It’s been a while since I posted last. Things are settling down and starting to fall into a routine. I’m getting more settled into trailer living. We still need to organize the workshop so that things are findable.
As it’s been 10 days since I last posted, it’s time to catch up on where our lives have been. We took Memorial Weekend and went up to Washington. We visited the grandkids, whom I miss a lot. Spent some time with our oldest and his wife catching up, hung out with our daughter and caught up on her life and new boyfriend. Then we went to Walla Walla for the weekend with some friends. We rented a house, which was amazing and did wine tasting for three days. It was so much fun and great to get to know our friends better. We did a wine tour and then did individual visits to some of our favorite wineries. Our friends had a great time, and the tours really helped them with knowing wines and which wines they liked. We visited our favorite winery, Castillo de Feliciana that’s owned by Sam and Deb Castillo. Love them!
The house is coming along nicely. I’m going to fly the drone this morning and get more pictures of the roof structure as it’s really interesting. The house has the roof on it. They’ve taken down the supports inside and are working on finishing out the roof. The parapets are up along with the holes for the Canales (roof drains) as this house has a flat roof. It appears they are working on starting the garage build out. Here are a couple of pictures from the ground of the house.
It’s pretty exciting to see the drawings come to life. The difference from the drawings to the 3D structure are really different. It’s a bit of an adjustment. For some reason the distances on paper are MUCH shorter in 3D. I left 60 ft between the garage and the workshop and that’s actually pretty tight for a driveway. And we have a 35 ft buffer from the neighboring pasture and our house and that seems pretty close. I think we’re going to need to plant some hedge trees and plants to isolate the view and keep wind and insects down. Once we get retaining walls up and tidy up the building pad, I think the property will look better and be better defined.
Phased retirement, I’m finding is more difficult than working 5 days a week. I really am having difficulties focusing on work. I’d much rather be working around the property and getting the place more organized. The issue is that it takes money to lay gravel, get gas and do the work to keep the property up to speed. If I last until the end of the year, I’m definitely done. I’m slowly adjusting spending to the new income level. I need to survive on social security, 401k and pension. I am working on budgeting so I can pay the bills and get food. It’s a big change but worth it. Different priorities.
Lastly are the house appliances. I’m struggling with the kitchen appliances. Wendy really wants a lifetime kitchen that is an “adult” kitchen the reflect upscale and classic qualities. The kitchen is really the focal point but a $45k kitchen is a bit expensive, especially since we could do a nice kitchen for $35k. I keep thinking about those folks who remodel and do $100k kitchens with Wolf or Sub-Zero. I think I’m going to do the $45k as this is my last house and I do want her to be happy after I’m not here anymore. I’ll figure it out this week. Then we have to do plumbing fixtures also, but that’s less painful. And we still have cabinets.
Well, that’s everything I can think of for now. I really want to take the rest of the week off, but I do have work to complete. My friend Bryan is retiring from Itron this week and starting work at Waison. So, he’s not really retiring, but he’s just changing jobs. I don’t think I could do that where I’m at now. I really need to just stop working and start enjoying my life with the time I have left.
I’ll post more this week. I’m probably going to do a blog post once or twice a week from now on. Things are slowing down on the house and moving inside. Hoping the windows show up in the next few weeks so we can pay that bill. Last of the big bills for construction. We still need to have a budget meeting to sort out how much more we need to complete the house.
Take care and have a wonderful day.
-gk
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