Hello to the Colorado Plateau

The following blog was just the first in a series I did on Y!360 about my beloved Colorado Plateau. I am doing a copy paste of this one here but I think I will not transfer the whole series. It is obviously some place I will re-visit in person or on these pages or posting photos on Friday. I revisit this area in my paintings always and probably forever.

Up a lazy river - or down

The Colorado River across the plateau is not a lazy river except where it is dammed. The Glen Canyon Dam was one of the first built on this majestic waterway. It flooded the awesome Glen Canyon and created Lake Powell which is huge.

My sister and I decided to do a houseboat vacation because the lake was lower than it had been since initially filled and exposed more canyon walls previously underwater. Our trip heralded the temporary suspension of the drought and raised levels on the lake almost three feet. The above picture was taken as we motored out of the marina at Bullfrog. This is the shallow area of the canyon. Water is only about 200 feet deep at this point and walls a lot lower.

This is the view from the back deck of the houseboat on our first night on the lake. If you enlarge this you can see a tiny houseboat in the center of the shore line. It is twice the size of the one we were on. Our first neighbors on our eight day trip. It was not any more crowded than this.

It rained that first night and we could hear the roar of falling water but with absolutely no light except for a flashlight we had not a clue as to where the water was falling. We awoke in the morning to this waterfall just across our tiny cove. It was just a hint of things to come, but fortunately the rain was abated by days of fantastic sun and views.

View from the cliff overlooking our second mooring. We spent 3 days in this wonderful spot in part because of the great hiking trails along the rim.

My sister in typical photo trek regalia. We figure with film and digital camera and lenses and required water and emergency supplies in event of being lost we hiked with about 10 to 15 pounds on a regular basis.

Sunset on the last day of our adventure. Houseboat had to back, refueled, and clean of all our stuff by noon so we moored just one cove over. We thought it would all be easy from there but we still had a night of adventure because of the ever rising water to deal with. More about that in other posts. For more information on our houseboat rental see Lake Powell.

My sister and I are currently plotting our next Thelma and Louise Roadtrip but I think there is another houseboat trip in our future.

NOTE: These are just a few of hundreds of pictures I took and Debbie took more. I can bore you for a very long time.

Goodbye to Y!360

I think this image which I used on my Monday Morning Chat over Coffee is one that most represents to me Y!360 and its closing days.

It has been more than a week since I even visited and I went back this morning to do more research on the studio progress I wanted to transfer to this blog to be sure that I had it for any court action that will take place. Hopefully that is more doubtful now, but always nice to be prepared. In the process I have discovered other little gems like my first poems posted for the world to read. Below is a blog with a poem I thought was significant about the space for expression blogs provide.

I am obviously in the mood to write lately. I did a 2 1/2 page opus letter to the shyster, a new episode on write around the world, a new political blog on Blogger, a blog here about everything including the kitchen sink and last night wrote two poems for Poetry Wednesday. And I still want to jabber in black and white, on one surface or the other. So if you are bored just click to another blog.

My kingdom for a pen

Pens
Paper
Bound books with pages of paper
Some lined
Some open for all concepts
Empty pages to fill with pens and pencils
Thoughts

Words written with pens
Sketches drawn with pencils
Books in the making
Journals of journeys
Trips through canyons real
And of my mind

New Pens
Sharpened pencils
cold pressed paper
Smooth or textured
I love paper
And pens
And the words they write

(c) Jacqui Binford-Bell 2008

Bear with me here folks. I am sure this mood will pass. And I will go days without a thought in my head but drawing up the detail plans for my tile floor. But it is probably the mindless activities in my life these days - the window cleaning, the screwing down of hardibacker, the removal of blue tape and black plastic - that are allowing me too much time to think.

What Chop Wood/Carry Water type of activities are Zen like to you and clear your mind for new and remarkable thinking?

I don't think everything I posted on Y!360 was earth shattering or even notable but it covered a very significant part of my life. I was realizing a ten year dream by building my studio at long last, fighting a lawsuit by the contractor that I employed to do that, shifting over from making masks to painting and finding my muse in that creative avenue, and rediscovering the joy of writing even if it was just for me (though obviously I did develop my faithful readers).

Everyone on Y!360 is posting farewell blogs. I read a couple when I was there and had to fight back tears. It was a special group, a special place and something magical happened if even for a brief time.

Packing up 360

This is another of the studio progress blogs I felt I ought to transfer over. One of the happy ones. Not a rant about the abuse of my contractor. That was on December 8, 2007. I copied that one to my Studio Legal file. A file which I am still hoping will not be needed.

Latest news is that the contractor from hell has serious health issues. So serious he had closed down his construction company and sold his property here in Angel Fire (the one with the addition built with my materials). I hope this means he does not have the money or heart to pursue his frivolous legal action against me. June 30th, this Monday, the lawyers and judge are suppose to have a telephone conference on the calendar for the lawsuit. Maybe on that day his attorney will officially announce they are dropping the action. Wouldn't that be nice.

Anyway this is a blog from March 2008 when I was finally getting my studio painted. Just before this - March 3rd I had heard he was going for judgment.

Significant progress was made today. Not so much in volume of work done but in milestones reached. The painting is done (well, except for trim and touch up) and the cement board (Hardibacker) has begun to be laid in preparation for tile.

When I was so upset and frustrated I was trying to follow the directions I picked up with the store and was using the second and/or third color with just a bit of clear glaze and applied with a sea sponge. It was far busier than I wanted and was going to be so labor intensive it would b years before it was done.

I called my friend that has worked as a professional house painter and done wonders with her own house. She suggested I buy more of the clear glaze and add just a little of the second color to it. And I could apply it with a specialty roller. I knew the local paint store did not have these but I remembered my painting techniques book and how they had "funked up" rollers by cutting chunks out of the nap or wrapping a rag around it. I grabbed the scissors and had fun with one of my cheap disposable rollers.

This was so much faster than the sea sponge Karate Kid wax on wax off technique that I was enchanted. It also looks more like an old stucco wall and is not so busy that paintings placed against it get swallowed. This photo also shows the Hardibacker laid down in this section and ready to be screwed into place

.
If you follow the manufacturers directions it requires about 70 screws per 3 x 5 foot cement board. When I have done this before I used a masonry bit and pre-drilled the holes. But a contractor turned me on to Buildex's Rock-on screws that don't require pre-drilling. A bit pricier I suppose given how many I will use but how well this underlayment is down makes a difference in the tile laying and it not cracking. It is also part of the "heat sink" part of the studio. It and the tile will hold the heat from the sun through the windows and reduce heating costs in the winter.

The opening photo is of the wood sills. They are what is covered up with the black plastic and blue tape. My thought is to stain these a red-oak like the connecting door. Another piece of 3" trim goes under them and after the tile is laid a 3 to 4 inch trim around the bottom of the walls. I am thinking of the red oak for both of these. But the trim along the ceiling I am going to leave natural wood. Darker colors toward the floor and lighter colors toward the ceiling. Old cathedral trick.

On My Own Now With Studio

I think what is marvelous about this whole conflict was I found out what I could do. And I blogged about what I was doing and got the affirmations of all my blog friends. I needed that encouragement. I was out of money, felt cheated by a man that had been a friend, and had a huge mess on my hands.

Progress photos - August 05, 2007

Got the studio completely cleared of all the contractor stuff and then promptly loaded it down with my stuff as this photo shows. It has been utilized as a staging area for work being done on the living room.

After the contractor fell through the ceiling in the living room I decided to take off all the 1970's texture, re-texture and paint the ceiling while the room was already in chaos. And as one thing leads to another it seemed a good time to paint the eastern wall where the door to the studio is. I like the concept of one dramatically differently painted wall to add depth to the room.

So, I am not known for tidy workspaces. But the good news is that I have begun sketching out four new paintings. Still have that October fair looming. This table will ultimately move to the studio but given its state of float, sand, float some more, sand some more not a good place to paint works of art.

This is the connecting French door now stained with Red Oak Mini Wax. And while I was at it I refinished the little step stool and the oak computer desk. computer is still upstairs. See previous discussion of sheet rock dust which you will not on the chair. The trim work on this door was accomplished with my new DeWalt compound Miter saw. I have noted it does not prevent my from totally reversing the cut but I can do that so much faster.

Totally off the subject: the following photograph is of my standard Poodle Mardi Gras. I think she is my supervisor on this job. Every time I look around she is lying somewhere close observing progress. She would like me to mention she doesn't ordinarily wear pink but the groomer put that on her and we have a contest about how long she can keep it on. Magique got rid of hers in two days.

Now I only have to get the studio done and catch the Labradoodle Magique still enough to capture on camera.

Back to the Studio Progress

On June 29, 2007 I faced an agonizing reappraisal about studio progress and posted the following blog. I would also later discover the contractor was ripping me off by making me pay for materials not used on my job. He was doing his own addition and working another hard dollar contract.

Not an End to Progress

Yesterday was a day of agonizing reappraisal. It began with an outlandish estimate for the exterior stucco on the studio. I knew it was insanely high. I knew I could find a cheaper bid. I even knew I could do cedar instead of stucco. But just figuring all those options made me realize I really did not have enough money to finish it completely and not dip into my prudent reserve.

Since I first committed to this job prices on construction materials have skyrocketed here in the United States. Can you say Iraqi war. Or rising gas prices. Or just profit taking by greedy companies. Who really knows. But it certainly hits the construction industry where it hurts and ergo the new housing starts and remodeling projects such as mine.

Today following the let’s get down to brass tacks talk with my contractor I dove into getting some paintings done for my up coming fair in two weeks. I kept expecting to be upset about calling a halt to the project but found myself actually feeling lighter. I have enough money to finish the interior which I was originally doing myself once the sheet rock and trim is done. What I don’t have enough money to do is the exterior finish and the deck and the hot tub. But I will get temporary steps to the outside entrance and the house weather wrapped to prevent deterioration.

And stopping here gives me time. I did not want to rush to the cheapest conclusion just to finish it. I do not want to compromise. I want what I want. Pausing now (I prefer to see it as pause and not stop) greatly reduces the stress. If I have a good art season I will be able to do at least part of what remains before winter. And I definitely will be able to use my studio for what it was intended.

I find myself grateful that I did not know it would be this expensive because if I had I might not have started it. I am glad I got this far. And most of what remains I can do cheaper myself and save labor costs. It will just take me longer. But then I will have that sense of having really contributed in a way other than monetary on this dream of mine.

So there is relief and a sort of surreal joy. It will be mine to do with what I can afford and in my time. I won’t feel rushed to the conclusion.

Somehow this seems a perfect place to be on this eve of the Full Strawberry Moon. It is a time of culmination of so many things in my life. I know I am on the right path.

Art Sunday but not Art Sunday - July 1, 2007

I look at photos of Picasso in his studio and get tummy aches I am so envious of the space and the openness. I am not Picasso but just maybe I could be with the right studio. Us artists always have a reason we cannot work. But seldom give credit when we produce despite our surroundings.

And so was born the dream of the studio. Yesterday the crew working on instructions as to what I wanted them to finish before leaving the rest to me opened the window in my living room.

To become a door.

The Darkness went immediately in to investigate the new space.

Last night I invited my neighbor Jan over and in this corner beyond the construction tools we set up a table and a couple camp chairs and had tea while watching the lightning surrounding us just outside the windows. It was like being in a magical space ship traveling between universes.

There is a magic time and place but it is often of your own making. I think it was rather artistic of me to design this wonderful addition. Stay tuned for the progress on the finishing touches.

Up a Lazy River or Down

This photo blog first appeared on Y360 on June 23, 2007

The Colorado River across the plateau is not a lazy river except where it is dammed. The Glen Canyon Dam was one of the first built on this majestic waterway. It flooded the awesome Glen Canyon and created Lake Powell which is huge.

My sister and I decided to do a houseboat vacation because the lake was lower than it had been since initially filled and exposed more canyon walls previously underwater. Our trip heralded the temporary suspension of the drought and raised levels on the lake almost three feet. The above picture was taken as we motored out of the marina at Bullfrog. This is the shallow area of the canyon. Water is only about 200 feet deep at this point and walls a lot lower.

This is the view from the back deck of the houseboat on our first night on the lake. If you enlarge this you can see a tiny houseboat in the center of the shore line. It is twice the size of the one we were on. Our first neighbors on our eight day trip. It was not any more crowded than this.

It rained that first night and we could hear the roar of falling water but with absolutely no light except for a flashlight we had not a clue as to where the water was falling. We awoke in the morning to this waterfall just across our tiny cove. It was just a hint of things to come, but fortunately the rain was abated by days of fantastic sun and views.

View from the cliff overlooking our second mooring. We spent 3 days in this wonderful spot in part because of the great hiking trails along the rim.

My sister in typical photo trek regalia. We figure with film and digital camera and lenses and required water and emergency supplies in event of being lost we hiked with about 10 to 15 pounds on a regular basis.

Sunset on the last day of our adventure. Houseboat had to back, refueled, and clean of all our stuff by noon so we moored just one cove over. We thought it would all be easy from there but we still had a night of adventure because of the ever rising water to deal with. More about that in other posts. For more information on our houseboat rental see Lake Powell.

My sister and I are currently plotting our next Thelma and Louise Roadtrip but I think there is another houseboat trip in our future.

NOTE: These are just a few of hundreds of pictures I took and Debbie took more. I can bore you for a very long time.

My First Poem Posted on 360

I had written poetry in my 20's and 30's and then got too busy to be reflective, changed over to prose and free lance writing. Even wrote technical manuals. Then I got involved with blogging on Y!360 and there was a Poetry Wednesday tour.

I joined in at first sharing the poems the poets had written and I had merely loved and cherished. Then one day I decided to put pen to paper (poetry is always written thus for me) and came up with the following poem. Not a great effort or earth shattering but it opened the door for me to again write the poetry of my heart.

Y!360 heralded a lot of firsts for me. I joined and became active blogging at a very trying time of my life. I don't think, like some of my friends I made there, that it necessarily saved my life but it definitely enriched it and opened doors I had not realized were there or that I had shut.

Passing the Ball

Balls of knitting wool
Needles, hooks
Twined into textures
Intricate
Mysterious
Warm

Mother taught me to knit
Crochet, sew, embroider
Sat beside me
Upon the couch
Retrieved my dropped stitches
Corrected
My patterns
With Warmth

Arts shared
Skills taught
Treasures created
Handed down
From Mother to daughter
Intricate patterns
Of Life

I sit now
On the couch
Alone
Knitting memories
To keep me warm
A sweater
To show
I learned

See what
My mother taught me
To do
I knit, Crochet
Cross stitch, crewel
And Sew

Intricate
Patterns
Of lives
Entwined
Knitted together
keeping me warm

J. Binford-Bell October 2007

Monday Morning Chat Over Coffee - Mourning

Yesterday evening I was ready to shut it all down and walk away. By everything I mean 360, Profiles, Twitter, Blogger and Facebook. Like my friend Sails I had reached sensory overload but not for the technical glitches and learning of new things and trying to keep up temporarily with one blog too many. I was just totally sated with the seemingly random rapid firing of diverse emotions I was getting in comments and status messages. Fortunately the cactus bud began to open and I was diverted with recording the process with my camera.

This morning as I encountered an even more open blossom to photograph I was also confronted with more emotions dripping off the blog pages. And it hit me suddenly. We are all in mourning. Our beloved Y!360 is dying and we really do not know how to cope.

We are going through the five stages of mourning and varying rates and without benefit of support group because here we are talking about technical processes and not Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. I think a lot of us, including me, are pretending acceptance. Judith Viorst in Necessary Losses writes about how we go through mourning even when the loss is something we wanted as in a divorce or graduation from college. To move on and up and out we must release: We must say goodbye to something.

I am bombarded at the moment not only with my own rapid changing of emotions about 360 and the loss of friends, but with the emotions of all my friends. And then there is my ex-husband who is in mourning for his whole body as he goes back and forth between bargaining and anger about the future amputation of his foot and/or lower leg. And I am still going through my stages of grief over the loss of my dear friend, Kathi.

I think it is key to the whole "recovery period" to know that the five stages of mourning are not linear necessarily. It should rather be seen as a giant emotional pinball machine. And we don't always reach acceptance. Sometimes there is a huge TILT and we get stuck somewhere in the process. And we can pick a seemingly superficial issue like the closing of a blog platform to hide from ourselves and the world all the other more serious issues we are dealing with.

For many of us 360 has been our port in a storm. Our life raft during trying times in the "real world" and now we are asked to joyfully swim to an uncertain shore. Please be kind to each other as we go through this. And be kind to yourself.

A pause to reflect

I feel motivated this morning to pause in the process of merely transferring blogs from Y!360 - my first ever public journal - to reflect upon the whole blog experience.

Y!360 was ever so much more than a blog platform. And that becomes so evident when you sort through in an effort to decide the importance of a particular post. Or the comments on that post. Who made those comments is lost in a lot of cases because they have closed their pages and moved on. Soon all the pages will be closed. I am reminded of college graduation. Once it was over I totally lost track of so many of those people that I had called friends along the path to what I really thought was my sole goal.

Goals are important. As are milestones. But I really think who we shared even a portion of the journey with may be the most important aspect. And here in blogland as in our memories sometimes they become faceless occupiers of a vague space in our memory. Or just the words they said at a time we needed to hear them.

Clouds Illusions and Studio Progress?

June 2007: The tin finally went on the roof. Went though days of rain with only plastic protecting my tongue and grove ceiling. At this juncture they still have not totally finished. Nor have they taken off the old roofing up to the wall of the second story and replaced it. When that happened all hell broke loose. A contractor fell through my ceiling and made a huge hole in the living room. Everything had to be moved.

They dropped a hammer through another place. There were promises to repair it when the sheet rock was being done but that did not happen.

A lot of discontent began happening between the June 5th progress photo and this juncture. They had delivered to my place twice the amount of tongue and grove needed for the ceiling. Sixty-one 16 foot boards to be exact. And it made me start looking at all the extra materials laying around including foundation forms for another whole addition. I had been told by the contractor that billings would go down because it was all labor mostly. Everything pricey was already suppose to be gotten by me or the contractor. When you combined his bills and what I paid for like earth work, windows and doors, and electrical wiring costs were well over $100 per square foot quoted which was an increase from the $50 per square foot we began with.

And the crew walked off. No work at all was done for over two weeks.

And Yahoo started having issues! If you will note the last sentence I had trouble posting this. And I was squashed into one half of my living room and a bedroom with all my computer stuff. And I was having computer issues.

From Yahoo post of June 21, 2007


It as been a while since I have posted a progress report on the studio. Not that there has not been progress. It just has not been as exciting when the walls went up and the windows went in. But today the crew was here working on the eaves. Also the rock was delivered for the interior.

The delivery truck struck the satellite and knocked it out of whack. Bye bye network connections. Turns out one of my carpenters used to do computer work so he tweaked it back. I needed to chill so I took the camera out to take progress photos and was immediately diverted by the clouds.

But I persevered and walked around to the back to get that slant on the eaves. More clouds.

Finally got the following photo which shows he roof complete but it is not a great photo of the studio because I was subconsciously focusing on the clouds.

Work was called a short time later because of the following thunderhead.

A lot of flash bang but not much rain. Then the new computer monitor arrived. I works but the desktop has been moved for the next month or two upstairs away from the sheet rock and construction dust. It is supposedly wireless ready and I even think I initially ran it that way when I had it an my old computer running during data transfer. But it does not seem to want to recognize the wireless network. I can't even get that little wireless icon to show up.

Guess tomorrow it s call HP tech support. I really love to do that. Or see if my carpenter can figure it out. Or go hat in hand to the computer nerd next door and admit I am not the guru on computers that I am with electricity.

This is the second time I have tried to post this blog. Yahoo keeps eating it. Once more with feeling.

Progress Photos on Studio June 5, 2007

From Yahoo Post of June 5th, 2007. Things were happening pretty fast at this point.

The Promised Progress Photos

I promised progress photos and here they are.



My calico cat Wee Willow sits in the window sill between the house and the new studio addition. The window will tomorrow be a French door to continue the light and openness from the studio into the living room. This photo shows some of the electrical wiring I have been so busy with. There were wires beneath where Willow sits that had to be moved and rerouted to continue electrical circuits in the living room after this becomes a door.



This is the southern openings awaiting windows. The black is what they call Ice dam that blocks the seepage of water around the windows and blocks the formation of ice in our winter months. Bottom of openings are one foot six inches from the finished floor so the windows do not have to be tempered glass.



Six windows in. The large picture window arrives tomorrow. Doors arrived this afternoon and will also be installed tomorrow. These are fixed panes. The center one will have a lower 1/4 that will open. There are two really high windows on the north side that open for cross ventilation.



View to the East through the newly installed windows. The opening to the left in the photo will be a French door to be installed tomorrow.

Oh, the addition passed the electrical inspection. Framing inspector comes tomorrow.

Two Years Ago almost to the day

I am trying to get down the record of the studio progress in one chunk here and then I will go to more interesting things like my first ever Poetry Wednesday post, etc. But as the contractor is suing me for money I don't think I owe him it is very important to preserve these records from my Y!360 posts.

Yes, they are all preserved on Profiles now but going through and sorting them out has been great for me. It has been two years since this all began and one forgets a lot, ergo it is nice to have a photographic and blog record of just what I was feeling and doing at this point.

The plan! There is always a plan. Entry for June 4, 2007

The question is whether or not it is the same plan.

When you dream of something for ten years you get to amply develop your plan. I wish I had put every sketch upon a napkin, or in my day planner while waiting for an appointment, or sketch made for benefit of a friend on the back of an envelope into a folder. It certainly would have been an interesting review of how the mind works and a plan metamorphoses. I could scan it all in, set it to music and put it on YouTube to torment everyone else. But I digress. My rants about YouTube later.

By the time I marched with my latest plan to a professional draftsman to have them translated into "contractor speak" to present to the licensing board I figured those plans were done. Ceased to evolve. Then came winter. A horrid winter of much snow and much wind. And on a snowbound day observing the heaps of snow sliding off the pitch room and building barriers first under my windows and then over I got out those set in stone plans and began moving windows and doors. And this was good.

Then my contractor saw my plans. (Just a side note here: Contractors hate draftsmen and architects because they don't build the plans they draw up. i.e. Don't live in the real world as it were.) So the contractor had changes.

Meanwhile the electrical plan has stayed the same. Well, at least until I stood in the structure which is to be my future studio. And imagined where the furniture and art work tables, computer, art, etc would go. We always tell clients to do this. I don't know how many do. Walk across the room - where would you expect a switch for lights to be. Go outside and come inside - where would you reach to illuminate the room and what and how much. All the lights with one switch? Just one so you can tiptoe around and look at the dawn as it begins to illuminate the eastern sky.

As a resident of the high country in winter I can tell you one thing - there is never enough light. As an electrician I know one other thing for sure - if the light isn't there wired in you can't ever turn it on. And lastly retrofits are really pricey.

And this was not what this blog started out to be about. I was going to mention the existing wire I drilled through. Oops. Well, and another oops. I should have had a plan for this blog. But I did. But on the way to the conclusion. . .

Retrofits. OK. It was going to be a really easy task to and another much needed circuit to my kitchen because the new studio butts in part up to one wall of the kitchen. So just drill through, cut out for a remodel box and run the circuit. The drill through killed one of the circuits I do (oops, did) have. But no worries. I have the technology, and a plan. (Another side note: This is why you never get a hard bid price on a remodel. They all want time and materials). So an hour later after patching the oops I was back to the original plan for the day.

So best laid and all that rot about mice and men. Plans should be flexible. But not so flexible they break the budget. You think that custom home is going to cost you X then immediately add 20% for all those changes of plans. Don't be so foolish as to think you won't have them.

Still am on the basic path. Eight of the nine windows will arrive today to be installed. (There is always something dragging.) The doors tomorrow. All electrical finished today. Then we wait for inspectors - electrical and framing. I hate that part. Because the next part is the fun part: sheet rock, flooring, paint and trim, hang fixtures and switch all those previously imaginary switches and illuminate my new castle. Ta Da!

Point of No Return?

The below blog was posted May 16, 2007 on Yahoo. At this point my contractor assured me that all the expensive materials had been purchased. The ceiling beams were not cheap. I purchased all the windows and doors to keep from paying him overhead and save on the estimated $100 per square foot which included windows and doors.

Point of No Return ?

They put the center beam in place on my studio today. It is a milestone of sorts. So I took this photo when it was resting securely in the slots built for it. Later they got four of the eight side beams in place as another thunderstorm was closing in.

I have always said if food was just food I would be thin. But it is friendship, company, sensual experience, love, remembrance, celebration, and at times even grieving. I think the building of this studio is a lot like food. I figured once I had committed myself to it and designed it I just had to sit back and enjoy the journey, but it has been more like a roller coaster ride. Like one of the top ten in the nation. I love roller coasters but I also hate them in a strange way. At some point in the short 3 to 4 minute ride I always ask myself, "What am I doing here?"

The answer is having fun. You probably have to like being scared to death to understand that answer. Life would have been so simple and easy had I not decided to take this journey to consummate this decade long dream. And every step along the way there is that moment where I ask, "What am I doing here?"

Having fun being scared to death. It is taking money reserved for retirement but then its goal is to be able to provide me with an income in retirement. It will add to my one real asset - my house and make it more salable and easier to borrow money on, etc. I know all the logical financial and business reasons for my decision but all risk comes with some trepidation. Nothing ventured, nothing gained I tell myself.

And out of the ether, through messages sent to me via blog comments and e-mail, even a corrupted joke that Yahoo deleted the picture from and left the caption the message has been keep on keeping on. Leap. Soar. Dream. Be. There are no guarantees in life. Live it while you can.

Today the apex of my dream was put in place. Wow!!! And that is all I have to say on the subject.

Studio Progress - May 12, 2007

My photo records show the detail on the foundation work which seemed to take forever. After the foundation was dug we got more snow and then melt and mud. The foundation concrete pour was done on April 18th and then more snow. I think I was very frustrated at this point but then in just a few days more progress is made.

Studio Progress May 12, 2007 from Y!360 Blog.



As you can see from the above photo we are "above ground" as it were but not yet topped out. There is no roof yet. If it looks "lacy" it is because of all the windows that will one day soon occupy those spaces.

Working as an electrician I generally see construction projects when the foundations are being laid and we are putting in temporary power and sleeving where main feeds or any in the slap runs. And then we don't return to site until the contractor has his framing inspection and we are boxing and pulling wires for future receptacles and switches and fixtures.

As such this construction project just outside my window has been very informative. They do the walls totally lying down. Even sheath then with composition board before lifting them into place. With my little studio they did the front and back walls and braced them while constructing the front wall on the sub-flooring and lifting it to brace the other two. Then they furred out the wall which abuts to my house to provide better support than tying in to my house. Roof beams are next.

Construction projects are rather like a mambo; slow, quick, quick, slow, quick, slow, slow. This always throws owners because after seeing very fast progress, at last after the incredibly slow foundation, they expect the project is going to speed up and they will be done and moved in before they know it. Generally they have always set some date like the ten year family reunion or Thanksgiving when they just must be in the totally completed and appropriately decorated house. A good contractor generally tries to let them know this probably won't happen and they should plan on Aunt Mabel's place instead for the wedding, etc.

Then when things go back to slow they are really frustrated and just sure someone is dragging their heels. They don't see how much work is going on in the walls or attic or crawl space. They don't understand the labor intensiveness of a few wires in the wall. They really don't get the time it takes to trim out. Or the construction industry's own version of Waiting for Godot, the building, electrical, plumbing inspectors.

But for now things go fast. And one of the goals I know as an insider is just ahead is "weathered in" because this is when us electricians again get access to the site. At that time it will have windows and a roof because electricians hate working in the rain even if we do work in the dark.

I get to do my magic and wire this studio the way I want. And one thing I know from long experience is there is never enough light or enough outlets if you go just by code. You can always not turn a light on but if it isn't there you are out of luck. I will even punch through the common wall into the kitchen and add another badly needed circuit there. And the whole addition will be on the sub-panel that currently handles my well, and septic system. There is a transfer switch and generator in the future that will allow all that and the studio to work when we have power outages here in the high country.

So all that is probably TMI (too much information) and you will probably be bored at other progress points I feel a need to communicate. I am considering writing (and hopefully selling) and article on remodels and/or passive solar design and execution so you are just my trial audience.

March 21, 2007 Studio Ground Breaking

Continuing my look back at blogs in Y!360 I came upon one of the ones I considered really important for a number of reasons not the least of which is possible evidence on the contractor suit resulting in the building of my Studio.

The contractor, not computer literate, has no idea that the progress on this project was witnessed by thousands as I dutifully posted updates. This was day one. And I hired the backhole to dig the foundation.


Ground Breaking News

Backhoe showed up on time. Among contractors here in the high country that in itself is earth shaking news. But then he was just up on the highway and didn't have far to travel. Even more important my contractor showed up on time to layout the plans.

Well, not actually the plans. Those he left in the pickup with the building permit. But then we are revising the foundation plans.

The backhoe owner also does landscaping so while I had him captive on my property we negotiated some improvements to my driveway. This may be why contractors are always late here. You hire them for one job and while you have them you keep adding on more tasks. As an electrician I see this all the time. We seldom get off site in a timely manner ergo we are late to the next scheduled job.

Spring time is a good time to begin. Most people that have to negotiate construction loans are not ready to begin until June or July. Nobody has worked because of the long hard winter and so they are all hungry. And eager which I suppose explains them showing up on time this morning.

The really good news, since I am a gardener, is the piles of rich, dark top soil the backhoe dug up of the trenches for the footings. I am already planning my new herb and lettuce beds.

It took until the next summer to get those new beds built and my first crop of lettuce and herbs. Construction requires such energy and time even when all you are doing is overseeing the process, but to keep costs down I was doing some of the manual work myself and also hiring subcontractors to avoid paying 15%.

Blogs are not merely journals but records of our path through life.