Kingfisher Cove

Finally-Finally-Finally-Finally-Finally!!!!!!!!

VACAY HAS BEGUN!!! (sound the horns!)

So, even with my workload unexpectedly cut in half, Friday (the zero-hour of my involvement with the remaining proposal) was still a very intense day. The technical staff was far, far behind because of Thursday’s power outage. Even though I accomplished what I possibly could and left a comprehensive checklist of what all yet needed to be done and how to do it, well…there sure is a whole helluva lot that needs to be done! (And I worry a bunch about the strong likelihood that the damned thing won’t be edited or proofed…)

I stewed about that, up until I walked out of the office yesterday afternoon. And then I was DONE stewing about that.

And here we are!

And get a load of what’s in store for us this week!

(And that’s Seattle’s forecast—it’s generally warmer here in the South Sound). Holy cow.

“Muggy” is the part I don’t like.

John’s been working on the sides of the house that are most conducive to the best “degree” of comfort-level. His focus this week will be the decks, and also installing the tar paper for the roof. Ew.

Today, I’ve been doing a fair amount of cleaning. Jeesh, this camping trailer collects the cobwebs and dust (construction site, after all), plus the fact that’s it’s an OLD camping trailer. There is a spongy spot in the kitchen floor that has become progressively worse, and I just hope a leg doesn’t end up jamming through it before the time comes that we have to dismantle, demolish, and remove this thing to make way for the driveway. But, it does look better. Bugs are out of the light fixtures, cobwebs scooped up (for the most part), mirrors cleaned, appliances cleaned, floors mopped. I’ve had the A/C cranked up to manage this quite well. (Thank you, 27-year-old A/C unit for still working just fine).

Helen is coming to visit tomorrow for the day. We’ll have dinner and a couple of crantinis and she’ll get to see the HOUSE! I’m excited for her to see it – she has a lot of history here at Harstine, coming to visit every summer that we’ve had this plot of paradise. I know she really loves it here. In fact, when I walk into the guest bedroom in the house, I think of it as “Helen’s room!”    She can also relate to having a house built, as she and her husband went through this just a few years ago. It’s a daunting undertaking, that’s for sure.

And Margaret is coming to visit one day this week, too! She also knows Harstine in its natural form (BC – Before Construction). It’ll be great to see her, and especially knowing the weather will be warm and sunny and summery.

(I’m also hoping that my brother can come to visit—hey, bro! There’s still room for your Taj Mahal tent!)

A few new pictures, although progress has slowed the past week or so. The framers still have some work to do, but they’ll tend to it all once they return to install the windows, which should be within the next couple of weeks. The plumber was SUPPOSED to start his work this past week, but it sounds like he’ll be out this coming Monday to begin that task. It gets down to brass tacks now, because certain things can’t happen until “this” happens. And you can’t trench for the electrical wiring until they’ve delivered the windows and doors because otherwise there wouldn’t be access. Jeesh.

(Above) – Here I actually worked up the courage to step out on one of those (rather flimsy) sheathing boards on the deck that is a gazillion feet off the ground. This is beneath the main living room dormer and looks down toward the smaller dormer off the master bedroom.

(Below) – This is the “back” (tree-side) of the house, and the forward part of the picture is a portion of the smallish deck off the kitchen. John has extended it, which he calls the “weenie walk,” that connects with the gully bank so that there will only be 3-4 steps down, thereby making it easy possible for the dogs to get outside to their potty grounds. If he hadn’t extended it, it would have been a whole LOT of steps down to the ground (15-20) because it’s very steep there. And I can guarantee you – the dogs would have totally balked. Not a good thing. It also will make it much easier for US to get to the ground there, and then around to the “box,” or “wine cellar,” as John calls it. That will be a major storage area, as well as house the hot water tank, furnace, etc. (And who knows? Maybe even wine!)

This (above) is a photo I took through my glass “studio” window onto the main deck. Hee!

(Above) – Here you can see John’s nifty new scaffolding thingy. He will TOTALLY need this for all of the bazillion items of finishing work he plans to do, and so much of it UP HIGH.

(Below) – I love how this looks right now, although it won’t look like this for long. As part of the framing skeleton, I think this looks like a ship. Don’t you? I’d love to be able to preserve this look.

Here’s the view of the ol’ trailer from the garage. Love that thing! So very thankful that we’ve been able to keep it throughout all of this construction. It has been our “cabin” since spring of 2005!

I’m still decompressing somewhat from my awful work-week,  but easing into the the wonderfulness that is VACATION.

The only downside (and I’m trying to get my head wrapped around this) is that I left my iPhone at work! I have NEVER been anywhere without my iPhone at my side, and I am bereft! I have lost an appendage! When I think about it, I know I’ll survive. I have my laptop and iPad. And I have a digital camera. Just can’t take/make phone calls. I miss the convenience of my iPhone’s camera, though. Argh! Email me if you need to get ahold of me.

Steamer clams on tap for din-din!

REPRIEVE! (and a bizarre day…)

After I’d been absorbed for the better part of this morning in one of the two killer proposals I’ve been trying to move forward this week (to some semblance of “whatever” before leaving on vacation), I suddenly realized that I hadn’t checked my email for a while. Dangerous thing, because in the course of working on a proposal, let alone two concurrent ones, my email is a raging river. So I switched over to my email (no, at this company I do not have dual monitors to keep my email stream front and center as I did half a decade ago, don’t get me started), and lo and behold: the very proposal I was absorbed in had been POSTPONED by the client, set back about 30 days. In a blink of an eye, I suddenly had my impossible, insane workload cut in half.

Can you say “HALLELUJA?” OMG, the relief. You would not believe it. (With a wee bit of consternation because the reasoning was for the client to delve deeper into their design criteria for a particular element of the project that we had insight on that our competition did not, and now they likely will). But it meant that I could focus on just the one (huge) proposal and after lunch I settled down to do just that. Except…

That proposal is out of our Portland, OR office, and their building is undergoing remodeling and for some reason they lost their power for the major part of the day. Which also meant I couldn’t access their server where ALL of my proposal documents, information, graphics, every-damned-thing, lived. I couldn’t work on it!!! How bizarre is that?

It wasn’t until about 2:30 that I was able to get access. And in the amount of time I had, I did accomplish quite a lot, but man-oh-man, will they still have a bunch to do to finalize that thing while I’m gone.

I have to say, I have mentally switched to Vacation Mode. Bought a shitload of groceries on my way home tonight and I’ve done some meal planning, laundry, etc. to get ready. Still need to pack, and it looks like it’ll mostly need to be capris and shorts! S’posed to get up into the upper 80s next week!

Can’t wait for tomorrow’s work day to end.

So Sick…

…of the stress.

And no, it’s really not about having a house built! Well, there is underlying worry about that, and some upcoming elements that have me stewing when I dwell on them, but honestly? It’s really not about that.

It just seems like for an awful long time now, I spend my weekends dreading the upcoming work-week. And it always pans out to be worthy of that dread.  Not once has it turned out that I “over-reacted” about the trepidation that keeps me tossing and turning at night.

Remember this post? Yeah. I knew last week what I was in for this week, and I’m here to tell you that in this case, it’s much worse than I even anticipated. Constant brink of tears, constant clenched jaw, constant weird pains in my chest and back. I am a wreck. Here’s some TMI: also constantly running to the bathroom to “disembowel.”

Yeah, sorry about that.

In a nutshell, I have well over 80 hours of solid pedal-to-the-metal work to complete in one week. Two *huge* (plus very important) proposals that typically take 40-60 hours each to complete, and that’s at full speed. They won’t be complete by Friday before I leave on vacation, there is no magical way to make that happen. But the expectation is that they will be CLOSE. Uhm…no, not even that. When I have to deal with the lackadaisical decision-making and responses to my requests for (NEED IT NOW!) information, it just ain’t gonna happen.

I’ve worked a little late a couple of nights this week, but truth be known, I am total mush after so many hours, juggling these two different-but-similar proposals and on high alert to keep them separate and not confuse the two. There comes a point when it’s not worth the margin of critical error of exceeding my brain power in a given day.

I anticipate a whole helluva lot of pissed off people when I walk out of the office Friday for my week’s vacation. They were warned well in advance. I also warned them of this scenario when they refused to hire my assistant full time, and so she went to another firm who did offer her full-time work.

This should be a lesson learned on their part. But I know it will fall on me. That there is disdain that I dare to take a vacation at such a critical juncture even though this would likely happen any time I schedule a vacation. There is this complete lack of understanding of the level of detail, the enormous effort, and the amount of time it takes to do what I do. I have no idea what they will do after I leave Friday to do the major “finishing up” it will take to finalize these.

I could say I don’t care, it’s their problem, but they really need the work. They need to WIN these proposals. These proposals need to be stellar. And I don’t have the time to make them be that.

Contrast

Work week: Sirens, back-up beepers, car alarms, sirens, screaming-mentally-ill-people, squawking speaker phones, slamming office doors, sirens, jangling phones in jarring ringtones, piercing women's voices, booming men's voices, conflict, one-upmanship, sirens, passive-aggression, pettiness, sirens, streaming incoming email, streaming incoming meeting notices, sirens, interruptions, brazen pedestrians, brazen bicyclists, brazen drivers, clogged roadways, sirens, impossible demands, impossible stress, condescension, panic, sirens.

Harstine Island: Deer checking out the house progress, hummingbirds hovering in the trailer door, grape plant sprouting baby grapes, squirrels scolding the cat, John sawing and hammering in and around the house, boats motoring by, waves lapping the beach, seagulls crying, crows squawking, goldfinches tweeting, kingfishers chittering, seals barking (yes, sometimes!), background music playing from the iPod speakers, peace, quiet, solace, and beauty. In the 10 years we’ve owned this property, I can count the number of times on one hand—of a distant siren. 

~~~~~

It’s been two weeks since I’ve been here at Harstine. John is rather perturbed at the lack of progress from the framers (they should be done by now, but there are still a ton of small and large details they need to tend to). The plumbing contractor starts next week, then electrical, and HVAC. There is a possibility that John might start working on the roof during our vacation the first week of July. In the meantime, he’s busy with a gazillion different things, including the decks. We hauled down the entry door last night from home, which ended up working perfectly since it fit right smack on the truck bed (very well tied down) and the tail gate still lifted down just fine so he could pack all our stuff beneath the door (pictured above). Today he’s been working on the “wiener walk” which is an extension of the small deck from the kitchen that heads over to the gully bank so there will be just a few short steps to the ground, thereby providing much easier (do-able!) access for the short-legged dogs. Well, and us, too! He also bought himself a nice-quality scaffolding thingy with locking wheels so he can reach all the high spots inside when he does his gazillion items of finishing work.

John’s folks came by today and it was fun to be able to show his mom the inside of the house for the first time, now that those stairs are in and it’s accessible. (It was fun for me last night when we got here – after 9PM and it was still light! The longest day of the year! On the downslide now…)

I took some pictures, but I have to say it’s more difficult now because there isn’t the line of sight with the sheathed roof and many of the walls, and so it’s darker in there! The most jolting sight for me when we arrived last night was that dormer off the main (waterside) deck.

Real life is so much more impressive than a photo in this case. BUT, the original picture is really big and you should be able to get a good idea if you click it. It *should* fill your screen.

We were talking about the “style” of this house. The whole intent was to be very Pacific Northwest. Timber frame without screaming rustic timber frame (and therefore the horrendous cost of true timber frame). A love affair with wood and poles (tree trunks!) but without a log-home look or feel. Contemporary, but warm and inviting. I’d forgotten this, but when John was designing the house, he had based it on what is called “National Park Service” architecture, which is lodge-like. This picture above really depicts that, I think.

It also reminds us of the porticos of many of the local tribal casinos in the area! Heh heh.

Every bit of progress is eye-opening. The next Big Thing (visually) will be the roof (metal!) and of course the sheet rock.

It’s kind of like playing an adventure game. Or reading a novel. It’s an unfolding story.

And so much more interesting, enjoyable, and believe it or not, stressless, than a work week. (Yes, even John says this!)

The Kitchen Sink and Then Some

I posted this on Facebook during a brief work break today:

“Tonya leaves on vacation in a week? Hmm, let's throw the works at her -- you know, the kitchen sink *plus* the bathtub, toilet, laundry sink, throw in the washer & dryer for good measure, hey, and how about the roof? Heck, might as well throw her those doors and windows, too. That'll learn her for daring to take vacation.”

Why does this always happen? And I do mean always. Everywhere I’ve ever worked, I plan, inform well in advance, and the shit hits the fan right up until the basket-case, PTSD, exhausted-beyond-measure, guilt-ridden ME pulls out of the driveway for a vacation that has been longed for and desperately needed, to the point that it actually takes a few days into my vacation to decompress! (And thus, casts a pall over those first few days). 

But of course there are two huge proposal deadlines right smack in the middle of my vacation week. When I notified everyone of my vacation schedule back in MARCH, I certainly couldn’t have foreseen this.

But boy, do I ever have to pay the price of taking one week off (I ONLY GET TWO WEEKS PER YEAR).

Next week? Brutal. Punishing.

There’s only one of me.

And nobody has a clue about who will take over when I walk out of the office next Friday. There IS nobody else.

Oh well. Right?

Republicans Are Batshit Crazy

Pop some popcorn, put your feet up, and prepare to “blank stare” at the completely insane, delusional, batshit crazy dark-dark place the republicans inhabit these days. Absolutely mind-blowing.

You know, plague of locusts mind-blowing.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It Was A Good Day!

My dad’s sister, (Aunt Carol), and her husband, (Uncle Bob), invited us to their place on Camano Island to celebrate Father’s Day and Dad’s 78th birthday. They live just down the road from Dad’s place there on the island. It was about as close to a perfect day as it gets. While the weather up there was warmish and mostly sunny, it was pretty darned windy so we did eat inside.

John is working this weekend (no, not at Harstine—work-work), so it was just me. I didn’t take the weenies because it was at my aunt & uncle’s place, but also because the last time the dogs rode in my car down to Harstine, I was overwhelmed and dismayed by all the dog hair they left behind! (In fact, I took it down to the carwash yesterday and thoroughly vacuumed it out, since I knew my family would be peering at my new car!)

Dad and Carol’s brother, Keith, passed away a few years ago, but I have always adored his wife, Joan (pronounced “Jo-Ann”), and hadn’t seen her since quite some time before Uncle Keith died. She (and her son/means-of-transportation, Randy) were there for a while, too! They had to leave early because Randy had to get to bed for swing shift tonight. But it was WONDERFUL to see Aunt Joan, I just love her to death. (One of those down-to-earth, says-it-like-it-is, kind of women). I brought along my garlic dip, which she has always loved, and she was over the moon!

I’m very fortunate that I have a great family. Good people, good hearts, bright minds.

So here’s a shot of my dad with Aunt Joan (in the dress, with her son Randy) and Aunt Carol (she always has lovely color-coordinated outfits that make me drool. We are both “Springs.” If you lived through the 80s, you’ll know what I mean. She even just got a new Honda Fit that is in “OUR” color):

My brother, Dave, and my niece, Michelle, were there, too. Dave and I went in together and got Dad a flat screen TV to hang on his bedroom wall. (Dave later went down and installed it!) Dad is very pleased!

OMG, we had baked salmon! It was really, really good. I brought along a couple of favorite salads (oriental cabbage, which Dad really likes, plus my berry salad that everyone always likes).

Here’s Dad with his two kids—me and Dave (picture credit to my niece, Michelle – great job!):

AND THEN. Right as dinner started, Nate called on my iPhone! Which was absolutely perfect, because I set the phone on speaker in the middle of the table and we could all talk to him while we ate. It was Table Time! It was like having him there for dinner with us! It was so cool!

Dad looked and WAS good – good color, engaged, and I think very much enjoying himself. It was a very special day for him, considering that it was Father’s Day PLUS his birthday! It was fun bringing up old family photos on the iPad and reminiscing. This one is cool—it’s Dad and HIS dad (my grandad) at Camano Is. in the late 1960s:

Grandad always wore a hat.

~~~~~

So, my drive home was interesting. Through Everett (known as the “convergence zone” where the  weather converges from the ocean and the mountains), I was driving along the leading edge of a thunder storm. To my right were clear, blue, sunny skies. To my left were dark, threatening, roiling clouds that in some places drove to the ground with obvious pouring rain. Out of the corner of my eye I could see lightning flashes and hear thunder cracks. But aside from a few splatters of rain on my windshield, (while the sun was shining brightly to my right), that was all I experienced. It was just fascinating that I-5 was on that cutting edge. The contrast was quite beautiful!

THEN. I pulled into our driveway. And here were two wiener dogs in the middle of that driveway. They’d gone out the pet door and snaked all around to the front, perhaps KNOWING that my arrival was imminent? And that doggy dinner time was ALSO imminent? The driveway is steep (uphill) and I had to stop, park, pull up the emergency brake, and let them inside the car because otherwise I couldn’t see them and I do not think they are smart enough to get out of the way!

And after those 5 seconds of pulling up the driveway and parking with extremely excited dogs, my car is now—once again—overwhelmed with dog hair.

Sigh.

Drama

Oh, hells bells, am I ever glad it’s the weekend. Why does every work-week have to be so g**damned hellacious? If I were to give a graduation speech, I’d likely horribly depress the grads by “advising” them about how godawful Day Jail is, and “anything you’ve ever heard about your career being ‘fulfilling’ is a bunch of hooey.” It’s still “work” when it comes down to it. Which means dealing with idiots and slaving away so the head honchos achieve/maintain their uber-wealth. Period.

Yeah. Don’t invite me to speak at your graduation.

And speaking of idiots…this new “boss” thing has me on the brink of completely losing my sanity. He’s been there just over a week and I am SO SICK TO DEATH OF BEING HIT. And sprayed upon with SPIT. He has no clue. And I have NO respect.

~~~~~

John’s down at Harstine right now and will head home late tomorrow morning because he has 2nd shift duty at work all weekend. Such a bummer because TOMORROW IS HIS BIRTHDAY. In fact, it’s his 60th birthday. {!!!} And then Sunday is Father’s Day. I’ll be heading up to Camano to celebrate with my fam-damily – Sunday is also my dad’s birthday.

~~~~~

The entryway doors arrived!

This was delivered to our house here in Des Moines and John was stewing about how in the hell he was going to be able to transport it to Harstine. Besides this door, we also got the “wiener walk” door, which is the same as this except without the sidelights. It fit in his truck just fine so he hauled it down today, but THIS one has kept him up nights. Finally he came to the conclusion that he could remove the canopy off his truck at Harstine with his come-along inside the garage. (This big door will fit just fine in his truck bed, without the canopy). So my first Harstine picture sent to me today was all about that!

No more canopy! He’ll probably take another day off work next week and haul down that big ol’ door. Glass block for our master bathroom should arrive next week, too, and he’ll also be able to transport them without the canopy.

And then. Get a load of THIS. They’ve been installing the dormers over the living room and also the master bedroom. John said the pictures don’t do it justice. It’s SO MUCH more dramatic than he even envisioned! (click them!)

Not a whole lot more for the framers and then it’s onward!

John called me tonight from a construction scrap fire down in the lower gully by the beach. Last weekend, I fed another scrap fire up by the garage. The volume of scrap is astounding—and now is the time to burn it before they instigate a burn ban. Could be any time now.

Wow!

John took a half day off from work today and a full day off tomorrow and headed down to Harstine this morning (half-day for him means leaving work at 9:00 a.m. since he starts work at 5!) He sent me these pictures!

First, a cool shot from the neighbors’ patio. You can see that they’ve been working on the front deck dormer (the posts will be installed tomorrow). I thought this was cool view—this side of the house, which is the master bedroom/bath—won’t be sheathed in for a while because it will make for much easier access for the sheetrock when the time comes (as always, do be sure to click the pic to embiggen because it makes a whole lot of difference):

I love how you can clearly see the poles holding up the deck (well, and the rest of the house, too). Those cross-braces will be removed so it’ll soon be just strictly poles.

Here’s another shot John took from the back of the house from the neighbors’ driveway:

It’s really starting to take shape and be closed in!  But wait! There’s more! Get a load of the view of the house FROM THE BEACH.

It really does look like a bridge, doesn’t it?

It’s funny—every time a boat motors by, they slow down and look. And I’m sure that all of our neighbors have come down to take a peek. (We certainly did when a couple of our neighbors had their houses built!)

John worked his butt off today extending what he calls the “wiener walk.” It’s the smallish deck off the kitchen (that faces the trees in the back) so that it is long enough to reach the other side of the gully, hence allow for a few short steps to the ground. It involves additional concrete pads and plinths, as well as support beams. The kitchen door to that deck will have a pet door built into it, and it’ll be the animals’ access outside (yep, to potty grounds!)

Oh, the things we do for our beloved animals!

Tomorrow, the Window Guy comes out to take measurements and get the order in!

Somewhat Vague Bullets

But you can probably connect the dots (if you read my last post).

• Chucklehead.
• “Say it, don’t spray it.”
• Uhm, no. My job isn’t “assemble proposals into a pretty little package and tie it up with a bow.”
• In this industry, we don’t call it “sales.” We call it “marketing.”
• Clients in our industry don’t like the term “sales.” Nothing would turn them off more than to hear the word “sales.”
• Please stop slapping my shoulder, thank-you-very-much.
• Chucklehead.
• We’re having a meeting? Wait, let me get my umbrella.
• “Say it, don’t spray it.”
• Uhm, no. You can’t “wine and dine” clients. They have policies in place to prevent any perception of impropriety for competitive proposals.
• No, you can’t send them a bottle of Jack.
• I can feel your breath on my neck. DON’T LIKE.
• You’re giggling again. What’s so funny?
• Ouch! That’s my shoulder! Again.
• Chucklehead.
• Shit! Umbrella!