For Cee’s Challenge: B and W Houses.
Four Houses: Cee’s B and W Challenge
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Category Archives: photos of houses
Inner and Outer: Thursday Doors, Oct 12, 2017
My sister’s beautiful and perfect house brought some surprises this trip. The front door is being replaced, and in the meantime:
(Click on any photo to enlarge all.)
For Thursday Doors.
Christmastime Construction Blues
Christmastime Construction Blues
Two weeks of this insanity,
computer balanced on my knee,
desk packed under a canopy
with all I own? AÂ tragedy!
Two weeks of the cacophony
of saw and chisel harmony.
Two weeks since I’ve been tile-dust-free,
yet still the end I do not see.
I lay here in a reverie,
dreaming of my Christmas tree,
but I fear it will never be
with all this mess surrounding me.
Chafing with the indignity,
IÂ call my contractor, but he
merely tells me “I fear we
must order more tile,”—a travesty!
In boxes are a panoply
of ornaments from A to Z,
yet this year I fear they’ll not be
hung on any Christmas tree!
The prompt word today was “panoply.”
(Click on first photo to enlarge all and see captions.)
The wished for
The reality
Messes forever!
Pooch Pool Promenade
Now that we are recovered from and over the thrill of the Doggie Domain construction earlier this year, I have decided the pups needed a second indulgence.  For 15 years, I’ve been entering and leaving my pool via a ladder really intended for a hot tub, which makes the first step a doozie and upper arm strength a must. Until Morrie arrived, I’ve never thought much about what would happen if one of the dogs fell in the pool.  Although they all hate the water, probably because it is their super-sized doggy water dish and they even resent me immersing myself in it, I nonetheless have pulled them all into the pool enough times to know that when it is full, they can make it to the side and crawl out.  The problem is that sometimes it is half full, because Pasiano empties it half way three mornings a week to allow hot water to flow in from the mineral springs in the afternoon.  In this way, the water is always hot and I use the drained water to water the grass and trees.
At any rate, I’ve always been worried about what would happen if Morrie fell in while it was half full and no one was around. Â Although he’s never fallen in when I’m present, I’ve been told that he did fall in twice while I was at the beach and Pasiano had to jump in to save him. Â I’ve concocted all sorts of safety measures such as a very long extension ladder placed diagonally from the bottom of the pool to poolside or very large pots submerged upside down in the pool, but these are stopgap measures at best and I keep imagining their being removed when I’m not around.
Even more worried than I am is okcforgottenman who has railed and fumed about this, the result being that Chino and Mateo and another worker arrived today to build steps.  Not the makeshift steps that I’d envisioned, but the state-of-the-art, curved tiled steps that will cost about 4 times what I envisioned they would cost but which will be beautiful, functional  and durable.  And, I get to watch them work again, because like the Doggie Domain, the pool is right in front of the sliding glass doors directly in front of my desk. Someone has actually already asked to be let in on the action, so here are the first few shots of their activities. At one point I could hear both workers talking on their cell phones.  One was down in the dry pool laying bricks and the other one was walking up carrying a full two-arms load of bricks with his cellphone pushed up against his ear with his shoulder, talking on it!  You can see him in the third-to-the-last photo, stirring concrete and still talking on the phone!  Ha. They are good workers, just adept at double-tasking. Click on that second to the last photo to catch him in the act! There are also captions if you click on the first photo and view the gallery.
Mateo gets instruction from his dad Chino, above, and moral support from the three dogs.
I leave to go grocery shopping, but Diego remains to inspect that all goes well in the pool repair..
Chino being the maestro. Mateo forming the arc for pool steps.
What’s the pencil for?
Aha.. for the planning of the steps.
Setting the support rod.
Circle within circle.
Double-tasking.
Two hands for the job again.
First row of bricks in.
Bedtime in the Bodoga
 Bedtime in the Bodoga
Frida and Morrie both got new beds today, thanks to Morrie who ate Frida’s old one and has eaten two of his own as well as one of the cat’s beds. He leaves only his idol Diego’s bed alone and sleeps in it whenever he can get away with it, so I bought him one just like Diego’s. (It’s upside down for now with the plastic side up just in case he decides to have an “accident.” (That’s not unknown to happen!) Once he’s a big boy, we’ll put the hot pink cloth side up. (Although it isn’t obvious in this picture, he does still have ears!)
Frida got a big pillow that isn’t even tacky. First one I’ve found that isn’t obnoxious colors or plaid or some other horrid print. At first Frida was suspicious and wouldn’t sleep on or even put one paw on her bed, but as you can see, she is now giving it a chance:
Since Morrie is still being mean to her, Frida gets to continue sleeping in the main house. She should have a few privileges of age. We all should! She now likes her new bed and I think it will be more hair-resistant than her old bed that seemed more like a hair-receiver than a bed.
Here’s Diego, in his same old bed that has made it through six months with Morrie:
The carpenter came today to measure for the shelves and storage bins for kibbles. They’ll have aluminum liners so the mice can’t get in–or the dogs!!! And, they have their own tiny fridge for opened tins of wet dog food and fresh bones, which the vet tells me I have to freeze for two weeks before giving them to them. Do you think the Taj Mahal got this much press when it was being built????
I tried removing the cages and just had their beds in the room, but they were so restless and that was when Morrie ate Frida’s bed, so I’ve put their beds back in cages and they seem much happier. I haven’t been shutting Diego’s door and he hasn’t reminded me to do so. He used to want it shut and locked. Morrie has learned how to open his cage door. Smart little trouble-maker!!! He’s even opened the side that has two locks instead of one.
I think I mentioned before that my friend Dan of Dan and Rhonda fame has dubbed the Doggie Domain with a new name: The Bodoga. (A bodega is a storage room so the bodoga is of course a storage spot for dogs!)
Let me know when you are sick of Doggie Domain (Bodoga) news. I don’t seem to be able to stop myself. I have a cool slide series showing the entire construction process but can’t figure out how to have the last pictures I want to add go on at the end and also I don’t know how to post a video or slides on WordPress. I just now learned how to find the Shortlink and how to post on Thursday Doors! Does the learning curve ever flatten out?????
The Hummingbird Door: Thursday Doors
The Hummingbird Door
Remember this image published a few weeks ago? I promised then to tell the rest of the story later, and here it is, below!
Prized
 Prized
“Prize” has a double meaning—a valuable thing won and to pry away. My most “prized” possession meets both definitions. As the last possession purchased by my husband and me together, it was the culmination of 14 years of doing arts and crafts shows, traveling cross-country and working long hours making the art we both loved. It was also the culmination of our mothers’ lives, since they both passed away in the months before we bought it and it was money we inherited from them that helped us to buy it.
The second meaning of the word came when my husband died before we could move into it. In this way, our home was “prized” away from him much as he was “prized” away from me and our future together.
In the final months of his life, both Bob and I poured all of our future dreams into the house. Because I was the only one of us to actually live that dream, it has been important to me to fill it with all of the beauty that he helped to bring out in me. It feels like an ongoing collage to me, which is why it is important to try to make everything I put into it comfortable, welcoming and beautiful. The newest addition, the doggy domain, is a part of that.
Bob and I bought these male and female terracotta pre-columbian replica sculptures the day we bought the house. We put them in storage when we went to the states to have our moving sale and load up the van for our trip down to move into our new house. I took them out of storage when I moved down alone and they were the first thing of beauty that I put into the house.
prize 1 (prīz) n. 1. Something offered or won as an award for superiority or victory, as in a contest or competition. 2. Something worth striving for;
prize. 2: to extract, detach, or open with difficulty
(In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Pride and Joy.” What’s your most prized possession?)
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 