new place, I always had a knack for making the place mine. I’d decorate, perhaps paint, plant flowers – different things that seemed to be my way of turning an impersonal space into my own. That tendency seems to have appeared again with the move to Yelm. It might also have something to do with the fact that I’ll be moving into my mother’s house. Ya think??

Anyway, there were two things about the house that I told Mel we HAD to change before we lived there. Both were throwbacks to the ‘70s, when the house was manufactured and I’m sure they were stylish. So I laid plans to bring the bathroom into the 21st century. I’ve taken “before” photos so you can see the hideous wallpaper and fixtures for yourself.

We went shopping and talked about the plans and then Mel proceeded to go elk hunting for a week – giving me the opportunity to do the work while it wouldn’t interfere with anything since we haven’t moved to Yelm yet.
I thought it wouldn’t be too hard to slap a little paint on the walls, hang new hardware, etc. That’s where I was wrong.
There were complications, such as me trying to be in Olympia to take care of things with the kids and dogs, while also being 30 miles away prepping, priming, and painting. I also hadn’t realized how many little angles, corners, and other tough-to-paint areas there were, so the project took much longer than I had expected.

primed! trim painting...

I washed the walls, coated them with primer, then painted and most nights I felt like I could hardly raise my arms to feed myself, much less cook a meal.
Suffice it to say that I was worn out at the end of 4 days and decided Mel could deal with the electrical and putting up the new lights when he returned. So now the deed is done and I can proudly cross it off the list of things to do.

Finished product!

It looks fabulous, Mel loves it, and we can get on with the actual move. Mom has gotten 99% of her stuff out of the house and we’re ready to make the transition. It will still be two weeks before we have phone, cable or Internet there, so we might have to work out some logistics still.

What about the other I-can’t-wait-to-change-this item? The outside light fixtures, another Mel production, but I’ll be sure to post pictures as soon as we get that accomplished.

Oh, anyone wanting to go “retro” can e-mail me and I’ll gladly give you all the old hardware and fixtures. You’ll have to supply the tacky wallpaper, though.

Lyn's new house

And yes, I would love for this to be my new house. But we don't have the $250K it took to pay for it. And the smaller, older house next door is still much bigger than our Olympia house and we get the waterfall (pictures to come, I promise) and the 5 acres to play on anyway.

A house is born

OK, at long last you’ll be able to see the house in Yelm arriving and being installed on its foundation. I have still photos of some points in the process, but mainly the video (which is only 8:40 – not bad for two days worth of footage!) will tell the story.

The house is a triple-wide modular home bought by my mom to add on her 5-acre property near Yelm, WA. She’s 72 and can’t take care of the acreage herself, plus would like to have some sense of “community” and family on the place – she has no real close neighbors now. We (Mel, me, Katie and CJ) have been living in a 1,000-sq.ft. house with four dogs as well and not much yard. We came to the conclusion about 6 months or so ago that the perfect solution to both dilemmas would be to have a second house on her 5 acres (can’t be subdivided, but you can move in a close relative) and have all of us living there.

It has been a long process to come to the point where a house was actually found, decisions made on who lives where, etc., but we’re anxious to put the plan into action. The first step is putting the house on the property. I’ve never been part of a project like this and as I talked to many folks about it, they wanted to see how such a house was installed. So I chronicled the process and have put together a little video production.

I'll take some more photos of the more-or-less-finished house and post later today.

Book Repair ROCKS!

OK it’s official: I love books, not just reading them, but the physical books themselves. They call that a bibliophile but you can just call me a book lover.

I took one of the most interesting classes this summer quarter – Book Repair – and I had the best time. We met all Saturday for 8 weeks at the campus, which is about an hour’s drive from my house. There were 10 students, so we got to know each other pretty well. We learned about the structure and function of books as well as how different damage happens. We took in our own books (or in the case of several librarians in the class, books from their library) with different damage to repair. We learned so much cool stuff and it felt like arts & crafts each week. We repaired torn pages, loose pages, torn bindings, damaged spines, and we even turned a paperback book into a hardcover book!

Since I’m a bibliophile and take great care of my books, it was sometimes hard to find damaged books to take in for class. So I put out the call to several people to find books needing repairs. I got some real beat up books that unfortunately were beyond my skills. I would love to learn how to repair books that are literally falling apart, but this class was centered on fixing damage before it needed a complete overhaul.

The pictures here are of spine repairs and corner repairs that I did for class. I completely replaced the spine on two books (The Magic of Xanth and The Circle of Braves) and repaired the cover corners as well as the internal spine of Zane Grey’s The Lost Wagon Train. Don’t they look cool!?

All the corners are recovered even though only one was really beaten up. The damaged spine is replaced and everything looks great.

In addition I took Collection Development, where we learned about the decision-making process behind what books a library should add to (or subtract from) its collection. We talked about censorship, finding appropriate materials, policies, and other library-geek details. It was really interesting and something I had never really learned about. I also had Pacific Northwest History, which as an intense bunch of reading and writing, but I learned a lot of interesting stuff about the region.

Added later Sunday: Here are a couple of photos of the book by Brenda that I turned from paperback to hardcover. Pretty special, if I do say so myself...

Coming next (I think): An update on the move to Yelm, including video of the house being installed.