Progress

The kitchen was only 10 x 11 in size and, with the false ceiling overhead, felt a little crammed for space. Our solution was to remove part of the wall that used to separate the dining room and the kitchen. The actual kitchen space wouldn't be bigger - it would be about the same as we intend to borrow a bit of space from the family living room - but we would have more room to move about and when guests visit, they can easily congregate at the dining table and still be within sight and conversation of the cooks in the kitchen space.  The kitchen and dining space though now almost completely open to one another has a "header" to provide a sense of separation (i.e I thought to not remove the wall entirely from floor to ceiling).

It looks a mess right now, but I can see the potential!

New Security Feature

We've been wanting to improve the security of our blog to protect Zoe (and us). By security I mean making our pictures useless to others for copying, and that means reducing the size of the pictures we post here. We expect the only audience of our blog to be the grandparents and close families and friends (who else would care to read our prattle?), but who knows? There's been some press about parents who discovered that the pictures they posted of their children having been usurped for other less savory purposes.

This picture here is a trial run of the new system.

New Home - Soon to Be

I have been so busy I haven't had the time to record here the latest - and very big - event in our lives: we bought a house. We closed more than a week ago now (on Oct 7, to be exact), but we are still immensely overjoyed by it. Getting here was such a long journey - we (or I) saw more than 147 houses, and there were moments I despaired of ever finding a house we can imagine as home and that we can afford. Some of our friends told us of the nervousness they felt the day they signed the loan documents. We felt simply excitement and joy. Hopefully not because we are too stupid like a pair of eloping teenagers to realize the responsibility of what we are getting into.

But I do think we are aware, and yet we want this responsibility of being a homeowner, even if it means a true adieu to our former carefree lives - a life where it is easy to pick up and just go as the spirit pleases. Now we have a mortgage to pay, a house to take care of, on top of being parents to Zoe. But this house will be our nest. The mise en scene of our daily lives and Zoe's memories. We looked for a property with a place to garden. We will have just about 0.2 acre to garden and I can't wait.

But wait we will have to do. There is so much we have to do for the house before we can move in. It turns out that we bought a fixer upper! I didn't think so until Jeannie pointed it out, after I rattled off all the things we need to do before we can move in: asbestos remediation (done), mold remediation (done), drywall replacement (lots gutted because of the mold remediation), re-texture the ceiling (because of the asbestos removal), new windows (because the existing windows are more than 30 years old, single pane and leaking in water that caused the mold), new flooring (because all the old flooring had to be removed), new kitchen and bathroom (because parts of it were ripped out to correct the mold issue). We also need to get new fascia boards and sidings that were damaged by termites... and new gutters. I guess it is a fixer upper but not at fixer upper price!

Still, we love our soon to be new home already. You can see our progress here:

Removing a tree that is too close to the house :


Mold remediation in progress:


The view we fell in love with (and that is now somewhat compromised because the neighbor next door put up a fence recently. Ah well):

Experiencing

Zoe has learned to smile for the camera, except that, because she puts so much effort into smiling, the effect is more or less a squint. It's still cute, but I think I'll stop saying "smile" whenever I try to take a picture of her. Her natural smile is so much sweeter.

Today, we attended the last of the gardening classes we signed up with Victory Gardens San Diego. I'm not sure we know a whole lot more than before we started, but it has been fun and I think the point is to continue learning as we do the actual gardening. Showing Zoe around the gardens, I felt great happiness for her. It took me 37 years to get to this point: seeing what a broccoli, cauliflower, kale, chard plant look like (and not just a vegetable to buy from the grocery store). And here is Zoe, learning and experiencing it at two years old.

Talk about experiencing, we went to La Milpa Organica again this evening. La Milpa holds a potluck at their farm every third Saturday of the month. We made it today. And I'm so glad we did. Though we didn't do any "gardening" this time, Zoe got to see a goat getting milked. I think her favorite part is the clambering up and down their play structure. On our part, we enjoyed the ambiance. It was very - how should I say - very reminiscent of the college town vibe. With the band and all the good cheer about, it was also very festive and happy.

Weekend

We had a busy weekend. Started with gardening class on Saturday - Zoe encountered caterpillars.



She ate a whole banana on her own for the first time too.



On Sunday we went to a birthday party. Zoe enjoyed the playground.



Zoe thought the party favors were the best thing ever.