Paperwork

I am determined.  I tell you... DETERMINED! to find something creative to do to make money.  Working at the Post Office is not creative. 

I really enjoy knitting and felting and making bags but there does not seem to be a market for these items.  A nice felted bag costs me at least $30.00 in materials and I might be able to sell it for $30.  Maybe.  But common business sense tells me I am not going to get rich (or even afford a cup of coffee) selling things for the same it costs to make them.

I need to find something to sell that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg to make.  I need to find something where the construction materials are dirt cheap. 

I remembered reading something once about people making paper from elephant dung in Thailand.  I don't have elephants, but I have alpacas.  They make poop.  Poop is free.  And plentiful.

Paper it shall be.  But first I needed to learn to make paper because not knowing how to do something has never been a reason to not do it.

You Tube here I come!

In a few short hours I learned a lot about making paper.  Most processes started with uh.. paper.  But I did find enough information to learn that I needed some basic equipment (frames, screens, couch papers..)  Well - so much for a cheap enterprise.

The next day I was at the local second hand store and what should I find?  A brand new paper making kit for $1.99!  Never even been opened.  It contained all the basic tools I would need along with directions that included pictures.  How easy could it be?

 

I thought I would try something easy to start with.  I took shredded newspaper and whirred it in a blender.

 

And I ended up with this.. a fine piece of thick gray paper.

 

I tried again but used college rule paper and added some plant life.  (begonia petals to be exact)

 

And then again and added dandelion petals.

 

Feeling quite pleased with myself I felt it was time to try poop!  I went out to the pasture and gathered up a nice fine FREE supply.  I put it in a pot to boil.  And boiled and boiled.  Outside of course.  In a second hand store pot.  At this point I would like to add that Peter is not supportive of the PPP (Poo Paper Project).  He kind of likes to use the alpaca poo for the garden and I will quote him here.  "It's a shitty idea."  Harummph to him I say!

 

After 2 hours of boiling and letting it cool down over night, I smashed it and smooshed it and then rinsed it through a screen, then through cheese cloth, repeatedly.  I rinsed away most of the poop and I was left with this lovely stuff.

 

 

More rinsing resulted in even more fiber and less poop. 

 

I was afraid that my remaining poo fiber was too fine and not enough of it so I added some paper pulp.  I didn't use the blender - which would have been helpful I think, but Peter had this thing about putting poop in the blender he makes milkshakes with.  I don't get it... all the boiling made the poop completely hygenic.  I think he's weird.

 

The fact is, when all was said and done, I made poo paper:

 

 

Two days of boiling, soaking, rinsing, etc and I ended up with one sheet of 6" by 9" paper that isn't even usable.  Not very encouraging.  The materials might be free but I might have better things to do with my time.  All is not lost though.  I have learned a lot.  I think I have learned how to do to better.  I will try again because it takes more than one failed attempt to convince me to give up on an idea.



The little Blue House...

For those of you who don't know me - here is a bit of insight into my psyche..  I can obsess.

I get an idea in my head and can't let go.  In the last few years I have had this idea to buy a vacation house.  At the beach.  Lincoln City, Oregon to be exact. 

I rationalized this decision by telling myself we spend so much time there it would be common sense to invest our money in real estate.  It would put us close to my children, close to our favorite weekend location and more.  It could be a lovely family vacation home.  The kids (and grand kid) could meet us there - we could have family time.  As an investment it made perfect sense and my obsession grew.

I started prowling real estate websites. 

A year ago or so I found a three story "fixer-upper" that was just one block from the ocean with a beach view and beach access.  Peter and I went to look at it.  We wandered around outside and peaked in the windows.  It was a wreck and I loved it.  Except the kitchen was in the basement.  That was weird.  There was a door to the outside on the third story.  But there was no balcony or stairs.  Just a door to outside, and a bit of caution tape.  Oh.. and there was also the issue of the price.  Too expensive for us!

Then I found a very nice, fully furnished three bedroom house on the east side of Highway 101.  The price was quite reasonable, considering the size and that it came furnished.  The furnishings were just my style.  We actually looked INSIDE that one.  It was very cute.  Very well furnished.  But two rooms were downstairs and one upstairs.  The family space was small and I couldn't see it functional as a family vacation space- which was one of the thoughts rumbling around my obsessed self.  The other problem was that Lincoln City was working on a new law that would not allow vacation rentals on the east side of of the highway.  We need to be able to rent out our new home part of the time in order to make this a successful venture.

Then I found the Little Blue House.

It was tiny.  Like 582 square feet tiny.  One bedroom.  One bathroom.
Two blocks from the beach - but certainly in walking distance.   It was on the west side of the highway.  A perfect little rental property.  I had to change my vision from a family vacation property to a vacation/retirement home that would accomodate kids, kind of.  I looked at pictures of it almost every day.  Then the price dropped by $10,000.  This little Blue House became MY little Blue House in my blue-house obsessed head. 

Last month Peter and I wandered around the outside of  "My" little Blue House.  We peaked in the windows.  I saw nothing to discourage me.  I wanted this little blue house.  I needed it.  Did I mention I was obsessed?

This week I just happened to be in Oregon on another mission and decided to contact a realtor about my house.  My grand plan was to look at the house and find something, anything, ANYTHING that convinced me that this house wasn't meant to be.  Really it was. 

Problem was, it backfired.  The house was built in 1930.  It had original fixtures.  You know, those really cool ones that you just can't find anywhere?  It had a wonderful wood burning stove.

The kitchen was too cute for words with original glass fronted cabinets and an original farm sink and a faucet that comes out of the wall..

 

 



The flooring was a wreck - but how much could replacing flooring cost in a house that's only 582 square feet?

I started the process of buying a house and sent Peter a text message that I was buying us a house.  Bless his heart, he took it in stride and hardly reacted!

In my head I started deciding how I would furnish it.  I considered starting up a pinterest board (an application I have previously failed to see the point of...)  In my head I went over the stuff I had in storage trying to figure out what I could re-use.  I decided I needed to buy a new hide-a-bed for the living room and new matress for the bedroom - but I pretty much had everything else.  I pondered paint colors and considered even changing the outside paint from bright blue. 

Then I got the call.  The dreaded call.  It seems that bright blue outside paint is covering some very durable but toxic asbestos siding and that the foundation was a crumbling mess.  No bank on the face of the planet will loan money on this little train wreck of a house. 

Well it was fun while it lasted and after all - I had hoped something, ANYTHING would convince me to stop obsessing about it.

My plan worked after all.  I am letting it go.  Slowly.  But I am still cruising the real estate websites...

Kitchen Floor make over.

In August of 2012 I started removing the first of several layers of vinyl in my kitchen. It was nailed and stapled to a thin sheet of plywood.  The plywood was nailed down to older vinyl flooring that was less ugly than the top layer.

In February of 2013 I started picking at the next layer.  This layer was glued and nailed and stapled down.  It did not disappear willingly.

It was a very long tedious process and about a year ago I got the floor to a point where I could live with it.  Most of the glue was scraped off.  Most of the nails were pulled or tapped in - at least the ones we might step on and the overall look was somewhat charming.  Yeah - that's the word.  Charming.

I have been aching to get back to that project for awhile now but with work it has been impossible.  I finally bit the bullet and filled out appropriate paperwork to ensure I could get 3 days off in a row and Monday I started the final push to finish the kitchen floor.

The first step was to clear out the room and take a picture.  Not SO ugly, huh?

The next step was to crawl around on the floor for the next 12 hours sanding, scraping glue, pulling nails and questioning the sanity of my choices.

As you can see, not much progress was made in that 12 hours.  By 10:00 pm Wednesday I had the floor as ready as it was going to get.  Fir is a soft wood and there was just no possibility of getting up all the black and imperfections.

Peter and I realistically adopted the "we aren't going to make a silk purse out of a sows ear" attitude.  Our floor is 80 years old.  It has been abused with glue, nails and staples.  It has been horribly mistreated and our options were limited.  There were a few places worse than others.  There were some very odd repairs and patches.  There were holes and there was a very odd spot that was stained and finished.  To minimize (aka hide) the flaws in our sows ear we decided to stain the floor dark.  Very dark.  So we started staining:

This morning I added the first of 3 (or more) coats of polyurethane.  

With the exception of a few very odd places that you might have to get on your hands and knees to see, I would say we DID make a silk purse out of a sows ear.  I really like it.   It sure feels great to have this project nearly off my to-do list.

I'm already planning my next project, which will either be painting the cabinets white or removing the popcorn ceiling from the bedroom.  Because heaven forbid, I should sit idle!

Tis the Season!

It's hard to believe that Christmas is just 10 short days away.  I confess.  I don't care.
I care - but not for the right reasons.  This job I have sucks any remnant of joy I might manage to muster for the season.  I care because that means I am 10 days closer to having some sort of normalacy return to my world.

Other than Sundays and holidays, days off don't exist. If I am not "doing" a route, I am assisting in delivering the hundreds and hundreds of parcels that need to be delivered.  Today it was parcel delivery.  Got to work at 7:30.  Got done at 6:30.  I made repeated trips with my gas-sucking SUV filled to the brim,   Thank goodness I get a fair and reasonable mileage reimbursement. 

One of my stops today was at a farm I had delivered to before.  There is a beware of dog sign at the driveway.  In my previous experience I had never spied a dog.  Always cautious, just in case, but never a dog to be seen.  Today I was in a hurry.  I didn't give any credit to the clearly bogus dog sign. I pulled into the driveway and turned around so that my car was facing the road and the back of it was facing the house.  I got out of the car and went around to the back hatch and opened it up. A brown rottweiler seemed to come out of nowhere.  Not particularly aggressive but why take chances?  So I backed up slowly toward the drivers door and a black rottweiler magically appeared.  The two had me pinned to the car with no where to run.  I inched back toward the back of the car.  I had so many packages there wasn't really room for me, but that was the least of my problems.  In the most non-threatening manner I could manage I reorganized so I could sit inside the opening.  Then I gently brought my legs inside, forced to place them somewhat up in the air over some parcels that were in the way.  The dogs got so close they took the opportunity to smell my feet and legs.  They drooled.  They didn't bark or growl but they were BIG and showing their proportionately big teeth.  I talked to them.  They didn't seem to care that I was being friendly.  My phone was in the front of the car so calling for help was out of the question.  The dog spray issued to me was also in the front.  After a few minutes the brown dog started to get bored with me and turned away.  Reaching for the door in order to close it was apparently interesting and the dog returned to it's post - keeping me pinned to my spot.  I did not know where the black dog had disappeared to so my imagination convinced me it was waiting just around the corner of the car to rip my throat out.

I was NOT having fun. 

I eventually managed to get the door closed but found I was in quite an awkward position, in a tiny space, surrounded by parcels and my feet in the air. But at least I was safe.  I moved packages around and shifted my weight, eventually getting on my hands and knees.  I crawled through the inside of the SUV to the front but still had to get over the two front seats - with ridiculously high head rests and a ridiculously skinny gap between the drivers seat and passenger seat.  I am very glad it is unlikely I was being filmed.  Nothing about my climb through the car was graceful or dignified.  These people did not get their parcels today and I don't care.

On another seasonal note, Peter roasted a turkey today.  She... I mean IT is very delicious.

Peter has never cooked a turkey before. But that's not what makes this note worthy.  This turkey is a natural, free range bird.  Acquired from the people that had Rosie.  I was told that Rosie has gone to live in Palm Springs and is happily enjoying the weather there.  I was told that this is not Rosie.

I choose to believe.