Gazoombas, Landscaping and Running Shoes

or
If You Want a Cycling Post, Go Away

My costal cartilage mountain biking injury is slowly healing. It still hurts when I run. My massive gazoombas bouncing around cause some massive hurt...or it's those phantom gazoombas, because I'm sure the hurt would be like that if they were massive.

We had landscaping done. I'm still amazed at the time it took me for someone else to do the work. Phone calls. Emails. Meetings. WD and had I debated this for a long time: You know, WE could do this. It always came back to: And, for exactly HOW MANY weekends do you want to be tied to yardwork? It's one thing to take-on maintenance...quite another to be willingly married to a house project at the expense of fall riding.

Work is beginning to bleed out of the confines of the work day. I'm trying to decide if this is a good thing...tonight I found myself searching for library bloggers and twitter-ers. I need connections. This year, I'm a team of one. At least when I worked K-4, there were three others across the district, but currently I'm at a huge intermediate school that's very different, programming-wise, from the elementaries yet it isn't quite the same as the high school. And, you know, it's not all about books. It's about turning-out kids who are information-literate, and about helping teachers step outta the comfort zone and become coaches of learning. We librarians are on the edge, I tell you.

Running: three times in the past week. I need ski legs. It's a fast workout. 30 minutes out the front door and back home again. Do I like it? Ask me in January when I'm facing down the Birkie trail for a point-to-point.

- The distracted Old Bag

Besides Riding

Wheel likes buildin'

I like getting my hands dirty

Finished, but not quite

- OB I am so tired....

Options and Future(s)

I've been fretting for months at the state of my retirement finances. During the last few downturns I was blissfully ignorant of all the racket -- heck, time was always on on my side. Markets always turned around. I've been up close and personal with dollar-cost-averaging combined with years. It works.

Now that I'm close enough to see the umbrella drinks on the horizon, however, I've become a bit more concerned. Retirement isn't somewhere off in the blurry distance, anymore. I want the flexibility to get out in 12 years when I'm 60. I want to be young enough to enjoy what comes later.

More importantly I need to know I'll have choices when I'm on the verge of becoming a cranky old bag occupying a classroom.

In my early years teaching I watched money run out at the end of each month while friends got ahead quickly in other fields. I've played the school district game of furthering my education time and time again so I could make some advances in pay. I've kept close tabs on all my in-n-out $$ for years, and have lived within my means. I can give you a run down of my expected expenses from now until infinity.

All I want is to be comfortable in the small house with the small yard...garden...dog...cats..... and to be able to jump on cheap travel deals.

Over the past couple of months I've tried hard to accept that I'll have to be working at 65 and that I won't have enough green to live the way I'd hoped. It's been eating away at my outlook.

So, yesterday I finally faced down all my accounts. I pulled up a variety of retirement calculators and couldn't get the numbers to play nice -- until I found a couple that dealt with a pension: that antiquated, noone-has-one-anymore, wonderful, glorious, I-love-teaching pension that may finally show me some financial payback for spending 40 years in a classroom.

Things aren't as bleak as I had thought.

-The Old I appreciate my job even more Bag

My Bliss

a place for everything and everything in its place

The kitchen sucked...warm air, that is. The linoleum was nasty and poorly installed, the kitchen-as-hallway-to-the-basement was a tired concept, four linear feet of counters and cabinets just weren't enough, the RCA brand appliances from who-knows-what-year were crusty, and the candle sputtered as we held it in front of the dishwasher during one of last winter's sub-zero spells...the cold air spread from behind it out across the kitchen floor in the same way the evil spirits crept across the ground in that Charleton Heston movie dammit, I can't remember the name....

Straw. Camel's back. You know.

After six years of that kitchen, we dove into the remodel last fall and got some other maintenance issues out of the way as well. The bulk of the work happened from mid-October to Mid-December. Everything went smoothly, no contractor horror stories. We couldn't be happier.

I figured the timing was fine: done with grad school. But what I hadn't banked on was my need to take care of everything I'd put on the back burner for a year and a half during school: financial papers, old clothes, files, storage boxes in the basement. Just when I figured life would be getting back to normal, I instead found myself on deadlines for kitchen demo, for emptying a storage closet that may become a bathroom one day, for moving furniture out of the way, for scraping paint off difficult-to-replace trim...appliance shopping?! Bah. We lived in the midst of boxes and dust between runs to the kitchen place and Home Depot. The back burner pot got larger.

It drove me crazy.

The contractor's lock box is still out on the deck, but we've had our house back since December 15th. Christmas vacation was finally spent in my version of heaven: cleaning closets, sorting through dressers, and straightening the basement tool shed. Then I sent stuff on its way to Goodwill.

This past weekend it was my office.

I even got to dust.

- OB Nirvana

The Cyclist in Me doesn't WANT a New Kitchen

The cyclist in me instead sees a great mudroom, bicycle wash, ski bench, bike stand...a great spot to come in and drop everything, an easy-access door for smooth ins and outs....



Heck, we've set up a kitchen in the basement: microwave, toaster oven, rice cooker, hot pot, toaster, espresso maker, and mini-fridge. All downstairs close to the sink and laundry. What more do we need?

- OB I mean, really

Step Three

Preamble | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4.5 | Original | 5
New egress window last week.

before

after

inside

Next up for the weekend: kitchen demolition...down to the studs. The redo begins on Monday.

Riding? We'll fit it in somewhere, but it'll be close to home.

- The it's always something Bag

Step Two

Preamble | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4.5 | Original | 5
The foundation stucco was dropping off in chunks this summer...another home project taken on by the prior owner people need to know when they're outta their league. There were spots where the cinder block itself had 1-2" holes -- the stucco had taken chunks of block with it when it pulled away.



- O$B I was tired of hosta anyway

1165 Square Feet...

Preamble | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4.5 | Original | 5

...packed with two adults, a border collie, two felines, computers, furniture, files, music, guest bed, dressers, books, bicycles, skis, camping stuff, yard equipment, a Costco membership, and all the requisite stuff of people who dabble in everything from sports to music to art....

OK, so that 1165 doesn't include the garage or the unfinished basement, but you get what I mean. It's small.

It was one of those "your house or my house or a new house?" decisions that two people have to make when they meet after having a few years under their belts. His place had more breathing room and more land, but was on the outskirts beyond some geographical hurdles. My place sported a location that fits a cycling and walking lifestyle, but it has space and layout issues.

We decided to hang out here while deciding where we really wanted to live. Initially, it was temporary, but once we started looking at other places we started reexamining our 1165 finished square feet.

What we have here is pretty OK. We've got an over-sized garage, which is a rarity in this part of town. We have an unfinished basement for bicycle and ski work and for hosing off a muddy dog when it's cold outside. We have a small yard that's a blank slate waiting for a patio and a fire pit.

From the beginning the 1165 has been enough space to live within, but it's configured in an odd way and storage is tight. So, now we're looking at how we can re-jigger spaces. Trading an attic closet for a bathroom...closing off a kitchen doorway to gain more counter space...adding an egress to the basement for a guest room. They're all great ideas, but each is one dominoe falling toward the next. Grandma's china is in that attic closet. Granddad's tool bench would be better used in the basement.

So, we reshuffle furniture and pare down our stuff. It's causing us to really examine what we need and how our perceptions and memories color those decisions.

- The feelin' Old and squished Bag

Wranglin'

These days, we're like June...bustin' out all over.

We got skis: skate skis, cross country skis, crud skis, downhill skis, ski poles, ski waxing bench, ski wax. We've got yer bicycles: road rides, track bikes, vintage bikes, travel bikes, mountain bikes, commuter rigs, bike stand, bicycle tools, bicycle wheels, bike grease, leftover bicycle parts....

When yer overseeing herds of these things, they overtake the place. Certain things you got to do keep them happy and content. Each one needs a stall of its own. Space for exercise. Spots to spread out. A place to git fixed when fixin' is needed.

We looked for a new homestead, we did. But damn. One that's close to the city with a good-sized barn was just tough to find. And what're people thinkin' finishing-off their basements FER CRIS'SAKE? Do they scrape their ski wax right off into the berber? Drip lube right onto the maple flooring? Spray the winter muck off the drivetrain right into the marble bathtub?

That's just sellin' yer saddle, if you ask me.

Priorities, pardner. Keep 'em straight.

- O durned right B

That Time of Year

-TOB

July 11th

I stood on my front step
an old lady looking for the fireworks pranksters
been popping for a week
the border collie afraid to go outside
to GO outside
from the bedroom window I had seen what looked like a 13-year-old girl
standing near the last round fired off in front of the neighbors house
a crowd of teenagers drove up
didn't look like the cohort of teens from down the block
I knew their mother would've had their hide
were these kids from blocks over?

the new neighbor from two houses down hopped out to join the group
the group not teenagers, but legal adults
the girl not thirteen
he's young
a homeowner
contractor
moved his girlfriend's car
set down a cardboard tube on a square base
lighter to the fuse
ran back several feet
it wasn't the pop of a bottle rocket but
fwhhhooooom
with a bouquet of colors cascading above the trees and rooftops
hhhiiiiisssssssssss, poppoppop
above trees
rooftops
old trees, large trees
in a dry, hot summer
branches bending over rooftops of houses ten feet apart
rooftop connected to rooftop by tinder

hayuk, hayuk, dude, whoa man! later!
five of the group slammed their doors
drove off

I started my walk toward the remaining four
smoldering
you move your CAR?!
this is a neighborhood
a neighborhood with elderly and toddlers
who may not have an easy time of it if their
HOUSE
smolders
this is our investment
inside are our treasures
and now you're in my neighborhood, our neighborhood
blind to the ramifications of your teenaged actions
yukking it up with your buddies


Hi. I'm Jeanne.
I turned to him and called him by name
he looked at me surprised I knew
we'd met last fall when I stopped by after a ride and he was outside
he had shown me his kitchen redo
his face shamed at being called out
lost the cockiness of anonymity
look, these houses are just too close together
sparks landing on one roof....

he looked at the cracks in the street
at me
it won't happen again

just
too
close...

it won't happen again



- tob

Perspectives

Detached garages...in Minnesota....

So, how important is composting, really?

We build garages and fences during the summer.

- OB er duh

Neighborhood

He did the whole block...for the second time in less than a week -- 10" last weekend, another 10" today....

- The Old Bag it's supposed to stop on Saturday

Between Seasons

The Joys of Home Ownership

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

- OB lived with those for FOUR YEARS before finally feelin' the motivation

6:22 November 26th

Readying for Winter
St. Louis Park
46 degrees
- OB surprisingly OK with not bikin'

Garage Shui

Out with the Old

In with the New

- OB changin' the world one 2x4 at a time....

And Breathing

scratch the breathing...well, except that I can do that while undertaking other things on the list so OK maybe breathing stays but the vent covers just aren't getting done and if they don't get painted they'll rust so maybe leave that one on the list but maybe skip the car-washing since the car is a beater anyway but I still need to have the oil changed and tires rotated and have that clunk checked-out but I'm cycling to work tomorrow so who cares for tomorrow anyway and after that IT'S FRIDAY!

- OB and then I can crash, right??

OK, Scratch the Vacuuming

but instead add:

read blogs



- The Old how do I get all the entries read?!? Bag

How-the-Heck

do people do all this and work full-time too??

clean/lube mountain bikes
work on garage shui
vacuum the basement
wash-out the cat boxes
mow
Round-Up the weeds
go through desk piles
email Cindy
vacuum the floor
wash the car
breathe
pay my bills
make a Target run
catalog returns
cards
spraypaint the vent covers
first buy the paint

- TOB whew!

How Ever Will I

a back-to-work haiku

has it been a week
since I've put together a
coherent post for

the laundry and mail
regenerate themselves in
an amazingly

how will I ever
accomplish in an evening
things that used to take

- OBZzzz but I'm not done and it's already time for b