Edgy Mama

View from my home desk yesterday

Surprise, surprise, the city of Asheville changed their permitting policies, but failed to tell my builder of the changes when he applied for a permit. So when the city’s engineer showed up this morning, the work on my home was forced to a screeching halt.

Because of the steep slope ordinances, which I support fully, now ANY grading, even that on a flat surface that covers only about 30 x 20 feet (my side yard), must be pre-permitted and approved by city engineers before work can start. This was not the case a month ago, but when my guys applied for a permit, they were not told the policy had changed. Oh yeah, and now my builder will be penalized because no one told him the law changed.

So now my guys have to wait for approval, which could take a couple more days, though the permit’s been with the city for over a week. In the mean time, I have a huge muddy hole in my side yard and a huge pile of dirt in the front. We were moving the dirt to a neighbor’s yard, who wants fill dirt, but it turns out we can’t do that without a permit either. Yes, we can dump the dirt into the landfill without a permit, but we can’t move it across the street without one.

  Bad hole! With old oil tank dug out of ground in back.

I think I need a nap.

It took a bunch of researchers to tell us what we already knew: marriage increases the female’s housework significantly! Read my weekly EM column all about it at Mountain Xpress.

Construction on my home started Wednesday.

In addition to DITLOA, Dining Out for Life, my regular work, and kid wrangling, I’m now dealing with fairly substantial construction. I’m excited, though. I love these kinds of projects, and I’m typically not too bothered by a little chaos.

When we moved into this house almost seven years ago, we anticipated adding to it one day. That day has come. Or I should say that eight to ten weeks has arrived. Our home is a 1920s cottage-style home with about 1,600 livable square feet. The addition will add about 600 square feet. Most importantly, it will add a small master bed and bath and a laundry/mud room. Hooray!

I put the project off for longer than I’d hoped because I knew it’d be a  time sink for me. But I think I’m ready. And I’ve certainly had plenty of time to think about what I want to do and how (retrofit, renovate, add on–all as “green” as possible).

I once heard an interview with Christie Brinkley where she was asked, “What the most difficult thing you’ve ever gone through?” Her answer? “Renovating my house.” At the time, I remember thinking that Ms. B was both lucky and spoiled if the most difficult thing she’d ever experienced was renovation. So I’ll try not to whine over the next several weeks.

Here are a few photos, so you too, can follow the process. Or not.

Here’s the old deck on the back of the house. The railing and gate are newish, added when we put a screen and front porch on about 5 years back. This is now gone!

As we removed most of the deck, we discovered that when a previous owner had bumped out the back hall to add a 1/2 bath, they’d rested the entire 16-inch bump-out on the porch. No support whatsoever. And the flooring support was barely enclosed and full of rot and leaking insulation. We’re now under strict instructions not to jump with joy while using the 1/2 bath. At least until we can get this rebraced.

Here’s the door that once led from the kitchen to the back deck. My son now calls it “the door to the deadly cliff.” I like “the door to nowhere.” We’re closing this in to add kitchen storage and a kitchen desk area. We’re also rebuilding the remaining 1/3 deck with Trex (recycled plastic). The area under the deck that’s gone will, I hope become a gravel parking area. Although we have to see if our neighbor (whose house is both a wildlife habitat and a major fire hazard) will let us back our cars two feet onto his part of the driveway.

Oh joy! Anyone else undertaken a project like this before?

I just now submitted my last five photos to Day in the Life of Asheville. Yes, it took me four days to come up with 16 decent photos out of over 700 frames. And yes, more than 1/2 of my shots are of children.

Damn, do I find judging my own photos difficult. Almost as difficult as judging my own writing. But I have editors for the paid stuff, at least.

This has been the most exciting DITLOA ever as the participation has more than doubled! We have more than 50 fotogs submitting, and almost 10 hours remain until the submission deadline.

There are some amazing shots here. If you don’t have time to check them all out, I’ll have a link to the judge’s choices next week. Because there are over 800 submitted photos to wade through.

Thanks to all who participated and all who are watching and supporting our creativity. Wow!!!

This week’s column is on my experience sleep-sharing with one of my two kids. Are you a proponent of the family bed or not?

The first part of Day in the Life of Asheville (DITLOA) is done–the shooting part. And boy are my legs tired.

Folks are starting to choose and upload their shots. To check them out so far, go here.

The Citizen-Times pulled a few that were uploaded by yesterday afternoon for a photo gallery here.

Here’s my slideshow so far. I’ve only submitted four of these shots to the final pool. Choosing my best shots is the most difficult part of the process for me. So I need feedback. Tell me which ones you like and why. Thanks!

Over dinner last night, we brainstormed possible team names for the girls’ softball team.

Any idea how to explain that the Asheville Beavers is not an appropriate name for a team of 8 to 10-year-old girls?

Turns out the boy came up with the most creative monikers, including my favorite, The Fearless Chihuahuas.

My girl likes the name the Asheville Rodents, though she wisely realizes that her teammates might not like it. She’s one of the only 9-year-old girls I know who has a soft spot for rodents. Luckily, our two cats and one dog are reason enough to prevent us from adopting one.

Other team name possibilities are the Cubbies, the Tsunamis, and the Snakes. Like most pre-adolescent girls, they seem torn between being cute and being tough.

I’ll let you know the final name decision after tonight’s scrimmage.

This weekend is all about photography and softball for me–and photos of softball (yes, Day in the Life of Asheville has arrived–or this time, 36 hours in the LOA).

Oh, and tomorrow’s Earth Day. See you at MLK, Jr. park. I’ll be the tired one with the camera and the grumpy kids.

UPDATE: The team went with the North Asheville Cubbies.

Basements are black holes, sucking unloved, unneeded items into their dank, dark, musty maws, and only releasing the items when their masters venture down with whip in one hand and cleaning supplies in the other (and the phone number for Habitat for Humanity).

Here are just a few of the random items I found today while attempting to tame my beast of a basement: two film cameras and five rolls of expired film, 11 Sesame Street and Barney VHS tapes, an ancient bag of pretzels, 80 egg cartons and 15 shoe boxes (might need for craft project one day), a framed photo set of me as a chunky debutante with a horrible haircut and too much makeup, a 12-pack of Corona (yay!), lots of beat-up kids’ shoes, several over-sized mutant crickets (alive and irritable), a vinyl tent to go over a bunk bed (although we don’t own a bunk bed), an aluminum fish roasting dish with the handle burned off, never-used heart-shaped ramekins, and three shredded dog beds.

Sheesh. What’s in your basement?

Visit www.ditlo.org for more information!

I get a bit philosophical in my column this week. Must be the pollen. Enjoy!