the after photos

So! I've finally gotten my house up to speed. Neighbors walk by pretty much every day now, commenting on how much better it looks. I like that. Last week I had 4 yards of garden mulch delivered to fill in that now-empty deck space I mentioned before. Veronica was sweet enough to bring me some chicks and hens to put in there, and I've reserved a big chunk of it for raspberries. I can't transplant those until the fall, however, so it will have to sit empty for a bit. Here's what it looks like now:
Much nicer than tired old decking which would never be used. I threw some herbs in there that had been in pots, along with the 2 tomatoes I still hadn't found a home for. Looking good!

I also wanted to share some after photos of the house now that I've managed to spruce it up a bit. Here we go!
The beautiful bouquet comes from Mai Kong. Her parents own a flower farm in Canby, and she picked and arranged this gorgeous beast for me. Thanks MK! This room is the farthest from being done. It's already looking messy too! Parden the Kitty butt in the lower left.I can see I have a light out. The kitchen is 90% finished. Bill was sick all this week and couldn't come up to help me finish painting the parts I can't reach. Hopefully we can get this done Thursday.Here's the living room, both ends of it. My big future project will be to tack drywall to the ceiling in here. I do like the blue, but unfortunately one can see directly into the attic through those boards. The insulation is non-existant. I'm hoping to get this part done by the end of the summer, so I can be warm in the winter.
And here's the whole picture! Cleaned up yard, car, and all. I think it looks pretty cute, and it's come a long way from where it was. I'm just so proud! :)

come to my house warming!

Ripped out the deck!

I've been busy! This morning I ripped out the deck on the side of my house. I've ordered some garden mulch to be delivered tomorrow morning (4 yards of it). This should be my final project of this phase. Once I get the dirt into the area that used to house the deck, I'll plant some yummy berries and call it good! I'm having an open house this weekend, so I've given myself a deadline. Here's the deck:
And I've also finished my fire pit! The cat promptly took a pee in it as soon as it was finished. How awesome.
That's all for now, I have to go eat something. The Nike peeps are throwing a little goodbye thing this afternoon I need to get to. Peace out.

working on a new identity for my freelance

This might be just dumb, I can't tell yet. I'm working on a new identity for Bodega Creative, my freelance entity. I need to have something solid by next week to hand out to people at the Coroflot Creative Employment Confab. Does anyone know what "confab" actually stands for? I mildly hate that word.

Flowers done! (May 30)

I got my flowers planted! I also mixed in some Bok Choi, lettuce, and 2 more tomatoes what hadn’t been transplanted yet. While I was doing this, 3 of the neighbors came over to thank me for fixing up the yard. I guess I’m raising their property values as well! It was unfortunately late in the day before I finished, so the picture is a bit dark.

the devil bush

Today I put in a good 5 hours of hard labor. Don’t let anyone tell you unemployment is relaxing. I planted my main vegetable garden yesterday, three rows of corn, zucchini, peppers, celery, tomatoes, strawberries, and cucumbers.
Now, with today came the hard part. I need more sunny space. I still have loads of plants that need a home in the ground and no sunny areas to put them in. This is tough to understand, because my yard is HUGE. But it's so overgrown and has so many ridiculously placed trees that there is very little square footage that receives 6 hours of light per day. I identified some space in the front that I could make into something resembling a garden. This is it:
At first glance, this seems like an unassuming pile of shrubbery. It is actually on top of a mound of dirt, so it’s not as thick as it appears. However: this plant has sprung straight from the jaws of hell. I discovered after the 4th hour of chopping that it was something called a Cotoneaster. Sunset’s Western Garden book informs us that there are some 3 dozen varieties within this family. This is the worst of the lot. It has a horizontal habit, creeping quietly along the ground at a rate of nearly 3 feet per year in all directions. As it grows, it sends down roots from its branches. This allows the plant to have a maximum branch length of about 15 feet. It also means that the root ball is not isolated to the original planting spot. Instead, every single freaking branch has it’s own root ball. When this was planted, the home owner had made a feeble attempt to contain the monster. She put weed barrier down around it. This beast actually managed to send roots through the barrier, making pulling it out even harder! I had to pull, dig, cut weed barrier, clip with shears or saw off with a hand tool, yank some more. I had imagined that if I just at least sliced through all the main branches, the smaller ones, cut off from their nutrition source, would die and pull out easily. But once I recognized its rooting strategy, I knew this was hopeless. After 6 hours, this is what I have:
Oh snap! Is that a rhododendron? Where was that hiding?
My task for tomorrow: get those last stupid roots out and plant something pretty in there.

Oh and here's the best part: on the other side of that rhodie, the devil bush extends across a space of 30'x8'. I haven't even started thinking about that stuff.

Spider massacre (May 26)

OK, today I did something really awesome. I vacuumed out my studio. This might seem like a small feat to some of you, but for me, this was a major accomplishment. You see, I have a massive, irrational fear or spiders. This might make my buying of a 1926 home seem odd, but never mind that. I think my spider fear stems from their ghostly appearance. I tried to analyze myself as I vacuumed (good distraction) and this was my conclusion. I think the really ethereal, insubstantial spiders seem to have come from another, evil, dimension. The fat ones big, swollen abdomens appear to have sucked so much blood they’ve become engorged. I read once that spiders move their legs by pumping blood rapidly into their limbs, causing them to become taught, then releasing the blood to pull themselves forward and contract their legs. I highly doubt that this is true; it would seem a highly inefficient and frankly dizzying way to propel oneself. But it won’t get out of my mind! So I especially hate the spiders with the thick legs. I would estimate that about a baker’s dozen of each of these varieties had made it’s home in my studio.
Today, I managed to work up my courage enough to actually stand upright in the spider-haven and run the vacuum. I sucked up everything I could find in there. I am now terrified to empty the vacuum, because it has countless creepy things in there and I don’t absolutely know that they are all dead. But! I am quite proud of myself for overcoming my fear for at least 15 minutes and getting that done. Now I can confidently paint in there without flinching every time I have an itch.

oops a few more photos

I totally hit send on that last post before I meant to. Here's a couple more "before" photos.
Another kitchen shot.Main living area, pellet stove and french doors.
I've got a great back porch. Unfortunately, the realtor, who said the chairs came with the place, took them.

Alright, I figure it would be good to post some pictures of my place. Now these should be considered the "before" pics. I will post more as things progress so you can see what I've done with it.
This is the view from Todd Street. I took this when I first went to look at the house back in April. That's a dogwood and an apple tree in the foreground.
This one shows my little external studio. I'll make that into my painting / sewing area.
My awesome kitchen. I'll upload a pic of it painted soon, it's a big surprise. Think highlighter.

Apartment (from May 25)

One of my big stressors has been my old apartment. I haven’t been able to find anyone to take over my lease. It makes no sense to me, it’s such a great deal! The lease is through August 31, and since all the fees have already been paid (by me), there are no move in fees! And if someone decides they hate it, they can leave in 3 months! But no matter what I try, I can’t get someone to take it over. I’ve had like 6 people act like they wanted it, then flake out. My only good lead right now is with a couple who need a place just for the summer, but they are coming from South Carolina and don’t want to make a decision until June 4th. I don’t like that, cause that means I have to pay rent and hope they take it. But I’m running out of options! This dilemma is stressful because I don’t know if I’ll be getting new income any time soon, and I need to make what I’ve got last. Someone, anyone, want it? Even the pet deposit is paid! You can keep my stupid money for yourself if you want when you leave! Just get this off my back and my mind so I can sleep better at night.

I keep having these strange dreams about my job. I tend to dream that I’m going back to work, even though I’m not getting paid, because otherwise, my work won’t get done. I also have been having dreams about all the work I have to do on my new house. My parents came up this past weekend along with Bill and helped me do yard work. It’s so emotionally overwhelming. I feel like it’s actually messier now than it was. This whole situation is starting to get to me more. But in the evenings, I can sit out on my porch, even though it’s covered in empty boxes, and relax with a lemonade (sometimes with a splash of something extra). I do love that this is my place alone, and I can do anything I want.

the severance

So I guess I should add some explanation of my severance. I got 13 weeks pay plus a $4500 “bonus”. Comes out to about $15000 before taxes. Unfortunately it’s taxed at about 40%, so I’ll end up getting about nine grand. I should get some of that back since it’s such a crazy-high rate. I get to keep my health insurance for 18 months of cobra, for which Nike will pay. Plus, I still have a few hours a week, a bit of unemployment, and in a few months, I’ll get $7000 from the gov for the first time homebuyer credit. Course, $4600 of that will end up going back to my parents the pay them back for my down payment loan. But no matter what happens, I’ll be fine for about 4 or 5 months, minimum. That is a big thing for my piece of mind. If it weren’t for this cash, I’d be seriously FREAKING out, like mental breakdown style.

getting caught up

So, since I've moved to my new house, I haven't had consistent internet service. I'll be kicking this off by posting some stuff I've written and photographed since I closed but wasn't able to post right away.

From May 24:

Sometimes, it seems like life decides to throw everything at you at once. I know that’s cliché, but it really is true. Three years ago, I was preparing to graduate from college, working on a short film for a ridiculous class, putting my portfolio together, and searching for jobs, when I was broadsided with bacterial meningitis. The timing was strange; I spent finals week in the hospital and spring break in my old bedroom at my parents’ house with an IV up my left arm. But in the end, I concluded it was a helpful experience for me, encouraging my growth as a person, teaching me that I could overcome whatever. It was all about trust. This week I was handed another stack of problems.
On May 18th, I signed all the papers for my new house, my first house, a little one bedroom cottage with a great weedy yard. On May 20th at 11 am, I was laid off from my job at Nike. An hour later, my realtor called to tell me she had my keys ready for me. The news of the layoff was completely unexpected. I have worked my butt off for that company. I put in a full year as a contractor, toiling away just so that I could have the opportunity of becoming a full time, salaried employee. My job there wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing long-term, but it carried responsibility and I was good at it. I got everything done that was asked of me. I was organized, my coworkers respected me, I was super efficient. That they would lay me off was a thought that hadn’t rationally crossed my mind, because it didn’t make logical sense. But I have now learned the hard way that massive multi-national corporations don’t make decisions based on logic.
I think was gets me the most is the shear unfairness and outright stupidity of it all. By getting rid of some of their best employees, Nike is really just shooting itself in the proverbial foot. They ended up laying off 3 of our 8 PAs, a blow that won’t be able to be absorbed by those left behind. Plus, the three they let go off were the three most efficient, youngest workers. All of us had planned to grow with the company and make our careers there. The whole concept was just stupid.
After I was told I was let go, I was sent into a room with a counselor who was supposed to make me feel better and help me calm down before I had to go pack up my desk. While I thought that was pretty dumb, I was grateful that I didn’t have to immediately face my coworkers with puffy red eyes and on the verge of hysterics. The one valuable thing she told me was to ask myself to identify the roots of my emotions. She said things like anger and fear had their roots in more rational feelings, and that by naming these, I could better understand and cope. I think the feeling I am most filled with is betrayal. I feel like the hard work I put into this company was for nothing, that the execs can sure talk all they want about “retaining the best talent” or “valuing the employees as an important asset”, but those are empty words, if not outright lies. I guess I’ve learned another lesson in trust: don’t you dare trust a company man. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how this all turns out for me.