Happiness As a Spiritual Practice

 

 
At some point earlier this evening there were four fire trucks outside in the driveway. We have no idea why they were there. The local newspaper may or may not tell us Tuesday (there is no Monday or Saturday paper).

It was a little hard sleeping last night because the wind was rattling our windows, and Andy plowed today because of the drifting snow. We only received about 2″ of snow, which wouldn’t be enough to cause problems if it hadn’t been for the wind.

We were supposed to meet with our kitchen designer yesterday, but I suddenly got very sick Friday evening and spent most of Saturday in bed. Andy checked to see if it made sense for him to keep the appointment, and the designer was happy to postpone it. For some reason she is having trouble with utilities to her house and needed to deal with that.

The most interesting thing for me was that after being so sick and spending 14 hours in bed, I was almost back to normal last night. Who knows what was going on? Another mystery of the universe.

Has anything unusual been going on where you are?

 
As I indicated at stresstopower last Thursday, we now have permission to use the shed for storage. We also want to insulate it and install a heater so Andy can use it as a workroom. That, of course, needs another permit, a Permit to Complete Construction. Who would have guessed it?

Have you ever had to jump through hoops in order to do something?

 
As I’ve indicated before, Andy and I love information. Steve has sent our plans to the kitchen design folks, and we have an appointment Tuesday morning to see what our options are given our budget. In the meantime we’ve been doing our homework about the differences between the various countertop options and have been figuring out what we like and don’t like.

We’ve also been learning about other people’s experiences, both in conversations and through the internet, in order to get new ideas and hopefully to avoid some pitfalls. Kaitlin and Torben have been a big help because they remodeled their home not too long ago, and I ordered some “like new” books about kitchens from Amazon for a reasonable price. We’re also using the internet to get details about the various products.

This is a picture of the floor we’ve chosen with two samples of quartz for a countertop.

The colors aren’t quite right, but it does give the general idea.

Andy has also been doing research on ventilation systems for an energy-efficient house. The fellow we were referred to for our kitchen fan has a different definition of a quiet fan than we do. It was so noisy we would probably hesitate to use it. Fortunately Andy found some engineers online that sell a kit that should do what we want. We will no doubt write more about this later.

What about you? What have you been doing/learning lately?

 
As we’ve said, this has been quite a year for us here:
 

 
What about you? Has your life changed much in the past year?

1977.
 

2006.
 

For the past 35 years our tradition was to go up to our land and cut down our tree shortly before Christmas. We clearly couldn’t do that this year, so I bought some lights, garlands and a little artificial tree:

2011.
 

That works too…it pays to be flexible. How have your traditions changed over the years?

I hope you all had a great day.

 
It pays to be paranoid. We thought we had the final approval for the shed so Joe could start insulating it and hook up the propane heater. Andy checked just in case.

I’ll spare you the details, but it turns out that idea was too good to be true. Someone has to go up to do one more inspection. Besides the fact it’s a long trip that no one wants to make, the county doesn’t have a key to the Forest Service lock, and it’s almost Christmas and more snow is expected. What do you think the chances are that this will be resolved before Spring?

It pays to have patience and a sense of humor.

 

 
They uncovered the house slab Friday and it had only one small crack. Steve hasn’t looked at it yet, but he already warned us that hairline cracks are almost possible to avoid and they’re no problem. He says if there’s no flaking (there isn’t) then things should probably fine. He’s planning to go up to look at it sometime this week.

I went up with Andy this afternoon and started marking off the thickness of the walls, where the various rooms are, etc. As you can see from the first picture, it was a glorious day. (A camera can’t capture the feeling of spaciousness, but it’s better than nothing.) We still have a lot more details to decide before the plans are complete, so we’ll be going back to Santa Fe this week to look at kitchen and bathroom sinks and fixtures, etc. We’re also doing a lot of research on the internet and have found the propane refrigerator we’ll probably get. It’s just one step after another, and doing our best to enjoy the process.

What about you? Have you had to deal with any big projects lately? If not, are you glad? If so, are you enjoying the process?

Our shed. For higher resolution click on picture.
 

Our well-covered house pad. For higher resolution click on picture.

 
Joe was originally going up tomorrow to do more work, but they’re predicting more snow with highs around 20° F. for the next two days. Not exactly building weather. We’re hoping this unusually early cold snap won’t hurt the new concrete. Time will tell.

Andy practiced plowing the road yesterday and will probably plow again tomorrow because it will need it. Winter has come!

What about where you are? Cathy and Evan will be dealing with summer instead of winter, of course.

 

For a better picture click here.
 

 
As I mentioned in Thursday’s post they did finish the shed last week and we had a enjoyable and productive visit with Kaitlin and Torben. We still have a lot of detailed planning to do with Steve, hopefully early this week, and with any luck Joe and his crew may pour the concrete slab for the house. There does seem to be a hassle about getting an inspector to come up to approve the shed so we can actually use it, but that’s another matter. Steve says he will work on that.

I’ve also been playing with modern technology. I actually bought an iPod Touch so I could download audiobooks from the library, but that part isn’t working very well. The first thing I was asked to do was to download and install the latest, new-and-improved, operating system for the iPod. That took an hour and a half. Then after several mishaps and downloading the whole thing again, it turns out my problem is the library system works with the older software but not the latest one. They’re working on it.

It was more funny than frustrating. I was already curious about the iPod Touch because Kaitlin and Torben love their iPhones and the iPod is very similar except it uses WiFi instead of my having to pay for a phone plan. (I have no need for a cell phone.) I didn’t mind having an excuse to try it, plus amazon discounted it $100 if I signed up for a year at audible.com. I was curious about that too and am pleased I did it. I used this month’s credit on a biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. It’s over 29 hours long and I’ve almost finished it already. So my adventures aren’t all about rebuilding up in the mountains. I’m trying new things and am learning a lot, which always makes me happy.

What about you? Did you try something new/learn anything interesting this week?

For better resolution click here.

 
As I wrote last Thursday, we made a lot of progress last week. The stems walls are now done and Joe plans to go up tomorrow to pack the dirt around the outside of the house as well as level and compact the dirt on the inside. He and his crew will also bend down the rebar and add more to prepare inside of the house for a concrete slab floor. (That area is covered at the moment to keep the ground from freezing.) He hopes to get approval from the building inspector Wednesday so he can, weather permitting, pour the slab the following week.

If the weather cooperates the Tuff Shed crew will start building the shed Tuesday. Again, whatever happens it should be interesting.

Hope things are going well with you. Kaitlin and Torben are coming tomorrow and will fly back Saturday Friday. Do you have any plans for Thanksgiving?