hiking report 5

previous hiking reports: 2014/11  4, 2014/01/  3, 2013/07  2, 2012/11  1.

1 January – Discovery Park, south beach loop

• 4 miles with D in a backpack
• Rennie, John, Drew, Jack, Cari, D

4 April  - Licorice Fern trail on Cougar Mountain

• Jack, D, Cari
• 3 miles out and back with D in the backpack
• http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/licorice-fern

 

31 May – Soaring Eagle regional park, Sammamish

• Cari and D
• 2 miles in the northern part of the park
• http://your.kingcounty.gov/ftp/gis/Web/VMC/recreation/BCT_SoaringEagle_brochure.pdf
• fragrant, pretty forest, flat
• D stayed awake, talked, played with my hair and was even quite for a little bit

6 June – Liberty

• to entice D to nap while camping during the family work party, Jack and I hike 3 miles
• hot, dry and dusty, but still pretty

4 July – Deception Pass

• 2.5 miles around goose rock
• Stacy, Keith, Tiffany, Johnny, Lincoln, Harper, Jack, Cari, D
• Jack and I walked another 1 mile down to cranberry lake and back with D

26 July - Tiger Mountain Trail north

• Cari, Jack and D
• D said “big” with his arms spread wide, six or seven times, turning 180°, to encompass the whole forest.  This was a sweet moment.
• Jack scared the crap out of D by jumping out from behind a tree at us.  D squealed and immediately signed “more”!
• 6 miles and D walked a little bit of it

onward and upward

Our house has a third floor, and we finally got to go up there this morning!

construction: month four

 previous posts: September, October
The November post never happened so this one covers quite a lot of progress.  Since late October, they have framed out the basement interior, framed level one, installed four steel beams and framed level two.  They’ve also done half of the backfill around the basement.  I think they’re holding out on the second half of the backfill so that they can have an excuse to keep the alley blocked off and use it as a staging area.  We have such a small “yard” that they can’t even fit the building materials in it.


Level one floor (with tracks for radiant heat) and walls


Installing the beams


Level two



The last few weeks also brought a lot of rain, as you may recall.  The basement flooded several times because the drains are not yet connected to the sewer.  It’s supposed to be okay, but it’s not a pleasant sight.


The current timeline says it will be done in June.

owner provided

Our construction contract specifies many fixtures and all of the cabinetry as owner provided.  This gives us some cost savings (about %15) and a lot more control, for longer.   However the time for final decisions is fast approaching.  

We recently spent a grueling afternoon at IKEA and the appliance store and Jack has done more modeling of the kitchen cabinets.  We have also picked a floor and some material colors though we still have more decisions to make. 

The highlight at IKEA was discovering some of our chosen cabinet fronts in the as-is room for something like 75% off.   Now they are in D's closet.  

We also ordered one of the kitchen sinks from China.  It was extremely hard to find and I worried it would disappear.  Naturally we are storing it in the extra bathtub. 

the return

I’ve read several articles in the last few years on the relatively new field of happiness research.  If what they say is all true, I’m about to get a lot happier.  Sometime in 2016 my favorite sister will be moving to Seattle!
Having a sibling, especially a sister, and especially one who lives close by provides a major happiness boost!  She left for college over half my lifetime ago and I can’t express how excited I am that she is coming back!
This is made possible by my brilliant brother-in-law’s acceptance to a fellowship program in Seattle.  We’re so excited to see more of both of them!

reflecting on apartment living

 

Last weekend D and I sat on a couch in our building’s cozy lobby and watched the Seattle Marathon runners speed by our window in the brisk morning air.  That tradition and all of the holiday events downtown are making me a little be nostalgic-in-advance for our time living downtown.   What’s more, as we pick out colors and floors and feel closer than ever to finishing our house, I’m reminded of all the perks of apartment living that we’ll soon miss.

• parking place:  On rainy days like this it is so nice to stay dry while loading and unloading the car.   Our future neighborhood also has a fair amount of car prowling so we won’t be leaving anything of value (or that looks like it might be of value) in the car, except for D’s car seat :)
• tiny trash trek:  I love not knowing for certain when the trash, recycle and compost are picked up.  Also, recycling large quantities of cardboard from Costco and Amazon is a not (much of) a problem.  Lastly, a trash chute is a big benefit to the diaper changing set.  Who needs a special diaper trash can when you can easily get rid of small stinky trash bags so conveniently? 
• winter warmth:  In the winter we never really get that cold.  D still doesn’t sleep with covers very well, but it’s okay.  When he was a newborn, I was never tempted to put a hazardous hat on him either.  This winter coziness does translate to nearly unbearable summer heat, so that’s the tradeoff.
• cat corralling:  Emo has no desire to leave our apartment, but many cats do, and going out the apartment door is no big deal for an adventurous indoor cat.
• protected packages: In our building, packages are delivered to our apartment door, package lockers or to a shelf by the mailboxes.  It’s impossible to say which option will be used, and I’m not ordering to the building much over the holiday season after my experience last year, but all of these possibilities are better than just leaving a package out on a wet, highly visible doorstep.  We’re going to have to figure out some alternative once we’re in the house.
• small space simplicity:  This covers all kinds of changes we’ll experience once we are living in a house again.   Yes, we are looking forward to things like the possibility of one person sleeping in a little bit when the noise from D and breakfast can be a little bit farther away or even to both of us working from home at the same time.  But, there are a lot of perks to having a smaller space.  We’ve never needed a baby monitor.  It’s easy to do laundry while working on something else.  When things are misplaced, they are never far away.  When it comes to parenting tasks, it’s easy to get help with a disastrous diaper or the delivery of some needed item because the other person (when home) is never out of earshot.  I think we’ll be a bit lonely when we’re on different floors of our tall futurehouse.

Illinois wedding

 

Three weeks ago we spent a long weekend in Illinois to attend Jack’s cousin’s wedding and to visit with family we rarely see.  We also met up with my aunt and uncle, who coincidentally live fairly close to most of Jack’s family. 

Aside from the wedding, we didn’t do much, which was a wonderful break.  We got more sleep and did more reading than is normal.  Small town America also offered several other perks that are hard to come by at home:

• I had a walk-in hair cut that I’m happy with for $20, which I’d been meaning to do for months. 
• Similarly, we walked by a jewelry shop and a nice lady took a link out of my watch band for $5 with no waiting.  It has been surprisingly hard to get this at home.  Near us are three types of jewelry stores that don’t suit me.  Downtown has glitzy diamond stores that scare me a little bit.  The International District has store with no web presence.  So, I called one and the person who answered the phone didn’t speak any English, as far as I could tell.  Then there is the Central District.  I walked in to one store (actually I had to be buzzed in), and waited a few minutes behind a much more promising customer who was fondling the biggest roll of bills I have ever seen and sporting diamonds in every orifice I could see, before I decided I didn’t have time to wait.   So I was pretty happy to get his done in Illinois.
• Lastly we got to rake dry crunchy leaves.  I used to like raking leaves but we live in an apartment and my parents don’t have any leaves to rake any more either.  It was different from raking the soggy brown bran flake leaves of my PNW youth.  D got involved too.

This little girl wanted to dance with D but he wasn’t ready for that.  He was ready to say “cheers” a lot.

 

We were pretty worried about the flights but D was a champ.  He only napped 25 minutes on the day we traveled there, but still didn’t melt down.  He’s a good boy.  At 18 months, our flight recommendations are:

• fabric busy book
• stickers
• play dough (also for restaurants)
• crayons
• snacks at take off and landing and while buckling him in to his car seat

Happy Halloween!

 

 

 

 

 

construction: month two

 

Previous posts: September

Over the last month, the foundation was completed (including radiant floors, plumbing etc) and framing of the basement began.  Jack caught one potential mistake related to insulation in the foundation before it happened.  We’re lucky be able to visit the site so often.

vexillology

I came across this delicious new word recently in a novel and it stayed with me because I was once a young vexillologist. 

Vexillology: the "scientific study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags or, by extension, any interest in flags in general". The word is a synthesis of the Latin word vexillum ("flag") and the Greek suffix-logia ("study").

I started collecting national flags when I was about eight and my collections, which I believe is my parents’ basement, grew to about 50 flags.  My dad made me some holders that we mounted to the wall and they were quite nicely displayed.  I had a t-shirt and poster of all the national flags on my wall.  I do not, however, have a picture of my collection.

While we’re on the subject of vexillology, let me share two flag related tidbits that I learned in the past few weeks. 

One, New Zealand will be voting next year on whether or not they will change their flag to something more representative of their culture.  Since their flag is pretty unoriginal, I would support it, though I don’t like the designs that look more like logos than flags.

Two, the Union Jack has directionality to it that I’d never noticed.  Flying flags upside down was a nautical distress signal that didn’t work very well for the Brits.

sailing season

 

In second grade, in my autobiography, I proudly wrote that I could drive a boat.  At that point, driving only meant the act of steering with a tiller so I was telling the truth.  However, the more I learn, the more responsibility that falls under the umbrella of “driving,” so I’m still working on it.

Over the past seven months, I sailed out of Shilshole in Ballard quite a bit.

• 2 social sails
• 4 full days of sailing for sailing classes
• 3 practice sails with the women’s team
• 13 races

Although I’ve been on sailboats since I was a baby  (see picture of my first cruise at 6 months), I learned a lot this year. 

I took the ASA 101 and 103 classes.  In the 103 class I learned a lot about the engine, docking and dropping anchor.  I think most of my apprehension about docking was really a lack of comfort with engines.  I feel a lot better now and hope to practice more over the winter.  In the 101 class I refreshed my knowledge of the points of sail and rights of way and some terminology. 

Racing was a good experience, though we were not very competitive.   We had an all women’s boat of 5-7 people and we did noticeably improve our process, if not our results.  For your amusement, here’s a list of all the reasons we Did Not Finish races:

• grounding – This was a regrettable first race but we got off on our own by heeling and turning on the motor.  It was in mud and there was no damage, thankfully.
• seasickness – We had to take someone back just before the start though it turned out to be food poisoning.
• over early – We crossed the line early along with a bunch of other boats.
• radio off – The committee boat had to leave to rescue someone and we failed to radio in our finish time.
• wind too strong – We weren’t allowed out once.
• ridiculous spinnaker tangle – We had to keep sailing downwind, without crossing the finish line when the spinnaker got tangled in the jib roller furler.    It took four of us about 15-20 minutes to untangle it.   No one fell overboard and we didn’t have to cut any lines, but dang it was a stressful mess.

To our credit, we did not have any accidental jibes or collisions.

Highlights were some really good starts and spinnaker raises/douses, seeing improvements, a few experienced guest crew members (including my dad once) and the beautiful scenery.  I saw many sunsets, some dolphins, and daredevil kite boarder that buzzed the back of several boats.  It hardly rained at all.

play Development Dead Zone

Next time you are walking in downtown Seattle, I invite you to play a new game I came up with.  To play, stand on any sidewalk in the city, where you can see at least two blocks in to the distance (no hiding in alleys).  Slowly turn in a circle, looking high and low, and if you can’t see a building under construction or a crane, you get 10 points.  That’s it.  Get out there and try it!  I haven’t scored any points yet, but I’ll keep trying.

Even though I am well aware of how much development is happening, I am still regularly astonished by it.  Here’s a snapshot of where large projects are underway in our neighborhood.  For a ongoing updates, check this site.

Here are a few recent pictures, from the Yesler Terrace project where they are rebuilding several blocks all at once, and Occidental Park, which will have a big impact on Pioneer Square.