Code Enforcement

Ugh. Code enforcement came by today. Apparently, you can't park anything you'd like in your own driveway after all. My container is to be 1 foot away from the property line for every 1 1/2 ft of height. It is 8 ft tall, so it needs to be 5 ft, 4 inches back from the property line, and 6 ft away from the house. This yard is shaped funny, which means I don't have anywhere to store my container.

This wouldn't be an issue if there was a garage. If I had a garage, I could empty my container into it.

On the upside, the code enforcement inspector was a very kind man. He's going to work with me, and he had some really good suggestions for how to deal with all of this.

I don't understand why someone would rather call the city to complain than come over and meet the new neighbor. I'm not scary, I don't bite. Sometimes I really miss the Midwest.

Dinner Party

Last night was my first Dinner Party since moving into the new old house. When short on time, I go with classic and easy. I roasted a chicken and sweet potatoes, while we drank wine and caught up on our lives. We would have had cornbread if I could have found the measuring cups, and wine glasses would have been a bit more elegant than our red Solo cups, but we had a great time anyway. My makeshift livingroom was comfortable, and dinner under the ez-up tent was intimate and mostly dry, with a sometimes lit candle.

I love it when I cook an allergen-free Paleo meal, and my guests don't miss the cheese or bread! I hope this is the first of many evenings with friends, and I think it will be.

Smurfs who paint

When I was a little girl, I wasn't allowed to help paint. As an adult, I understand. Kids are messy, and who really wants to replace carpet because your precocious daughter spilled the entire can of paint on it? Flash forward 30 years, to my friends' trio of precocious Munch-kins begging to be able to help me paint. How could I refuse? As luck would have it, the Little Victorian has an addition - a mud room/pantry/storage area with tile floor. It's a nice, easy rectangle with a wipe-able floor!

I think not being able to paint back then, paired with living in rentals forever, has contributed to my obsession with painting just because I can. Yes, the mudroom desperately needed to be brightened up, as it was two tone gray. Gray is a dead color, and dead is the opposite of the energy I want to bring to this home. I think I went a bit overboard. Yes, I'm sure I went overboard. I've been wanting to use this bright, golden yellow in a kitchen or somewhere for almost 7 years, and the mudroom didn't move fast enough when we were playing tag.

Enter a $5 gallon of blue paint from the mistint shelf, and my mudroom is now a vibrant, if inadvertent, tribute to the University of Michigan. Go Blue! The kids had a blast, the accidents were minor, and nobody went home looking like a smurf.

Heather 1, Refrigerator 0

I'm not sure what happened, or even if it can be categorized as good or bad. I will settle for different, empowered, capable, foolish, stubborn and effective. Part of me understands traditional gender roles, likes them, and occasionally wishes there was someone around to do the "boy stuff." The other part of me rallies when there is something to do, and figures out a way to do it, regardless of traditional classifications or practical considerations. That part of me indulges in dreaming up things to do that defy traditional gender roles, and thinks it's really cool when it works, even cooler when there aren't any injuries.

I know I'm pushing my limits, and that I am risking injury every day, but isn't that what a life well lived is all about? I think I have too much of my Dad in me to shy away from the challenges of hard work. I love the tangible accomplishments of fixing, moving, destroying and creating things.

Today's challenge was a refrigerator. The little truck that could keeps chugging along despite being almost 2 decades old. (Did you know it qualifies for a Collector plate on its' 25th birthday? I may throw a party.) My little truck and I brought this fridge from Denver back to the little Victorian, where I was faced with how to get it out of the truck without killing the fridge or throwing out my back. One pep-talk later, it is sitting comfortably outside the back door, covered in vis-queen. I have no idea how I'll get it inside the house, but at least it's not in the truck :)

Housewarming Registry?

I think it would be awesome to have registries for housewarmings, the way people register when they get married. I would register for Home Depot gift cards, credit with Seeds of Change and Horizon Herbs, the Mother Earth News archive 4 disc set, and lace curtains.

The beginning . . .

This is my first house. My first place of my own, where I have the key to the door, and the freedom to paint the walls crazy colors, tear things apart, build things, do everything or do nothing. I can plant impossible gardens without considering how I will move those gardens to the next house.

Metamorphosis. Transformation. This is about more than an old house with character, this is also about Me. As I nurture the land, I nurture myself. As I fix up an old house, I work on myself. I expect to start a small fix-it task and realize there is so much more behind the wall that needs doing, which is how working on my personal process seems to work, too.

Yesterday I made the first mortgage payment of my life. It was a simple action, the same as paying any other bill. The difference was knowing that it is the beginning of a journey, the beginning of a relationship. I have a house and its land to get to know, a town to explore, and a practice to build.