Samhain Weekend

I don't know where this month went. I came back from vacation, and that's about the last thing I clearly recall.

Well, some work got done around the house. The three walls we initially intended to paint in the dining room are finally done. I said it that way because we were not going to paint the fourth wall, the one that's the outside wall with the door and window. The old rather cheap-looking paneling that covered the entire room, was paneled over on this one wall with nicer, richer looking paneling that wasn't actually so bad. So we thought we'd try leaving it. So far I'm not too keen on how it looks, but I won't be able to judge for sure until we get more done in there - the proper curtains put up, the molding painted and installed, stuff like that. Once the room's more 'done' I'll be able to judge whether that one dark wood wall looks silly or is okay.

I've had several fires in the upstairs "Captain's Parlor" fireplace this month! It's great, because it's the first time we've had fires in that fireplace since we moved in. It's working grand - and that room looks absolutely gorgeous with a fire in the fireplace.

Spent two days raking and chopping up leaves, and the entire front yard and walkway and porch is covered again. Having those two beautiful maple trees in the front yard is wonderful year-round ... except for that is an awful lot of leaves. Next year I think we have to come up with a better, more efficient way to deal with them all.

But now - sadly - all the leaves are down, there will be no more ... so once I get the existing ones cleaned up, we're done till next year. I've left them so far, because I liked the look of the beautiful, bright maple leaves for Halloween. But after this weekend, they're going to need to go.

Speaking of Halloween, our yard is all decorated for this weekend, and we'll be handing out candy for the first time in our new house. I hope we got enough - we don't know how many trick-or-treaters to expect for sure, although we have a rough idea from a friend who lives in the neighborhood. So, we shall see.

And I've been doing a little work in the Imaginarium, though there's much yet to be done. But I've been spending a ton of time up there, like all the time anymore. It's great to finally get to be using it so much. It's starting to feel homey and comfortable, and the more time I spend there, the more ideas I get for fixing it up.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on. Just a sort of quieting down and snuggling in for the coming winter, I guess. Appropriate to the season, anyway. But I thought I'd check in before it looked as if I'd abandoned the place.

Okay, I Guess I'm Back

It's been a strange week. Initially I was in denial I was back from vacation, but the definitive lack of water out my front door finally convinced me.

Then things just got busy. But now I'm finally posting some more vacation pictures.

Tyler

This looks goofier than it did in real life ... Tyler was actually playing, jumping around and racing back and forth on the deck. It was a beautiful thing, even if this picture is just silly. I mean, the Poo will be 15 years old next month ... I had to capture this moment. (smile)


Tyler loved the deck, especially the dune walk-over ... because this deck was completely enclosed and dog-safe, so he didn't have to be tied up. He could run free (as much as a dog can on a deck). It's the most freedom he's had since we moved to the new house (with no fenced-in yard). He sometimes just went and ran up and down this part of the deck.

Pelicans (but no Laurels) (ha ha)

Miscellaneous Fun Stuff

Greg body-boarding.


Me and Greg's brother, Bo.


Shrimp boat. Bubba Gump? Could be.

Found at the North Carolina Maritime Museum.

Our ledge.

When we got to the beach, there was this 4 foot drop-off down by the water. We'd never seen anything like it before, and after asking around, it's not very common, though it happens from time to time. Apparently there'd been a bad storm the day before we got there, and it had eroded this huge section of the beach. It generally fixes itself. During the week it grew shorter and taller as the tides came and went. But by the time we left it had been reduced to only a foot or two, and looked to be correcting itself slowly but surely.

A storm at sea ... I loved how you could see the rain.

Sad.


A fisherman just up the beach from us had caught this little shark. He decided to use it for bait, so tossed it aside and let it die. Then he changed his mind and never cut it up. I was sad that he killed it, especially when he didn't even use it for anything (not that I think cutting it up for bait would have justified killing it, but at least he'd have used it for something ... I guess).

How I spent my birthday.

Well, This Sucks

I've come from a week of sunny-and-80-degrees to waking up in Wytheville, Virginia to about 40 degrees. Ugh.

We split the trip home pretty evenly, we have about 7 hours to drive when we leave here this morning. It was a great trip, as always. And as always, it sucks coming home.

Meanwhile, I've got some of my pictures ready, so I thought I'd post them now. I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I usually do, and I know Greg has more (and better ones), so after I get a chance to borrow his card I will probably have more to post tonight or tomorrow.

Our beach house living room ...

... and the kitchen ...



The walkway from our main deck to the beach.



I didn't take many pictures of the house, but it was really nice. It was smaller than the ones we've gotten in past years, but it worked out great. The other places were actually kind of too huge. This place still had 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a large living room and kitchen area, and an absolutely perfect deck - better than the other places, as it was bigger, and it was dog-safe - I could let Tyler run loose out there without any danger. This house was really perfect for us, and I totally wouldn't mind staying here again.

Tyler on the beach.


Tyler napping.


A dolphin ...



And some ocean pictures ...

Pre-Vacation Miscellanea

Why I love Knitty ...

... 'cause you find things like this there.

Since I haven't been knitting for a long, long time, I hadn't been to Knitty for a long, long time. This morning I decided to pop over (mostly just to check my link and make sure it was still working), and browsed this issue's free patterns. And found the above, which has no purpose in life other than being completely adorable, looking relatively quick and easy to knit, and being a free pattern.

But lest you think Knitty's all fluff, let me tell you that in every issue they have a bunch of patterns - all free - and most for extremely useful and beautiful things like sweaters (yes, entire sweaters - and cool ones), hats, socks, and a variety of other wearables. Did I mention they are all free? It's just so unusual to get such high-quality, unique patterns for free, consistently.

But I just might have to make some ZoZos.

This has made me think about knitting ... which I would like to do again. I know what happened. I got too lost on the project(s) I was working on, and there's just about nothing harder than trying to pick up a several-year-old project, re-orient yourself, and get it back on track. But I have some mental issue about starting a new project when I have old ones languishing.

There was the self-designed sweater I was knitting. For one thing, it wasn't going well, which was part of my frustration in not keeping up with it when it began to lag. For a second thing, I had grown to detest the color I'd chosen (and bought $100 worth of for this project), which doesn't encourage stick-to-it-iveness, either. Sigh.

Then I'm pretty sure I was working on a pair of socks, the whereabouts of which I do not even know. Sigh again.

I was working on a sweater a few years ago (Celtic Icon) which was going horribly wrong, and I remember that it actually caused me to stop knitting for awhile ... because I couldn't bear to pick it up anymore, yet I couldn't enjoyably justify starting anything new when I had that one that I wasn't working on. I finally made the tough but necessary decision to scrap that project, and rip it all out. Then I was able to move on.

While I hate the thought, that may be where the self-designed sweater is headed.

So I'm getting ready to go on my annual beach trip to North Carolina. I've always taken knitting with me. I've almost never worked on the knitting while there. I'm debating whether to dredge up some project, take it with me, and renew my knitting skills while on vacation; or wait till I come home and save the packing space. Decisions, decisions.

I'm paring down seriously this year on what I take. I usually took at least one knitting project, and five or six books. I often never even unpacked any of it. It would turn out that we'd either be busy the whole time, or even when I was just sitting around on the deck, I was too busy looking at the ocean to watch my knitting or words on a page.

This year I'm taking exactly 2 books (one fiction, one non-fiction - my mood varies), and was going to take an embroidery project 'just in case' ... but I don't really have one ready to go. My embroidery of the Death tarot card has reached a point where I need to draw on some more of the design before I can continue, but it's a complicated bit of drawing for which I'd prefer to use the light box (tracing). But to do that, I need an enlarged copy of the card, which I've lost, and it's tricky to make a new one ... the room our copier is in at work is always crowded with people, so it's hard to find a chance to copy something when no one's around ... and I don't really want to explain why I'm standing at the office copier making an enlargement of a tarot card with the Grim Reaper on it.

(Although a simple "mwaahaahaaaa" might suffice to get people to leave me alone for the rest of the week ...)

Three more days ... we're now hoping to leave Friday night after all, and drive part-way and get a hotel room. We originally weren't going to, and were going to leave super-early Saturday morning - but even if we do that, we're liable to not get there till late Saturday evening, maybe not even before dark - and that just sucks.

But there's a lot to do to get ready by Friday night. And what really pisses me off is, I could have done it - except that I woke up Sunday morning with the worst back pain I think I've ever had. It's all concentrated around a spot on the right-hand side about mid-way up, and feels for all the world like a pulled muscle - which would be fine, I could know what to expect if that was it - except I'd done nothing in the preceding days to cause a pulled muscle, and have not been able to figure out what the hell's wrong with it. Also, pulled or strained muscles (on me anyway) usually begin clearing up in a day or two, but we're going on Day 4, and it's as bad as ever - and most of the time excruciating. I can barely move, which has put a real damper on the energy and motivation needed to get things all packed up in time to leave on Friday.

Ah, the week leading up to a vacation. Always a joy.

The Last Weekend ...

I always love to do seasonal and holiday decorating ... or at least, I like the idea of doing it. I'm such a procrastinator that usually it's two days before, and I'm thinking "It would have been nice if I'd have ...".

In the new house, I'm determined to get over that. So I jumped on an idea this weekend that I'd been wanting to do for years, at the old house, and never got around to.


I also did a little fall decorating in the living room ... just a tad so far. I bought some faux fall decor at the craft store the other day, and created a little spontaneous arrangement in my kim chi pot.




I like it.

Yesterday I cooked the food for our vacation. Every year we rent a beach house. It does not come with a cook. We don't like to eat out at restaurants every night. Ergo, we need to provide our own food. The first year, with some misguided idea that it would just 'all work out,' we had almost nothing to eat all week, except junk food. I was not happy. Last year we went out after we got there and bought a bunch of groceries, but then we had to cook most evenings ... something that doesn't thrill me on vacation (who wants to drag themselves up from a gorgeous beach at 5:00 p.m., when the rum's just starting to settle nicely, and go inside and cook dinner?). And spent a lot more money than we needed to on a lot of food that ended up not getting eaten, anyway. This year, in my new Seal-A-Meal phase, I cooked up some stuff in advance and froze it. Then most nights I can just heat something up, and voila ... delicious, hot dinner without all the vacation effort.

I also cooked all of Tyler's food for the entire week plus a day or two after we come home, and froze that up in little individual serving portions.

Today will be laundry and packing. And painting the dining room, because I'm determined to get it done before we go. At least the walls ... we haven't picked our trim color yet, and I'm not rushing it. We have a little collage of choices we're thinking about ..



... but none of them have really jumped out and said "I'm it!" yet. I'm waiting till just the right color hits me.

It will. I have faith in my creative inspiration. It's often slow, but eventually, it gets me there. I think that I will definitely delay any decision till after vacation, because since the theme of this room is going to be 'beach house,' and we're going to the coast, I wouldn't be surprised if some particularly luscious color combination jumps out at me from somewhere on this trip ... a particularly nice sunset, an interesting shop, someone's boat, a random beach crab ... and I'll say, "Aha! That's the color we need!"

Slogging Through Till Beach Time

I'm just muddling along till vacation ... nine days to beach!!! Woo-hoo!! Cannot wait.

The insulation work is getting done this weekend. I hope to finish painting the dining room then, too, so more pictures soon. Otherwise, just trying to get everything done to go on vacation. I've been buried at work, and trying to get all that caught up. And there are certain projects I want to get done here before we go (like the dining room; and planting the azaleas I bought a month ago ... I'm such a bad gardner).

Speaking of planting, I'd better get it done soon ... it's freaking freezing this morning, only 49 degrees ... at this rate we're going to have frost soon, and if I don't get them in the ground and let them get stabilized, they're not going to survive. May already be too late.

Well, my out-front gardening scheme kind of fell apart this year, anyway. I was disappointed I didn't make more progress, but ... there was a lot to do around here this year, and we did get a lot done, so I can't really be too upset about it. When the winter blahs hit in January, that will give me plenty to do, planning out the gardens a little better. That's one of the things that held me up ... not really knowing what I wanted to do.

I know we want to move the front steps and install a front walkway, and that's also something that held me up ... because the plantings need to be based around that walkway, but without it being in place, it was hard to know what to do or get started. My goal is to get that walkway project done next spring, and then I can start the re-landscaping in earnest.

Oh, in other important news: Tyler has had an allergy problem most of his life that would cause him to, off and on throughout the year, scratch and chew on himself to the point of craziness - he'd have raw sores on his body, he'd keep us all up half the night with his snorfling and chewing, it was always pretty awful. I'd tried everything I could think of - Benadryl, Pet-Ease (a sort of mild, herbal pet valium), different medications and lotions and sprays. A few years ago I even took him to an allergy vet about an hour away, and spent about $400 for a consultation with her, to no avail ... she had nothing to suggest other than the Benadryl (which never worked). Some people had suggested an 'allergy diet,' but it turned out he was basically already eating that - things like rice and chicken.

For a long time I thought it was fleas, but we'd find no fleas on him (confirmed by his groomer), so I began to figure it wasn't just that.

He hadn't had this problem since we moved in, but it ramped up again in the last few weeks. I was getting desperate - I hadn't had a full night's sleep for weeks. He generally sleeps in our bed, and when he starts chewing and slurping and snorfling, it always wakes me up - and this would go on for hours at night! I tried moving him to his doggie bed on the floor, but it didn't help, it still woke me up. A couple of nights, in desperation, I put him out of the room entirely, but I always hate to do that - since he's always slept with us, it seems like punishing him, and it's not his fault, plus he's miserable enough from the itching, without adding insult to injury.

So anyway, I was at the local health food store the other day, and remembered they had a pet section, and decided to go see what was new over there. I ran onto their homeopathic display (not new, but I'd never considered it before), and thought, "Hey ...". I found a homeopathic remedy made by Newton Homeopathics for Pets, called "Itchy Skin" - and decided to try it.

Most of you are probably familiar with homeopathic remedies, but in a nutshell, it's an all-natural remedy made by extreme diffusions or distillations of different substances, to the point where there's almost none of the original active ingredient left, but more just the 'essence' of it. They're totally safe, as there's not enough of anything in it to hurt anyone. While I have a deep respect for any natural and holistic treatment, I was always a little skeptcial of homeopathic remedies like this. I know a lot of people use them with good results, but ... I just couldn't put much faith in them. And I'd personally tried a few, which never seemed to work.

But for $14, I thought, what the heck.

It works! It's the first thing I've ever tried on Tyler that actually works, but it does indeed work. Three drops of the liquid in his mouth, and in minutes he's stopped itching, chewing, etc. It's totally astounding. I give him a dose in the morning, and one when I get home, and one before bed. Although the directions say you can give a dose every 15 minutes until it works, I've never had to give more than one.

I don't know how the one in the morning works throughout the day, because I'm not here - but I know I haven't come home to find any more sores or raw spots on Tyler. Throughout the evening it'll seem to start wearing off in a few hours. But when we give him the dose before bed, that's it for the night - he either doesn't chew or scratch at all once we go to bed, or he might have one or two very brief episodes which quickly stop, and then we're good for the night.

I used to think that even if they worked on people, some of it might be just 'headology' as Granny Weatherwax would call it ... but it can't be that with Tyler, as he has no clue what I'm giving him, so he's not expecting or hoping for any result.

I'm totally amazed, and very grateful. And wishing I'd have tried this years ago.

Update: After I posted this, I wondered if I'd described the manufacture of homeopathic remedies correctly (it's been a long while since I read up on this topic), so I went and did a little research on Wikipedia. I had it pretty right - it's dilution and 'succussion' (tapping or hitting), not distillation. And often, depending on the degree of dilution, there is none of the original substance remaining in the preparation. Although they are generally harmless (because of the dilution), occasionally a toxic reaction occurs, either in the much lower dilutions (where some of the original substance may still be present) or in incorrectly manufactured products.

One interesting note that I read was a section on veterinary homeopathy, which said that it was generally considered unproven and unfounded, but also that 'placebos' used on pets often had the effect of making the owners believe that some cure had taken place. Well, that's fine for something that an owner wouldn't know whether it was cured or not (like an internal condition). But when I physically see that my dog is no longer scratching and chewing, it's kind of hard to call that a 'placebo effect' - or if that's what it is, hell, I'll take it!

I'm still unsure about homeopathic remedies in general, but all I know is that so far, this has worked - I have no idea how, but as I said - I'll take it.

More Good News - Imaginarium

Our guy came out this week to look over the insulation work we wanted done in the Imaginarium. I really was concerned we wouldn't be able to afford it this year, and I'd either have to resort to doing it myself (crawling around in cubbies installing fiberglass insulation was not something I was looking forward to), or endure another freezing winter and try to do it next year.

He called back today with the estimate. To insulate all the walls, plus do blown-in insulation up in the ceiling / peak area, plus do the mold remediation work we need done - total, $1,800.

I was ecstatic. I thought the insulation alone would cost well over $2,000. The previous mold remediation job was estimated at $400, so we knew we'd be spending at least that. $1,400 for all that insulation sounds like a deal to me.

The mold remediation - when we bought the house, we knew this - there was a spot on the underside of the roof, accessible through a panel in the cedar closet, that had some mold. It wasn't that big, and it wasn't out in the main room. We had this same guy come in to look at it before we ever made an offer on the house - we wanted to know if it was dangerous, or fixable. Turned out it wasn't dangerous (not that 'toxic' mold) and was very treatable. That's why we didn't worry about it and went ahead and bought the house.

We just hadn't gotten around to having him come in and fix it yet, till now. When we did finally call him about it, we decided to talk to him about the insulation at the same time. So that's how all this came about.

I'm pretty happy ... hopefully this new insulation will make a huge difference in the Imaginarium this winter, and I can be comfortable up here without having to crank the heat up ... all part of our plan to save energy, and money. I have no intention of paying $300 a month to heat this place in the winter, but it is a very large house, so it will take a lot of shoring up, insulating, and blocking drafts to reach that goal, but this is a big first step. And I think it's going to be very successful. We only lived here for about 6 weeks of bad, cold weather last year, but we were able to keep the thermostat down really low, and the main rooms of the house - especially the bedroom - were toasty warm. I mean, toasty. The basement was only mildly chilly - nothing that couldn't be dealt with by wearing a sweatshirt instead of a t-shirt. So as long as I can get the Imaginarium warmed up, we'll be well on our way.

The next room that needs help is the kitchen, which was consistently cold. But, there are two outside doors into the kitchen, both of which have major air leaks (you can see daylight through these cracks when the door is closed), plus it was right off the dining room which had the broken mail slot in the door that didn't close all the way - another major air leak. We plan to deal with the small problems in the two kitchen doors, and if we don't get around to replacing the dining room door this winter, at least we can permanently seal the mail slot, since we now have a mail box.

Looking forward to an inexpensively toasty winter!