One Year Later....

And, like a thief in the night, we have returned to Claremont.

We are usually on vacation at the beginning of August, and apparently many of our friends are, too. We have been home for a little over a week and have seen some friends here and there, one or two a day. It's a stealth reentry.

As a note to self for our next sabbatical return: it takes about a week to get the house in order and to get back into the right time zone. Even if the house is perfectly clean (and it was pretty clean this time), we still have to find all our boxes and unpack and then realize that we still should have thrown away many things before we left. The march to Goodwill continues.

For the second year in a row we celebrated our anniversary in Claremont with dinner and a movie. This year we saw Shaun the Sheep and then had dinner at the new Sanamluang Cafe on Indian Hill. While the food was delicious and plentiful, the decor very nice, the experience left much to be desired. The bill came while we were still eating, and when I was still putting food into the takeout box, they tried to remove my plate. The acoustics are bad, so it was very loud inside, even though it was not full. I will try it again for the food, but perhaps I will try to slow down the service.

Housing in Zurich

The morning's email brought us these two photos, complete with descriptions and floor plans as the choices for housing for our upcoming Zurich sabbatical. Many things excited me about this information. First, both of these apartments are easy walking distance to the ETH (the Swiss Federal Technical Institute) and the Hauptbahnhof (main train station). This is very important as we will be car-free for the year and plan to make good use of public transportation. Also, we have learned that most grocery stores and other stores are closed on Sundays, except for the stores in the train station. If you want an idea of the mall at the train station, check out the website here.

Also, this makes sabbatical so much more real to us. I'm getting even more excited!

Training People, Part 2

In getting ready for sabbatical, we have now posted information about our house rental with the colleges. In two days I've already gotten responses, but none are making me excited about renting to them. (I had other problems when we last rented out our cottage….)

1. "I'm calling about your house you have listed for rent. Is it available?" "It will be available in mid-August." "Oh, not now?" 

Tip #1 - When calling about an advertisement, make sure you read it through before bothering someone.

2. This email ended with a very strong religious message. 

Tip #2 - Don't advertise your religion. Do I really have to say this?

3. This email told me why our house is perfect for them. 

Tip #3 - I'm glad we might be able to help you, but the real question is, why should we rent out our home to you? I need a compelling reason to know you will take excellent care of our home.

4. This email used no signature. Just thank you (no punctuation). The follow-up email asked how much "would the rent come out to be". (This is an email from a college student.) Again, no signature. 

Tip #4 - Please use common courtesy in your emails. Then refer to Tip #1.

I will be very happy when we find the right people to live in and love our home while we are gone.

Pitzer President's House

The Pitzer President's House has been under renovation for about a year now, and this past week it appears that the family may now be living in it once again. It was completely gutted and substantially added on to.

February 2013

Part of sign on fence detailing the house history

November 2013 after the fence was removed

Nearly done, Feb. 2014

Voila!

Another New Appliance

Out with the old....

In with the new!

Joys of Home Ownership

The photos below are not for the faint of heart….

If you are like me, and you have a dishwasher, you probably don't look at it too closely. But a few days ago, I noticed a spoon had slipped out and when I reached to get it from the bottom of the dishwasher, I noticed that the part that traps the gunk was, well, disgusting.  Since we seem to like home projects on holidays, we (read I) thought it would be a good idea to dismantle the appliance and clean it out but good before the onslaught of Thanksgiving dishes. It took longer than I thought it would, and we couldn't completely take out the bottom part, so I had to improvise on how to clean between the thingies. First I worked on it with a screwdriver, then H thought I should squirt water on what was leftover with the water pik from the bathroom. Then we ran a few short cycles with distilled vinegar.  In the end, it was 95% cleaner than before I started, so I was happy. I think I'll check on it more often now...

Before

Disgusting

Much better!

Clutter Cleanse

After the summer I rather petered out on my "get rid of one item a day" binge, but over the weekend I think we made up for several months' worth of items. Besides donating our second tv (it was in the bedroom and we hardly watched it) we had about 6 bags worth of clothing and a some miscellaneous stuff, including two very old digital point-and-shoot cameras. 

For the Record

This year, we turned on the furnace on October 29, a few days before my arbitrary goal of November 1. It will warm up later this week, but since I have people coming over to play instruments today, I didn't want to chill them (and me) out.

Pedestal Sinks

I know that we justified our cable subscription because we wanted to watch sporting events (Oregon Ducks Football, the Dodgers), but I also knew that I would spend a little too much time watching HGTV. And now that the summer days are still stretching out before us, it's way too easy to watch a few shows in a row.

Now that I've confessed, I have to say that even though these kinds of cute pedestal sinks appear in renovations, I would not choose one for my house. Although my sink top is not cluttered, I do like to keep a few things on it for easy access (like toothbrushes and paste and hand soap).

Iowa

We landed at LAX last night to the hottest temps in So Cal for the year (so far). When we left for Des Moines on Wednesday I expected to land in a sauna there, but, instead, we were treated to lovely temps, changing clouds (along with some winds and bugs). Our daughters had not seen their grandfather in 5-6 years, our son-in-law had not met the grandfather, so we knew it was time for a family reunion. The sister and brother-in-law drove up from Texas, and along with grandmother, sister, and Anne, all eleven of us were together.

Apparently, no trip to Iowa is complete without a stop at the Heart of Iowa Store in Historic Valley Junction. H feels compelled to bring his summer research students a bit of Iowa, and this year he had hoped that he could find the little pig that, when squeezed, would bulge out its eyes and poop out some jelly beans. Such a fine item was not to be had this year, so he settled for cow pens with eyes that light up and moo sounds.

Lest you think that there are only such silly items in the store, rest assured that you can also purchase such lovely pottery items as seen above, and a variety of food items.

Also on the docket for Thursday was a visit to West End Architectural Salvage in downtown Des Moines. I had seen one of the shows on HGTV about this place and was curious to check it out. I am sure that most in our group were just humoring me, but when we entered, we were immediately hooked with the variety of antiques - some beautiful, some not so much, some already repurposed, some waiting for love. I don't know how much time we spent wandering and taking photos, pointing and laughing, but it ended with coffee drinks at the little cafe on the first floor.

I was taken with these typewriter bracelets, but not with their price tag. A quick view through Etsy proved that West End is not the only place, by far, that makes jewelry from old typewriter keys.

Adventures in Major Appliances

Our washing machine broke this weekend. It wouldn't spin, and the problem was not the belt. After tipping it over and pulling it apart, H decided that it was the clutch and the part alone would cost $300. We bought the machine in 1998, so I guess it had a good life.

Poor old machine can't be revived

I asked my friends on Facebook what machine they have that they like, and it seemed that half the people hated front-loaders and half loved them. That wasn't helpful. I looked online. That was equally confusing. Then I found out that there are these new hybrid machines that are high efficiency, but are also top-loaders. Again, these kind of machines got either very high or very low reviews.

I finally decided that we should look at the Whirlpool Cabrio, and we looked at Lowe's and Howard's. The guy at Lowe's was fairly helpful, but when we walked into Howard's, it didn't appear that anyone wanted to sell us anything. They pointed us towards the hybrid washers and left us alone. We went away for a bit and then decided that the price at Lowe's and the particular model were the best bet, so that's where we went.

Here is where Lowe's failed at this point (even though we ended up buying the washer there):

• No one came to help us for 20 minutes. As we walked out, someone finally came by.
• They did not tell us that we could get rebates from the Electric and Gas companies (we saw a little sign on the washers at Howard's). This amounts to $135. Major fail.
• They said they would call that night to schedule the next-day delivery. They did not.
• They did not call the next morning. I called them and got quite a runaround on the phone.
• They finally said, "Oh, they'll deliver between 6-8 p.m." But they might be early.



New machine ready to be installed

• They delivered at 3:00. Good thing I was home.

So, I've read the novel that came with it and seem to have successfully washed two loads of laundry. It requires special detergent (HE - High Efficiency) and a college degree to load the clothes and push the right buttons, but I think I've got it.

Time will tell if I will be in the love it or hate it camp, but I do like the idea that it uses less than half of the water than my last washer, and it spins pretty fast so the clothes take less time to dry. This little video demonstrates the strange sounds it makes in the wash cycle.

Thoughts On Clutter

So, I have been blogging about getting rid of clutter for a month now, and here are a few observations.

• I have made one big trip to Goodwill to donate this month, and I have another load on the back porch that will be ready to go in a week or two.
• It's helpful to do one item a day; that means that the task does not seem unsurmountable. However, it does drive home the point that the task is unending.
• The older I get, the easier it becomes to let go of some items.
• I have so much stuff.
• Some days it's easy to find a whole group of items to eliminate. Some days it is hard to think of one item.
• Blogging about this has kept me honest for a whole month. (Some days I sort of cheat when I do find 2-3 items at once and then spread them out for 2-3 days. I still feel that adheres to the "spirit of the law.")
• I think I do not need to publicly announce all my items anymore, but I plan to keep a list for myself to maintain this practice. I will probably continue this for more than a year.

Spring Cleaning Year-Round

This will not be your typical Easter post, although it takes place on Easter. A few days ago I was trolling the internet for something (don't remember what), and came across this blog - clutter365.com. My faithful readers might remember posts (and posts) I've written about getting rid of stuff, and I feel that now, even more than usual, I am ready to purge. First off, it is spring, and although Easter is not the new year, spring always feels like a new start. Second of all, even though sabbatical is still about 16 months away, the sooner I can get rid of stuff, the better.   

While getting out things to put on the Easter dinner table, I ran across these little votive candles. I may have used them once or twice, but I have no idea when the last time was. I still have a few other candles around, so when we want to have a little ambiance, we can. So, these have made it to the back porch which is purgatory for stuff waiting to be donated.

Perhaps I will end each blog post now with an item that I am purging that day. I do not feel the need to devote an entire blog to decluttering, because if you google 365 Clutter Blog, you will find more than one person has done so. Wouldn't want to clutter the internet with redundancy, now, would I?

Art in Unexpected Places

Yesterday H walked in with blog fodder in the form of this large framed Ansel Adams photo of El Capitan in Yosemite. That he would just walk in with such an item was somewhat surprising (in a good way), but the fact that he admitted where he acquired it was more of a surprise. Apparently this art was in a dumpster at the colleges, just begging to be rescued.

Now, I have no problem at all of saving items from landfills. When we were grad students and pregnant with our first child, I saw a changing table being thrown out (next to a dumpster) and after recovering it, I used it through two babies before donating it to some thrift store. However, I was ribbed endlessly about this changing table by the father of my children, even though I never actually pilfered through trash to get it.

Of course, I would have grabbed this Ansel Adams if I had seen it, and now we have to find a place to hang it so we can enjoy it every day.

Clearing Out

Perhaps in anticipation of going on sabbatical, perhaps because it's a new year, perhaps because we have a holiday, today we went into the garage to see what we could get rid of. I have been bugging H about the lumber in the corner for, oh, let's say many, many years now, and for some reason, he thought now might be a good time to clear out. I did not want to discourage him.

We are going to see if the Habitat Restore is interested in picking up these usable items to keep them from a landfill, and perhaps help someone out. We always look for the win-win-win situations.

Last week we took a pile of stuff to the LA County hazardous waste roundup in LaVerne, spurred on by the stuff we found on this blog post from October. It seems as though we never run out of things to get rid of. How can this be?

Instant Hot Water

In our continuing effort to conserve water and energy, H installed a hot water circulating pump in the bathrooms and kitchen. When the pump is working, we get nearly instantaneous hot water from the faucet/shower head so that we don't have to run the water for a minute or more waiting for it to get hot. At first he had it set on a timer to run for several hours in the morning. Then he figured out how to use a remote control to turn the pump on and off. Now, when we turn it on, we wait for 1-2 minutes before turning on the tap, and we get our hot water.

In order to remember to turn it back off when we are done, we have devised a system. After turning on, we turn the remote control upside down, and when we turn it off, we flip it to the right side up, as seen in this photo.

Packaging

When I swapped my music room with H's study in the summer, it did not occur to me that the two little wall sconces would not be adequate light for reading music when it was dark outside. On days when I teach my private students, it is now dark for the 4:30 lesson, and that sent me right to the internet to see what kind of floor lamps would be good.

I found a great lamp for cheap at Target and found that it was only available online, so I ordered it. It came right away, but it took me a good 15 minutes to free it from the styrofoam packaging, and then I needed to take the vacuum to a 3-foot radius around the box to catch all the free-floating bits.

Here is what the packaging looked like mid-unpacking.

Here is the finished product (which now does have lightbulbs).

For the Record

We woke up to a house that was 62 degrees, so we turned on our furnace for the first time this year. It is our brand new energy-efficient furnace, and it's very quiet.

Halloween in the Attic

Now that the furnace and air conditioner and new ducts are in, it's time to retrofit the attic. Today this is the scene at our house with lots of dust flying. Now I see where more of the cobwebs are hanging.....

Cleaning Out

One of the parts of the energy retrofit of our house required making the air intake larger. We chose to do that in a place under our stairs where we store cleaning supplies. Because of its awkward location, we rarely look back there, and we usually just grab a rag or the Windex or a new vacuum bag. 

So that the guys could work back there uninhibited, we removed all the stuff and were amazed (we probably shouldn't have been) at the amount of stuff back there (insecticide we almost never use), several bottles of glass cleaner, things to clean stuff I don't think I've ever used. From the days when we used to have carpet in most rooms, we have nearly two gallons of carpet shampoo. After posting on Facebook about this, I have a taker for the shampoo, and the rest of the stuff will have to wait for a hazardous waste round-up. 

If we haven't used it in the past, um, 5-10 years, will we really need it?