Home Tour, 8-Oct-16

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Maria Langer

Another look at my work-in-progress home.

On May 20, 2014, I began blogging about the construction of my new home in Malaga, WA. You can read all of these posts — and see the time-lapse movies that go with many them — by clicking the new home construction tag.

I had a friend I hadn’t seen for about a year come over for dinner on Saturday night. It was a good thing he came. I had a few little projects that I’d been putting off for two long — the trim around my bathroom door being the biggest one — and knowing he was coming motivated me to finish them. It also motivated me to clean the place up and throw away a lot of the junk that had been accumulating. I am the queen of clutter and I’m really working hard to control it.

I get very serious when I clean. I even took out the leather cleaner and wiped down my living room sofa.

Once my home was all spiffed up, I figured I’d take the opportunity to do a quick video tour. I’ve been videoing various parts of my new home construction and it’s kind of neat to go back through my archive and see where I was at various points.

My living space is about 95% done at this point. I have my Certificate of Occupancy — I got it last spring — so there’s nothing left to get inspected. There are three big finishing projects, though:

Build a ladder to my loft. I already have all the wood and hardware. I just have to stop procrastinating and get the job done.
Finish the tile around my shower stall. Again, I have most of the materials I need. I just absolutely detest working with tile. So I procrastinate.
Paint and trim the stairs. I’m going with paint because it’s durable and cheap. But I still have to sand the steps, paint them, and then add trim along the sides.

I also have some “baseboard” trim work to do. I’m using quarter round to keep it simple. There’s not much left to do. I might knock it off Monday afternoon.

Anyway, here’s the video. Enjoy.

Thriving in Midlife

Posted on September 15, 2016 by Maria Langer

Tired of my tips? Take some from the folks at NPR.

[Note: How weird is this? I was going through a list of unfinished and unpublished blog posts on my desktop computer in November 2017 and found this post from September 2016. It sure looks finished to me — why didn’t I publish it? I’m not sure, but I think it has something to teach so here it is, slotted into the blog chronology with its original date.]

—

8 Tips from author Barbara Bradley Hagerty

Want an idea of what the article says? Here’s the gist; I refer to these points throughout this blog post. I recommend reading it and thinking about how it might apply in your life.

Aim for long-term meaning.
Choose what matters most.
Lean into fear, not boredom.
Always be a rookie at something.
Add punctuation to your life.
A few setbacks are what the doctor ordered.
Don’t left boredom and neglect threaten a marriage.
Happiness is love.

This is a quick blog post to showcase an article posted by NPR — that’s National Public Radio — on its website.

I’m a big NPR listener (and supporter) and usually have the radio tuned in at home when I’m working around the house or in my shop/garage. Conservative Americans will tell you that NPR is a left wing propaganda machine, but I think they do a good job of staying in the center — too good, at times. But beyond politics — which are difficult to get away from these days — NPR offers a lot of programming on general topics of interest. I especially recommend All Things Considered, which airs in the afternoons here.

The article I want to recommend came out way back in March 2016. I missed it then but, for some reason, NPR tweeted a link to it the other day and I caught it. Titled “8 Ways You Can Survive — And Thrive In — Midlife,” It’s a brief piece with numbered tips. I can’t tell you how absolutely on target this article is.

But I’ll try.

This List and My Life

As regular readers know, I went through an extremely difficult time in my life back in 2012 and 2013. The short version is that the man I’d spent 29 years of my life with and had made the mistake of marrying back in 2006 lost his mind, left me for a woman old enough to be my mother, and attempted to use the divorce court to separate me from everything I’d worked hard for my whole life. He dragged us through an ugly and expensive divorce and then — believe it or not — an appeal. Along the way, he harassed me regularly with legal action and unreasonable demands and made a lot of stupid decisions that made him look like a selfish idiot. In the end, I won (twice) and got to keep what was mine. That’s the short version.

How can I not be happy when this is outside my window every day?

They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I can vouch for that. I came away from a really crazy and sometimes painful experience feeling better than ever about myself. I rebooted my life in a new place with lots of new friends. And because I was now fully in charge of my destiny, I made decisions that enabled me to build a home that was perfect for me in a place I loved and to grow my flying business bigger than I ever thought possible. I now have the lifestyle I’d once envisioned for myself and my wasband — I tend to business responsibilities five months a year and play/travel the rest of the year. I started my seven month “vacation” on August 1 this year and don’t need to get back to work until late February.

A few more words about my crazy divorce…

Although I listened to divorce-related advice from friends and family members, I also consulted with my lawyers and made decisions that made good legal sense. And despite the abuse my wasband and his old whore threw my way, I didn’t lower myself to their level and give them a few doses of the same. I did blog a lot about what was going on, but even then I minimized what I shared.

After a while, their harassment became a real source of amusement for me, my family, and my friends — especially when they did idiotic things like trying to get an injunction against harassment on me (which I fought in court alone and won; I still wonder how many thousands of dollars they wasted on a lawyer for that) or sent a private investigator to photograph my neighbor’s home under construction, claiming it was mine and I’d lied about it in court (more money comically wasted).

After all, it wasn’t my goal to make them suffer; once I realized my wasband was a lost cause I only cared about keeping what was rightfully mine and getting on with my life. Even today, more than four years after it all started, I don’t hate them. Instead, I pity them — especially my wasband, who could have shared the amazing life I’ve made for myself. And how can you not pity an old woman who uses 30-year-old lingerie photos to seduce men she meets online? Another reason to pity my wasband, perhaps?

I’ve written numerous times in this blog about my thoughts and feelings related to my success, most recently here. I’m proud of myself and what I’ve achieved and I want readers who visit this blog to see how they can succeed, too. I believe that each person is in charge of his or her own destiny; our decisions and efforts will mold our lives and futures. One stupid decision can really screw things up; I’m sure you know at least one person who will regretfully agree. My mistake was getting married and it cost me dearly. I was able to pull myself back up from what seemed at the time like an abyss because I was financially secure, had a decent brain in my head, and was able to make decisions and take actions that moved me in a positive direction.

That’s where some of this NPR article’s advice comes into play. I wasn’t looking just at the short-term goal of ending my marriage quickly with minimal financial loses. I was also looking at the big picture: my next home, my new friends, the future of my business. Long-term meaning? I’d been thinking about that since 2008 when my friend Erik got sick. That’s when I started planning for the future — a future that originally included my wasband, fueled with his input and promises. Fortunately, I was able to salvage and rebuild those plans when he left my life and the crazy started in 2012.

I also realized that what matters most is my time. Other people will say family, but I have no kids and my family, which is small, lives on the other side of the country. My friends are important — some more than others — but I’ve learned that friends come and go and even the ones you thought were good friends sometimes change and fall from your life. But time — well, that’s a valuable commodity. Being able to spend as much of my time doing the things I wanted to do became a real driving force in how I shaped my work and business. A perfect example: starting in 1998, I wrote Quicken: The Official Guide for Osborne/McGraw-Hill. It was a bestseller and, along with another bestseller I wrote around that time, helped me put a lot of money away for retirement and invest in my future career as a helicopter owner/operator/pilot. The book was revised annually and became, over the years, a bit of a frustrating grind. After the 11th edition, I threw in the towel and asked them to find another author, which they did. The simple truth is that I wanted my summers back. And on a micro level, ask my wasband what I often wanted for my birthday when I spent summers at home; if he’s honest (which is unlikely), he’ll admit that I wanted the day for myself, to do whatever I wanted to do. (He never did understand that.)

If there’s anything on the NPR article’s list that really pops out for me, it’s the third and fourth points, which talk about getting out of your comfort zone and exploring new things. I think I began doing this when I first struck out as a freelancer in 1990, leaving a good-paying job in corporate America for an uncertain career as a writer. Talk about leaving your comfort zone! It would have been easy to stick with that job and continue my climb up the corporate ladder, but I wasn’t happy. Making the change was risky and tough, but I did it better than I expected. As for learning new things, well, I’m often accused of being an overachiever (as if that’s a bad thing) and a lot of people notice my hobbies, like beekeeping and photography. I’ve been fiddling these days with up cycling glass, making wine and cider (and possibly more potent potables), mushroom hunting, astrophotography, and dying fabric using natural materials like lichen and flower petals. I’m a rookie at all of these things and I love learning from them from the ground up! Maybe that’s part of the punctuation referred to in the sixth point, too? The courses I take to learn about mushrooms and photography and wine? The dance lessons I took last year? Soloing in a gyro two winters ago even though I know I’ll never own one?

Setbacks are what make life interesting. Obviously, my divorce was a huge setback, especially with the amount of time and money it took to finally conclude. But as I said earlier, what doesn’t kill you does make you stronger. Working through setbacks help us learn to work with others and solve problems. They also help us appreciate the days when we don’t have troubles clouding our world.

And it’s pretty clear that I failed completely at the seventh point. My marriage went downhill almost from the moment we exchanged vows. After 23 years together, did he really expect things to change? For me to settle down and be the homebody wife and mommy he apparently wanted and needed? I didn’t want a change; hell, I didn’t even want to get married. (Long story there.) In any case, there was plenty of boredom and neglect on both sides. I felt as if I was perpetually in a holding pattern, waiting for him to keep promises he’d made to me to move forward in our future together. He likely felt that I was neglecting him by going off to my summer job in Washington every year. I’ll never know, though, since he lacked the courage to talk to me about it, even after the marriage counsellor he wanted us to see recommended it. Honest conversation probably could have saved what was once an amazing relationship, but some people respect the value of truth and others don’t. Enough said.

Happiness is love. Hmm. Not sure what that’s supposed to mean. I do know that I’m happier now than I have been in a very long time. There’s no new love in my life and frankly, after all I’ve been through, I don’t think I want one. Some people are meant to be part of a pair and others aren’t. Unless I find someone with the same outlook in life that I have — a real love of the outdoors, a desire to try and learn new things, an understanding of the value of time, and a willingness to drop everything for a spur-of-the-moment adventure — I’ll stay single and be very happy that way. I’ve learned that I’d much rather be single than in a relationship with the wrong partner. I’ll take the happiness; you can keep the love.

If there’s one thing on this topic I’ve learned in my life, it’s this: Happiness might be love, but love isn’t necessarily happiness.

Now Look at Your Life

But I didn’t share this article to talk about my life. I shared it to help you — the people who read this blog, many of whom have contacted me privately to tell me how I’ve inspired them. (A special thanks to Meghan, who emailed me just past weekend to tell me I was “rad.” You’re rad, too; work hard and smart and you’ll be even radder.) It’s within your power to survive and thrive not only your midlife years, but the years leading up to them and those beyond.

Read the article. It’s short. Or better yet, read the book it’s extracted from, Life Reimagined: The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife. Think about how its advice might apply to your life. Make the changes you might need to move forward and be happy.

It’s not always easy, but it is so worth it.

And if you get a chance, use the comments to share how the tips listed above might apply in your life to make you happier. I’m sure we could all learn from your experience, too!

Construction: The Garage Shelves

Posted on September 9, 2016 by Maria Langer

It was a mess. Now it’s not.

I need to start by reminding readers that I have a very large garage. The 60 x 48 footprint is split into a four car garage (24 x 48), a double-wide RV garage (24 x 48), and a shop/general storage area (12 x 48). If you’re doing math, that’s 2880 square feet.

Of garage.

My friend Woody wrote this on my big white board during my moving party back in 2014. He wasn’t kidding.

The great thing about a big garage is that there’s plenty of space to store stuff. The bad thing about a big garage is that there’s plenty of space to store stuff.

I’m doing what I can to keep the garage organized, but even though most things have their place, that place isn’t exactly neat and orderly.

It Started with the Bungee Cords

The other day, I decided to clean up and sort out my bungee cords and ratchet tie downs — you wouldn’t believe how many I have because even I’m having trouble believing it.

I’d been racking my brains on a solution that would enable me to hang them neatly in order of size in a place that was out of the way. That’s when I remembered the curtain rods. When I lived in my Arizona house, I’d bought a few really nice ones. I wasn’t about to leave them behind — not even with shrimp stuffed in them (look it up) — so I packed them. Of course, I don’t have curtains on my windows here so I don’t need curtain rods. They remained wrapped up in bubble wrap in a corner of the garage.

Some of my bungees and tie downs and ropes after putting up the curtain rod. I found a bunch more here, there, and everywhere the next day. The horizontal wooden beams are called girts, by the way. I live in a post & beam building. Beyond the vapor barrier is the metal exterior of my building. The car garage is not insulated.

I unwrapped the living room rod and grabbed a bungee cord. Sure enough, its hook fit neatly over the narrow black rod. A half hour later, the rod was hung on one of the girts in my Jeep garage — each garage bay is assigned a vehicle; the Jeep is in the first bay — and I was taking great joy in arranging my bungee cords and ratchet tie-downs. And ropes and straps.

The Shelves Came Next

I started thinking about how stupid it was to have all that dead space right below the bungee cords. How about a couple of shelves?

This was the first set of shelves I built for the garage. (Tiny dog for scale.) They’re free-standing and very heavy duty. And just plain heavy. I made two more shorter sets and a workbench with two shelves based on the same design. The RV garage/shop is insulated.

I should mention here that I’ve created shelves elsewhere in my garage. The biggest project was a set 8 feet long and 8 feet tall made of 5/8 plywood and 2 x4 lumber. It was quite a chore to build them, which I did with them lying down on the floor. When I tried to stand them up, I couldn’t. I had to wait for a friend to come by and lure him down into the garage — which was about as difficult as it sounds. (Men love my garage.)

I had limited space in the car garages, though. After all, I had to fit the cars in. Each garage bay is about 12 feet wide. There aren’t any walls between them — it’s one big open space. I knew I could fit shelves that were about 12 inches deep. (The big ones are 24 inches deep.) And I realized that I could build them in place, right against the wall, using the tops of the girts as supports for the shelves. That would save another inch and a half because each shelf could go right up against the exterior metal walls.

So I went to Home Depot and bought a sheet of about 1/2 inch plywood. While I was there, I saw a really nice piece of sanded 1/2 inch plywood that was in the cull pile because of a nasty scratch in one corner. But 70% off? A $35 sheet of wood for $10? No brainer! I brought both pieces over to the big wood cutter and got a Home Depot guy to cut each of them into 8 foot x 1 foot strips. Then I picked up a few 2x4s, along with some very nice 2×3 cull pieces and a long 2×4 cull piece. I don’t see anything wrong with using cull lumber to build shelves in a garage.

Did I mention that I also returned a bunch of lumber I’d bought about a year before but never used? The return completely covered the cost of the new lumber, as well as some additional screws and other supplies I needed in my shop. I threw everything into the back of the pickup, hung a red flag on the long 2×4, ran a few errands, and went home to make dinner with a friend.

The next morning, I really should have tended to my bees, but my truck was blocking my quad and I figured it would be best for me to offload the lumber and move the truck. Or maybe just offload the lumber and build the shelves to get the lumber completely out of the way.

So I did.

Let me explain a little bit about how a post and beam building — or pole building — is constructed. They start by digging holes in the ground and planting vertical posts. My building is made with a combination of 6×6 and 6×8 pressure treated posts. Then they nail the girts in horizontally, 24 inches on center. Next, they put the roof trusses atop the posts. They add rafters to finish framing out the roof. They cover that with insulation or a vapor barrier or both and then screw on the metal skin. They pour the concrete slab last — if the building has one (mine does). If you’re interested in seeing my building built in a time-lapse movie, be sure to check out this blog post.

The posts are usually 12 feet apart. In the bungee cord area, however, the distance between the door to my stairwell and the first post was only 7 feet. The reason: the front door and entrance vestibule is also on that wall. So the shelves needed to be just 7 feet long.

I dragged the saw horses my friend Bob had made me — they’re taller than standard sawhorses and much nicer to use — to the driveway outside the garage door, which I opened. I used my circular saw to make the cuts; later, I used my miter saw and table saw to get cleaner cuts when needed. And bit by bit I assembled the pieces I needed to build a short set of shelves with just a top and bottom shelf. The bottom shelf needed two cut outs — one for an electrical outlet (long story) and the other for the pipe for the outside hose bib. I got to use my new 1-1/2-inch hole saw, which I’d actually bought for a beehive project.

Here’s my bungee cord wall with the new shelves. I arranged all the tools I used for the project on the shelves.

I had to make a few blocks out of scrap wood to support various components of the shelves as I assembled them and screwed them together. I drilled pilot holes — I always do a neater job when there’s a hole predrilled for a screw. I used two 2×2 lengths that had been sitting around forever for the front horizontal shelf supports. These were small shelves so they didn’t need to be very heavy duty.

When I was done, I realized that I also needed a center vertical support. So I used a piece of scrap wood leftover from my windowsill project. Done.

And Then More Shelves

The truck wasn’t empty yet. I still had plenty of wood. I also had a really messy wall at the front of that garage bay. And time.

Here’s the old shelves with a bunch of car stuff on them. This whole area looks like crap here — and this was after I’d moved some trim wood stored there.

A long time ago, I’d bought a very heavy duty bookshelf for my books. I have a lot of books. I don’t remember if this shelf was from my New Jersey home or if I got it for the office I had at my condo in Wickenburg for a while. In any case, it eventually made its way to my Wickenburg hangar where I stored a lot of stuff on it. When I moved from Wickenburg to an East Wenatchee hangar and eventually to my new home in Malaga, the shelves came with me. I’d put them in the front of that garage bay and was using it to store miscellaneous auto-related stuff.

But it looked like crap.

I texted a friend of mine who has rental properties. Want an old bookshelf in decent condition? I sent a picture. Sure, she answered. Send a man with a truck, I told her. (She’d also taken my old Sony Trinitron off my hands.)

I took all the things off the shelves and used a hand truck to move the shelves over to a spot between Bay 2 (Honda S2000) and Bay 3 (Ford truck). Hopefully, the man with the truck will come within a few days. I swept. And then I got to work.

Four shelves, no shelf cutting needed because 8 feet was fine. I ripped two 2x4s on my table saw and used them for horizontal supports for the front of the shelves. Then I cut 2 2x4s to 79 inches and started piecing all of it together.

I had to crop the heck out of this cell phone photo. My truck mirror is on the right.

And that’s when Penny started barking like a little nut. I went out to investigate. She was halfway down the driveway at a standoff with a bighorn sheep. After some more barking, she spooked it and it bounded off. And then a dozen of its friends shot out of my side yard after it. There had been a whole herd of them less than 100 yards from where I was working and I didn’t even know it.

I took a break for lunch. I saw the sheep again later. They got very close. I got photos. But I’ll save that for another blog post.

I eventually got back to work. Again, I had to cut supports as I mounted each shelf. But once I got the hang of it, it went very quickly. I was done within an hour.

I put away my tools and set about organizing car and motorcycle-related stuff on the new shelves. I found a garage door opener for my old house. I found the stock mats that had come with my old Ford F350. (It had custom rubber mats so these were brand new; I photographed them and put them on Craig’s List.) I walked around my whole garage, looking for anything remotely car or motorcycle related and moved it to the shelves. I still had lots of space to fill.

I had some extra wall space between the shelves and the garage door. I measured a crate I had in my shop and moved it into position. I cut a piece of wood to give it a sold top. Then I moved my gas cans and spare propane bottle onto it. It made sense to keep stuff like that near the door where it could be quickly removed.

I found a few more bungee cords and put them away.

I spent some time admiring my handiwork. I might be the Queen of Clutter, but it isn’t by choice. If everything has a place, everything can be put away. The trick is finding a place for everything. Now I have a place for my car stuff.

These shelves look a lot nicer than the mess I had there before.

Up Next

Before I called it quits for the day and went upstairs to get cleaned up, I took a look at the wall in Bay 4. That’s where my little boat and motorcycle live. It’s a big mess and could really use some shelves. I’m thinking it might be a good place to organize all of my extra beekeeping equipment.

Looks like I’ll be hitting Home Depot for more lumber again.

Footnote

After writing this and posting it and then re-reading it online, I started thinking about all the work I’d done to build these shelves — and to do all the other things I’ve done as part of the construction of my home. A lot of it is difficult, challenging work that requires me to use my brains as well as my physical strength to get a project done. A lot of people would shy away from work like this and either hire someone else to do it or not do it at all. I know this from experience; so many projects at my Arizona house just didn’t get done. Or got done the way a contractor did them — which might not be the way it should have been done to meet needs.

Doing things like this myself is a task and a challenge I really look forward to. I don’t have a regular job that requires me to show up at an office or sit at a desk and make calls all day. My time is infinitely flexible. I could spend it sleeping all day or watching television or just goofing off. Yet many days, I choose to spend my time working hard on projects like this. The way I see it, there are four benefits:

I get the thing done and get the benefits of that. In this case, I’ve got a bunch of neat, new storage spaces where I used to have a wall with a lot of stuff piled up on it.
I save money on what it would have cost to hire someone to do the job. It’s a lot cheaper for me to spend a few hours on a project like this than to pay a carpenter to do it. It’s not like I don’t have the time.
I learn new techniques, often through trial and error. The things I learn can be applied to other projects. The way I see it, if I can’t learn something every day, why bother getting out of bed?
I get an amazing feeling of satisfaction every time I look at something I created with my own hands. My home is full of things like this. Read my construction posts to see what I’ve done; I’m proud of every single project I finished.

The people who think I’m doing these things because I’m cheap or bored are completely missing the point. They likely haven’t taken on projects like these, projects that can meet a specific need and give them so much satisfaction for every minute of effort put into them. It’s not difficult if you think it through and have the right materials and tools. Dare I say it? It’s fun.

Try it sometime and see for yourself.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, helicopter pilot, content creator, jewelry artist, boater, and serious amateur photographer.

Category Archives: Maria, Rebooted