MHA Loan Modification and the Missing Roof

It's been a while.

The roof is still missing although I did get a contractor to come out and remove the twisted metal and put down some protective stuff over the plywood. It has been 3 weeks since the storm. The adjuster finally came and now we are in the midst of trying to get the generous check endorsed by both our 1st and 2nd mortgage company. They will then dole out the money in small amounts, send an inspector (to verify that we are indeed repairing our house instead of pocketing the insurance money), overall I think we may have our roof repaired by March or April. I am not joking. Apparently Bank of America's idea of protecting their investment is to leave the house without a roof as long as possible. If I could just cash the check and have $20,000 in cash to flash in front of a contractor I would have the roof fixed by now, but NOOOOOO that's not the way it works. I guess some families would just keep the money and live with no roof? WTF?

In bigger news, while I was on hold with the mortgage company trying to report our insurance claim, in listening to the sales pitches on hold I learned that my family does indeed qualify for the fabulous Making Home Affordable Program. Yea!!

We fully qualify for a loan modification. The process is long and arduous. I have filled out all the paper work, copied tax returns, bank statements and profit and loss statements for the businesses (yet another reason why I have not been blogging), bundled everything up and sent it off certified mail. Now all we ahve to do is wait up to 45 business days, 9 weeks, to find out what Bof A is going to offer us. If they do what they are supposed to do our loan payment plus taxes and insurance will be under $2500/month. That would be such a load off.

Now before some of you hard core Republicans and other banking nuckleheads start reading me the riot act I want to put in my two cents on the whole loan modification thing.

1. We don't have a weird loan. We put down a full 20% when we bought this house in 06. It is a regular loan with a fixed interest rate. We qualified for the loan and had the income to support it when we bought the house.

2. We cannot sell our house. We bought it for $680,000 and currently owe about $580,000. According to Zillow our house is worth somewhere between $450-480,000.

3. Our income has decreased significantly due to the banking industry shutting down all loans and the housing market collapsing. I therefore fully blame the banks for our lack of income. Two of our businesses are related to housing and construction. My architecture business is dead because no one is building at all. Our check cashing business is down 60% because none of the plumbers, drywallers, painters, etc are working or cashing checks.

Due to the above points I fully believe that we should take advantage of the MHA program. I'll keep you all updated on the progress and see if we get screwed around with by Bank of America this is where I will air their dirty laundry.

Till next week.

Flagstaff Blizzard

This has been my week so far. Very Shitty to say the least.

One of the worst nights of my life was Monday December 9th. The blizzard was predicted, so we were somewhat prepared, but it was worse than we thought it would be for us in particular.

School was let out early and all parents were instructed to come and pick up the kids since the busses would not be running. Luckily I had just made a run to Sams Club and picked up all kinds of crap in addition to buying batteries that I had no idea how much we would need later.

We all went to bed as usual, but I was still awake when it all started to go down at 11:00 pm. The power went out since the wind was howling around 30-40 mph. Then the fire/smoke alarms went off and continued to go off for the next 6 hours. Obviously all the children woke up in histerics and Carl pulled on some pants to see what he could do to stop them which turned out to be nothing at all.

The alarms are hard wired. While the power was out we could take out the batteries of the alarms downstairs that we could reach, but the upstairs 16 foot vaulted ceilings we could not get to since the 20' ladder is stored outside under the porch.

We moved all the kids downstairs to sleep on the couch where it was somewhat quieter and I put big hats on all of them to try and protect their eardrums.

I even called our local fire house and they had no idea how to turn off the alarms. Once the power wnet back on all the alarms started going off again since they had power. Carl even ventured out in the now 60 mph winds and blowing snow to turn of the main power and that didn't even work.

Somewhere in the midst of all this we heard a loud creak and were suprised to see that a huge piece of our roof ripped off. I was scared to death to see where the peices had landed since we couldn't see a thing out the windows due to the blizzard.

We woke up the next morning and this is what we saw. State Farm has been anything but helpful in getting it taken care of. We have been told it could be a week before a claims adjuster gets out here. Awesome. They really know how to get shit done. In the meantime I'm trying to find a contractor to come and get the loose pieces off the roof and tyvac the thing before the next storm hits on Friday.

This could be the thing that takes our house from us. I don't have the $4400 deductable to get it fixed. The credit cards are maxed out and I am at a loss as to what to do. I'm trying to be cheerful, but this is not going to be a good Christmas.

Oh and did I mention that we also need to replace our garage door. Carl closed the door again after one of the kids left their snow shovel in the jamb and it bend and shattered all the glass in the door.

This is the best week ever.

Holiday Update

I know I'm slacking off. The kids have been home too much lately and it is so distracting. It's like they want to be entertained constantly. It's strange that a playroom full of toys, every movie and vidoe game known to man, 250 DirecTV channels, and even a neighborhood full of kids their own age is not enough for them. I have to constantly feed them, look at what it is that they are coloring, building, watching, referee continuous battles over red crayons, lego guys, and tv channels. I can close the door to my office, but as soon as I do someone comes in and wants to sit on my lap or wants another snack. So I give up and just sit with them and stay in the middle of it all and get nothing done.

I tried the NaNoWri Mo, but failed. I got up to 23,000 words out of 50,000, but I fell off track when the kids and I got sick mid-month. I had previously thought that I was going to spend the month of November just and only focusing on my rugs, but trying to split it between that and writing for 2 hours a day didn't work. So for the next three weeks I am all rugs all the time and will come out the week before Christmas with a brochure of some sorts that I can take down to Phoenix or mail to architects and interior designers in January. I have to do it. My goal is simply to make people aware of what I am doing. I'm going to start tufting rug #2 this week, and like I said work on some promotional materials to get the word out.

I hate that kind of stuff, but I have to start somewhere and let people know that I am a rug maker and an awesome designer.

It's Like Magic

Check this out........ I can now add photos from my digital camera. After talking about it forever I finally have it up and running. Basically it came down to finding the drivers for our really old Canon Rebel. I found it!!! I installed it!!! I am not mentally challenged, it just took me forever.

Here's an awesom shot of one of my little ones at the Grand Canyon.

Here's another one of my little architects and their back yard forts.

And just for fun here is my dear husband in his cracker hat riding around in his cracker car, the old Ford.

It's like a whole new world has opened up. It's totally blowing my mind. Pathetic huh?

Sick with the Flu?

I'm sick and I am running a fever for fourth day in a row. I'm doing the best I can with a cocktail of Extra Strength Tylenol, Mucinex DM, and Nyquil. So far so good. I have no idea if this is the regular flu or the Swine flu. All I know is that I'm sick and I hate being sick. Yesterday it hurt to look at the TV. That is really sick for me. All I could do was listen. Today I'm up and trying to work thru the pain. I'm actually wearing pants and going to try and go thru the motions of a regular day and not give in to the sickness. That usually helps for me. I gave the flu two full days to drag me down and now it's my turn. The kids still have to go to school when I"m sick, dinner still has to be made, and laundry still needs to be folded.
Today I'm catching up and moving forward. I'm going to try to kick ass and take names.
Until Wednesday.

I Always Get What I Want

It's completely done!! Now I just need someone to buy it or a place to sell it. I now have 3 rugs in my entryway. Too many? In most houses yes, but in my house, no, not at all.

I'm excited. The rug is a little rough on the back, but it was an experiment. The canvas is too heavy. The next one I'm going to use something called monk's cloth that is lighter and less dense. For a first try I think it's pretty damn good. It doesn't have to look good on the back anyway. It's the front we're looking at.

My new mantra for this month is "Walk a different path".

I'm doing things a little differently this month. Less  reading, more writing. Less complaining and more doing.
When I sed to sit in my architecture office all day and hate on my life I would often write about the things I really wanted to do. I have fully come tothe conclusion that I am doing all of them now.

1. I write and hopefully it will be a sellable book some day. I feel so much less guilty about not following one of dreams. Writing makes me feel like I'm playing the lottery, only I have more control over the numbers that are picked.

2. I am full on making my rugs. Note "making" them, not selling them yet. I have a creative output which feels awesome. In architecture I hardly ever got any say in what my clients were building, if the project got built at all. Making rugs give me almost immediate satisfaction of seeing something I designed being fabricated. The feeling is exhilirating.

3. At the beginning of the year I wrote down one of my New Year's Resolutions was to "Stop yelling at the kids so much". Giving up my office and the stress of working as an architect has had a direct impact on my stress and therefore the amount of stress I can handle from the kids. I'm not stressed about getting to a meeting, someone getting sick and preventing me from making a deadline, or snow days. I am on a much more even keel when it comes to the kids. I am not stressed about helping them with homework, play dates, school programs, and now since I finally sub-leased my office last week, the financial drain of keeping up an office is gone. I no longer yell at my kids like I used to. AWESOME.

4. The gym. If I had to create the perfect day it would be take the kids to school, go to the gym, come home eat lunch, write, work on my rugs, pick up kids from school.  I am doing all of that today. I am living my perfect day.

Now to take things to the next level I need two more things: I need my husband home with me for at least part of the day.  The next thing I need is to be paid for at least one of my two creative endeavors. Time will get me there. I always get what I want.

NaNoWriMo

I am participating in National Novel Writing Month this November. Right this very second I am writing this because I am stuck in writing my 2500 words for the day. If you want to know more about what I'm writing then check out my other blog http://emilyjweaver.blogspot.com/.

Hopefully I will finish and things will all work out well and the book will become a Blockbuster Bestseller and then the movie rights will be bought and it will be turned into an awesome action flick staring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Today the new wool for my next rug arrives. Once I've gotten it up on teh rack I'll post pictures. It will be even cooler than the first rug and I might even try and go bigger.

That's all the news for now. I've got nothing to rant about today. Althougth I could start raving about the new gym I just joined. I went for the first time this morning and WOW. Their treadmills are so much nicer than mine at home. Here I can never go above 3.5 mph, but on the gym treadmills I was up at a whopping 4.4. I guess my old one just has too many miles on it. I think I've had it for the past 6 years. Anyway the gym was awesome, aside from locking all my stuff into a locker I couldn't get back unlocked, it really pushes me harder to see all the other moms and old people on thier treadmills. I did an extra 5 minutes just to look good and like I said pushed it all the way up to 4.4.... not quite a run, but a good walk that doesn't make my boobs bounce too much.

I joined to try and conteract my perfectly valid excuse of it being too cold in the house to use my treadmill November through March. I usually give it up every winter because it is seriously only 40-55 degrees in our bedroom in the winter and I jsut can't get on that thing in those temperatures. Not working out in the winter along with regular holiday eating usually means that by March I've got an extra 5 lbs to work off. I always get it off, but this year I should maintain my perfectly rounded mom physique.

Enough procrastinating. back to my 2500 words.

Vegas Christmas

So I'm racking my brain today trying to find a solution to all of our woes.

We have had a broken truck for the past 3 almost 4 weeks. It went in for an oil change and has had nothing but problems since then racking up bills of $4000 and it's still not fixed. Let's even mention the rental trucks at $300/week plus the fact that my dear husband in his overly stressed out state backed the rental truck into a loading dock and dented the shit out of it. ($$$$$). Where is theis money coming from? I'm trying to pull it out of my ass, but that doesn't seem to be working.

This is about as bad as it can get. Christmas will be for the children only this year. Attention all relatives. You will not be getting any presents this year. Suck it up. You don't really need a Snuggy from me anyway. We have even bribed the children in advance. We are going to give them less presents this year in exchange for a weekend in Vegas Christmas weekend.  WHAT you say......Christmas in Vegas??????? Damn right. I've already got my eye on $80 rooms at the Embassy Suites. 3 blocks from the strip, huge 2 bedroom rooms with a Vegas strip hotel style pool. That is way cheaper than loading up on a thousand dollars in toys. The kids love Vegas. It's a short 4 hour drive. The strip will be deserted on Christmas weekend. If we eat at the cheap buffets. We should be able to do the weekend for under $400.

I must say we are having a tough time right now. I'd like to think that if it wasn't for all the truck repairs we would be okay and maybe that is true, but I'm not seeing a light at the end of this tunnel anymore. Maybe business will pick up for Christmas and we'll be okay, but only time will tell. I keep trying to tell myself.......Where there is an ebb there will eventually be a flow......That is my mantra recently. I'm just wondering how long the ebb will last. This one seems to have started last year. Anytime now I'm ready for a flow.

Ass Handing

I wrote a long tirade on Wednesday about my usual stuff. It happens we all have bad days.

Then to my shock and horror I get a comment where somebody tries to sock it to me and give me a good swift kick in the pants. Fine and dandy. I probably needed it, but I went back and re-read through the post, and it turns around at the end. Whoever it was that wrote the comment obviously didn't read the whole thing. I may start out with self-pity, but the whole point of writing is to cheer myself up and get me to turn the corner and see that my life is not that bad, it's just the way I am looking at it at the moment. Yeah we have no cash, but it's a choice I consciously made by deciding to not be an architect anymore. If I don't like the hole I'm in it's my chocie to dig myself out. I know that. But every once in a while I have to complain. We all do it.

So whoever you are "Annonymous" before you start to hand me my ass, read the whole post dipwad.

That gets me on another tirade. Who are you that you are so important that you have to be annonymous? Unless you are Tony Robbins himself there should be no reason why you can't have a real name. I am being far from annonymous by writing all this, so out of common decency, get a name, or don't post on my blog.

Motivation

At night when I'm snuggled into the couch watching Chelsea Lately or House Hunters I am always amazed at how little I accomplished during the day. This is when I start planning all the amazing things I am going to get done the next day. I'll write. I'll vacuum the upstairs bedrooms. I'll finish my rug. etc etc.

But then the next day comes, like now, it's 9:52 and I've already been back and forth to Perez Hilton 3 times waiting for new posts. I am inspired to do exactly nothing all day today. It's too cold in the office still to hunker down and do anything. It's way too cold in the studio to go out and work on the rugs. I'm not inspired to do anything that I was inspired to do last night at 8:00pm. Why does this constantly happen? Where does my drive go at 10:00am? I can't seem to get over this each and every single day and it is driving me crazy. I think the problem is that I want immediate results and nothing that I am working on will get cash in my pocket in the next few months and it just strips all of my motivation. I have to make myself get over that and produce small baby step results anyway but it is so hard.

I'm starting to get depressed thinking about the long 6 months ahead of wearing fleece and sweats and shoveling snow and doing nothing but getting up each morning and taking the kids to school. It's too long a run on the same old thing. I want to go to Vegas. I want to buy some new clothes. I want to be able to look forward to Christmas and ALL the cool presents we can get for the kids, but it doesn't look like any of that will be happening and it's getting me pretty blue. I just hate to be cold and so far it isn't even 30 degrees this morning. The space heater has yet to warm up my 8x8 foot office after 2 hours of being on and the wind is blowing at a steady 15-20 miles per hour.

Would things really be any better if we didn't have this huge house and the huge payment that goes along with it? Would we be happier in a warmer climate? Would be happier if Carl had time off and didn't have to be at work at 5:00 am every day? Would we be happier if I was able to sell my rugs? What is the one thing that will change our miserable situation? This is not how we wanted to live. But now that we are so deeply entreanched into it is there any way to switch things up? After you've chosen and created a life with a big mortgage and non-moveable businesses how do you change it back to when you had options and choices again? I'm stumped. I know other people are able to switch up their lives, move to a tropical location and start new lives but is that really feasible in this real estate market? Is it feasible with 3 small children?

It's almost like I need an outside pair of eyes to look in on us and tell us what we are doing wrong, how we can make it better, and what our real options for change are. I've always said that the only things I need to be happy are vacations, books and my family. We don't take vacations. I've had to stop buying books, and Carl is never home. So things look pretty bleak to me as of now. On our current path those things will continue to be missing from our lives. We could stay on this track for the next 15 years and we would both be miserable. So I need to find what will give us back some choices and options and money for vacations and books and time for Carl to spend with us, and time for him to do what it is that he WANTS to do and not the things that he HAS to do.

That has to be the motivation. Those things listed above. That is what is supposed to get me out of bed each day, work on my rugs every day and to write everyday. Those are the only things that I see in my path that could change us from this path we hate to a path that takes us in a new direction. I have to try and remember that when it is 10:00 am and all I want to do is surf the web.

Still Broke

I just spent the last 3 hours going thru all the bills for all the businesses and figuring out how much I get to pay myself out of what is left over. It is a fabulous way to start off the week. It really gets me in the mood to jump off a bridge.
I am officially $1800 short this month. But I am proud to say that I paid CASH for the property taxes. Sure I probably should have charged them so that we could eat this month, but I'm going with my crazy idea that 'we always have enough'. Whatever I spend, something else will come in later this month to cover it. It has worked wonders so far throught out my life, so I'm going to roll with it. This will be a true test of the theory.

Our dreamy vacation plans seem even less likely this week. We've had more truck repair drama and it just never seems to end. Forget vacations, I've got to find a way to get Christmas presents first. It is getting insane and I am no where closer to selling rugs then I was 3 months ago. I need to step it up, but my wool supplier is not too quick, and I need to get a brochure and hit the pavement a little to get things going. It's all moving in theory, but there is no cash rolling in. Until then it's still just a really good idea.

Argggh. I need to be more positive, but some weeks it's hard. You know like the weeks when you are $1800 short and the property taxes are due and Christmas is fast aproaching.

Midol and Amelia Earhart

I used to fly all the time. My dad was a salesman and flew around the country all week and was only home on the weekends. He had more Delta Skymiles and Marriott Hotel points than he could spend in one lifetime. We went on vacation at least twice a year and sometimes more all for free. It was insane. In college I flew back and forth from Illinois to California 2-3 times a year. I never thought anything of it.

Then in 2000 I was flying with my mom from LA to Burlington Vt to my cousins wedding. We changed planes in Detroit and somewhere mid-flight the airplane equivalent of the check engine light came on. The captain announced this and decided that instead of continuing on to Burlington (which was only an hour away) we were going to turn around and go back to Detroit where they had a better service department for airplanes. I was in quiet hysterics. I had my 6 month old baby with me and I was sure I was never going to see his first birthday and I was going to have to watch him die in a fiery plane crash. It was the longest 2 hours of my life ever to get back to Detroit.
I have never flown with my children since. I never flew again until just last summer. I successfully made it to Boston for the AIA convention, Chicago to my friend Chris's wedding, and Minneapolis to rug school. I was having panic attacks sure, but I did it with a little left over dental vicodin and it was easy flying.

Just last week we started trying to plan a vacation for next summer and I found this great little rental house right on the ocean in Kona, Hawaii. I have been pumped just thinking about it. I know it will be hard to fly with the kids, but I thought I would be able to get over it in order to get back to Hawaii, a place I love and haven't been back to since our honeymoon in 1999. I checked out all these cool volcano books for the kids from the library, started looking at flights, looking for activities, and scheduling time off from the shipping business. It was all cool until.........

Last night I took some Midol to try and stave off some knarly cramps. I don't usually take Midol all the time, since I am a caffeine free kind of person, but I really needed it last night and took a full dose around 5:00 pm. At 11:30 I was still awake and definitely juiced on the caffeine. I decided to turn off the HGTV and try and go to sleep and managed to work myself into one huge caffeine induced panic attack thinking about all the horrible outcomes of a plane crash with all my children somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. It was horrible.

Now this is going to seem really strange. I have always had this feeling that I was Amelia Earhart. Something has made me follow her story all my life. I've researched all the places that she could have crashed, know her whole biography, etc. I used to love to fly and even took a few flying lessons when I was younger. I can't really describe it, and I'm not usually really into past lives kind of people, but I have this connection with her that is very strange and I truly believe that in a past life I was Amelia Earhart and suffered the traumatic shock of a horriffic plane crash. None of this really came to me until I had that bad experience on that plane back in 2000. And I tried to use the Amelia Earhart thing as a secret explanation of why I didn't want to fly again. But when I successfully flew last year I seemed to be over it and I didn't think of the Amelia Earhart connection for a while.

Last night while I was in the throws of my panic attack I tried the usual things to try and bring myself back to a rational mode of thought. I tried to think of the warm sand beaches in Hawaii. I tried to think of a nice hike in Sedona. I tried to think of anything that would make me feel better and less anxious about this vacation we were planning on taking. The thing that made me feel a million times better was.... "What if we just went to Florida?" I instantly calmed down. It was then that I came to the conclusion that I wasn't afraid of flying. I am afraid of flying over large expanses of the ocean. Intercontinental flights don't bother me.

This got me all hot and freaked out about he Amelia Earhart thing again. I am not in the least scared of flying to Florida or Boston, or Vegas or anywhere where if we crash death will be instantaneaous. What I am afraid of is crashing in the ocean and drowning or being stranded in the middle of nowhere with my kids and waiting with them and trying to comfort them while we wait for a boat to rescue us.

I know it's crazy, but this is a real fear of mine. Irrational yes, but the only explanation is that I have some kind of rembrance of this happening to me before and I am trying with all my might to try and avoid that in this life. I don't know if this makes any sense to you, but it seems perfectly clear to me and gives me a good explanation for my unexplainable fear. I was Amelia Earhart.  (Let's not even get into the reasons that I named my own daughter Amelia.)

So needless to say we are not going to Hawaii next summer. It will be Florida or Mexico or maybe even Boston. There is no way I can get on a plane to cross an ocean at this point in my life. I might be able to do it later in life when my kids are older. I might be able to do it with just Carl and I in a few years, but I can't take my kids on a trans oceanic flight. It just doesn't seem safe to me.

Am I crazy or just rationalizing?

Koo's Cafe January 1998

It was raining, which was odd for Southern California, but not in January. It had been a cold day and the clouds never really burnt off, they just lingered long enough to notice that is was indeed a cloudy day. The house was small and hard to find despite the old unlit signage overhead. It was stuck between an old 1960’s stucco 2 ½ story building and another little bungalow that might have been inhabited 15 years ago. There were kids on the porch and kids in what was supposed to be the drive way, kids walking thru the low chain link gate. The music seemed to make the whole house pulsate even though the music itself was inaudible. They were the typical Saturday night Orange County crowd. Kid’s aged 15- 30 all dressed in their own subcultures uniform. The guys with too tight jeans and rolled up pant legs with girls wearing polka dot dresses and bandanas around their pin curled hair. The baggy jeaned, dickies jacket wearing guys with tattoos and goatees, the girls dressed all in black with too much eye liner, and then the few South Orange County girls who didn’t know what to wear to a show and just showed up with their work clothes on fresh from their jobs at a mall. Inside the room was all people. There was no end to the edge of the people and the beginning of the stage and the band. The walls of the room were sweating with the breath and the heat of too many bodies in too small of a house to see too big of a band. People mingled in and out of the house trying to see everyone that had shown up. The humidity from the rain had gotten everyone to strip off as many layers of clothing as possible inside the house. There were tattoos and piercings and sweaty limbs moving in every direction and bumping into and tangling with all the other kids. The walls were dark and the ceiling too. The woodwork was unpainted and the floors were creaky hardwood. The back of the house was a maze of small rooms converted into a merch room; the kitchen was selling water bottled and peanut butter cups. There was a couch that was so overcrowded with people you couldn’t see where it started or ended. It was dark, but there seemed to be light coming in from somewhere, probably from the streetlights. Faces were hard to make out, and details were impossible.


When the music started people seemed to stop their wanderings and feel the hum of the band. Heads started to bob and hands went into the air. More clothing came off and the music made the crowd start to wave like a sea in a room that was only 12x20. The band was hidden, but the music was bigger than them and who they were and what they looked like didn’t matter. The drops of water on the walls and the windows started to slide down as the kick drum shook the whole house. It was music that took over the whole body. There was no ending to the sound and the body. They were wound together and the beat shook the lungs. People were not their images. They were just all equal kids in a room sharing an experience like no other. It was the solidarity they were looking for by going out. In the parking lot they would be enemies and blood would be spilled, but inside that tiny room it was all about the music and they all wanted that same escape, to feel like part of the music.

Rug Update

Okay so I'm finished with the first rug. It was definitely an experiment. It still is until I get it fully finished and down on the floor somewhere for photos. I'm still figuring out how much of everything I need and how much it is costing me so that I can come up with a decent price to sell the things for. Today though I ordered the wool for rug #2 and it will be even cooler than #1. It's weird how I was so excited for #1 and now that I'm done with it I can't wait to move on to something else. I love doing this. I was in heaven as I went through my wool tufts to figure out what colors to use for #2. I still haven't figured out how I am going to sell these yet. That is the only hurdle and experiment I have yet to figure out. I know they are beautiful. I have good taste, but the problem is how to let everyone else know about them too and how to do it for lilttle to no money. An ad in Architectural Digest or Elle Decor would be a good place to start, but that is too far out of my non-existant budget.

The really frustrating part is this........ I have no extra money to fund these projects. My architecture income was paying for all this and now there is no architecture income. My goal was to pay for everything in CASH. I have been for the past few months, but I am out of cash. This time of year all extra $$$ goes towards property taxes and Christmas. So my dilemna is do I charge it so that I can move forward and get closer to the day when I will make money at making rugs, or do I sit and wait until there is cash to pay for my projects?

I have made the executive decision to charge it. I'm not happy with the decision, but I see no other way to move forward. I still need to have more samples of my work in order to sell them. I still need to spend who knows how much getting 12 (1'x1') samples of some patterns made in Nepal. The samples themselves will not be too expensive, but the shipping is ridiculous. I had a brochure shipped from Kathmandu and it cost me $50.

I think this is just what it takes to start a new business. All of our other businesses are service businesses. There is no cost of goods. There is no product. So this is all new to me and I'm just stumbling through it. In order to sell a line of products with original designs you have to have samples of the products before you can sell them. There will eventually come a time when things will start to move forward and cash will start to flow, but until then my AmEx is going to get a work out.

Kottonmouth Kings in Flagstaff

Yes, I like the Kottonmouth Kings and here is why........ Back in the day my dear husband's band used to play shows with these guys all the time.

We were fortunate enough to get hooked up by our car repair guy/ Orpheum Security Guard friend who got us into the show for free this past weekend. It was awesome. These guys still put on a pretty good show. I was wearing my contacts, so I couldn't see them too well up on stage, but I had to ask Carl why all the guys still looked much younger than him. I mean these guys should be pushing forty just like Carl, but they didn't look it. We were without a doubt the oldest people there which I also thought was strange. These guys have been putting out albums for like the past 12 years at least and it seemed like everyone at the show was barely 21.

I still dont' know what to classify these guys as. Is it rap? It isn't rap core. There were no guitars. To me it just seems like good old SoCal music. If I had to put a label on it I'd call it SoCal.

It was good to get out for the night. I got "club" dressed up. Pushed up the girls and we headed out had dinner and met another of our weird musical friends at the theater. I had to leave around 10:30 to get back to the sitter but stayed just long enough to hear the one song I actually remember from 12 years ago.....Bump, bump, bump. Oh, it was heavenly and it rocked my little world.

Books and Faison Love

I have been crazy busy the last week. I know I am technically just a stay at home mom right now, but damn, sometimes that is a lot of work. There have been things that need repaired, laundry to do, business taxes to deal with, books to read, home work to do with the kids, shopping which is endless, and just regular stuff. It blows my mind sometimes how I ever did all this and sat in my office all day working on projects. Sometimes I feel guilty when I think how hard my dear husband works all day while I sit at home. But then I realize he couldn't do what he does if I wasn't at home taking care of everything. It's hard for me, but I know I am doing something worthwhile here. I might not be making any money doing it, but it is providing for my family in much the same way that Carl's income does.

I know I ramble about this stuff all the time, but hey this is my life.

Interesting tidbits from the last week.

1. A flame rod from a boiler is very easy to fix, although worth every penny of the $70 I paid a repair guy to show me how to fix it for next time.

2. Couples Retreat is pretty funny, but in retrospect I should have waited for it to come out on DVD. I have been confusing Faison Love with Donald Faison for years. Movie would have been much funnier with Donald Faison.

3. The New Moon soundtrack comes out today.

4. Jack in the Box is food made for people under 30, or people with cast iron stomachs. I can no longer eat there without spending a fair amount of time in the bathroom afterward.

5. I might actually be giving up my $50/week book habit in favor of a great vacation next summer.

6. Due to the reports of the horrible flu season that is to come I will also be giving up my trips to the library. Fortunately I have stock-piled about 60 books here to last me until next summer.

Ahhh Sunset Blvd Memories

This is the very first photo ever taken of me and my husband in March of 1998. Damn we were young and scruffy. We had just seen Portishead at the Santa Monica Civic Center and then stayed the night at the cool tall sea foam green tall hotel there on the beach. If I remeber correctly Samantha Mathis and her boyfriend were standing in front of us. We were right up there at the stage watching what's her name from the band chain smoke while she sang.

This was the time in our lives that we will always look back on fondly. This is when our lives seemed like a movie. Everything was exciting and new and unexpected. We had no idea where we were going but we were having a blast getting there. We were followed by a soundtrack of cool trendy music and surrounded by awesome character actors. Everything seemed to be just about us and our love story. We met, we swooned, drama ensued, we overcame all obstacles and lived happily ever after directly following our fairy tale wedding.

This picture sums up for me what are my highschool football hero moments. If I could go back and relive it all I would. It was such an amazing time and I doubt I'll ever change my life as drastically as I did that first year I was in California. I still remember sitting on Sunset Blvd one Friday night in the back of the van while the boys from the band waited for their drug dealer to meet them to make the exchange. Sure it was just pot and it was no big deal really, but the moment stuck with me and I'll never forget wondering how the hell I came from the small town cornfields of Illinois to buying drugs with my rockstar boyfriend on Sunset Blvd and not giving a shit because I was having the time of my life.

My life now is a far cry from those glory days of debauchery, but those few years made me who I am now. That rough transition from midwestern college girl, to awesome LA rock-star wife was life changing. Someday I'll write it all down, but for now I just wanted to reflect on my "cool years" before I start doing the laundry and cleaning the cat box while figuring out how to pay the property taxes.

Quick One

I'm too busy to post a long tirade today. The rug is almost done and I've only got about 2 hours to myself until I've got to head out to pick up the kids. I will finish this rug this week almost a year to the date when I first went to my class in Minneapolis to learn how to make rugs. It's taken a while, but it looks gorgeous and I can't wait to start the next one. Hopefully I'll be able to post photos on Wednesday. Until then you'll have to keep yourself amused.

The Tipping Point

I'm too jazzed up to do anything today. Thursday is usually housework and laundry day. I steal a few minutes here and there in the office, but mostly it me and Melia trying to clean up the house all day in between Episodes of Dora and Wuzzby. I try not to update my blogs except on M,W,F, when all the kids are at school, but somedays I've just got to write something to stay sane.

I'm on the cusp of something and it's making me anxious. The web site is up, the rug is amlost done, I'm writing my book and everything is trucking alone nicely, but there is something else. I'm having a hard time sitting down long enough to read which says a lot for me. I have so much to do and yet I feel like I'm not doing much of anything. My days are filled with trips back and forth in to town, school open houses and conferences, last minute trips to the store for Miralax for Melia, flu shot appointments, badges being sown on to Cub Scout uniforms, paying all the bills for all the businesses, and still trying to find the time to get in my 2 hours of TV every night. I've read 10 books again this month. My blogs are getting more and more visitors.

Things are almost at a tipping point. I've spent all this time and energy on all of these projects and one of them has got to finally reach over and start doing something. The summer was a long lull, but this fall I can feel things starting to slip into place. It's almost like all the pieces I've been gathering for the past year all going to finally come together. It's an odd feeling. I'm gonna roll wit it.

Things can only get better from here.

Photos

I would love to have more photos in my blog. The problem is that it seems that the only way I can easily get them here is if I take a picture with my iphone, load it to Facebook, and then steal it from facebook on my computer and save it to my harddrive and then upload it here. It's a long round about way to do it, but it gets it done.

The real issue is that the Itunes, Iphone, and Canon Rebel software is not on my computer it's on my husband's computer about 18 inches away from this one I'm writing on right now. His computer is such a dinosaur that it takes 10 minutes to load up, hums incessantly, and it just a pain in the ass to use. He loves it. All the photo software is on there except for my PhotoShop CS3 which is on here. Transfering the photos is a long ordeal involving e-mail and numerous downloads. I know I know we are doing it the wrong way, but that is how the office is set up.

I need to put an end to this insanity. I am not the most gifted computer user, but I can get around. This weekend I am going to get these hard drives to talk or at the very least load the Canon Rebel software on to this computer so that I can show off my bad ass photo skills. My life needs to be illustrated.

WEBSITE !!!!!

My rug web site is up. I procrastinated all summer to get it done, and now today on the last day of September I've finished it. It is really rough and I have to call GODaddy to find out how much I have to pay for them to take their banner off the top. That thing is tacky. I'll work on it some more and figure out all the cool saavy design tricks that I didn't have time for today and it will get better. It certainly doesn't scream "Design Professional", but I have a web presence and today that is all that matters.

I also need to figure out a way to get all 20 rug designs on there. I'm only allowed so many images on my current site. I will probably have to upgrade $$$$$.

BUT I am officially impressed with myself. At least now I can pass out my cards and not tell people that the site isn't live yet. That is always awkward.

So here it is......... Enjoy and buy........ http://www.mweaverrugs.com/.

Long Beach Highschool Reunion

This was, surprisingly, the view from our hotel room this weekend. It was a beautiful day in Long Beach Saturday. We got in around 4:00 and went for a walk at Shoreline Village. It was so gorgeous and clear that we had to stop at the Yard House just to sit and watch the boats and the people go by. I actually had a cocktail which I never do. It was some crazy cherry vodka lemonade mix and all it did was give me a headache. We headed back to the hotel to get ready and showed up at about 7:40 for the reunion when dinner was supposed to start at 8:00.

There was no one there. The little book that was given out listing all the people attending only had about 40-50 people in it. This was out of a class of over 600. WTF? We went inside anyway, took a quick look around, and bailed. Carl didn't know anyone there and as we perused the reunion book we quickly realized that most of those attending were divorced single moms who still lived around LA and then about 5 guys from Carl's class who he didn't know who were cops in the LA area. Needless to say that is not our crowd.

We left and headed to Roscoe's. Carl called up a friend of his who he knows lives in LB and he came over and met us. We hung out for a couple of hours at Roscoe's sipping lemonade and people watching while Carl and Orlando talked about the good old days of rock n roll.

Carl seemed a little disappointed, but then pointed out that the real reunion was in June when we came down and went to the Crucified show and Carl saw all his old band friends. Those were his buddies, not the people he never knew and never liked from highschool.

So we ended up spending $190 for a reunion we didn't attend and had great chicken and waffles instead of hotel catered food just like we wanted to anyway.

Overall it was a good trip. Like I posted on Friday it's just great to get into the city and be with other people, walk along the ocean hand it hand, eat great food, and spend time with the one you love.

Los Angeles

Since we're heading to LA this weekend without the kids I'm getting pretty excited. There never seems to be enought time to drive by all of our old haunts, eat at all of our favorite restaurants, and shop at my favorite stores. The list seems endless and usually we only hit up the one thing we are craving most. Roscoe's is at the top of the list most of the time as well as some good Asian donuts from the OC. Since we'll be specifically in Long Beach that rules out most of the OC and shopping, and since we have already paid for what will be, I'm sure, a fabulous hotel catering dinner consisting of some sort of grilled chicked and frozen butter for cold day old rolls we will not have the option of eating some place great Saturday night.

This is frustrating yes, but I'll still get my fix just by being in LA. When I sit in my little office everyday and write these blogs and watch the storms roll in, watch all the neighbors dogs and horses frolicking on their own private 3 acres, and watch the school buses drop off first the highschool, then the middle school and finally my own grade schoolers, I sometimes forget about the big bad world out there. I forget there are ghettos and barrios and gated communities with full time gardeners. I forget to wax my eyebrows and to wear something other than old torn jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. I forget about smog and traffic and the daredevils that drive 85 on the 405. I forget that all the people I read about on Perez Hilton are real people who are living their lives in LA. They take their kids to school and pick up thier dry cleaning like anyone else. I am so insulated here. I miss hearing and seeing all the different kinds of people that we don't have here in my mountain village.

I might not want to live there anymore, but I think I would suffer from withdrawal if I didn't get to visit LA every few months like we do. It's a completely different world and I love it and miss it. I miss the history that the city has, the old buildings and the startling new modern ones. I miss seeing people walking in their neighborhoods with shopping carts. I miss the old people. We don't have too many here due to the high altitude and sometimes I forget what the world looks like when it is populated with every conceivable kind of human being. LA has that and sometimes it is refreshing and sometimes it is scary.

I won't come home from this weekend with any shopping bags or a belly full of great food, but my eyes and my mind will be full and that will be satisfaction enough for me.

Career Crisis

I finally collected payment on the last of my projects. I think it is time to say that I am officially done being an architect. The same day that last check came in the mail is the same day my State of Arizona license renewal came in the mail. How very coincidental.

Do I renew it? What is my status as an architect? Do I continue paying all the registration fees just in case I decide one day to go back to being an architect? I was going to hold off on this decision, but here it has been thrown into my face and I'll have to decide. At this point in my life I can't ever see myself wanting to work as an architect ever again. I don't ever want to sit in an office and look busy trying to work for someone else that's for damn sure. But what if someone asks really nicely and offers me a lot of money for a one off project? It could happen. Am I just grasping at straws? Am I just reluctant to give up something I spent years of school and apprenticework trying to achieve? Argh! I don't know.

In the meantime my writing is going slowly as writing tends to do and my rugs are going just as slowly as money allows. So I'm going nowhere fast. If I only live to 68 this could classify as my mid-life crisis.

Waxed and Colored

I'm getting ready this week to travel to Long Beach, Ca this weekend to attend my husband's 20th High School Reunion. (Yes, he is a few years older than me). I spent the morning getting waxed and then hurrying home before I could run into anyone who would notice my unusually red face. This afternoon I will be coloring my hair. I am trying to decide between my usual dark red-brown color and my old bright red color I used to wear when we used to gallivant around Hollywood. I miss that color, but it seems like too much for taking the kids to school and shopping at Target. Part of me says to just go for it and change it back later if it's too much, but I'm getting older and I don't know if I can pull off that color anymore. We are just going to some cheesy hotel in Long Beach, it's not like we are going to LA or Las Vegas, but still I think I might try the color out 1 more time just for fun.

I've noticed my posts are further apart than I would like and not filled with the vim and vigour that I would like them to have. I have also been neglecting my FaceBook status updates as well. I haven't figured out why yet. I'm busy yes, but never to busy to broadcast my comings and goings. Until I figure it out, or until something more interesting starts happening you'll have to bear with me.

Today's Show and Tell

This afternoon I am going to attemp to bring a large lap cat to my son's school for 'Show and Tell'. This sounds like a great idea to my 6 year old, but sounds like a lot of work for mom. He is large, meows louder than an ambulance siren, sheds excessively and has a disgusting backside that is only partially concealed by his tail. Due to his large size he is not able to cleanse himself as well as he (and I) would like. This means that I have to find a box large enought to contain his enormous body, comb out his fur, and try and find a way to make his backside look presentable for a room full of 6 year olds who will surely comment if he is less than fastidiously clean. I am not looking forward to it at all, but anything to make a 6 year old happy.

I am trying to remind myself that this is why I am not working. This is why I work at things that leave my schedule flexible enough to take the afternoon to cart around an enormous white cat to my children's school. It's what my mom would never have done for me. So I make it a point to do it for my kids. I complain about my boredom, running back and forth to school will forgotten homework, lunches, and permission slips, and the kinks it puts on my ability to get stuff done at home, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Although I love the fact that I once had a 'career'. I genuinly think that if a woman wants to have kids she should stay home with them and be there for them the way a mother should be. I strongly believe that you can't really know your child unless you are there when he goes to school in the morning and you are there in the afternoon when he gets home. You have to be able to take time off when they are sick, and not make them feel guilty about it if you work and have to take time off to stay home with them. Kids need a parent who is there for them 24/7. Someone who has the ability to drop anything if they are needed.

I struggled with this enormously those first 3 years when my oldest was young and I worked in an office. I worked in a predominately male field and it was always looked down on by my bosses when I had to take time off when my son was sick, had a doctor's appt, etc. It made me feel horrible. Maybe I just needed a more understanding employer, but to me having children pulled me in too many directions, and they won hands down.

Architecture Blog

So I started a couple of new blogs a few weeks ago. The writing and reading one is going like gang busters. The architecture one is dead where it stands. I was so excited about it too. I love architecture, but aparently I don't have enough to say about it. I tried with good intentions to find something interesting and fun to write about, but I had nothing. A big zilch. I'm taking that as a good sign though. I am not meant to be an architect. I've been writing about it forever, but it keeps coming back around and smacking me in the face. It's just not my thing. I love it like a rock. It will always be a part of me, but I don't care enough about it to have something meaningful to write about it every day. It's kind of dis-heartening, but helps me to know that maybe I'm heading in the right direction. I love old buildings and not too many people are still talking about old buildings. I love history, and again it's not a popular topic in architecture circles. I was going to write the blog to try and find my place in architecture, but what it helped me realize is that in modern architecture there is no place for me. I'm a history and old bricks kind of gal.

So I'm going to post the location of the other new blog that I love writing. http://emilyjweaver.blogspot.com/. I'm reviewing the books that I read and talking about me trying to write.  We'll see what becomes of it, but for now I'm having fun writing it and heaven knows I will never run out of books to review.

MWeaver Rugs

My gun is fixed! I am so excited. I am really going to finish this rug. I don't get to spend as much time as I would like out there. My arm gets tired after about an hour and a half. But it's fun and I almost feel like it would be fun to try and sell somthing that I created all by myself. I'm proud of myself that I've come this far. It's taken over a year to get all this stuff together and to get my studio up, all the bits and pieces and equipment and materials. I still need a couple more things......the $1500 rug trimmer that shaves off the top ofthe rug to make the surface even and finished, a bucket of laytex to seal off the back of the rug when I'm done, the canvas rug backing, and I still need to figure out how I want to finish off the edges when I'm done and pull the rug off the rack. It's been a process and I've had to learn as I've gone along.

I made all kinds of plans about how this rug thing was going to work out, but in the end it's still a fly by the seat of my pants kind of thing. Planning only gets you so far, the rest has to be done in the doing. I think there is still a lot of distance ahead before I get to selling 4 or 5 a month, but in the meantime I'm having fun. I feel like I've accomplished something major. Some days it feels like I never get anything done, but then if I step back and look at the big picture I can see that everyday takes me a tiny step closer to where I am supposed to be.

Missing Chris Isaak

 I've been listening to Chris Isaak non-stop the past few days. I missed him this summer. He goes on tour every summer and I usually see him at least once, but this year I missed him. I looked it up yesterday and he's currently in Australia and will be returning to play one show in October at the Fresno County Fair. Would I even want to see him there?

He'e been sliding lately it seems. He recently did an appearance on the Wendy Willams Show? That seems a little beneath him. And I've notice that his gigs in Vegas are no longer at the MGM or Planet Hollywood. They are at the Golden Nugget or Sam's Town way off the strip.

What's happened? He's still a great showman. He's still got good songs and he can still sing his old ones just like it's 1989. I know he's getting older. I think he's like 53 now, but still I want to see him in all his glory with girls throwing underwear at him while he wears his mirrored suit. It's disappointing to watch one of your favorite stars start to fade.

I'm hoping things will be better next summer and I can see Chris again at a decent venue. He's getting old enough that I need to see him while he's still alive. It's also a dream of mine to have him play a show here in Flagstaff for my 36th birthday. I think it only costs like $100,000 to get him to come play and if he keeps sliding I might be able to get him for less.

See ya soon Chris!

Classical Music

I am sitting in my office at 12:15 listening to classical music. I don't know what it is. I got it at Sam's Club from one of those "Great Classics for Romance" collections.

It looks like September outside. It's overcast. The thermostat says it's 73 degrees in the house, but I'm wearing a fleece sweatshirt and socks.

I'm trying to be positive today, but it's hard. It's hump-day. I'm hoping the mail lady brings me something cool....maybe something from Abe Books, the new IKEA catalog, a new New Old House magazine.

I'm bored. Maybe I'll take some pictures around the house today and upload them tomorrow. I've been really short on images on this blog. Technically, I'm a very visual person, but you would never know it by looking here.

I need more harp music. This is very soothing. Maybe Sam's has a collection of "Romantic Classics for the Harp".

My tufting gun is still broken. The Germans are working on it, but are very slow with a response. Until then....I'm bored. I knew I wouldn't be able to fill up my Mondays and Wednesdays.

Sorry for the less than stellar post. It's one of those days, and I'm not even hormonal today.

Completely Broke

It has come to this.

After all my ranting and raving and hopes and dreams of someday making more money, we are now completely broke. It is the 1st of the month. I have been able to pay the mortgage, the little ones pre-school tuition and the credit card bills. There is now less than $30 in the bank. There are still all of the utility and insurance bills to pay and all the food and gas needed for the month for which I have no cash.

I am waiting for 2 clients to pay me $1400, but in architecture you never know when a check is going to arrive. I billed both of them the middle of last month hoping that the money would get here by now, but it hasn't.

I've got until the 15th when the rest of the bills are due to try and scrape up some cash.

The shipping business is broke this month too. All of those rental bills at $1000/month for a truck, the 2 truck payments (one for a truck that no longer runs), and the repair bill (also for the truck that no longer runs) have taken their toll on the finances and there is a grand total of $30 also in that account.

The check cashing business is running slim. My 30% take was less than usual.

It all adds up to us being broke. My only partial salvation is my property tax savings account .We pay the taxes ourselves so I have an account that I save a little in monthly so that we can pay the taxes at the end of December. I also have about $350 in the Christmas savings account. I am going to have to dip into these to pay the bills and to eat for the month. I really don't want to, but what are my choices at this point. My goal to not charge anything on the credit cards has been going well, but seems like an impossible goal at this point. Come December we are going to be short on the property taxes.

I thought that if I quit being an architect and started doing the things that I love that money would easily flow back into our lives. That's what all the career and self-help books say......find the thing that you love to do and the money will follow.

I love writing. I love blogging. I love being here for the kids when they are sick and being able to take them and pick them up from school. I love designing rugs. I love making the rugs.

But where the fuck is my money? This is getting ridiculous. I don't want to live like this. Why can't I really have it all? The time with the kids, the husband, time for myself, and the money to afford all of the above? What is the thing that I am missing that will make all the pieces fall together and click? Who do I need to talk to? Where do I need to go to file a complaint?

I've also heard that if you are desperate enough anything is possible. I don't know how I could get much more desperate. I haven't bought new underwear in a year.

Awesomeness

I know I'm awesome, obviously you know I'm awesome or you wouldn't be reading this, but who else can YOU tell about my awesomeness?

I'm not big on self promotion, but the time has come to start pimping this thing out. As you probaly already know I'm kind of a hermit, so there are not many more people Ican tell about this blog. I have a grand total of 41 Facebook friends and that includes all the people who still admit that they know me from grade school, highschool, college and my short stint in the workforce. I've told all them about this blog, but if you are just some random person who stumbled upon me looking for info on Tony Robbins and you like what you're reading then PASS IT ALONG.

I'm only 1,000,000 followers away from a book deal, reality show, or guest column at Vogue. You can make all the difference. I'll pimp you out if you pimp me out. That's what bloggers do.

Ahhh Monday

I don't know where to start......

1. Isaak forgot his math homework this morning and I'm not sure if I should take it in to him or let him learn from his mistake. He is so terrible at remembering to bring home his spelling workbook, his reading assignment books, he's already lost his lunch box after 3 weeks of school, and now this morning he forgets his math home work that was sitting on top of his backpack. He just picked up the backpack and let the homework fall to the floor. He is completely oblivious. I think I should just let him suffer the consequences. How else will he learn to take care of his own stuff. But still there is a part of me that thinks I should take it in to him and is making me feel guilty for not taking it to him.

2. My tufting gun is still broken. I got the part last Friday, but it doesn't fit and the chick at the factory is going to have to check and see what the deal is. This could potentially take another 2 weeks to solve. In the meantime I have a rug sitting on the rack getting overly stretched out and probably being wrecked. I was so gung ho since school started and now I am stuck and at the mercy of the gun manufacturer. It is giving me an eye twitch.

3. Tony Robbins. It seems like my most popular blog posts are the ones in which I talk about Tony Robbins. I keep getting questions about whether I liked his CD's or not and what I've done to make changes to my life since listening to them. The answer is I liked them a little and they have not done much to change my life. Everything that Tony talks about is basic common sense. If you don't have common sense then the CD's are a treasure trove of info. If you are like me and have read a lot of self-help, have a ton of common sense, and are well read in general the tapes will not help too much. They are motivational if you need a little kick in the pants to get going, but they are not life changing.

4. The children are sick and I sent them to school anyway. No one had a fever, but both boys have a hacking phlemy cough that I'm sure will be annoying to their classmates today. Maybe they should have stayed home, but I really wanted this day to myself. I only get Monday's and Wednesday's to myself and there was no way I wanted the two of them to be here arguing, coughing, and begging to play video games all day. Does that make me a horrible parent? Probably. I don't mind if their sick on a Tuesday or Thursday or Friday, but Monday's and Wednesday's are sacred days.

Now I feel better already. Sometimes it's just got to get out of my head. My eye is still twitching, but maybe some Tylenol will help with that.

Chocolate Croissants

I love love love chocolate croissants. I could eat them every morning for breakfast and every night for dessert.

When we lived in California there was a cute litte French bakery about a block away from my office. When the craving struck I just walked down and picked up a $4.00 piece of heaven. The price and my waistline kept me from over indulging too much.

Since moving to Flagstaff (sometimes called the "Ghetto in the Meadow") my love for chocolate croissants has not wavered, but I have had to satisfy my hunger for them with the Williams Sonoma mail-order croissants. They are delicious, but expensive ($40 for a box of 15 not including S&H), and they must be planned in advance. The croissants must defrost overnight, and then sit for another hour or so to rise. A sudden urge cannot be satisfied until a good 8-10 hours later.

We have no donut shops here and no pastry shops other than chocolate confectioners. There was no place sophisitcated enough to make a good croissant......... until this week.

While doing my usual mid-week milk run at Safeway I saw a sign next door that said "Village Baker Now Open!". I was shocked to see the sign since the Village Baker was a client of mine and I had just designed a new store for them a few blocks over. What were they possibly doing here in a second location. I walked in and could not believe my eyes. There before me was a case filled with several different pastries and croissants and out of the corner of one was peeking out the unmistakable sight of melted croissant chocolate. I was told by the boy behind the counter that the owner had decided to open a second location that sold pastries and cakes in addition to the location that I knew that sold only commercial bread loaves and rolls.

I bought one of the croissants and the rest is history. I went by this morning and picked up a couple and I will stop by later this afternoon and pick up 6 more for the weekend. I am going to overindulge and roll around in the crispy buttery chocolate decadence until I am sick of the sight of chocolate croissants. My only hope is that there are other people in town that will support this new bakery and their pastries, otherwise I am going to be spending a lot of money trying to keep the place open with my patronage just so that I can continue to have my croissants.

Switching it Up

I did get some serious stuff started on Monday. I figured out how to optimize my artwork from Illustrator to get it to look right in DreamWeaver for my rug web site. That was a major hurdle and now web design doesn't seem quite as scary as it did before.

I also started a new blog that will be devoted entirely to architecture. Today I will start another one that will be devoted entirely to the books that I'm reading, and what I'm writing when I'm not updating my 3 blogs.

Will anyone read these other blogs? Not likely, but it will help me get into the habit of writing everyday and help me figure out what it is that I really want to write. This one blog isn't big enough for all that I want to say, and it's so all over the place it's hard to find an audience.

So here will remain all of my complains, budget woes, and general life updates, but if you want something a little more specialized you'll have to head over to my new blogs. I won't post them now, but probably next week when I've got something to look at over there I'll let you know.

Down to Business

Alright!
No more excuses. This is it. All of the children are officially back at school. No more fucking around. This is serious.

No more Perez all day, no more reading on the porch all afternoon. It's time to buckle down and start rolling the dough.

There will be serious writing going on, serious web site design, serious tufting and serious big pimping to sell all my shit and bring in the Benjamins.

No more Jack Johnson, John Mayer, or Coldplay. It's all NIN, Micky Avalon, and Dr Dre.

I've been biding my time since February waiting for this very day, so I had better show some effort, and have something big to cross off my list today.

So far nothing comes to mind. I'm frustrated, and stuck in the mire of 6 months of being a stay at home mom. I'm excited, but don't know where to start and what will produce the most results. My gun is still broken, and I lack any funds to start up my web site other than just buying the domain name.

So it looks like I will be writing. It's the one thing that I can do for free and all it will cost me to get it out there is a stamp and a free web site.

This is the day that I said I was going to start writing everyday. This was when I was going to start writing whether I had found an idae to run with or not. I'm
just going to write and write and hopefully get better and better, and again, hopefully, find someone who wants to read what I write.

Here goes nothing..........

Appliance Breakdown

Apparently the lifespan of the average appliance is 5 years since every single appliance in our house has broken this year except for the dishwasher which I expect to go at any minute now.

First it was the oven.

Then it was the dryer.

Now it is the freakin refrigerator. Of all the appliances I can't live without this one reins supreme. I just used the toaster over when the over was out and had to do without cookies and brownies. When the dryer was out I just hung the clothes outside, but the fridge?

I have an extra freezer which is now stuffed to the brim with tater tots and fish sticks, but the fridge side will not all fit into out picnic coolers. My condiments will all have to be replaced (which is probably not a bad idea with or without the fridge broken). My M&M's are warm, and I have 4 jugs of milk and no where to put them. Argggggh!

And then to make matters worse..... I finally got a rug up on the rack and started tufting this weekend, and then today when I went back out to start a whole day of rug tufting the speed control switch broke and would only work at 500 mph. This was the 2nd time I had used the gun since I bought it back in January. Thankfully I called the manufacturer and they are going to send me a new speed switch free of charge, but if it has to come from Germany it will take 3 weeks for the part to get here. Arghggggh!

Just when I thought everything was smooth sailing and the kids were back at school, the gun breaks and now I'm on hold indefinitely. Two steps forward and one step back is an understatement.

I'm going to have to buy some sage to try and drive out the evil gremlin that is affecting all of my appliances. Is there such a thing as an appliance gremlin? If there is he has moved into my house.

Tha Library

I'm going to update my thoghts and feelings on the library. I think in was back in March that I posted a tirade about the evil grossness of the library, but after months on going there to get my book fix I think I have changed my mind.

It's still gross, I have to wipe off most books with a Clorox wipe before I open them, but I think I have begun to understand that magical mystery coolness of the library.

I used to have a $300/month book habit. I would order with abandon from Amazon and walk out of Barnes and Noble with armfulls of books. I would wind up with some clunkers, some absolute trash, and a rare diamond. I didn't care. I had the money to spend and they looked beautiful on my shelves.

Now that I am no longer working I have had to find another way to feed my massive appetite for books. I started going to the library out of pure raw desire to have a new book in my hand. And I'm not talking about $15 paperbacks. I love giant Tashen and Rizzoli books with glossy full spread photos, a full 3 lb weight, and over 400 pages of high brow text. Those kinds of books are not in my price range anymore, but I have since stumbled upon them at the library.

The past few months I have come to know the shelves of the library as well as the shelves at my local Barnes and Noble. When I first ranted about the library I had yet to find the travel books, the history books, or even the fiction section. I had forgotten how to use a card catalog and the Dewey decimal system. Now that my mind has been reintroduced to this wonderfullness I can take full advantage of the library.

I can walk out with stacks just as big as the ones I used to buy from B&N, only now there is no buyers remorse, or credit card guilt. If a book is sucky, I can take it back the next day. If it is a good read, I can return it when I am done, if the book is a true diamond I will hunt for it on Abe Books and hopefully but it for $1 and know that it is worth every penny (plus shipping and handling).

I can't say that I will always use the library, but for now it is making me tolerably happy. As soon as I am able, I will be right back to my book spending habits, but I will proably still use the library to seek out only the really good books to add to my at home library.

Sacred Sedona

Sometimes I forget that just 30 minutes down the mountain is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Since I seldom leave my house during the week things can get very overwhelming what with the children and my dear husband working 14 hour days.
So this weekend we left the kids with grandma and took a night out. We didn't go to the movies, we didn't get dressed up, we just got in the car and drove down the canyon to Sedona.
For those of you not familiar with Sedona, it is one of the most magical mystical places in the world. The light is different, the air feels different and the sun feels different. It is a place that always feels "right". Besides the city itself, there are places in the rocks that are called Vortexes. They have a certain strange magnetic vibration. you can't feel it just by walking near it, but if you sit and relax and listen to the rocks, and feel the sun and the air and try and clear your mind you can feel it. It is easier to meditate near them than it is anywhere else.

We often go down there with our ipods and sit and try and regroup and recharge as my husband calls it.
I've never been a very religious person, but I was raised Lutheran and spent a lot of time in churches growing up. I love the beautiful church architecture and I appreciate them for their history and their architectural beauty, but I have never felt at peace inside of one.
I feel closer to god and to the universe as a whole sitting on a rock in a vortex in Sedona than I ever have in a church. I don't think there is anyplace else on earth that has that feeling for me. It is such a spiritual place. If we don't go down at least once a month we start to get jittery and angry. If Sedona is the center of the calm warm universe of positive energy, then Flagstaff is the exact opposite filled with tension and negativity.
After sitting for 45 minutes I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt like I could go home and be with the kids for another 2 weeks until school starts. I was questioning my sanity before, but felt inspired to work again after.
It works like a drug to me. After the horrible week I had I felt like a new person.
If I was smart I would just schedule a once a week meditation session on my rock and I would never be angry or upset and always have the energy to get through the tough weeks.

Positively Miserable

I just can't be positive all the time. Today is a real downer. It's not just today, but today I'm feeling it more than ever.
Life is supposed to be about constant change and a surprise around every corner. I could sure use one today.

All I see before me is a monotonous spread of days just like the one before. Frosted Flakes, treadmill, business books, yell at the kids, take kids to something to try and entertain them, salami sandwiches, work on my rugs, afternoon snack, read a book, try and find something to make for dinner, dinner, baths, solitaire on the couch while watching Chelsea Lately, Carl gets home, put kids to bed, watch Carl eat dinner, put Carl to bed, read until after House Hunters.

This can't be all there is. Should I feel the security of the sameness of it all?

I feel tired of being a mom 24 hours a day for the past 9 years. I feel tired of never seeing my husband. I feel tired of not having any money. I feel tired of feeling tired.

I just get the feeling that this everyday nothingness is not what I was put here to do with my life.

When will things get better? When will there be surprises and family vacations that are more than a 6 hour car ride away? When will I enjoy life again? Life was not meant to be a day by day struggle just to stay sane.

ARGGGHHHHH!

It's probably just my hormones, but I'm allowed a day or two a month to wallow in my less than stellar life.

It's nothing that a $25,000,000 check couldn't fix instantly.

I'm gonna step out on a limb and say that at this point in my life, money could indeed buy me happiness. It wouldn't fix all my problems, but it would definitely make the most bothersome ones go away.

Great Recession Update

There have been a lot of bad signs of the horrible economic times in town this week and it's almost getting a bit overwhelming.

1. The 1 and only Blockbuster video in town was seized by the bank last week. Customers and employees showed up to find the locks changed and the store stripped of everything. Apparently the owner defaulted on a $160,000 loan and the bank seized the assets of the store to be sold at auction.

2. The house down the street has gone into foreclosure. It sold in 2007 to a family from California for $900,000, but they just up and left one day and it is now owned by the bank and on the market for $500,000. That is really going to jack up our property values.

3. Another house down the street had a huge auction over the weekend selling the entire contents of the house. I don't know the particulars, but it didn't look good.

4. The bike store/ coffee shop/ snowboard rental store down the street from my office downtown is suddenly empty. We drive by every day and on Friday everything was gone and there was a huge for lease sign out front.

5. There are 2 more office for lease signs on the street my office is on. Another engineer is moving out, and someone else. That puts my chances of sub-leasing my space at slim to none.

6. So far this year there have been a total of .......7! housing starts in Flagstaff. Seven permits in 6 months. That is insane. No one is building.

7. We were turned down by every bank imaginable this last week for our new truck purchase. We finally found a bank in Minnesota, but every local bank wants nothing to do with us. Even American Express, a company we've been with for the last 5 years won't help us. It's ridiculous how banks have stopped lending on even the most mundane things.

I'm usually very optimistic, but this is starting to look grim.

The only consolation is that the shipping business is rocking. We are so busy.

Carl, who has been working from 5am to 7pm for the last few weeks, is seriously rocking a David Beckham physique. I guess running around all day in 80-90 degree heat lifting 50-150 pound boxes while running is a great workout. Who knew? He's starting to get hit on by all his late 20's to early 30's customers at the mall. He has become the "hot delivery man" to all the store managers.

I am sad to say that he currently weighs only 9 pounds more than me while I rock a Renee Zelwegger in Bridget Jones Diary or Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed type of physique.

I'm looking for a sign of good things to come, but I'm not too hopeful yet.

Tangible Evidence

It's working. I'm actually moving forward on my rug designs. I have 10 designs for me to tuft here in my studio and 10 designs to send to Nepal for hand knotting.

I've almost finished choosing colors for them all. I've contacted Nepal and I've ordered their color swatches. I've gotten my own FedEx account to make it easier to ship things back and forth to Nepal. I've started making my own tuft samples for my 54 colors that I already have here in the studio.

The next big steps are to get a rug up on my frame, start taking pictures for the web site, send my 10 rug designs to Nepal to get my 10 1'x1' strike offs to check the colors, then finish the web site with photos of the strike offs, and then start showing everything around.

I'm planning on taking a couple of days once school starts to go down to Phoenix and visit the high end rug showrooms and high end interior designers to show them my wares. Of course letting it slip that I'm an architect should get me right in the door, the rest is up to my rugs.

I'm getting excited. It really did work to just stop all the busy work and get down to what it was that I really wanted to do. The writing has taken a back seat, but that's okay. I feel good about moving forward with my rugs. If I am absent here it is because I am getting shit done and no longer writing about what it is that I want to do, but actually doing it.
Isn't that always the key to getting things done? It's so simple it bottles my mind.

The Climb

I think maybe I've got it figured out......why I haven't been getting anything done with my rugs. I'm procrastinating and I'm not in desperate need to get it all done.

I am trying to fill up my days with the other businesses, the kids, and trying to teach my self the entire Adobe Creative Suite. For some reason I believe that I won't be able to run this design business successfully unless I know how to create my own rockin web site from scratch. I am also trying to write, and to read how to write. If that isn't insane I don't know what is.

So anyway I was getting so behind in my Adobe Illustrator lessons and had just broken open the Adobe InDesign books to teach my self how to apparently do my entire book design myself at home when I came to the realization that it was just too much and that I wasn't really doing the things that I needed and wanted to be doing.

What do I want to do? I want to make and sell rugs and I want to write.

What was I doing? Everything but the above.

I can buy a web site from GoDaddy for about $5/month. I can just write and if I can't find a publisher for whatever it is that I write then I will learn InDesign to publish it myself, but I don't need to learn to do it now.

All I need to do is design the rugs, buy the web site from GoDaddy, take some photos and write some copy and I'm up and running. Enough with all this other busy work. It's just getting too ridiculous.

I know I've always had this problem. I can't just do 1 thing at a time. I am way too interested in way too many different things. But if I am going to be successful at any 1 of them I need to focus on it and nothing else in order to get it accomplished.

So I am taking a break from my very carefully planned lesson plan for the summer on learning Adobe and I am going to just and only concentrate on my rugs. I will be coloring, photographing, searching Getty Images, actually working in my studio hopefully with the tufting gun, and learning the inns and outs of the cheap web sites on GoDaddy.

I keep telling myself the site does not have to look perfect the first time. Once I start making money I can always upgrade it, but I need something and something is better than nothing.

And I hate to say it, but, I was actually inspired by Miley Cirus' song the Climb. It almost brought me to tears and made me want to work harder than I have been.

I might have to give up my Real Housewives in order to get shit done.