In preparation for my summer of self discovery I am still trying to tie up loose ends. It is very hard to finish up with some projects. They keep growing.
When I lived on Okinawa ('60-'63) I was a teenager. I would go to the village and shop and hang out. One day I saw a bunch of kids enjoying some treat. I wondered what it was, but the language barrier prevented the exchange of information, so I was given a piece of an orange strip. It resembled an orange petis (gummy bear type candy). Everyone watched me with much anticipation of my reaction. I took the obligatory bite and began to chew. It was dried squid! My saliva mixed with the dried fish and it became larger. The more I chewed the large it got.
From that time to this I call projects that seem to look "tasty" or sweet, but turn into something like "gum on your shoe" as SQUID. The project gets larger and larger, is not fun or even profitable. It looked okay before you began and now it consumes your time and energy.
Well, my "loose ends" have turned to squid. I had hoped to finish up several projects by the middle of May. Then I moved the goal to the beginning of June. Now I only hope to be finished in time to leave for LaJolla on June 23!
Monday, June 05, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Summer in the Sun
Okay, this is the summer of my contentment. I am focusing on me. If you don't know me you may think, "what's the big deal"? I guess I'd have to say that most of my 36 years of marriage have focused on my family. In the beginning my husband, Jim, and I were alone for five years and did lots of fun things, but when our daughters came along I believed that being there for them was more important than anything else I could do. I still think it is a paramount goal, with the exception: that you need to take more time for yourself so you can replenish your creative and inner spirit to be able to give back more.
I think that I was not so much virtuous, as ignorant. My mother was a very selfless woman and role-model. She sacrificed for us. I think now that it was a generous but not necessarily healthy attitude. To this day she has a hard time just being frivolous. If I could help her in any one thing it would be to worry less and just enjoy -— whatever it is. Her example was/is a model worth emulating. Many young people would do well to take a page from her book. She is not given to spending money unnecessarily and so has money when she needs it.
I grew up in a home that prized taking care of one's possessions. There is no need to replace something if it is working and if it is working take care of it to keep it working. Improve it with maintainence. Paint it. Shine it. Upgrade it. and eventually replace it, but by and large the need is only created after much delay of the aging process. I have had repair people tell me to just get a new one, the parts and labor cost more than a new "whatever". It is true, too. But the old one is made of metal. It has lasted two decades and with repair will last two more. The new one is plastic. Is designed to be replaced in five years. So when our daughters were born we had a couple of sayings: "If it's not yours leave it alone." "If it is yours take care of it."
If only nations would live by these simple platitudes.
Okay, so back to summer. This summer I am going to San Diego. I am going to focus on ME. I am going to swim, exercise, sketch, kayak, design webpages and explore CSS. I am going to meet new friends, visit new places, miss my husband and family and NOT do any dishes for 9 weeks! I am going to get up early (6am), my usual time was 9am and get moving. I am going to put effort into being what and who I feel I am on the inside. As an artist it is hard to express myself when I am always interrupted by things that need to be done. There's family, friends, and work. I'm not saying that these are always an interruption to my life, but it seems that until this summer I have only had rare occasions of time in lots of two or three days. But now I am going to think about what I want to accomplish when I get home in August.
My friend Irene has warned me to wear a good sunscreen, so I am using a physical barrier, not a chemical one. I just ordered Ti-Silc, which she recommended. When I get home I hope not to be much darker than I am now. When I lived on Okinawa in the 60's I was as brown as a coconut husk. Now I have spots on my skin and rosacea (which some say happens because of excess sun when you're young). So if you're young, cover up and save your skin.
Because I am going to be close to the beach I hope to try my hand at sand sculpting. I'll try to post here some of my efforts.
But for now I am finishing up at the rental. I am doing the laminate; new doors, built a new bathroom off the master bedroom and now hope to find a nice tenant.
You can see that I have closed off the old pocket door to the vanity area off the master suite. This vanity area is now a 3/4 bath with a glass shower stall.
I built the new 3/4 bath using the vanity area and three feet of the master bedroom about 6 feet long. I'm sure the extra toilet and shower are worth the 18sf. as the bedroom is about 180sf, so it's only 10%... a fair trade off.
The kitchen had very inferior cabinets in it. They were literally falling off the walls. They were installed by the builder in the 1970's and were not much better than cardboard. The cabinets we've installed are quite nice oak hardwood. I had to take out the 6' sliding glass doors and put in a 5' pair of French doors to gain a foot so I could add more cupboards. In essence I doubled the space. Here is a working image of what was (after the cabinets were torn out) and the new added ones.
I used laminate that is dark: black, brown, tan with some white. It is a faux granite. I put an oak trim on the edge to match the cabinets. The dishwasher which will go where the vacuum is will have a skin to match the cupboards, too. I put the laminate up under the cupboards to make cleaning easier and to give a uniform look.
With this said, the work is almost done. The preparation for my summer is beginning. Finishing existing work is the first priority. Now to find a couple of boxes to pack linens and study stuff in. I will ship it ahead of my departure.
This ends my first web log of the Summer of '06.
I think that I was not so much virtuous, as ignorant. My mother was a very selfless woman and role-model. She sacrificed for us. I think now that it was a generous but not necessarily healthy attitude. To this day she has a hard time just being frivolous. If I could help her in any one thing it would be to worry less and just enjoy -— whatever it is. Her example was/is a model worth emulating. Many young people would do well to take a page from her book. She is not given to spending money unnecessarily and so has money when she needs it.
I grew up in a home that prized taking care of one's possessions. There is no need to replace something if it is working and if it is working take care of it to keep it working. Improve it with maintainence. Paint it. Shine it. Upgrade it. and eventually replace it, but by and large the need is only created after much delay of the aging process. I have had repair people tell me to just get a new one, the parts and labor cost more than a new "whatever". It is true, too. But the old one is made of metal. It has lasted two decades and with repair will last two more. The new one is plastic. Is designed to be replaced in five years. So when our daughters were born we had a couple of sayings: "If it's not yours leave it alone." "If it is yours take care of it."
If only nations would live by these simple platitudes.
Okay, so back to summer. This summer I am going to San Diego. I am going to focus on ME. I am going to swim, exercise, sketch, kayak, design webpages and explore CSS. I am going to meet new friends, visit new places, miss my husband and family and NOT do any dishes for 9 weeks! I am going to get up early (6am), my usual time was 9am and get moving. I am going to put effort into being what and who I feel I am on the inside. As an artist it is hard to express myself when I am always interrupted by things that need to be done. There's family, friends, and work. I'm not saying that these are always an interruption to my life, but it seems that until this summer I have only had rare occasions of time in lots of two or three days. But now I am going to think about what I want to accomplish when I get home in August.
My friend Irene has warned me to wear a good sunscreen, so I am using a physical barrier, not a chemical one. I just ordered Ti-Silc, which she recommended. When I get home I hope not to be much darker than I am now. When I lived on Okinawa in the 60's I was as brown as a coconut husk. Now I have spots on my skin and rosacea (which some say happens because of excess sun when you're young). So if you're young, cover up and save your skin.
Because I am going to be close to the beach I hope to try my hand at sand sculpting. I'll try to post here some of my efforts.
But for now I am finishing up at the rental. I am doing the laminate; new doors, built a new bathroom off the master bedroom and now hope to find a nice tenant.
You can see that I have closed off the old pocket door to the vanity area off the master suite. This vanity area is now a 3/4 bath with a glass shower stall.
I built the new 3/4 bath using the vanity area and three feet of the master bedroom about 6 feet long. I'm sure the extra toilet and shower are worth the 18sf. as the bedroom is about 180sf, so it's only 10%... a fair trade off.
The kitchen had very inferior cabinets in it. They were literally falling off the walls. They were installed by the builder in the 1970's and were not much better than cardboard. The cabinets we've installed are quite nice oak hardwood. I had to take out the 6' sliding glass doors and put in a 5' pair of French doors to gain a foot so I could add more cupboards. In essence I doubled the space. Here is a working image of what was (after the cabinets were torn out) and the new added ones.
I used laminate that is dark: black, brown, tan with some white. It is a faux granite. I put an oak trim on the edge to match the cabinets. The dishwasher which will go where the vacuum is will have a skin to match the cupboards, too. I put the laminate up under the cupboards to make cleaning easier and to give a uniform look.
With this said, the work is almost done. The preparation for my summer is beginning. Finishing existing work is the first priority. Now to find a couple of boxes to pack linens and study stuff in. I will ship it ahead of my departure.
This ends my first web log of the Summer of '06.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Yet another link in the chain of events
My Deck project is coming along very well. I found oil based paint today at Sherwin and Williams. They bought out Parker Paint of Tacoma, w...
-
What do you do? I don't mean the laundry, or balance the checkbook, or take the kids to school... I mean when you can do what you want ...
-
I awoke this morning to the cheerful voice of Karyn, our daughter. She and I had planned a day of bonding over a project. She wanted to mak... -
This summer is not really summer. We have had less than a week of good summer weather. Mostly it rains, and today is typical — rain. So the ...