How sitting too long is a silent killer

via How sitting too long is a silent killer

Deliberate Practice –

This is a blog about my progress through deliberate practice to achieve the goal of “Being a Great Illustrator ” ( would love to be good enough to sell and use that money to help a single MOM who has GRIT and needs help)…. Weird goal I know but I needed to pick something to work on and this is what I choose to show that even though someone’s expertise seems easy,  IT IS NOT… There was a lot of bad abilities before honing in on a craft and/or ability to do something.

There is a great book out Daily Rituals by Mason Currey that shows examples of greatness and how they got there through deliberate practice….

Trick is the convince yourself that deliberate practice is enjoyable… How to put your mind to it, embrace challenge rather than fear it… In the moment self awareness  without judgement…. It’s the judgement that gets in the way.

Did you know that before you reach the age for Kindergarten, prior to this age you were never judgmental about not being able to do something so you just kept trying until you did. Once Kindergarten hits something changes and you starting getting negative feedback and you start to question yourself, Shamed.. You start to care what people think I am guessing.

 

House Progress

Well it’s been quite a while since I have written and so many things have happened I hope to capture the essence here. Last time I posted I believe we just got power to the lot. Since then we put in the Septic system and cut out the foundation back in February leaving three huge piles of dirt in front of the lot and then it has been just sitting there waiting for our subs to start working. Apparently there was a huge backlog due to the unusual rainy season we had this year. But we are finally up and running.

I think I have lost most of my friends as I have had no time to see or talk to them. It breaks my heart too as one of them moved away and I couldn’t even make it to the going away party as I was stuck on the Lot moving dirt and by the time I got home I was toast.

The back of the lot is all ready to landscape but the Dude won’t let me do anything until after the house is done. He is afraid of the county not liking what I do apparently. So I am sitting here cringing at all the work that is being created as the black berries are coming back, the field grass is growing where I want my flower beds. Grrrr… patience I know. Next spring I can get in the dirt.

So we poured the foundation in May and the framers are just now starting to frame in the house. The first crisis was that even before the foundation was poured a huge pile of lumber showed up three weeks early. Now normally who cares right? But the concerns were two fold. One security, theft has been happening a lot here and two the pile of wood is in the right of way and our excavator can’t get to the piles of dirt to backfill. It was crazy after several calls into the project manager it never got resolved but our escalator had a work around. Phew.

Next problem, our excavator got terribly sick and so he was unavailable to do the required work we hired him to do regarding the back filling and downspouts for the house. So the solution was to use another guy who is friends with this guy in trade for labor. So hubby has turned into a construction guy whether he likes it or not. In the mean time my back goes out and I am having all kinds of physical problems myself so I’m not much help at all.

Our existing house has been on the market for 101 days and we could really use the money. This has been very frustrating. We almost had a buyer but they decided to go with a less expensive house. Drat. Today though hopefully we will have a bite. 4:30pm viewing. I am on my own to get the house ready as Lynn is working at the Lot. No biggy I think I can handle that. Turn all lights on, open all blinds, plug in water feature, sweep floors, roll up temp carpets to protect new carpet put in car, poop patrol in yard… load up the dog, put everything away in Dog room… So I guess I will start this at 3pm today that way I can make sure and have it all done in time.

Then its up to Dominos for a $8 special, extra pepperoni and extra cheese pizza, hubby’s favorite. I’m more of a extra cheese person, but I’m hungry just thinking about it right now.

So much to say, so little time to say it

Well lets see it is me again, writing on the progress of our Hi-Line Home. Last I wrote we were waiting for an easement which our neighbors finally granted. YEAH…..

So we have building plans approved by our housing association, the Septic In and inspected, Drain field set up and inspected, Trees removed that gave us a better view, temporary power pole is awaiting hook up by Puget Power which will probably be tomorrow.

I made a new friend through my volunteering work that might be able to build my SHE shed for much less than the Tuff Shed Version, very excited about that…

So now we wait for County Permits. Once they are done, then it’s time to schedule Hi-Line’s Project Manager, and our Excavator to go out and measure for the foundation and then it’s foundation time. Hi-Line takes over the building of the actual house, and Lynn continues to work with the Excavator to put in drainage and lot leveling for landscaping, making plans for concrete side walks and driveway, etc… We take care of everything on the outside, deck for one. Hi-Line takes care of the house.. Who knew so much just outside the house needed to be done…

Hubby is pretty toast, every day there is something – yesterday a trench had to be hand dug because of the wires underground which we needed to located for a second time because the girl didn’t do a good enough job the first time and the excavator didn’t trust the markings that were made which was a good thing because they were wrong.

Hubby bought some fun toys. A laser level for one to ensure the walls are level. He will be double checking everything just to make sure. One can’t be too careful especially since he has to do all the finish work and if a door frame isn’t right the door won’t fit. That could be a bummer… He also bought a camera so theft will hopefully be avoided. We have had a lot of problems in our neighborhood lately. There is so much construction going on and peoples supplies are being stollen from lots since there is no way to secure them.

Hubby is chomping to find a cheap pick up truck as well as we will be responsible to hauling away all un-used materials. The car can only hold so much. I found one advertised on Facebook that was too good to be true and it was. My god there are a lot of scammers out there. Apparently I could send them the money and they would ship the truck to me for free. Yah right… Nope didn’t bite on that…

Well no pictures today. Just words sorry about that. Pictures will be coming soon though.

Things are Progressing – Power is Closer

The elves are doing their magic. The clog in our process has been cleared. So where are we?

Well we got easement from the neighbors who have been so helpful but the process of getting there was frustrating. Getting Power to our house you would think is straight forward but the Power Company has complete control over how the power gets to your property and the Hand Hole “they call it” which is where they intend to pull power from was located instead of the Right of Way like it is suppose to be but on the personal property of the home owners next door so we needed an easement from the neighbors so that the Power company could access their Hand Hole. Crazy.. The Power company created this problem when they installed this Hand hole on the home owner’s property instead of the write of way about 20 years ago. Who knew. So easement is in, Power Company is in the process of scheduling when they can come out to run the electricity to our temporary power pole. Hubby has the excavator on board to dig the needed trench for the Power Company to run the cable from the neighbors Hand Hole, out to the Easement, then over to our temporary pole…

Final Septic approval happens today or tomorrow then the excavator will move the soil back over all the drain field, then hubby will put up a silk black fence so no one drives over it. No one likes broken drain pipes. It’s way to easy to just drive over it at this point.

Hubby has also been working with the electrian to get plans for our backup generator for when we get hit with wind storms an loose power. This was something I was super excited about but my expectation was that this back up generator would run the entire house including the heater which runs on electricity. But Hubby made the decision to go with the smaller generator instead. Oh well I get it, 12K verses 3K… money talks I don’t like it but will live with it — still disappointing. I guess I should be thankful he is putting one in to begin with. If it wasn’t for the fact that he hates pulling the existing generator out in the high winds and rain we wouldn’t even be getting this so I am happy for that!  Heat isn’t important to him like me I guess. Although this generator will create enough power to use a space heater. YEAH….OK enough ranting about stupid stuff. 3K leaves me more $$ to landscaping, hopefully! I don’t hold the wallet which is a good thing.

Hubby keeps checking the County to see where we are on the approval process. Still no word… 45 days from two weeks ago at the latest so what that’s sometime in Feb. Tick Tock…

 

Happy Hump Day Everyone!!!!!

 

Dead in the Water

The house is getting closer but now we are dead in the water. Apparently of all things we have hit a snag with getting power to the house…we need an easement from neighbors to access the power box set up for their house. But neighbors don’t want to sign it which means about an $8,000 budget hit and three month delay…yikes…the power company sent them a new request for easemen hubby is sleepless until he hears back from them…he is about to pull the plug tired of this unpredictable stuff he can’t control…..this process really gives me appreciation for what contractors endure. More as the story unfolds…..

Sent from my iPad

Money is flowing out now!!!

Well the Septic and drain field is almost installed. What have we learned from this phase of the project. Well, first off, make sure you have water, electric, Port a Potty and easements in place before you start. We thought all this needed to be done for the Hi-Line stuff only to start which is the actual building of the house which we are waiting for permits on.

Nope Septic stuff needs water to fill the tank up so that the tank doesn’t float if we get a big rain storm. And needing a Port a Potty is obvious.. Funny how the Septic guy needs a Port a Potty. hehehehe So neighbors came through and we borrowed 300 gallons of water.. Not sure how we will pay her back. It’s not like we can take it out of the tank. Makes me wonder how much a gallon the water company charges, we will probably offer to pay her water bill for the month. It was a huge help…

Here are some pictures of the lot so far. More to follow… oo the Board of our Community Center just sent us a letter approving our plans which is a good thing because the County needs that first before they can approve ours apparently… So that’s all well and good.

Water Hookup? Say What?

Well lets see where are we in the process of the house. It’s been a few days since I blogged.

The plans are all submitted. The trees that were blocking view are gone. The Excavator has his building permit number and was hot to trot to get started on the Septic and Drain Field installation. We were like that’s cool. Looking at the Project Plan some of the steps we needed to have completed before Hi-line comes to build the house were as follows:

1. Order a Randy Can –
2. Contact Water Company and get water faucet set up
3. Get Electricity to Property
4. Thursday Night attend Board meeting to get plans approved with our CCRs group. these are the same plans that we submitted to the county that we are waiting for approval which is 45 days from last week roughly.

OK well that was all in the schedule until the excavator said he needed these things done as well, and when did he inform us? As he was digging the hole for the Septic Tank. Goodness… The day before he didn’t say anything as Hubby and Him marked and measured where everything was going to go. To me it seems like we are tight on the South side of the property line but 5 feet is all that is required. The heat Pump will go over there too so walking around it to get to the back of the house will be a squeeze but it’s the cheapest location power wise closest to the electric box.

I left the house to run an errand and got a panicked call from hubby asking for neighbor’s phone number as the work around to not having water set up yet was to use the neighbors. It took a few phone calls and poor hubby knocked on everyone’s doors and put calls into any neighbor he could get ahold of with no avail. But finally after contacting my friend who is good friends with our one neighbor we got through and water was available for completing the job.

It seems like this phase of the project is just putting out little fires here and there. Hopefully there won’t be anything we can’t resolve without spending a lot of extra dough. Cash is slim as we are trying to not get a bridge loan. It’s crazy juggling. A wind fall would be so awesome but haven’t had one of those since my working days.

 

 

 

 

Hot butter rum – Low Carb Version

OOO I have stumbled onto something that actually works as a substitute for hot buttered rum mix… Here is what you need

1 teaspoon butter, sorted

1 teaspoon vanilla protein powder

a dash of pumpkin pie spice

In a coffee cup stir in all ingredients, Make sure the protein powder is all incorporated, it will be paste like. Then add hot water and sip away. An of course a shot of spiced rum makes it even better….. You might want to use coconut oil instead of butter as a twist…

I drink these without the rum in the afternoons when I am needing a sweet fix… Works pretty good. Obviously not as good as the real thing but works as a good sub for me.