faboo mama

Deadline February 19th.

Yep, that’s how much money we need to have to come current on our house.

Sigh.

So, it’s pretty clear, this is our last month in this wonderful place. Obviously, we’ve looked and are looking into our options.  Even thought the mortgage company offers on paper various options, talking with them the past few months has shown that they are really less than eager to actually allow these options to happen.  So, the next 3 weeks will be full of us packing up our belongings, repotting plants that don’t need to be in the ground, and finding a place to stay. That last one is a doozy and kind of paralyzed us.

We got spoiled of being so close to the city without having to actually deal with city traffic and other headaches, so we’d like to stay over here. Besides, the girl is in the middle of Kindergarten and we’re not sure that we’d be able to find another school with an open space in a Spanish dual-language program.  Other options just get more suburban; South Pasadena, Alhambra, Pasadena, etc.  To make it even more daunting, it’s near impossible to find a place to live in 3 months, let alone 3 weeks.  Which leads us to our Plan G: Kansas City.

We may have a free place to stay, but our business is here in CA. Granted, if we find someone willing to take photos for us, we could move anywhere in the world and still keep the business.  And it’s cold there.  I don’t know that 3 weeks is enough time to mentally prepare myself to move halfway across the country into the cold. And then there’s the logistics of moving our stuff to consider.  I don’t know that we can afford to pay a mover, but I do know that we can’t drive a semi-truck through snow-covered mountains.

Hopefully, we will find a working solution soon.  Wish us luck!

That’s right, I won the Easy Green Living book by Renée Loux that was being given away on Seesmic. Want to watch the whole thing? Below is the video of the when Ms. Loux took our questions on what we viewed as important in living “green”:

Yes, that’s not Renée, but if you click on it, you’ll see here (yes, I’m laughing at a pretty frantic email I received).

About a week and some days later, the winner was announced:

I laughed. I cried. I want to thank the Academy…

Then today…the book arrived:

I’m kinda busy with work, but I’ve had a chance to flip through the book and it’s pretty interesting. There are a lot of items in the book that I already own/buy not because of any greenness on my part, but because of price, locality and prettiness/smells. The book is more a shopping guide than a lifestyle guide, IMO, but even flipping through it, it was struck by how many items in the book are things you don’t really need in life. Or the lack of actual greenness of them, i.e. paper towels/napkins. It’s much more green to use cloth towels, and thankfully, the author does point that out. Which brings me to the second cool thing about the book.

Everything is pretty accessible to anyone who can read and shows that you don’t have to drop big $$$ to be green which is stunning to me considering Loux hosts a show on Fine Living. The best part is that Loux does explain why certain things are better than others. Unlike other “green” books, there doesn’t seem to be those not-so-unsubtle judgment calls on your purchases. Take the section on cookware. It’s extremely detailed explaining why Teflon or non-stick cookware isn’t in your best interest vs. stainless steel or cast iron cookware.

Check out the book at your local library or you can find at Powell’s.

That would be me.

We just installed this bad boy today and let me tell ya, as much as I enjoy working my windows to get the perfect cross breeze going, this won’t let in bugs and we can use it at night. Life is sweet. And cool.

Image by fabooj via Flickr

Yesterday, driving in Pasadena we drove past the California Cactus Center (see my blog post on LA Metblog for a review of the store) and dropped in to check it out.  If you’ve ever shopped for succulents or cactus, you know expensive they are.  We saw some really beautiful and small plants that were flirting with the edges of $90!  Happily, they did have 3″ pots that are comparable to watch you find at any nursery, with the added advantage of actual healthy and happy plants.  I already have enough cactus for my small needs and I went agave and echevarria crazy last year.  Now, my goal is more crassula.

But first, this photo is of the baseball plants (Klipnoors) we got, we saw a few of them that were pretty nice and big and $$$, these tiny guys were affordable.  We also got living rock, but the focus are the new crassula, I’ll just post the pics and let you drool:

I can’t wait to put them in their spots and watch them spill over the ground.

How awesome am I? I grew irises all by myself. Sure, you may think, “Big whoop!”, but for someone completely intimidated by bulbs, this is HUGE. I just found out though they only last for like 5 days, so I’d have to say I’m completely unimpressed. After all the planting and 3 months of leaves, 5 days of flowers isn’t worth it. I guess that’s why they suggest you plant them successively.

Live and learn, eh?

Remember this:

Well it looks like this now:

Pretty nice, huh?

You’re jealous of my Best Buy/Ikea themed potting bench/bar/buffet thingy.  And you can’t even seen the ultimate coolness. Adrian actually had a great idea…the top shelf has a built-in planter in the back.  Damn…you just got even greener!  Tomorrow, I’m going to put something up there.

Don’t hate on me cuz my bench is the bombdiggity.

Well, that’s it.  That’s what I finished up yesterday.  I need to get some 3″ screws, so I can put the shelf on top.  Then I’m still trying to decided if I want to add another shelf on the bottom and if so, where?  At any rate, my plan for today is to at least be able to get the first coat of paint on it today.

My hands, back and knees (!) hurt so bad.  I feel like I ran and went to the gym.

I started on a potting bench/bar/buffet.  I should have taken a photo of how much I completed today.  It’s almost done.  I just need to put the top shelf on.  Hijole!  My back is killing me and I think I swallowed a cup’s worth of sawdust.  Of course, it doesn’t help that it was unnaturally windy  either.

I had just finished ripping some plywood, and my driveway was covered in sawdust from other trees I killed pieces I cut earlier in the day.  I sat there gasping for breath after having a serious fight with my circular saw, then all of a sudden the wind picked up.  Oh my goodness!  Sawdust everywhere!  Swirling around furiously, everything shifted 7 feet over, meaning in my cup of water and my soda.  It was in my eyes, my mouth, my hair…my hair!  I stalked into the house, “I am so not moving to Mars!”.  Okay.  It was pointed out that I’d be in a spacewalker if I did move to Mars, but still…I was Making A Point.

Other than that it was all fine, minus the parts where A-Dawg constantly kept saying, “Don’t you want to sand this down?” or “My Dremel can do it.”  Whatev.

And I’m pleased to note that 90% of the bench/bar/buffet is recycled materials.  Most of the wood is from the previous owners, the rest from the scrap pile at the lumber yard.  The screws mostly are also from the previous owners.  So…yay me!  If you’re in LA and have extra wood or stone or brick that needs to be gone, feel free to drop it off at my place.

Tomorrow…pictures!