This is happening

We're going to Italy.

In June for 3weeks. Italy....with Austria and Switzerland thrown in.

Lake Como- Photo via Pinterest

THANK YOU SWEET SPIRIT!!!!!
When I think of it, it's like blinding sparks of excitement rise from my pelvis, up into my belly, heart, throat, hands...
"How can I wait 6 months for this to happen?! I've dreamt of this all of my adult life....travel abroad...and it's in our hands!"
Tickets are BOUGHT!   I have to remove myself from the anticipation...kind of like forcing time to stop so that I can step aside and collect myself, come to a calmness. Let it all sink in. All while urging time to just speed up and get us THERE.  And I want to scream this from the ROOFTOPS!  But I've found I actually feel kind of ...guilty... when I tell people about our trip.  Like the guilt that kept me from using my car seat warmers for the longest time even though I knew I should be enjoying them.  What's up with THAT?  I guess I am feeling incredibly humbled and VERY blessed...

I'm surrounded by maps, travel books, a Rosetta Stone Italian Language program my Bro-in-law gave me (Thanks Mark!!!), my laptop where the Google Gods are always waiting and my "ITALY Trip" Pinterest board already stocked with so many ideas and informative sites.  I'm overwhelmed, but gleefully so!  There's a dazzling amount of possibilities for us over there...I don't want to miss a thing but I know we can't cram it all into 3 weeks!  I'm so glad we decided on adding the 3rd.  Leaves us with more options.... We felt this was do-able since our annual Russian River trip fell through.  We just could not book a site for this summer.

We have a basic idea of what we'd like to do.  See Dylan first and foremost!  We're hoping by then she will be able to get a chunk of time off to spend with us.  We want to explore the area she lives in, road trip and hike in the Alps...South Tyrol...to Innsbruck or Salzburg?,

South Tyrol -Photo via Pinterest

We've gotta get Switzerland in there somehow...., dip in Lake Como, visit Milan's Duomo Cathedral, stay at a hippy/spiritual healing/artist commune in Piemonte, drink wine in Tuscany, the Italian Riviera-hike the coastal trails and pick olives in Cinque de Terre, the HISTORY in ROME! ....oh, my GOD, I'm going to explode!!!

I have a LOT of work to do to set this up.  B and B's, car rental and driving in Italy, finding a house sitter, itineraries.....  The only things etched in stone so far?  A Condor flight for 3 to Venice via Frankfurt.

Photo via Condor Airline

And!................wait for it.....ready?......clench your Kegels, Ladies...... 4 tickets in possession to MUTHER FUCKING PEARL JAM in MILAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Happy scattin' Jeezus jumpin' on a spire, we're going to see one of my top 5 fave bands in fucking ITALY!!!  The nose-bleed seats cost an arm and a leg but We.Are.Going.  I've currently enrolled Willa in a crash course of Pearl Jam 101 to prep her for the show.

Look!  They're in Italian!!!!

This is epic.  This is fucking stone cold  EPIC.  I have waited so long to travel overseas....We are making it happen........mind BLOWN.

EYE-Taly!!!!  FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!

I'm so excited I don't even know what to title this post! BEHOLD the new addition!!!

And suddenly...it was done.  Well, 90% done, but LIVABLE!!!!  Warm, cozy, roomy, sparse (for me), bright and so US.  After 3 years of hard work and plenty of toil we have this glorious room, a pantry ready for shelves and freezer,  an entry to sit and pull off our boots in, and a closet to house all our outdoor gear plus.
 PINCH me.  I feel almost in shock that things are wrapping up so quickly!  We still have a lot of little details to deal with but for now we have a place to dine with family and friends, a floor that is SO comfortingly warm to lay and play on, a sacred space to sit and gaze out at the beauty around us.  I love how new, clean, and uncluttered it all is and I look forward to slowly adding art and personal objects to the rooms as they present themselves.  We have found the new room to be so stunning that it makes the rest of the house look like shit!!!!  Folks, it's like night and day.  So we've decided to take a plunge and knock out the rest in one fell swoop.  By that I mean that we will be finishing the floors in the rest of the house...wood floors in what will be the permanent dinning room, tile in the kitchen and new carpet in the bedrooms...within the next month rather then next summer.  We are big into getting it DONE AND OVER WITH!!!! 
I'm feeling pretty damn fortunate and very proud of the blood sweat, tears, creativity, brains, and love that we put into our new space.

Come on in:

AMAZING meditation spot!!!  Grounded on warm wood and connected to the world outside...

 

Best seats in the house!  But I can't wait to get a sectional in here!

 

The morning sunrise view

 

I'm diggin' our lazy Susan

 

This light is the shit!  First saw these IQ Lights in Vancouver and was STOAKED to find a smaller version on Ebay!  $25!!!  And very fun to put together!  We got the pendant attachment on the cheap at Lowe's as well.

 

 

The latest on the old New Addition!

When we last left off with a New Addition post in April 2011 , Miles and I were dealing with rotten flooring.  The original contractor never bothered to ventilate the effing attic of the garage, giving us a soggy moldy mess of a floor for the addition.  We had to rip it all up, peel out the nasty insulation, and put in new BCIs.

And on and on it goes.  We've had long lulls in progress over the last year, mostly due to the unavailability of funds, but things have been progressing much more rapidly over the last few months!  Not without the usual contractual faux pas, of course.  The latest being that our finishers like to disappear for days or weeks on end without any communication AND when they sanded the drywall last week, they didn't bother to put up a visqueen barrier between the addition and the existing house.  I came home on Wednesday to a house covered in white drywall powder.  Everything, EVER-Y-THING in our main house is under a blanket of white.  Behold:

The electronics...........are supposed to be BLACK.

I am ready to DISEMBOWEL these two guys!!!  We WILL be hiring a profession post-construction crew to clean this shit up ASAP.....paid for by the finishers.  Coming home yesterday with a new TV, receiver and 2 soundbars helped take the edge off this latest disaster, though!

That aside, we are SO close to being able to move our dinning room stuff into the new living room!  All they have to do now is paint.  I'll be painting the arctic entry myself -cuz I've got mad ideas for color-but the rest is up to them.  Once we have the wood flooring in the new and old parts of the house, we'll make the new addition our living room, the current living room will become the new dinning room, and our downstairs room will be the TV room.  THAT will be one chaotic circus of moving shit!  But I think it will also be fun FINALLY getting this house in order and making it NEW again.


The last few months....

Setting up the interior walls



Willa's construction

Wiring up

 

MY work!   Overcame my fears of electrocution and hooked up some outlets

 

Insulation going in.  I will have NO part of this!

Sheet rock!!!  Starting to see glimpses of a finished room!

And, as of yesterday, nearing completion!

Those 2 clowns just rolled into the driveway, so we'll see what today brings!

Weekend warriors!

That's some kick-ass terrain to run on!

We've had some busy productive weekends lately!  Running, beer brewing and bottling, chopping down trees, construction, and school functions...to the point that I'm craving a few hours to just  snuggle on the couch with the cats and a good book on my Nook.  But I'm NOT complaining!!!!  A couple weeks ago, I challenged myself to running 8.5 miles on our hilly road (see photo above).  I'm training to run a 5k, a 1/2 marathon, and possibly a full marathon this summer.  The most I've run on these hills is 6 miles and i wanted to see if I could take it up a notch.  Miles joined me on the run and had planned to head back home after a few miles while I finished the run.  He ran the 8.5 with me and  at that point I was still feeling pretty strong so I decided to tack on an extra route.  We kissed goodbye and I started down a hill...it wasn't more than 10 ten seconds before Miles yelled out, "wait up!  I'm gonna do it, too!"  Being the stronger runner, I was SO happy and proud that he pushed himself with me on that last leg of the run!  By the end of it I was definitely ready to be done!  When we got home I hopped in the car to track to mileage of our run.  It turned out that we ran 11.5 miles that day!  My longest run yet!  I'm feeling pretty happy with my endurance and will... and confident in my ability to run a half marathon right now!
Now might be a good time to update folks on how things have been going for me over the last year running in minimalist shoes.  I am still LOVING my Vibram 5 Finger toe shoes...but it's been a rocky transition.  I'm going to just cut and paste a message I sent to a knowledgeable runner that I admire, detailing my experience these last months with the VFFs- as well as what I felt on this 11.5 mile run.  But I will use this in a second post today so that this one isn't so long.

Miles going up...

Dana going down....

Ewwwwwwwww!!!!

Previous night's
healthy fuel

Previous night's
healthy fuel
 made not so healthy! 

After months at a standstill, we finally started up work on the new addition again and got our main interior wall finished! I was MANICALLY happy to be out there pounding nails! Next weekend we'll be erecting the last 2 small walls and then it's on to powering up the room with electrical.  Slow progress is better then NO progress and I am filled with glee when I get to don my manly tool belt!

Workin on that wall...

Weekends of late

The funnest most awesomey thing to do on the weekend!  Rip up soggy, moldy, useless, because-contractor #1-screwed up-the-physics-of -the-garage roof/new addition floor-oi-yoi-yoi and now we have to start from scratch-ish and re-span/re-whatever, OMG.  Check out all the crap flyin' around....looks like it's snowing.  Eck!  Can you not feel our excitement?  Thank you, that is all.

And here is the remedy for the above angst and hardship:  BREWING BEER

Post-sleepover.  The RARE nap in Mama's arms.  Since toddlerhood, this happens, like, once a year.  Oh, how I reveled in it.

Playing with color

Halibut on the grill for making halibut burgers....fekkin' YUM.

More color play

...as well as lot's of knitting, dvd watching and going on longs runs with Miles.  Running with him is the BEST...chatting, future planning, re-affirmation of a great life.  Ran by a moose silently munching on willow....so glad I have him to share it with.  He's better then an Ipod full of boomin' tunes on a run!

At the office

It's the PERFECT office for the small amount of time that I need it.  A sensual blend of warm lighting, deep heady aroma of coffee, interesting people-watching opportunities, wide space, and walls covered in great art- this month, some of mine!  This place I call my "office" three days a week is the Middle Way Cafe.  I have about an hour and a half between when I drop Willa off at school and when I have to go to work.  I've become very attached to this cafe/art gallery and I've come to really look forward to my cheap cuppa drip and time spent here with my laptop- editing photos, networking, researching my next art venues, FB'ing, and hopefully fitting in more blog perusing.



My spot under the long "s" painting

  It's been awhile since I've kept up with my blog roll and I'd like that to change.  FB is fun but also a major time sucker for someone with Attention Deficit Disorder.  I love that I have been able to keep in regular contact with SO many people that I probably wouldn't if left to just using snail or e-mail...and it's great for promoting my art, but it can also be so vacuous.  I find with spring here and the summer approaching that I'm missing the plethora of fabulous, ideas and inspiration that I have found within my blog list.  I have yet to see if some of them are even in existence anymore!  Life changed so much once Willa started full time school.  Gone were our days filled with little adventures of discovery, creating and crafts.  Abridged versions of these were relegated to the weekends.  I work more, took on an art career, and weekdays have become so much more busy with daily routine-lots of driving and evenings filled with trying to keep some semblance of tidiness in the home, fixing dinner all while Willa re-loads from a busy social day with some solitary play.   And all of a sudden it's bedtime.   I STILL hate not having her at home.  HATE it.  But she is where she needs to be for her age and is thriving and happy at our Waldorf school.  And on the other end of the spectrum, I'm very happy - and surprised -to have launched my art from the kitchen to the walls of local galleries.  And my work at the clinic is enjoyable, too.  But I can't wait for summer and the chance to get back into the rhythm of the "old days".  Morning walks to see what's new and alive outside, little road trips, picnics, creating outside in the sun, challenge hikes, and that spontaneous child-led learning-for BOTH of us.  I have a need to revisit the places where I have learned so much...about myself, about parenting, about the philosophy of the Waldorf environment, natural learning, ...to where such an  abundance of creativity is.  I've let life get TOO routine, and although the struggle to fit more of the past's routines into the now, consistently, is exhausting to someone with ADD, I need to make more of an effort.  It'll be easier when school is out. 
But for now, time to close down, leave my pleasant office and head to work.

Finished Work Friday- My very first art show!!!!!

So last Friday it dawned on me that I should touch base with the owner of the cafe in town that was going to host my first art show. I picked up the phone and dialed. Emblazoned in my mind was OCTOBER. One month to finish about 10 more pieces for the show. One month to get together a good artist's biography and all the description cards that are hung below each painting on the wall. Plenty of time to sign, title, varnish and wire up all the canvases as well as put together a flier and start advertising for a First Friday reception. I hung up the phone after talking with the owner of Jitter's with my mind and heart in my feet. Attention Deficit Disorder had gotten the best of me again, the bastard. Not October. SEPTEMBER. We had scheduled the show for September and he needed everything to be ready to go by 7pm Sunday night. Battling a nasty chest cold and feeling exhausted, this seemed insurmountable. There was no way to back out. How unprofesh would THAT be?!?! But at the same time...what I had envisioned for my first show-enough pieces to warrant the "fireplace" room and a strong First Friday reception- was just not going to happen! I had about 23 canvases but there was NO WAY I could produce 10 more in 2 days! 2, maybe. I gave up the dream of that Perfect First Show and resigned myself to something more on the half-assed side. I downed the cold meds and coffee, tried not to cough up a lung and got to work. With the help of my sweet girls and our neighbor we were actually able to get everything done. We packed up the truck with all the canvai and headed down to Jitter's coffee shop. The owner helped hang it...and I even got the "fireplace room"!!!! Turns out I had just the right amount of paintings! I'm pretty pleased with it....and a friend and I just might do a joint reception next week. He's running for State House so we thought we could do a meet & greet/art viewing type of thing....kind of a weird concept but who knows. Truth be known...I'm a shrinking violet when it comes to having a spotlight focused on me...and even though the people who will show up for this art show are mostly my friends, it still scares the crap out of me. So, since I blew the First Friday thing anyway, maybe doing a joint event will ease me into the whole scene and give me the confidence I'll need for a more "public" FF reception.
For now, I'm just fekkin' thrilled to be showing my work here in town!

(Dea helping with the hardware)

(cutting descriptor cards)

(The aftermath of the art show scramble.....................................and back to peace and calm!)

Work-In-Progress Wednesday, Our new addition!

While I have a few WIP going right now-the weather has been very conducive to painting outside on the deck, FINALLY!!!!-I thought I would digress and show everyone the pretty-much-finished plans for the new addition to our home that we hope to start in the next few weeks. A Work-in-Progress for the past 7 years!

The week after Lo was born in 2004, we broke ground and built our 2 car garage, detached and situated below the house-it's roof about 5 feet from the front door. It has served well as an AWESOME huge deck! The rest of the plans have been in the works ever since. Financial hold ups mostly. After starting the proceedings, we opted out of suing Huz's ex for the 30 grand she owed him in order to simply not invite that negativity back into our lives. It may seem foolish, but the piece of mind it has offered us has been well worth the wait. We knew our time would come...and it seems to be here. Although Huz remains screwed...we've come to this from our own hard work(Huz, mostly, cuz I've been the semi-stay-at-home-mommy) And, hey! Let's not forget about KARMA!!!! Works both ways.
Some of you may recall my 2008 post, "Future Dreaming" about the original designs that were drawn up by our neighbor's son, then a junior in high school finishing up a CAD internship. The plan was to add 2 more floors on top of the garage. Since then, Huz and I have decided to forgo the second floor master bedroom and bath in favor of saving the money for travel outside the US. Although it would be heavenly to have that huge bathtub and walk-in closet....seeing more of the world simply trumps the superficial stuff. We would rather DO then HAVE. But the 1st floor is a must. We need a pantry and a place to store seasonal clothes, blankets, outdoor gear, fish freezers, and the like. We need a proper place to eat. And our current family room will morph into the new dinning room. For the new 1st floor, I'm keeping the focus on socializing sans electronics. We'll have a sitting area and woodstove facing this beautiful view:

On the opposite wall will be the AV wall and computer area. The room isn't large enough to house to separate sofas and ottomans/coffee tables, so in order to watch a movie we'll have to do some sort of fancy switcheroo....like give the sofa a spin and a shove so that it's facing the TV! It's all good. This is Alaska. We do things WEIRD here.

I can't say the plans to finish the addition next month are etched in stone ...but we're close enough to be having a "Say GOODBYE to the DECK" party on June 5th!!!