Oodles of goodness

Catching up here at blog-central with some announcements and news and previews and hints at future nonsense…

1) The Doris Diaries is doing beautifully. So beautifully that we won two awards in the past week. In the past day, actually. Yesterday, Monday, May 6, I got news from two separate book contests that I’ve Got Some Lovin’ to Do did very well. Not quite the winner, but close. Which is better than the proverbial poke in the eye, no? The San Francisco Book Festival gave IGSLTD an honorable mention in Biography! And I also received this email: “Your book has been named a Finalist in the Memoir category of the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.” 

2. So far so good! I also had a fantabulous review of IGSLTD posted yesterday by a San Francisco writer on the Broadway Books web site: BWW Reviews: “Party Lines and Party Dresses: A Look at New Work from Julia Park Tracey.” 

3. But that wasn’t enough. My article in Alameda Magazine also just hit the stands, a feature on the Altarena Playhouse, which is just celebrating 75 years of theatrical hooha.

4. What next? IDK… How about the (re)release of Tongues of Angels in a matter of days? Like, Friday? How about that? You’ll see that there’s a giveaway on GoodReads right now through end of the month, and if you click on the link, you can enter for a free copy of TOA. You can order this through your local book store or you can click online and buy it there. Whatever works best for you. The ebook will not be up for another six weeks (it takes longer to format than print, if you can believe that one). I’ll announce that when it’s ready.

There will be an online party, what we call a virtual release party, on Facebook, and I’m also planning a brick-and-mortar, 3D, HD, real-time, face-time party. Otherwise known as a party. The theme? Tarts & Vicars, of course. If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, you are welcome to attend. Photos will be posted.

That’s what’s new. Exciting times, my friends. Glad to be here.

xx

me





many changes instantly

Farewell, White House.

I used to work for MCI, one of the early long-distance companies, which came into its own after the breakup of the telephone monopoly. Sprint still exists, but MCI was bought up by someone else and is long gone. However, back in the day (this was about 1986), we workers of the early telemarketing plantations often received new edicts from above. So many that we said the company’s initials must stand for “Many Changes Instantly.”

So here we are, in MCI mode — many changes instantly. Three months ago I was enjoying a full house of offspring and a healthy husband, chickens, a lovely piano, 5 bedrooms and a lush garden, a clothesline, a compost heap and about seven different kinds of recycling and trash containers. Mr. Husband said that you needed a PhD to figure out what trash went where at our Big White House. Today, however, we’ve done a few backflips.

Mr. Husband had a pain in his back around Christmas that got worse very quickly and they eventually discovered two ruptured discs. With a quick change in employment and where the Boy is going to school next year, we decided we had better move sooner rather than in summer. Found an adorable 2-bedroom apartment in central Alameda and started packing. Our motto was “Everything must go!” With a full attic, a full garage and large yard, plus all those bedrooms, this was no small task. The chickens had to find a new home, as did the coop. The bales of straw. The tiki bar and all the decorations. The hammock. The piano. One of the three cats. Two of the daughters. Most of the holiday decorations. Our large dining table that seated 12. Dishes. Canning jars. At least two-thirds of my fabric and yarn stash. Everything must go. And off it went.

We rented a Dumpster, but put amazingly little into it. Instead, green-hearted gal that I am, I worked tirelessly to find homes for everything and everyone. We had a “free” garage sale, in which just about everything we had in the garage went out and was given freely. I donated to Goodwill, ThriftTown and Salvation Army countless times. Sold books, CDs, DVDs and albums. Sold anything relatively “antique” to a dealer in town. Donated books to the Friends of the Library. Gave tons of books and art/school supplies to local schools. Gave a single mom down on her luck just about everything she could want for setting up an apartment for herself and her daughter — dishes, furniture, clothes and more. Gave the piano to our neighbor with 6 children. We downsized our personal library by about 75 percent. Maybe more. Garden goodies went to several Freecyclers. Old blankets and towels went to the pet shelter. Empty boxes came from Freecycle and have since been given back to be used again.

Softball team to the rescue. Mr Husband crouching in pain,
with smart-aleck friend copying him.
(Self, center, which is where I should be.)

Through all this, we had one mishap after another. Daughter #4, just two days before moving out, had a Saturday night spill that fractured her elbow. The Boy got bonked in the head at school in PE, suffering a minor concussion. Right after that he got a horrendous cold. Mr. Husband couldn’t lift anything or even sit or stand without excruciating pain (but he moved things anyway. Stubborn as a burro!). I won’t even tell you how messed up my shoulder, neck and sciatica got. We were able to borrow a truck from a friend for a couple of weeks, which made short trips with boxes much easier. We corralled a dozen strong guys for the big moving day and it was over, I kid you not, in 2 hours. Had a few days of searching among the boxes, and then it was time for Mr. Husband’s surgery.

That was last week. He’s well, thank you, and improving daily. We take little walks and he starts physical therapy next week. Yay for modern medicine! We’re here in the new place (see photo of our living room below), with another 20 boxes or so to unpack, and a new more urban lifestyle to discover in our upstairs Victorian flat:  our Red House (since I like to name our houses).

How are things different?

1. No laundry line, at least so far. We have a plumbing problem with the washer and dryer that the landlord is going to fix. Some day. I went to the laundromat last week and hope I can get this resolved soon. Also bought an indoor clothesline but the critical bracket is missing so I have to return it. Grrr.

2. No compost or chickens to eat leftovers. That means I have thrown into the green waste can things which chickens would have eaten up — plate scrapings, cereal crumbs, stale bread. On the other hand, there are just 3 of us now, so there’s a lot less green waste overall. I wonder how bad it would be to feed the local ducks with old bread crusts?

New living room, with stuff still in
boxes and pictures awaiting a nail or two.

3. We have heat now, where we didn’t before, and that’s new and different for us. It’s delicious! But we’ll have to look at our usage and not overdo it. Not sure how insulated this (drafty) house is, for one thing, and then — well, global warming and all that.

4. Garden. There’s isn’t one here, but I have been paying attention to where the sun falls, and where it is always shady. I brought over several container plants (herbs) and there’s a lemon tree and a tangerine tree on the property. But how can I garden in a shady, compact way?

5. Shopping locally/walking everywhere: This will be possible, finally, with a small grocery store with sustainable meat and organic produce nearby. But I have hardly had a chance to walk around and see what’s what, what with surgery and moving and all. Looking forward to this greatly.

6. Living lightly. Not having to drive everywhere, not having to support such a large family, not having so much stuff — it’s all good. I expect to feel the impact of the move in our budget as well as in what we bring in/send out as trash. Life is different in a downtown apartment than in an outlying rambling house and yard.

It remains to be seen how green we can be here, and how can I/we make it ever more so. Keep me company while we figure it out, will you? (Oh, please, say yes!)

judge not, and hot water

I’m back at my post after five days in the redwoods, where our little green house sits. This is the house we just bought, using bubble gum, baling wire, rolls of pennies and our winsome smiles. I’ve been masterminding its renovation, getting inspections and starting to paint, buying things like beams and plaster-patching mesh and oddments from the hardware department.

I had to buy a Simpson Strong Tie item with no name, just a number, to hold a large truss and joist in place. I had to buy four of them, in fact, and the one place was out of them and I had to go elsewhere and ask for it by holding out this odd-shaped piece of metal and say, “Gimme two more o’ dese tings.” Want to feel like a dummy? Walk around with unknown pieces of metal in your hand at hardware stores and ask for help from smug salesfolk. The metal-thingies have no name. But they are indispensable. And they cost about $4.50 each, by the way. (I’m not kidding about the no-name. No one knows what they are called. But they all know what to do with it. “Oh, yeah, we have those — wait here…”)

So — cha-ching! I’ve had guys digging into the septic tank and measuring our sludge. I had a creepasaurus with long fingernails inspect our house for termites. Finding none, he ardently tried to persuade me to inject poison into the soil up to 10 feet deep to keep termites out. Prevention, he says. For a problem that doesn’t exist. For only $2,000. Umm. No, thanks. A nice fellow came and changed all the locks. Another nice fellow walked on our roof and we made a deal. Two more took crowbars to our living room ceiling. The roofer came back and addressed his crew to the roof. They left behind a lightweight, yet solidly sheathed house with sparkling new rain-gutters. The little green house (which isn’t green in color, just in spirit) is so pretty now, I could bust.
We’re going to have a new ceiling, new baseboards, new floors, new paint, new light fixtures and a new garden… all underway as we speak, and much of it re-using what we have or what I found on Freecycle. I feel good about the green-ness of it all.
Which leads me to two topics. Judgement, and hot water. One might lead to the other, you’d think. Not necessarily. So there I am in the new house over the weekend, washing dishes by hand, conserving water carefully, using my soap swisher, biodegradable organic soap, second-hand dishes, handmade dish-scrubber and organic cotton knitted dishcloth. My new neighbor (the ones with the trash and hoarding problem) drives up in her minivan and proceeds to unload bushels of groceries in plastic bags: sweet cereal, lots of ramen noodles, Capri Sun drinks, tons of junk food, individually-wrapped snack items. I didn’t see a fresh vegetable in the load, except a large sack of potatoes. I didn’t see any milk.
I just washed my dishes and watched and counted the number of plastic bags and my mind sped along and I —- had to stop. Because who am I to judge her and her choices? Some kind of green goddess? Is it my job to tell a struggling single mother with myriad domestic challenges, not least of which is a husband who she’s just ditched who abused her and the kids and made all their lives hell? Without going into further details, the woman has enough on her plate. It is not my job to change her, to improve her, to show her my golden way. It is my job to love her. It is all our jobs to love her, and the other people around us who frustrate and challenge us. Isn’t it? It is. Go read your (insert holy book of choice here). Then tell me I’m wrong.
We made friends with our new neighbor and offered to help her clean up her yard when we get a Dumpster and she was so excited. We exchanged hellos a number of times over the weekend and it turns out she’s sweet as pie and really making great strides in her own journey. But even if she wasn’t a sweet Cinderella — even if she was boorish and loud and stupid and repulsive — it’s still my job to love her, not to judge her by whatever class, environmental or other status I live by/in.
And so, to hot water.
We are closer to the cycle of water in our new home than in the city, because the source of the water is the river, and the end result of where it goes it the river. Our septic tank percolates into the dirt, runs downhill to the creek that leads to the river. So what we put in, stays in it and will eventually, at the molecular level, get to the river and the ocean. This is a bit daunting. The responsibility is palpable. It would be so easy to slip and send something toxic down the drain — which is why we’ve made the house totally green. So I’m doing my dishes, per above, and I realized how often I reach for the hot water, versus just water, or cold water. Like — so much. I realized that we — I personally and we as an industrialized nation — are addicted to hot water. Must have it for baths! Must have it for cleaning! Must have it for everything! When I rinse off a dish or a vegetable or my hands, I always turn on the hot water. Why? Because it is easy and thoughtless. It’s always there. I tried to notice how much I reach for hot water over the past few days — because it maybe easy and available, but it isn’t free. And I admit, I’m a glutton for hot water.
Try thinking about hauling your water from a well in the yard. Think about walking 10 minutes to the river, then back with a full pail of water. Think about walking five or ten miles daily with one large jar on your head. Think about gathering the wood to heat the water, and when you would use the hot water in that case. And also think about the oil that is pumped x-many thousand miles from here and how far it is shipped, and what it does to the atmosphere to transport and burn fuel on a grand scale so we can use hot water whenever we want to.
When I put it into that context, I started paying more attention to when I really needed hot water. It turns out that cold water does just as much good in most cases as hot. You really only need hot water when you need to disinfect — such as washing diapers, or dishes, or washing your hands after going to the bathroom. But rinsing your hands after cutting vegetables doesn’t require hot water. Rinsing out a glass before refilling it — cold water is just fine. Rinsing dishes before the dishwasher, if you do that — cold water, because the machine will use hot to kill whatever germs are there.

Just something to think about on this (here) gloomy July day.

what’s new, pussycat?

Hi. It’s me. Been busy. Just wanted to poke my head in the back door and share what we’ve been doing. In a word, LOTS.

We are days away from making the offer on the pot house — the gutted, in-foreclosure dump in the West County (Sonoma) that was once a pot-growing house. We’ve been taking measurements, poking through floors and woodwork, calling the county, pacing off boundary lines, scraping together our cash (since it’s a cash-only deal), talking to neighbors, and thinking, thinking, thinking if we can really do it. We think we can.

We’ve been talking with family and friends who have the know-how. My dad has a barn full of stuff: 2 toilets, a bathtub, a sink (I’ll take those, thank you), a barn-sized pile of lumber that is solid redwood, including barn flooring (thank you, we’ll take that, too). My teen/YA daughters have boyfriends who need extra bucks and can swing a hammer. And we have a Boy (that’s free labor right there).
In short, we think it’s gonna be OK, and even though we’re buying a trash-heap, it isn’t toxic, there’s good water, it’s in a great location, and we’ll own it outright. If Mr Husband lost his job, we would be homeless by the end of the month when we couldn’t pay the rent. Once we own this property, as scary as it is, we could at least camp there. It would be something of our own. And it will be an excellent retirement plan for us — to own our own place, whether or not we have income. As long as the taxes are paid, we’ll be fine. That gives us HUGE peace of mind, despite the hard work ahead.

We’re already planning how to reuse and rescue materials. I’m gonna get paint from Freecycle as well as light fixtures, switch plates, outlets, etc. People always have this stuff sitting around in their garages. I plan to haul as much of it as we can get and make use of it. I’ve been checking out books from the library and compiling a “look book” of ideas and plans, like using a table topped with a marble slab as a baking station/counter in the kitchen. I’m willing to take a bet I can put that together for free/cheap, based on Freeycle and salvage. I’m a lifelong baker and a baking table like that would be heavenly!

I could go on but suffice it to say that it will mean changes in the short run — we will likely move out of our big house and into an apartment til The Boy finished high school so we can save on rent and put the extra toward renovations. But all worth it! Fingers crossed…

Don’t hate me but I’ve also been working on the Challenges set forth in January. Here are my updates on those:

1) Fat Ass Challenge. I’ve lost 1 pound. Purely accidental. I don’t know how. I haven’t tried very hard, but I haven’t had soda in almost 2 months so that might have helped. I did just start doing yoga in the mornings this week and am AMAZED at how much better I feel when I do it. And that’s free, btw — class is held in my bedroom before coffee. Later in the year, I imagine my hammer-swinging arm will get ripped.

2) Garden Produce/Tracking: In March I had almost $100 in eggs and produce (herbs, oranges) from our little farm (large suburban yard). The number of eggs has increased as the weather has improved and I am trading a lot of eggs — for citrus, ocean-caught fish (Pacific wild salmon steaks!), worm castings, coupons, etc. I’m sharing eggs now with people who have apricot and plum trees for later in the year trades. I found a kitchen scale in my late great-aunt’s kitchen and now it’s mine, and helping to track produce numbers.

3) Meal Planning: I have not been consistent over the past month, since my great-aunt passed away March 21, and I’ve been cleaning her home of STUFF. I also caught a horrific cold when she passed (coincidence? huh.) and have been fighting it for a month. That’s one way, I’ve noticed, that i deal with emotional stuff — i get sick. So those two things, plus the adventures in real estate, have made meal planning sketchy — BUT… we have not been eating fast food. We have been cobbling meals together rather than do take-out, which is in the plus column. I’m getting back on track on this item though.
4) Coupon savings: Have been very dedicated to this, and doing really well. I’m saving about 50% on everything we buy. Or rather, NOT SPENDING it. There’s no actual “savings” from this, but it leads directly into the next item…
5) $25K savings goal: We passed the $25K savings goal in March and are at about $35K right now. This is not a pile of cash, as mentioned before, but money we didn’t have to spend –> cost avoidance, paying off bills and not paying interest, etc. The items that pushed us over the top were receiving a second car (my late aunt’s) for $1, using Mr. Husband’s bonus to pay off 3 more debts and push a credit card debt down to a small balance, an continuing to add to savings, 529, 401K, emergency slush fund, chasing down rebates, getting every penny back through our Flexible Spending Account for unreimbursed medical, making donations in kind (with receipts), rolling coins…etc. Now I’m wondering if we will hit $50K for the year in cost avoidance/cash not spent. I must say that tracking these spending choices on an Excel spreadsheet helps a lot.

6) All Homemade and No Dryer — I’ve been really good about the Homemade Challenge — I haven’t bought anything that I could make myself. I’m really looking forward to exploding this challenge with the property, if the deal goes through. As for the No Dryer Challenge, I slipped a bit in the last month with three things — 1) I have been sick as a dog, 2) it has rained A LOT, and 3) I have been gone a lot to the West County (Sonoma) to work on my great-aunt’s house and look at property) — so being sick, bad weather and not being home = a dozen loads in the dryer, and I’ll just have to live with that.

That’s all for me for now — I’m reading all comments, just don’t always have the bandwidth to respond. Hope everyone had a wonderful Passover, a blessed Ostara, a holy Easter, a lovely spring and also Happy Earth Day today. And many more…