REAL Renovations: Downsizing

I had a (rather wealthy) friend walk into my house once and remark “what a cute little place!”

Which surprised me, because I’ve got 10 rooms and a full basement and “little” is not the term that comes to mind when I’m dusting them.

With my recent, ahem, lifestyle change (husband decided he needed “spark,” whatever that is, and moved out), and both kids gone (ish), I find myself with far more rooms than I need.

So I downsized. Or rather, downstaired.

My house is essentially a really nice one-story house that had three bedrooms, a bath and attic storage added on the second floor. We’ve never been entirely sure whether the second floor is original or not, as the first floor would easily fit a family of four or five. As my son put it, my first floor is a really awesome apartment.

I’ve spent the past month moving myself into it.

I now have a 6-room apartment: living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, office, and studio.  (Office for my consulting business, and the studio for sewing and art.) It’s still a luxurious amount of space for one person.

Most of the “renovation” has involved just moving furniture downstairs, but this brings its own needs. A lot of the furniture left with Wei, so there are bare spots on the walls. Or actually, shadows on the walls, where pictures have been hanging for 30 years.  So there’s been a fair amount of patching and painting.  Some of it has been less “renovation” and more “renewal” like getting rid of books and clothes and things that you store when you have the space, but that you really don’t need. I’ve been applying the “if I didn’t know I had it, I don’t really need it” rule.

Upstairs there’s now a second, rather charming “inlaw” apartment– Living/Dining room, bedroom, office, full bath and tons of closet space, and even a half-sized fridge which I’ve been using for my home-preserves. My daughter is using it right now (that’s the “ish” in the the kids are gone), but I’m thinking of renting it to a grad student or intern.

When you live in a space for a long time, you grow tentacles. Even for me, who does not tend to accumulate clutter, a lot accumulates over 30 years in a space. When you remove stuff you’ve had for a long time, it’s not that you’re getting rid of things you need; it’s that you’re relinquishing myths– the myth that you will fit into your honeymoon suit again, that your daughter will want the baby furniture eventually, that you can furnish your kids apartments from the detritus of your life, that you’ll finally sell all that art you made in your twenties.

There’s an awesome garage sale in my near future.

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April planner, annual repost!

Our wonderful Jen at Unearthing This Life has been posting these great month-by-month planners for a few years. Just because she’s not writing here anymore doesn’t mean we stop the reposts!

I’ve been pretty productive this April– completely reconfigured the usage of my house to reflect the new reality of being in it alone. Lots of painting, moving and patching. The garden’s been a bit neglected through all this, but I’m hoping to get back on track. You can follow my garden progress at MyFolia.com/gardeners/Xan.

Here’s Jen’s April planner:

Gardening:

• Tilling garden beds where necessary to work in compost and get rid of weed seedlings
• Edging beds or digging the last of the new beds
• Add supports to garden beds for plants like tomatoes, peas, gourds, roses, peonies, and beans.
• Sowing outdoor hardy annuals
• Sow last of the peas, potatoes, and onions. Continue starting beets, lettuces, cabbages, radishes, and carrots.
• Planting rooted raspberry canes and strawberries
• Hardening off and planting of vegetable seedlings
• Plant any remaining saplings and transplants
• Rake around fruit trees to help with invasive bugs and/or treat for them. Use treatments only after flowers are gone.
• Questions about what to plant when? Go to Mother Earth News!

Outdoor house and yard Chores:

• Clean up fallen branches and sticks, nuts, and leaves.
• Hang bird/butterfly/bat-houses. If you’re not a beekeeper consider hanging a mason bee box. Set up bird baths and drinking holes for beneficial critters like bees.
• Tidy up gutters and look for winter damage.
• Bring out water hoses and setting up water barrels.
• Repair screens check caulking/insulation around windows and repair if necessary.
• MORELS!

Animals:

• Purchase/raise chicks
• Consider any expansions and rotations for this seasons’ critters.
• Repair fencing.
• Add supers to beehives. Check brood.

Indoors:

• Wash windows and curtains.
• Organize and collect glass canning jars.
• Clean out freezers and storage for this year’s crops.
• Plan simple, yet filling meals for lots of energy.

What will you be working on this month?

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The Year on Hold

I am just trying to accept my new pace for now and have termed this year “The Year on Hold.” My mind is still moving at its normal speed, but my physical body is moving at a fraction of normal. I would say 1/8th speed of less. Dang that is slow.

My hands and nails haven’t been this clean in a long time and my nails are longer than they have been in years and year.

I cleaned out some stuff in the silverware drawer and found a set of 2 forks and 2 knives that had been my Gramp’s. I set them out for a meal one night. Mom and I had fun looking at them and talking about them. She thought they were mostly likely from Gramp’s second wife’s brother who had been in Germany and brought them back. The antlers are so much more knobby than the deer antlers here in the US. and the detail is beautiful. They were fun to use and enjoy.

The 14 year old neighbor girl came over on day and I taught her how to make granola bars. I sat on a stool in the kitchen and guided her through the recipe. It was fun for both of us. As we waited for them to cook and cool, we played a game. I let her pick the game and she chose Battleship. I bought the game at a garage sale a few years ago and this was the first time I had played it in decades. The game was missing a few of the boats, but we made it work. On the first game we each hit a ship on our second guess. Imagine that. The second game it took us forever for either of us to hit a ship. It was pretty funny.

I managed to take another trip to the emergency room last Sunday. I only stayed 4 hours this time and I am determined to not go back (unless I have to of course.) The blood clot has broken up (that’s a really good thing for me) and I should be on the road to recovery and smooth sailing at this point. The big thing right now is to get my INR (International Ratio) level stable in the therapeutic range. I go to the lab for a blood test once a week and then we adjust the amount of coumadin that I take to keep the INR in a stable therapeutic range. The range we are shooting for is between 2-3.

In the mean time I am digging through and cleaning out drawers a little at a time. I am going through piles of papers and organizing what I can a little at a time. I also hope to have time to work on blog posts and read other blogs and comment more consistently. My mom picked all the cabbages for me before she headed home and I hope to get a crock of sauerkraut fermenting (with help.) I imagine many of you in the northern hemisphere are getting antsy for spring to arrive. In my area we have already hit 90F and most people have their spring gardens planted.

“The Year on Hold” will still be frustrating for me, but I will make the most of what I can.

When was the last time you played Battleship?

Sincerely, Emily

You can see what else I am up to over at Sincerely, Emily. The topics are varied, as I jump around from gardening to sewing to making bread or lotion and many things in between.

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What to do in February

This is the second in our repostings of Jen’s wonderful posts on monthly planning. Originally posted in 2011, here’s what to do in the traditional dead of winter.

February can be one of the last chances to get indoor projects completed before the spring thaw arrives. Gardeners are getting excited and it won’t be long before the first of this year’s farm babies are here! Spring is really just around the corner, so start wrapping things up inside and get ready to head back outdoors.

Indoors:

• Check basement or crawl space for leakage during thaws.
• Check bathroom caulking for re-sealing needs. While you’re in there, check your pipes for leaks.
• Freshen your kitchen sinks by pouring a mixture of 3 cups hot water and 1/4 cup vinegar (or the juice of one lemon) down each drain.
• Keep an eye out for cracks in your drywall caused by settling during thaws and freezes. There are expandable putties and spackles available for problem areas. While you’re at it, you may want to mark outdoor masonry to be repaired. Plan to complete this project after the last hard freeze and once your biggest worries of the house settling are past.
• If you don’t have a cold frame or greenhouse, set up an area to start seeds for your garden. Few seeds need light to germinate (be sure to read the directions) so you may be able to get by without any lights other than a window for the first few weeks. (Check out chiotsrun seedstarting 101 guide).
• Research and prepare for any animal purchases for the year.
• Keep a tray of water and spray bottle near indoor plants to adjust humidity levels, especially if you have central air. Running the heater can dry them out quickly and cover leaves with dust.

Outdoors/Garden/Wildlife:

• Keep fresh water available and free of ice for birds and wildlife.
• It’s National Bird Feeding Month. Keep feeding those birdies! Seed, dried berries, and suet are great meals for our feathered pals.
• If you live in a climate with mild winters, this month may be a good time to dig new beds. You may also want to repair or build new composting bins to be prepared for this year’s cleanup.
• Southerners could get away with planting bare root trees on warm days.
• Keep driveways and walks free of snow and ice. Have shovels, plows, and salt/brine accessible and stocked.
• Watch gutters and roofs for ice dams.
• XAN EDIT: if you’re in a short-season zone (5 and up) start long season seeds like onions and leeks indoors
• If you didn’t get to it during fall, now would be a great time to oil and sharpen garden tools.

Animal Husbandry

• Be prepared for early birthing. Have any equipment you’ll need ready and accessible.
• Nights are still very cold in most parts of the country. Keep your critters warm with fresh hay, heat lamps, or blankets, but be sure to avoid fire hazards.
• If you’ve been leaving a light on for your chickens you can begin weaning them off of it. The sun is setting noticeably later and your gals should begin laying more regularly soon.

You can also find Jennifer in archive at Unearthing This Life where she used to blog (or as she called it “blarg”) a bit about good food, home schooling, raising chickens, and being a suburban Yankee transplant in a rural southern town. She’s not writing right now, but her wonderful posts are well worth scrolling through.

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7 things to do while sick in bed

I couldn’t have chosen a better week to be sick as a dog, because the U.S. Figure Skating Championships are this week. So fortunately, I only had to do one thing all week- watch the live stream.

There’s nothing more boring than being kinda sick. If you’ve got the full out flu, you feel like you’re going to die, but at least you sleep through most of it. Illnesses like this one– low grade fever, general lethargy–don’t even come with a loss of appetite and I always say what the hell is an illness good for if you don’t even lose any weight. Of course, I probably lost weight anyway, because my husband kept forgetting to feed me.

So here are some things to keep you from being completely stir crazy:

1. Technology
What in the world did we do when we were sick before there was broadband? In addition to figure skating, I’m pretty sure I got to the end of the internet. Also, you can still talk to people, even when you can’t talk, via chat and texting. Forget the tv– that’s so last century.

2. Rooms
As in, move from one into another. Fortunately, I just finished upgrading my kids’ rooms into guest rooms, so I spent the week moving from my bed, to the side bedroom to the front bedroom to the living room and back again. At least the scenery was different.

3. Complaining about the nursing
This is easy in my house, since they all learned their nursing skills from me (see above, re: meals), and I’m the world’s worst nurse. I am also extremely crabby when I’m sick, not that it’s all that easy to tell the difference.

4. Georgette Heyer novels
Just respectable enough to not be embarrassing to buy, but trashy enough not to require too much brain power.

5. Baths
Okay, while technically not “in bed,” you’re still prone, right? Don’t do this if you have a high fever, because it will raise your core temp, but it’s fine for a low grade fever, and again– change of scenery. Plus, sweetie, you know I love you, but after 3 days in bed, you’re a little ripe. Get your nurse, such as s/he is, to change the sheets while you’re in there.

6. Make lists
I always keep a pad of paper in the nightstand, on the theory that I can jot stuff down in the middle of the night so I don’t forget in the morning. Things like “Don’t forgetl;kajdao[kerh” So helpful. While you’re lying there semicomatose, however, you can take the opportunity to mentally walk through the house and write down all the projects that you’re not going to do when you’re better anyway.

7. Get your own damn dinner
I’m sure he meant well, but seriously, somebody fix meals for the poor patient. This is the major drawback of a whole foods (no, not Whole Foods) diet. You always have to cook, because there’s no prepared foods.

What do you do to entertain yourself when you’re sick?

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What to do in January

I’ll be reposting Jen’s wonderful series on monthly chores and tasks throughout the year. Here’s January, originally posted on January 7, 2011 by Unearthing This Life.

So many of us are working our way toward a more self-sufficient lifestyle. With that in mind we here at NDiN wanted to share some general guidelines of what to plan for on a monthly basis. Whether you’re a gardener, a beekeeper, a forager, or you keep animals, hopefully our monthly guides will help you plan ahead for the month. Depending on your exact climate you may find you need to adjust your schedule depending on your region.

Now that Winter is officially here most of us will be spending a lot more time indoors. For those in the more Southern regions, outdoor work is manageable on warmer days. It’s a good time to focus on the indoors, keeping warm, and getting a jump on this year’s activities.

Indoors:

• Take down and store holiday ornaments and decorations.
• Update your address book from holiday cards and gift envelopes if you’ve saved them.
• Clean out your files in preparation for tax time. Rid yourself of out-of-date warranty cards (update if necessary) and manuals. Schedule service appointments for extended warranties.
• Clean out dryer vents with a wire hanger and vacuum cleaner. Wash mesh filters with soap and a scrub brush to allow for better air flow.
• When finding new homes for holiday gifts, clean out unused items and donate those in great shape to your favorite charity.
• It’s also a great time to photograph your belongings, room by room, for insurance purposes.
• Start planning your spring garden. Look at gardening catalogs, websites, and blogs (like us!) to get ideas for what to do this year and when. Purchase seeds by March to guarantee delivery and stock.
• Research and prepare for any animal purchases for the year.
• Keep a tray of water and spray bottle near indoor plants to adjust humidity levels, especially if you have central air. Running the heater can dry them out quickly and cover leaves with dust.

Outdoors/Garden/Wildlife:

• Keep fresh water available and free of ice for birds and wildlife.
• If you’ve already begun to put out birdseed continue to do so. They’re now relying on you as a food source.
• If you live in a climate with mild winters, this month may be a good time to dig new beds. You may also want to repair or build new composting bins to be prepared for this year’s cleanup.
• Keep driveways and walks free of snow and ice. Have shovels, plows, and salt/brine accessible and stocked.

Animal Husbandry:

• Early birthing will begin late next month for some of you. Make any preparations necessary to help mammas and babies along.
• Keep barns and other animal shelters clean to help prevent illness and discourage wild critters from nesting. Change hay often, keep tools cleaned up, and be sure to keep water free of ice.
• Put a light out for an extra two hours in the evening for your chickens. It will help keep their coop warm on colder evenings and promote more egg laying.

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Looking forward

No New Year’s resolutions around here. I really liked Xan’s post the other day and I enjoyed reading Annie Rie’s post Six at Sixty. I have accomplished many things over the past year and will continue to make my lists and continue to check items off those endless lists. I much prefer my to-do lists to resolutions.

Am I going to start a New Year’s list? Heck no, my other lists are still way too long! There are times I feel like I have been sitting around and I wonder if I have accomplished anything, but when I start to think about the things I have done and the things I have accomplished I lighten up a bit. Not all things are huge and noticeable.

I am happy to have the opportunity to explore new things, plant more vegetables, walk next door to visit the neighbors, and be involved in some local community things. I am grateful for my husband and my family, and the time we have had together and the memories that go along with living our lives. I look forward to more exploring, more veggies in the back yard, more visits with the neighbors. I look forward to more memories and time spent with family (and friends.)

Tomorrow is a new day. I look forward to many new days in this New Year. I hope you do to.

Sincerely, Emily

 

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Oh why not: New Year’s Resolutions

Eat sensibly

Buy one item from Eileen Fisher (and only one, as it eats up the clothing budget through 2023)

Local beer

Local whisky

Do every household project that costs under $50, seriously

Get out of town

Watch everything on the Netflix queue

Speak a foreign language to a native

Get over it

Homemade pasta (that’s for you, Susy!)

Find a nice girl for my son (any takers?)

Call my father

Write to Congress

What are your resolutions?

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Frugal

I spent the afternoon altering pants for my “foster mother” Lynn, who is battling cancer and finds herself with fingers so tender she can’t hold a needle.

Lynn found these pants at her favorite thrift store. Two pairs of corduroys, brand new from all appearances. Total cost: $6.

Not that I needed much teaching, but Lynn taught me a lot about stretching a dollar. She’s how I learned to appear well off on a poor to middling salary. How we sent our kids to private schools and small liberal arts colleges with next to no loans.  It isn’t hard. It’s just a matter of stuff, or really of understanding how little stuff you need, and how much stuff that you do need can be gleaned from other people’s discards. So we do a lot of thrift store shopping, home-making of food and clothes, dumpster diving and other staples of a frugal lifestyle.

I’ve never been one of those people that hunts down bargains. (Talk to my brother in law, who once drove 30 miles to buy milk at $1.59 a gallon. In his defense he bought enough for everyone, and I mean everyone.) I don’t clip coupons, mostly because they tend to be for name-brand extras that I don’t use anyway.

We make a decent living. Yes, we’re trying to put two kids through college with cash (one down, one to go), so that takes every dime of discretionary money, but the point is, we have discretionary money. If I buy an extra skirt, it’s not going to put our mortgage in arrears.

Here at the start of the holiday season, it’s important to remember how your consumption affects the planet. Think about every plastic toy, every extra tchotchkie, every brand new candy dish that you buy for your mother-in-law because you have never had the slightest idea what to get her. Every single thing you buy that you don’t need ends up in a land fill, depletes the precious resource of fossil fuels, and adds pollution to the air, not to mention that you’re running out of storage space. Give your loved ones things they’ll use, not just piles of empty promises. Resist the pressure to buy more and more and more.

It isn’t hard to be frugal. In fact, it takes more effort to spend money. Go to the store, go to the mall, stop off on the way home. Even entering all that initial info for “one click shopping” on line is often more effort than I’m willing to put in for something that I don’t need.

Which gives hope for everyone. If you’re not naturally frugal, and you’ve got money to spend, you can still avoid the beast just by remembering that shopping is a pain in the ass.

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A million to one

It’s a trope– the million to one chance. We use it to describe unlikely scenarios, that probably are 100 to 1, or 1000 to 1 possibilities. I’m sure there are statisticians whose teeth are set on edge by these phrases, especially the more exaggerated of them.

A million to one.

Last week I lost a new earring while walking to the local movie theater. It’s a 2 mile walk, so I didn’t even think about trying to recover it. I had no idea where along the walk I lost it, or even if I’d been wearing it when I left the house. In fact, earlier in the day I’d been downtown (that’s downtown Chicago), and wasn’t entirely sure I’d been wearing it when I got back in the car.

After we got home I realized it was gone, and went to bed in a teary snit. The next morning I found out my darling husband had retraced the entire 4 mile round trip at midnight, with a flashlight, trying to find it.

And still I thought–not even going to try, it’s completely ridiculous.

But the next day I thought about that darling man, walking through the not-all-that-safe neighborhood in the middle of the night, looking for my earring. So I retraced the route.

Million to one.

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