Seeking the Rainbow

A Christmas Story theme

A very happy holiday to you!  Whether you celebrate Festivus, Kwanza, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, Hanukah, Eid, Christmas, or are just enjoying a three-day weekend, may it be a joyous one.

We decided to use the movie “A Christmas Story” as our theme this year, but we were a little late getting started.  Even so, we’ve been getting great feedback on it.  I guess nobody has done this theme before.  Next year we plan on adding the kid in the red snow suit who couldn’t put his arms down, the teacher/wicked witch saying “You’ll shoot your eye out!”, and a Santa on the roof with a big boot at the beginning of a slide going down into the yard.  If we can do it right, it will be a hoot. 

More pictures after the jump.

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Below are two links.  The first is to the original pictures we took of the house when we first saw it, before we put in an offer and bought it.  The second link is the before/after comparison of the work we have done so far on the inside of the house, plus some extra pictures of various times throughout the year and our animals.  The exterior hasn’t changed much.  We’ve narrowed down the colors we like for painting the exterior, but that’s a project for next year.

Before Pictures

After Pictures

I’m still working on posting regularly.  The house is mostly done.  We have a laundry room one bathroom and the kitchen still to paint.  Three bathrooms, a laundry room and a kitchen to put in tile floors instead of the crap that’s in there.  I keep saying that I’ll have before and after pics, but I need to take some after pics for a couple of the rooms before that will be ready.

In the meantime, here’s a YouTube clip I ran across today that I thought was very good, and should probably be included in any sensitivity or anti-discrimination training.  It’s about 10 minutes long, but worth watching.

I know I haven’t posted here for a while.  There’s been a lot going on.   I’ll be making up for that soon.

Last night, though, I found a story on CNN that touched me.  This is the story of a 47-year old woman named Susan Boyle.  She has a slight learning disability.  She spent most of her adult life caring for her elderly parents, and doing charity work.  She’s never been married, never been kissed.  Her mother died last year, but before she died, she told Susan to follow her dream, and go on this show, if she could.

The link will take you to a YouTube clip of Susan’s appearance on Britain’s Got Talent, a kind of British American Idol.  The clip is phenomenal.  It brought tears to my eyes.

Britain’s Got Talent – Susan Boyle

This is one of my favorite songs of all time.  I’ve posted the lyrics below.  They are especially poignant to me, for some reason.  This woman finally got to live the dream she dreamed.

I Dreamed a Dream – Les Miserables
Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer, Music by Claude-Michel Schonberg

I dreamed a dream in days gone by
When hope was high and life worth living.
I dreamed that love would never die.
I dreamed that God would be forgiving.

Then I was young and unafraid,
And dreams were made and used and wasted.
There was no ransom to be paid,
No song unsung, no wine untasted.

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder.
As they tear your hope apart,
As they turn your dream to shame.

He slept a summer by my side.
He filled my days with endless wonder.
He took my childhood in his stride.
But he was gone when autumn came.

And still I dreamed he’d come to me,
That we would live the years together.
But there are dreams that cannot be,
And there are storms we cannot weather.

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living,
So different now from what it seemed.
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

I wasn’t planning on posting again until I had some before and after pictures, but I’m just too excited.

We were unexpectedly invited to the Kitsap County Democratic Victory Party tonight, and decided to attend.  Aside from actually voting, this is the first real major political gathering either of us have been to. 

Gawds, what an experience.  The energy in the room was electrifying.  I volunteered for future events for the Democratic Party.  I’ve always registered as non-affiliated, because sometimes I used to vote for the Republican candidate, sometimes for the Democrat.  I’ve been trying to think of the last time I actually voted for a Republican, though.  The only one that sticks out is Reagan in 1980.  I made the mistake of voting for him the first time, but not the second.  I started reading up on the issues, learning everything I could about the candidates and their positions.  None of the Republicans have measured up to my standards.  Since the Religious Right took control of the party, I would have been voting against my own self-interests had I opted for them.

I’m proud to say that I am now firmly a Democrat.  The Republican Party has become a bastion of racists, religious nut-jobs, and big-business fat cats.  Thanks, but no thanks.

Time for another update.  Let’s see . . . . The last update included a diatribe about religious fundamentalists trying to deny me my rights; an update on the work we’re doing around the house; the heating system conversion we’re having done; and some “yadda, yadda, yadda”.

This past weekend, we mostly finished the master bedroom’s trim, painted the guest room and laid the new floor in there.  We’re still trying to figure out what trim pieces go where in the MB, because we didn’t mark it as we took it down.  We DID manage to finish the guest room, though, trim included.  The color came out a little different than we expected.  We were going for a light peach kind of color, but wound up with more of a deep pumpkin.  With the bedding, curtains and art work, it works out very well, though.  I’ll have pictures as soon as we finish getting art work up and Jeffrey can take pics. 

WE HAVE CENTRAL HEAT NOW!!  The company we hired to convert us from the ceiling radiant heat finished the work converting us to an electric heat pump and central heat/air on Friday.  The difference is amazing.   They also retrofitted one of the gas fireplaces so we can burn real wood in it, and fixed the other gas fireplace so that it works as intended. 

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Something very important to Washington State is up in the air this election, though I’m sure other states will have to deal with it eventually.  There is currently a ballot initiative for a “Death With Dignity” measure, very similar to the one Oregon passed a decade or so ago.  A lot of special interestests are pumping a lot of money into both sides.  Dan Savage, whose writing I have always enjoyed if not always agreed with, has a powerful article on this.  I wanted to quote two passages that speak to so many other social issues the nation is currently dealing with.

That’s what the debate about I-1000 is really all about: your body, your death, your choice. The passage of I-1000 doesn’t impose anything on terminally ill people who reject physician-assisted suicide for religious reasons. But the rejection of I-1000 imposes the values of others on terminally ill people who would like to make that choice for themselves, who should have a right to make that choice for themselves.

And, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing about physician-assisted suicide—or, as it should be called, end-of-life pain management—that precludes the presence of loving caregivers. You can be surrounded by love and have access to the best medical care available and still conclude—reasonably and rationally—that you would rather not spend the last few moments of your life in blinding pain or gasping for breath or pumped full of just enough morphine to (hopefully) deaden your pain without deadening you.

…

If religious people believe assisted suicide is wrong, they have a right to say so. Same for gay marriage and abortion. They oppose them for religious reasons, but it’s somehow not enough for them to deny those things to themselves. They have to rush into your intimate life and deny them to you, too—deny you control over your own reproductive organs, deny you the spouse of your choosing, condemn you to pain (or the terror of it) at the end of your life.

The proper response to religious opposition to choice or love or death can be reduced to a series of bumper stickers: Don’t approve of abortion? Don’t have one. Don’t approve of gay marriage? Don’t have one. Don’t approve of physician-assisted suicide? For Christ’s sake, don’t have one. But don’t tell me I can’t have one—each one—because it offends your God.

[f-word] your God.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  I don’t believe in your god, and I don’t believe in your holy word.  If the god of the Bible exists in some way outside of your fevered imaginations, it is a petulant child not worthy of respect, let alone worship.  More like the character of Trelane from a Star Trek episode.  For you to impose your supposed god’s will on me not only precludes MY free will and that of others, it is inhumane and goes against everything the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution.  It also goes against your own “holy” scriptures.  Publicly, and for the record, I have directed that no extraordinary measures be taken to preserve my life should I be incapitated and unable to make that known, and if I find myself in such a situation as Dan describes in the article linked above, I would hope that those nearest and dearest to me will understand if I decide to end my life rather than deal with the pain and suffering whatever my end-of-life circustances might bring.

Think about it.

That being said, on to other updates.

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Happy Atumnal Equinox!!  Sorry it’s been so long since the last post, but we’ve been very busy.  I must be doing something right with this blog, though, because my spam filter is catching quite a few spam posts the last couple of weeks.  I just wish more people would respond to the posts, or use the link to send an email. 

We decided that the first room we need to re-do, and immediately, was the master bedroom, mostly because that king size bed is such a pain to take apart, move and get back together.  The room was in sad shape.  Old 70s wooden panelling on one of the walls (painted over, naturally), and ugly painted over wallpaper borders along the ceiling and about chair rail level.  Last weekend, we started our first major project on the house.

It was supposed to be a kind of catch-up and high priority kind of weekend.  Saturday, we drove up to Silverdale to pick up our Costco membership cards, then drove up a little farther and caught the Bainbridge ferry over to Seattle.  We drove up to visit our previous hosts for a while, and to pick up any mail they had for us.  The mail forwarding update is working now, so we shouldn’t have to do that particular task again soon.  But we do like visiting with Bill and Esther.  We’re going to go over again the next time our honorary god-daughter comes back to visit, and they’ll be coming over for the house-warming party.

A couple of weeks ago, Jeffrey was checking out different places for new flooring for the house, and found a place right here in Bremerton with great prices, and stock of a particular wood floor that was on clearance.   They had enough for two of the bedrooms, so we wound up buying their remaining stock.   Sunday, Jeffrey laid the new floor while I was in the backyard putting up chicken-wire fencing so we could finally let the dogs off of their tethers.  It only took a few days for them to find a shallow place on the north fence to dig under and get out of the yard.  An alert neighbor noticed them and let me know, and I got the dogs back in the yard, found the hole and plugged it.  They were on the tethers for another few days while I made sure there were no other such areas, and to hopefully start training them that if they get out of the yard on their own, there will be consequences.  Hopefully, not fatal (think cars and trucks).

Back to our first project.  We had the foresight to take “Before” pictures, and as soon as we finish the final touches, we’ll have “After” pictures, and I’ll post them somewhere on the main website.

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Things are really starting to come together.  The kitchen is totally done, as is the dining room/music room combo.  The living room is mostly done, but we need to find a better solution for DVD storage and all of the components for the big screen TV.  Guest room is done, just need to get a couple of night stands to finish it off.  TV room/party room is done, except for getting the electronics set up.  All the bathrooms are done.  Master bedroom is mostly done.  The only room still needing a lot of work is the office/media room I work out of.  The bookcases are up and filled, the LPs we have that we want to burn to disk are unloaded, but I still have a lot of computer equipment that needs to be sorted and either put in use or stored.  Trouble is, I work by day in this room to make a living, and by night I’m working on the other rooms.   One of these days……

We’re finding some interesting things out about this house.  Apparently all of the walls were wallpapered at one time, and instead of taking the wallpaper off and painting, they painted the wallpaper.  It looks crappy.  It’s going to take longer than we thought to clean that mess up so we can get our stamp on the interior.

I mentioned in a previous post that we had been pricing hot tubs.  A couple of days ago, we found out that there was already one in the back yard.  It doesn’t show on any of the pictures I posted earlier of the new house, but there is a three-tiered small garden area in the upper terrace of the back yard.  The backside had some of that black material you put down to keep plants from going through, and Jeffrey lifted it up to see what was underneath.  Lo and behold, it was a hot tub.  No idea if it still works or not.  The neighbors across the alley confirmed that they just stopped using it and covered it up with this garden-type setting.  Very creative, I must say, but it’s going to take us weeks to get it cleared out and see what’s there.

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Just a really quick post.  The movers we hired to get the rest of the big items from storage and into the house were here a few hours ago.  I have my piano back!!  It’s even still in good tune, although we will need to get a tuner out soon. 

At this point, everything is in the house.  Now it’s just a matter of moving furniture around and unpacking what seems like hundreds of boxes.

Oh, and dealing with work.  <sigh>

No, you’re not imaging things.  I was too damn sore and tired to write posts for days Three and Four, and this should be a fairly short post.

Kitchen is usable.  Dining room area is mostly set up, except for the missing china cabinet (to be delivered tomorrow), and all of the boxes strewn all over the place.  We have a place for the grand piano set up.  Half of the book cases are ready to go, I just need to unpack some of the books boxes and fill the shelves.  The antique TV and stereo are in place and working.  We’re not sure what to do with the leopard skin fainting couch yet.  Tomorrow morning I have to get the frame set up for the guest bed, since the mattress and box spring for it are also being delivered, as is the entertainment center we’re not sure where to put.

There’s still a lot of unpacking to do, and organizing.  It’s starting to feel more like home, but I’ll be happier when we have some of our art work upon the walls.  To me, what really makes a house a home is putting a nail in a wall and hanging something there that’s yours.  Jeffrey didn’t see it that way until we moved into the Tampa house.  Once we had that first painting on the wall, though, he agreed that it was “home”.

So much to do, so little time.

Last night we had our first good nights sleep together in over a month.  We’ve been sleeping in separate bedrooms because the beds were too small.  Last night we slept together on our mattress on the floor, since we didn’t have the time or energy to put the frame together.  For most couples, sleeping apart for any length of time is distressing.  That part of our stress is now gone.

We didn’t wake up quite as sore as we expected.  That meant another busy day.

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Long post tonight, I hope you don’t mind.  I’m doing this on my laptop, and am not really used to this keyboard, so please forgive any typos.  ALL of my desktops have ergonomic keyboards, and this one will soon be docked and will have one.

Big drama over the last couple of days. 

Thursday morning, the day of closing, they discovered that my SSN was wrong on all of the paperwork.  They were trying to fix it so that we could still do the signing that day and take possession on Friday. 

That didn’t happen.  It turns out that the lender that is doing our loan is ironically, in Florida, and the time difference was causing the delay.  Everything was reprocessed with the correct SSN, but the lender did not get it until the end of their day.  Thing’s weren’t looking good.

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I was going to wait until tomorrow to write another post, but I find I have some extra time on my hands tonight, so here goes.

We sign on Thursday, we get to take possession on Friday.  Now comes the unenviable task of cleaning up after ourselves from our stay with our hosts.  Laundry is almost done, but I can’t do any real shopping until we’re at least partially settled and I have access to my flatware, cutlery, dishes and pots and pans.  Oh, and an empty refridgerator/freezer that I can put things in.

Work has been a bit hectic, because they’ve been dealing with Tropical Storm Fay.

Our lives have been hectic because we’re trying to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s for closing.  I’m coming down with a nasty cold (I can barely breathe through my nose unless I take a Benadryl or something).  We’re trying to coordinate being at the signing, and figuring out what we’re going to do for Friday, AND coordinating the move of our furniture from storage to our new house.  Especially the grand piano!  I’m still in almost constant pain from the accident (see an earlier post), but am holding off on physical therapy until after the move and I can find a decent doctor over there.

On top of everything else, my mother has been to the emergency room three times in the last two weeks, and I’m stuck here feeling helpless.  I guess it beats being there and feeling helpless, but not by much.  At least there I’d have the information first-hand instead of waiting for sis to let me know what’s going on.

I’m angsting big time right now, and trying to hold it together until we get through this weekend.  Once I do that, I think I’ll just have a nice, relaxing nervous breakdown in our new house.  At least then I’ll have my own bed to curl up in, and my piano to pound out some frustrations.  After a day or two of that luxury, I’ll have to start planning the house warming party.  Everyone is already asking when it’s going to be.

[sigh]