Architecture and thoughts about the flu, hair, and a few other random rants on home building.

So this turned into a long post on over 3 subjects. I’ll color code so you can skip what is of no interest. 🙂

First up let’s talk home building. I could’ve sent that pic in for the club’s monthly theme!
I am so glad I  kept my old Windows XP laptop so I can still use my ancient 3Dhome program. I’ve never found another blueprint house building CAD type program that works this well. I’m pretty sure I’m on the 100th “final plan” by now. After sleeping on the couch where the husband’s snoring was more tolerable I began to redo the plan to add a second bed in the bedroom. The upstairs “bedroom” will be an office but the downstairs room is looking like a good quieter place to sleep or nights when jerking the covers and telling him to roll over do nothing.

We are were are considering building again, one more before the final home. A little bit of downsizing, well on the first floor anyway, but now, we’re in limbo. If we won’t be able to sell our 3-year-old home for a profit, that sure wasn’t worth all the effort, blood sweat, tears, aches, & pains. We’ll not want to be left breaking even on the next one either or there is no point. So much to consider. We’re not getting any younger and won’t be able to do the work ourselves forever but with a pandemic and election, we’re uncertain.

On March 11th we applied for a septic permit. This will be the 4th home we’ve built in this area and will complete the baseball diamond shape all within view of each other. Shocked? A sports reference from me 🙂  It used to all be a cow pasture. Almost all the trees, shrubs and flowers have been planted by us. We like the looks, sound dampening, dust controlling they provide. In fact, the reason we took the bid on our last house w.o countering was because they said they were landscapers and going to put in more trees. Hubby and his family built more homes that are also nearby, so likely double digits of septics put in. All of the homes that we’ve built and lived in are in the same field. The first one, we’ll call 1st base in the diamond, there were no septic dirt issues. The next home we skipped to 3rd base, again no problem on the septic dirt. For our 3rd build, we went back to 2nd base (half-backs) and it took months waiting on the surveyor who told us the city wouldn’t approve a “flag lot.” It would NOT have been a flag lot but hey, he does this all the time. So we did it his way. When the surveyor finally finished, that septic inspector guy, after months and many trips months wanted to pump the septic to what we’ll call the home plate parcel. We are not doing a pump system plus that’d using up 2 perfectly good home sites for one home and there was room for the lines albeit a tight driveway. They said the septic had to go in before the house so all the cement trucks, lumber deliveries, and crane to set the trusses had to stay off the septic field.

Okay, now on to this last one, at home plate. Somehow between the survey and plat and what the county thinks we own, we’ve lost almost .20 of an acre. Had we not have moved the pins around to where the surveyor suggested, we could’ve been exempt from a repair area. Inspector said it’d speed things up if we dug 4′ deep trench holes with steps for them to get into. Septic lines don’t go 4′ deep but we dug them. In fact, this last one ended up requiring a max trench depth of 18″. She said 2 were good and 2 were questionable. She called in a second opinion. He nixed one lower hole. I got a dirt clod out of the bottom of a good hole and a bad hole. Can you tell the difference?

The didn’t look or feel different and looking into the bottom of the 4 pits, to our eyes, it looked the same. I wish we’d filled them each with water and timed the draining of each. Now 6 1/2 weeks later we can only get a two-bedroom and it has to go in first too. Maybe all this waiting is a blessing in disguise.  Had this been approved mid-March we would’ve had considerable progress done already. Now we are not sure what to do.

The permit came with a note that said we had city water and sewer on the parcel. What? Wait? There are no septic line accesses on the ground, just city water. It’d be great if that were true, but then why did we even apply for a septic permit? The city says it’s just water like we thought. The first house they were like $75 bucks. Now they’re pushing $500. plus the time that’s passed.  I wonder how much hubby’s grandad paid for his permit or even if they had to pay for a permit? It almost makes me want to live off-grid… with TV, cell services and the internet. Now I sound like my dad except he didn’t need the amenities I want. 🙂

Each house in the same field has had drastically different rules. All of which required way more line footage than a duplex we built nearby with four bedrooms.  It seems to be open to a lot of interpretation. Last rant for now. The first trench now has to have a foot of all from the tank outlet. Water will run out of a level line, so I have no idea why it needs a foot of fall to start with. The lines themselves run on a contour to keep them level. Tell me how this all makes sense? Ugh! maybe we’re getting too old for this.

Even amidst this self-isolating  I still want a home, out in the middle of the woods, away from others. It just keeps building up around us, and I know we are part of that. 

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Staying home isn’t that big of a change for me because I mostly work from home but still, my limit has been hit. I don’t want to give it to my mom, but at this point, I can’t really believe any of the numbers, how it’s transmitted, what the symptoms are and how it can really spread. I like the distance and less touchy-ness it has brought but I really miss eating out after church, church in a building, hanging out with friends, hiking in our parks, and taking walks with my mom without worrying I’m unknowingly passing something to her. I also need jobs coming in and well, they’re not.

Here’s a thought because that’s the way my mind works.

What if…
the common cold or flu is also something you can have— with no symptoms?

I mean, no one checks you for those if you don’t have symptoms. Yet, here we are with Covid and there are people walking around with it that have no clue they’re infected. I still believe they’re going to figure out it was here earlier when so many had long-lasting respiratory issues. If you can get it, again and again, we’ll never get out of shelter at home. I would be willing to bet there are people who have recovered that would volunteer to see if they can get it again. When it started I heard of people saying they had it, recovered, and wanted to help. How do we not know this yet!? I shared a great post on my Facebook page from 2 doctors in California, that Facebook/YouTube, didn’t like, and removed. Nothing like being censored, with orders to stay home, while they track cell phone data to see who is still moving.

Yes, it is sad that people die from the flu and Covid, and cancer, and heart disease, and accidents. Yes, viruses and infections target the elderly and immune-compromised. We can’t function being in quarantine for a long time. The economy was in recovery. Unemployment was at a low, the stock market was hitting all-time highs and then fear set in. I did agree with the travel ban at the start. I mean at that time we were facing a big unknown and highly contagious virus but all the numbers have been so skewed now that I don’t even bother to look anymore. An overrun on the hospitals you say? Well, stats show the ventilators were not the “save-all” anyway. I think it’s past time to protect the elderly, nursing homes, and the immune-compromised and open stuff back up. If you feel like you should stay home, there is nothing saying you have to go out. If we go on too long we won’t recover. And, come November, with voter fraud, I really don’t like the idea of mail-in ballots. I want to go to the polls and vote. If we can go to “essential” Walmart, we go can go to vote, even if we take up several blocks standing 6′ apart. As if that is really the magic distance anyway.

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The honey bees recently checked out our lot in masse but moved on. I’ve never seen anything like it. Actually, I heard it before I saw it. Dropped everything, realized it was non-aggressive honey bees (I didn’t have my glasses on), went back, and got a pic. We have a neighbor that has hives and she wanted them but by the time they got the bee box hive thing, they had moved on.  Funny how their home was on the move.

The camera club theme this month was architecture and it was our first Zoom club meeting. Tyler liked it. He always pouts once a month when I come in from club late (for us) and go right to bed. I submitted three and remembered they changed it to two.  The pics get numbered and the third one was dropped.

First up was Screwscape Skyline. Which took way longer to set up than it did to capture and get critiqued. You may have seen this before. The critiques have no time limit.

Second, The Round Home was of a bird’s nest I found on the ground after heavy winds this month. I left it alone for several days but when it was clear it was abandoned, and thankfully eggless with no injured birds in sight, I brought it in. I placed it on cloth and added some cotton twigs. I liked it with and without the texture but submitted the texture.

Jeff liked it better lighter, I decided to play around with a soft negative clarity and then extra clarity on it too. This Zoom meeting was more of a Lightroom lesson than a critique on architecture but it was nice to see everyone. Although seeing a few other fellow photogs at home in their pj’s was odd. That is one neat thing with the pandemic to someone interested in home design… with everyone working from home, we’re getting the chance to see their styles. I’m more interested in stock TV shows than ever before. 🙂 I can’t tell you how many times I’ve paused the TV to ask hubby what he thinks of some detail or to show him what is in my head for the next house. Here are the edited ones.

The third was what I called The House in the Corn. My brother-in-law told me about it. Hubby and I went for a drive and found it just as a storm was brewing. We started out to find Oreo cows, but when that didn’t pan out, hubby drove me to this house. I shot it from near the road. If you’re local and know the homeowners, I’d be happy to share a photo.

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I’ve been screwing up my skin and hair. Want to hear more? Have a laugh on me.

My abdomen/gut has been hurting for several weeks, and the area moves, so if I described it, I’d sound like a complete hypochondriac. It hurts to bend over and stand back up, to work in the yard, get up from sitting, and even touch the outside of my abdomen. Dr. Google first response is always diverticulitis, and we know several people who get that same diagnosis are pumped full of antibiotics and are no better and often worse from antibiotic abuse.

I actually broke down and called a doctor I used to go to. I know gasp right? Does that tell you how bad it hurts? She said it’d been so long, I’d have to be a “new patient” again and they were not taking those during Covid and to go to Urgent Care. Well, I don’t want to go there even less than I wanted to see her. It was a big step for me to call her. So, I’m taking the it’ll get better in time theory. I had endometriosis before my hysterectomy and it felt similar to that where it was a dull ache all the time, that hurt to move even my legs, with some sharp gut-wrenching pains thrown in. Thing is I no longer have those body parts that hurt then, and that never hurt to touch my stomach, so all I could think of was something twisted or blocked and prayed nothing ruptured.

We have rice heat packs I’ve used thousands of times. This time, I blistered my abdomen with a pack microwaved for just 90 seconds.  Big red marks liked I’d been beat, with a blister larger than half my thumb and just as tall. I can’t leave stuff alone and wanted to pop it. The thought of getting an infection right now kept me from doing that. The darn thing popped when I bent over to put lotion on my heels- I didn’t even get the satisfaction, plus it blew a much bigger hole in my skin than I would’ve done if I’d popped the bottom of it. It’s too big for most of our bandages and it keeps sticking to my clothes and oozing. Not sure how I didn’t feel I was blistering my skin. There is no way this stupid thing is not going to scar. 😦

My hair, oh my poor hair. I tried soft black permanent last time. It was too dark but had color much more like my color, just darker. That is until it started fading and had a magenta tint. I had Color Oopps in the cabinet. I’d never used it. I will never use it again. It said 20 min. The fine print said leave on for 20,  rinse for 20, shampoo, rinse for 10, and repeat. Good thing we have an On-Demand water heater. It said it returned your hair to the pre-dye color. It turned my dyed hair as orange as the girl on the cover.

A slight magenta tint was preferred to neon carrot. I think I am to the point of going gray. I may just dye the back charcoal since it’s so much lighter than the front but I’m kinda over the red/magenta/orange/purple I get with box dyes and I just can’t see spending the kind of money it would take to have it professionally highlighted and lowlighted.

I can tell I’m getting older because I went into the grocery and Lowes with that hair! Hubby either didn’t notice or chose to remain silent.  Color Oops must stink horribly because 6 hours later he said something smelled bad in the bathroom. 

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So, my week was house planning, some decluttering, hair, being limited with pain, photos, camera club, Tyler’s birthday, and decided that I’m going back to living my days as close to normal as I can because my brain has hit its limit with the Covid crap.

I see some people saying they are bored. My to-do list has no end in sight. In fact, I feel pulled in more directions than before with little just relaxing time. I don’t have time to be bored. I am tired of the monotony where one day is so much like the last.

Oh, here’s a tip for y’all new to Duo or Zoom on your phone. An old cassette tape case makes a great phone holder when turned inside out.

If you don’t know what a cassette tape is… go ask someone with gray hair.

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