Wish List

One of the big tasks to get ready to move to Australia is deciding what to do with our house while we are gone and making that happen. At first, I was firmly resistant to any idea but locking it up and having someone check up on it every so often. Then I started thinking about how much better it would be if we had a live in caretaker. I could leave my furniture in the house - we won't need it in Oz - so that when we come back for visits, we would have a place to stay. C has been pushing for us to rent it out, having the government put all our stuff in storage, and use the money from the rent to pay down the mortgage. Like I said before, I was resistant. Then I started looking at mortgage calculators and when I saw how much interest we could save by paying off the mortgage early, I started wavering. It's not like there is a better place to put our money right now, even with our lower refinanced interest rate of 4.25%. Paying off debt is the same as investing your money at the same interest rate. And getting rid of that debt is high on my priority list.

So, now it looks like we will be pursuing the rent option. I would love it if a friend or family member could be the one to rent from us. Or at least someone we can really trust. I would love it if the people who live here while we are gone love it as much as we do and take advantage of all this place has to offer. I would love it if they really loved organic gardening and wanted to keep chickens in the coop, and - shoot, while we are dreaming here - even would be happy to let our cats live here while we are gone. I would love it if they wanted to stay here for the two or three years we would be in Oz, with the option to stay longer if we go to another overseas post right away. I would love it if they are happy to put up with the home improvemet projects we plan to accomplish during our time as landlords, including the installation of a little cabin in the woods. I would love it if they were happy to coexist with us on the property if we come back for a summer and live in that cabin.

Do you know of anybody who fits that description?

Beauty

I posted this picture over at my photo blog, but I like it so much I wanted to share it again, here.


It was taken this evening, when I went outside to put the chickens to bed. I noticed a storm rolling in to the north of us. The clouds were doing pretty things, so I ran for my camera. When I got back out, the sky started going all shades of eerie, purple and gray-blue, to the north, and the sunset got intense in the west. I am glad I took the time to get my camera! Enjoy!

Spring Cleaning

Not really, just a new look to match up with reality around here. I might not have much to say these days, but I won't make you look at frozen landscapes anymore. Not until they return, anyway! Of course, it is not quite so green just yet, but a girl can dream. We have had some pretty gorgeous days this week and my sore muscles can attest to how much work I have gotten done outside. I actually planted a portion of my garden today. Yay for seeds that don't have to wait for the last frost to pass! Peas, arugula, spinach, radishes, and lettuce, here we come!

In between building a bigger home for my chickens (new babies coming in a week and a half!) and laying a stone walkway leading to the house, I will find some time to post about my beautiful new dining room floor.

Wood!

I just got done unloading our new oak flooring! My dad and step mom went and picked it up from the store since they have a truck and live very close to the place and my step mom brought it by this morning on her way into town. Yay! I am excited to see it in my dining room, even if it is still in bundles. Now to get the room cleared out totally, prep the floor and remove the baseboard trim, lay the flooring down, sand it, finish it, re-install baseboard, touch up any paint on the walls and trim that suffered from the installation, scrape the paint off the windows, move the furniture back in, put books back on shelves, hang drapes, and finally get some pictures on the walls! Phew! Any bets on how long that is going to take me?

Random News

In just a little bit, we are leaving to go to the airport to pick up C and then to the flooring store to hopefully pick out some oak for my dining room to match the rest of the house. I was going to just paint the subfloor under the carpet and wait on doing the hardwood, but then I realized that I would have to put my dining room back together only to have to tear it back down again sometime in the future. I have no interest in moving all those books again! So, we decided to just bite the bullet and get the oak. The place I am going has unfinished wood, so we can do the same linseed oil finish as the rest of the house, which I love. And the price is right! Here's to getting one room of the house 100% done! Yay! I'll show you what it looks like when we get it all done.

In other news, A has started a new ballet class, which I believe is going to be great. E spent the entire class time dancing in the waiting area and got lots of comments from the other parents about why she wasn't in the class. Sooooo, we signed her up, too! She told me she wanted to have A take the class and tell her if it was any good, before she would know if she wanted to do it. Little stinker, using her sister as a guinea pig! I am much happier with this place, over the last one. It is so much more about the enjoyment of dance, rather then performance and competition. That, and the parents were much cooler to hang out with! This seems to be the school that the hippies in Ithaca go to. My kind of folks!

So, I am going to be quiet here on the blog for a few days while C is home. Or maybe I won't! See you soon.

Winter Plans

Now that the ground is covered with snow and will probably stay that way for the next month and a half, it is time to focus inward. No, not metaphorically-although that is a nice thing to do this time of year-but inside the house! I have spent so much time and energy around here focused outside, on the gardens and the chickens and the woods. The house got lots of attention last winter, what with all the painting I did before I ran out of steam and the earth warmed up enough to work, and it is time to finish up those projects and work on new ones.

The biggest deal around here has been the new heating system and the weatherizing of the house to go along with it. You just can't spend that kind of money and not be sure that heat is staying in the house! We have plans for more work in that area, but not till next fall, when we get some more insulation in the attic. C is feeling sucked dry financially right now, so we are giving his savings account a chance to recover before laying out anymore major cash on insulation.

So, other than some cosmetic taping of seams on the insulation in the basement, the big thing left to do, related to the heating system, is to rip up the carpet in the dining room. What fun! My house is going to be an absolute wreck for a month. I have half the room emptied, and it is already a mess. I still have to take the books off the shelves-what? you don't have a library's worth of books in your dining room, too?-, pack them in boxes, move the shelves out, pull back the carpet, remove the tacking strips and staples for the pad, patch and sand the sub floor, paint it and seal it, and then put all the furniture back! Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it and my back is slowly backing away shaking it's head with a look of horror on it's face.

Why do all that and what does it have to do with radiant heating systems? Well, carpet acts as an insulator and if the R-value of your floor+pad+carpet is higher than the R-value of the insulation you have below the heat, the heat won't travel up into your floors and the room you are trying to heat. So, up must come the carpet. Who puts carpet in dining rooms anyway? Almost as bad as in a bathroom! We are only going to paint the floor as a temporary measure until I find the perfect oak flooring to match the rest of the house. I want it to be reclaimed and finished the same way, with linseed oil, not polyurethane, so finding it might take a while. Hence the paint plan.

Also, on my winter house list is to finish all the basement projects, which include sealing the floor with a waterproofing product (any recommendations or experience there?), painting over the sealer in certain areas like the studio, finish painting the walls, install shelves for the pantry goods and holiday decorations, organize the workshop tools and all the art/sewing supplies in the studio, move the (full!) freezer and design the root cellar.

Then, upstairs, I need to finish painting all the trim in the house, paint both bathrooms, make/buy and install window treatments on all the windows, design an actual style for my living room, instead of the hodge podge I have now, hang pictures, organize and accessorize the girls room, organize and rearrange the office, including file or dump a million random pieces of paper. A few more houseplants would be nice, too.

Not to mention the luge run in the yard that must be perfected, assuming we get enough snow to do so! Oh, and somewhere in there we need to finish building the igloo we started New Year's Eve. And if it is not too much to ask, can I have time to knit a few things, mostly just projects that need to be finished? You think I can get it all done before the spring comes and the dirt starts calling my name?

Who said winter was a time for rest?

Winter Beauty

Took some pictures of the fresh snow the other morning. It was so cold, the snowflake crystals were very distinct. I read somewhere once that the Eskimos have over 300 words for snow. I can see why. It comes down looking so different each time, if you pay attention.

Looking south

Snowcapped sedum

Closeup of snowflakes

It's Beginning...

...to look like Christmas around here! Look what we did this weekend:
We almost got all the insulation in place under the radiant heating system, too. Warm floors rock! And now I need a bath and my bed. So tired!

All I Want for Christmas...

...is a new front tooth. What?! Nooooo, but I do have a big wish list I'd like to share. These are things, durable goods really, that C and I want to include in our household to help us live more sustainably, lessen our impact and footprint, save money and make life more fun. So here goes:

1. A water filter like this or this. We have city water, even though the house used to have a well, but we also have two big ponds. I'd like the ability to filter that pond water to use and drink in an emergency. Eventually I'd like a new deep well drilled, but that one is a bit big for a gift wish list...

2. A wood burning fireplace insert, preferably with high efficiency, a blower, and maybe a way to heat up water, too.

3. Gardening tools. Lots of really good quality tools, from a hoe to cold frames or hoop houses to a soil block maker or other pot maker like this. Oh, and things like baskets for storage in the root cellar I am going to build.

4. Kitchen tools. Now, I already have a fully equipped modern kitchen, but I don't have anything for making food the old fashioned way. Well, I do have my grain mill, but I'd like crocks for fermenting saurkraut and pickles, a pasta maker, cast iron cookware like this, and a pressure canner.

5. This book to help us build an earth oven for baking awesome breads.

Well, that would get us off on a good foot!

First Snow!

Winter has arrived! Yay!

I took this at around 3pm on Saturday.

Tour by A

This is a video shot by A. I think she was wanting to send it to her friends in Vegas to show them around the new place, but I thought it was too cute to not share with all of you. Please excuse the dizzy-making camera skills. Oh, and the mess in my entry!

DONE!

We did it! All our stuff is in NY, C is moved into his room in VA, the rental house is cleaned and ready to hand over to the landlords and I am done! Yipeeee!!!! Now only C will have to do that drive! ;-)

Now, the real work begins. I have to get off this computer and unload the UHaul trailer that brought the rest of the stuff up from VA. I have a basement full of boxes to unpack and a workroom, pantry and studio to set up down there. I have a garden to plan, a deck to design, radon remediation to get set up, chickens to research, acquire and build a coop for, fruit trees and bushes to plan and plant, an awesome compost system to build that will accommodate our future humanure additions, a dock to build and row boat to buy, a fire pit that needs benches, a new heating system to decide on and then install, a pile of wood that needs splitting and stacking. I have a house that is 75% set up, so the 25% left to do is easy to overlook, but still needs to be done. I have a head full of dreams, and a foot of snow on the ground preventing me from working on most of them.

Then there is the fun stuff. We have a new kitty to pick up from a family who can't keep her. We have old friends to get together with and new friends to find and enjoy. We have family to spend time with and cool things to get out and see or do here in town. We have our luge run to perfect and a pond to keep clear for skating. We have a tree house to design and we need to scout a tree to build it in. We have bikes that need paint jobs and tuneups for all the riding we are going to do this spring/summer/fall. We need to acquire a season pass for the local state parks, for hiking, picnics and swimming.

So, life is never done living and there is always something on that to do list. Time to go live it a bit...

Insert Title Here

We are headed back up to NY this week, this time with a 14ft Uhaul truck, hopefully filled with stuff to bring to the house. I say hopefully, because we have not loaded it up yet and I don't know if it will be filled or if I will have to scrounge for more boxes of stuff to fill it with. Hate to waste that space, since we are paying for it! Anyway, we are headed up Thursday, in time for trick-or-treating with the cousins, with the cat and the gerbils, and the two blueberry bushes, and this time C is coming, too! He has not seen the house in person, only pictures and video. I'm a bit nervous about that. I mean, he bought the house for me and says he trusts me to find what makes me happy, but I want him to like it, too.

This morning, he wasn't too pleased to own a house in NY, let me tell you. After working all night he came home and saw on the weather that it will be snowing and 28 degrees the next two nights. Well, we have the heat off and nobody in NY has a key, and I accidentally left some basement windows open a crack. So, knowing this, he wakes me up as he was getting into bed to tell me "we" need to do something to keep the pipes from freezing and bursting water all over the place. So, of course, he means me, since he was getting in bed to sleep for the day. After a grumpy moment, or two, ok three, I started calling family to see what could be done. Luckily, my brother managed to get into the house this afternoon and turn off the water supply and turn on some heat, for good measure. Phew! Not that I really worried it would actually be cold enough to freeze pipes yet, but now my dear husband and I won't be biting each other's head off over this! He worries too much for me and I guess I don't worry enough for him. My request to the universe this morning was that my brother be able to break into the house, and he did. No worries, mate.

Tomorrow will be very busy, finishing packing, taking A to Girl Scouts, and filling up the Uhaul after C wakes up. At any rate, I will be offline totally for the next week and a half-ish. Wish me luck painting and finishing floors!

Little Slice of Heaven

Imagine being able to walk outside and experience this every day:

I took this video one morning at our new house in NY. I love fall. I love ponds. I love the new house! And I had to share....

Like Odysseus...

I go home tomorrow. It has taken me longer than 10 years to get home, and I haven't been fighting a war in the meantime, but I feel road weary and eager to be back in familiar spaces. Soon, I will be able to say "I dwell in shining Ithaca" once more.

Wish us luck on the last minute details and a smooth closing! See you in a week!

3 Bdrm, 1 1/2 Bath, 8 Acres and a Pond!

I have been learning to use my new Adobe video editing software and my first project was a short video of the new house. Wanna see?

I did not include any of the inside shots because the people who are living there now are very messy and seem to love clutter, so you can't really see the house underneath. But they should be out by the 19th of September for us to close by the 26th! Yippee!