distraction

Keith's gone to work in Billings for a few (6?) weeks, so the doggies are helping me be distracted. Otherwise my heart starts to break a little. We're not good apart, but this is temporary (I have to keep telling myself).

Part of my distraction plan is making sure the dogs get enough exercise. They're used to Keith being home most of the day and their routine is now all up to me. So we're going for walks each morning. Good for everyone.

I am working almost 5 days a week since we have a big project at work and that helps me stay distracted, too. It's the nights and weekends that are hardest. 

Translation: We miss you, Keith!

It's 2012 now and how are we going to better and happier this year? Stop setting goals. Sounds strange, yes? It's more about opening yourself up to what you really want. "If you want to make your new year count, you’ll need to be intentional — not by setting goals, but by making space in your life for what really matters." How? Read it here. More on what this means to the tiny house occupants later...

here's to the good times, which are happening now

Over the river and through the woods... our Sanity Break 2011 happened Friday night (NYE eve) in good ol' Missoula. We love thee. Not much snow at the pass, around 4'. At the end of December...

We wandered around town during happy hour trying to decide which overcrowded restaurant we wanted to squeeze into/wait in line for a decided to ditch it for the Good Food Store where we bought delicious sandwiches and desserty things.

We found a decent deal on a nice room at good hotel and fell in a trance in front of the huge TV and under unlimited hot water.

The view was pretty good, too.

Of course no trip to Missoula is complete without at least a once-through at Home Resource. We debated about using one of these slabs (CHEAP!) for the outdoor kitchen counter, but found a great deal on some red formica instead. 12 bucks, baby!
 

Made it back to Idaho safe and brought the puppers a new bed. Everyone's ready for 2012.

Short days, long nights

We're hibernating. Cycling through the daylight pretty quickly, but soon it will be the shortest day of the year and then we'll start seeing more sun, incrementally and importantly. We're hanging on until then, watching more than our share of movies (including Ken Burns' series on WWII - fascinating and incredibly interesting), reading some great books (including 1Q84 thanks to our rad local library system) and finishing NYT crosswords (printed from here).

A couple of weeks ago we walked the dogs to the river and went the opposite direction from the island. Found a lot of mussel shells and some bones. Brought back some white rocks for my air plant garden. 

Finished one roll of slide film and started another at the beach, but who knows how long it will take to finish it. I have a cheap underwater camera to send to Yellowstone for developing (dogs in the river shots mostly) so I'll send the one roll off for slides along with it and be pleasantly surprised to see what's on it.

The condensation in the house is still an issue. We had a little petri dish-type situation on one of the large windows that catches a lot of dog breath. (Year-end bonus at work will probably fund the dehumidifier project. Yay.)

With the cold weather the dogs are content with short bursts of outdoor activities. They're hibernating, too. Mia's hibernation is a little more anxious than ours.

I have an itch to buy more film for my SX-70, especially since it looks like we'll be going to the hot springs before the end of the year. (As long as there's a cabin available.) Some b/w shots sure would look neat up there in the winter. I might be talking myself into it. 

This polaroid is from the first pack I shot with the SX-70 this summer and I was pretty upset when none of the first shots turned out like I wanted. I felt ripped off and frustrated. But I've had this sitting in a south-facing window watching it slowly change. It has a pocket of gold flaky parts in the purple-blue middle that are fascinating. 

Winter-time entertainment, watching polaroids get sunbleached.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have a lot to be thankful for: loving husband, loving dogs, loving family, food in the cupboard, a roof over my head, and transportation to get me to a job I really like. No room for complaining. 

Tiny house projects are on hold for financial reasons, but Keith decided to do something he's wanted to do for three years now and rotate the bed 90 degrees and put it under the window.

 

I had resisted this because I thought it would take up too much room that way, but it actually seems like there's more space now. He was right, I was wrong. Last night was the first sleep oriented North-South (he's also felt that our Feng Shui was off) and it did feel good. In all of our previous dwellings rearranging the furniture was a pastime/compulsion so there's no reason to think the tiny house won't be the same, just with fewer options.

We have a bookshelf/cabinet planned for the wall where the head of the bed used to be and probably some kind of padded headboard for the bed where it is now because a windowsill in the back of the brain while watching TV is just not that comfortable.

The humidity created by the propane heater is driving us crazy and while we're shopping around for and budgeting for a dehumidifer, Keith has created a DIY version that seems to be working quite well. 

Several of these cheesecloth + rock salt + Mason jar contraptions and a digital hydrometer/thermometer is helping us keep track. The weather prediction part of the thermometer predicted rain (inside the house) this weekend when the humidity reached 80%. Eek.

I'm traveling with my parents to southern Oregon (almost California, really) to celebrate my grandpa's 85th birthday with my mom's side of the family. The holidays are really not all that exciting/appealing to me, but I am going to try to keep on my social face and go with the flow. And it will be nice to see my grandpa, of course! Keith is staying home on dog duty and we're making the drive tomorrow morning, birthday dinner Friday night, and return drive Saturday. Fastest trip to almost-California ever. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Back to The Island

It's been about 10 months since our last visit to The Island. It was a cool windy day, any remaining leaves were blowing off the trees.

We're really lucky to be a short walk away from the river.

Everyone had a good time. Not much had changed, but there's still a lot of junk and trash out there. It was wonderful to get some exercise for us and the doggies.

 That's Keith putting the last piece of cedar up for the ceiling. We high-fived.

The dogs entertain themselves wrestling whenever the sun comes out. Mia loves having a sweatshirt on this time of year (really, she does) and Lazlo thinks it's a handle for him to get a better grip on her.

The hazelnuts are all over the ground on the southeast corner of my parents' property. The dogs promptly stole all of these, cracked them and ate the nuts.

We have a temporary outdoor kitchen set up now with the camp stove. We have barn wood to put on the cabinet (once the barn wood dries out after sitting out in the weather) and probably some corrugated tin. Not sure what we're going to do for a counter - probably a salvaged door or some other salvaged material we find. Keith makes his breakfast out at the house now - coffee and oatmeal - and we can have tea or hot chocolate at night.

We scored an empty Culligan bottle and Keith's looking for bomba that we bought in Mexico. If we can't find it we can get another one easily and then we'll have water in the tiny house (though no drain to the outside - that didn't happen and the ground is getting hard).

Keith got one last harvest off the tomatoes before the first frost last week. We made a batch of salsa over the weekend (7 quarts) and he made another batch yesterday with some smoked jalapenos we had saved from 2 years ago (another 7 quarts) and it was the best batch yet using this recipe, modified.

After the first frost last week Keith cut the grapes and we made grape juice - the easy way - to enjoy over the winter. If we don't drink it all before the snow flies! It's so good.

We canned 21 quarts on Saturday before we switched over to salsa making and my mom and Keith finished off the grapes this week with at least that many quarts.

We didn't have an extensive garden this year, mostly just peppers and tomatoes, but we did a lot with what we did have and didn't get overwhelmed with it being all labor-intensive. Win-win.

We've shifted focus from the lav lately to finishing the ceiling in the house so we can get the propane hooked up to the heater. The house has been staying pretty warm without it - Keith love tracking the highs and lows - but the that won't last long with nighttime temps dropping a little each night.

 During the day, especially if the sun is out, we see our inside thermometer get up to about 70 and then it drops down to the mid-50s overnight. I have an electric blanket, but only use it for a while when I first get in bed and then again right before I get out of bed in the morning. It's a nice luxury I don't take for granted.

looking toward the front doors 

 

a somewhat messy house (though it's been messier,  Keith just cleaned this week)

We put the shelving unit Keith built a while back up over the door again before we finish the ceiling in that corner. Keith has a stack of old maps and sea charts he picked up somewhere, so instead of having to back the shelves with cedar or something, we decided to cut up one of the maps to back it. This one had water damage on the edge, but fit just right in two pieces.

It's upcycled and looks great! We're thinking these maps could be used other places inside. This one is a sea chart of the coast of California. And there was a scrap I saved to somehow incorporate into our zine (not yet started, but soon).

Keith's going to work on putting some trim up tomorrow while I'm at work and maybe some insulation in the lav then Saturday if the weather cooperates we'll be able to finish the ceiling and get the heater going again.

We've made a bit of progress in the last week or so. The lav is now sided, except the part by the outdoor kitchen, and the tin is on the roof.

Keith's built the cabinet for the outdoor kitchen and today we talked about siding the underside of the cabinet and some of the outdoor walls with barn wood and maybe some leftover tin.

We spent most a day last week putting more insulation in the ceiling of the house. We had rigid insulation in there, but Keith was an avid proponent of adding some more. It was tedious, time-consuming, and dirty, but we wrapped some plastic over the bed, moved everything mobile outside and then went to work.

At the end Keith's arms were getting very tired, holding the insulation overhead and then wacking it with his half-reliable hammer tacker. We've noticed a huge difference in the amount of heat that stays in the house. Hoping that will also translate to keeping it cooler in the summertime, too.

Mia enjoyed some sunshine on the porch the other morning. It's been raining lately, as it does this time of year, so we're thankful for the days where the sun actually burns through the fog and shows itself.

We have some new minimalist utensils for the tiny house. These German military surplus sets are from Cool Material and quite affordable at $12 each. Plus they lock together and would be super handy for camping. 

And they're resting on the gorgeous oak cutting board Keith made out of scraps someone donated to us. It's been sitting out in the pantry for a good year or so, all rugged, and he finally got the edges cut down and sanded and I love it!

Fall in your face

This past week the fall weather came on hard. Suddenly everything is orange and yellow and the past couple days of rain have reminded me very much of Portland's fall. Temperatures and foliage are dropping.

Time to bring Mr. Aloe indoors. A friend mailed this little pup to us from Portland as a tiny housewarming present and it's been hanging on despite my natural inclination to kill most potted plants I come in contact with. I left it outside all summer hoping to perk it up and it has grown a little. Now heading into the dormant season, kind of like us humans.


To help keep us sane and occupied this winter, Keith and I are starting up a zine. It's called "A Brief and True Progressive Report" and the details can be read here. There are no restrictions on content, so if you need a creative outlet this fall/winter (and beyond), send an email to get on the list of contributors.

Weekend photo post

Keith's out of town on a guys-only fishing trip, so no progress on the tiny house lav this weekend. The dogs and I are holding down the fort. Maybe we'll pick and roast tomatoes tomorrow.