By the Books

Speaking of that idyllic shot of bookshelf and comfy chair (consignment shopping for the win)...

Some of us have the gift of grok, we can disappear into a powertool encrusted cave and emerge with-- reclaimed romex wrought iron window-mirror knock off...  I am not that some of us.  I'm more like the Diablo archivist, Deckard Cain.  I surround myself with stacks of topical literature trying to triangulate on consensus and brinksmanship from myriad points of view.  As a consequence, I'm inordinately interested in friend's libraries as a mirror into their soul or breadcrumbs as to why I like them.   

In the event you find yourself more in the Cain camp, here is my current literary canon:  

*Letters of a Woman Homesteader. Stewart, Elinore Pruitt.  Collected correspondence from a widow who moves to Wyoming in 1909.  Free download from Amazon, quick read.  Holy cow were there some optimistic, git 'er done types at the turn of the century!  Makes the small complaints about lack of heat or shower seem trivial, plus better tune into the spirit of the times when Halladay broke ground.  

*The American Frugal Housewife.  Child, Lydia Maria Francis.  1832.  Housekeeping tips from pre-Halladay era.  Free download on Amazon.  You won't recognize half of the inputs, so these aren't actionable recipes, but the spirit of frugality and industriousness is strong with this one.   

*Getting Things Done.  Allen, David.  When people say I have "my sh*t together," it's largely a credit to this book.  Like most people, I've settled on a lighter weight version of the project management routines he outlines (with periodic returns to the well).

*Three Black Skirts and One Hundred everybody needs a couple pink girl power books.  Three Black Skirts was the first how to stay sane as a semi-autonomous 20-something guide.  One Hundred appealed to my compulsion to make lists and collect stuff.   

*The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Work Week.  Ferriss, Timothy.  Tim is the ultimate hacker, tearing an objective down to the studs and finding the most expedient way to get there (bonus points if its also unorthodox).  The TF diet helped MacGyver and I slim down last summer while the work week helped me escape from a career that was all about optics and being first in/last out/first to respond to weekend email.  

*The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer.  Lived up to its title (twice) and has a super accessible training schedule.  I was hoping it would have tips on speed training for an upcoming relay, but sadly, this is all about finishing and not about setting PR.  

*Making It and The Urban Homestead.  Coyne, Kelly.  Granted, she came across a bit extreme when the first chapter discussed alternatives for the toothbrush.  This was the first survey into sustainable living.  Have found myself pulling these out of the archives when looking for natural cleaning recipes to grey water capture designs.  

*Home Comforts.  Mendelson, Cheryl.  A home ec geek!  Super rare spawn!  Her book is super fun to page through sighing about how long it will be before making sure we vacuum the blinds fortnightly tops our to do list.  

*A Random Walk Down Wallstreet.  Malkiel, Burton.  Loved it, helped me to save the majority of my income to go back to school.  I still use the asset allocation suggestions he provides in the last chapter.  It was written pre-housing bubble, so he's a bit more optimistic on the ROI of home ownership vs. renting, but so are we.  

*Your Money or Your Life.  Dominguez, Joe.  Sparked the realization that to be independently wealthy needn't take the form of a trust fund and an approach for "fully loading" your hourly wage to account for costuming/elbow rubbing/decompressing.  In short, this book got me aspiring to be more of a cottage industrial.  

*The Tightwad Gazette.  Most of this is too tight for me.  Plus it's a compendium of e-zines put together before the internet was so big, so a lot of the tips aren't really the most frugal anymore.  That said, I love the concept of documenting and celebrating ways one saves money.    

*Enough.  Bogle, John.  Deeply respect this dude for coming up with the concept of index funds and making them available at Vanguard.  

*World Changing.  Found this one in a library in Oregon and loved it.  It's basically an encyclopedia of the things they think are broken in the world and what cool skunkworks projects are underway to address them.  

*Gaia's Garden.  Hemenway, Toby.  First introduction to permaculture, the concept of plant guilds, and the concept of allelopathic walnut trees that can poison everything beneath them (except agapanthus I'm desperate to uproot).  

*The Vegetable Gardener's Bible.  Smith, Edward.  Deep beds!  Cold frames?  

*Victory Garden Cookbook.  Loved the backstory about it being a supplement to a TV show encouraging folks to start victory gardens and not knowing what to do with the bounty.  That said, skews towards the sub-zone 9b crowd and some very unappealing staple veggies.  

*City Chicks.  Foreman, Patricia.  A bit misleading, her "microflock" is 20+.  This was the best book I found geared towards folks with the luxury of a yard, but the responsibility that comes with close neighbors.  Deep dive into chicken diets and how to diy.  You will have a minor in composting when you finish this book.  

*The Art of Raising a Puppy.  Monks of New Skete.  Read this on the plane from Boston to Orange County with a 4 lb bundle of joy under the seat in front of me.  Got me through the first months until Kai was old enough for puppy K and doggie day care. 

*The Whole Pet Diet.  Super helpful when Kai was having health troubles.  Turns out most of it was puppy immune system catching up and sketchy chemicals sprayed on the apartment complex lawn.  That said, we learned how to cook her chicken dinner and accidentally started eating more vegetables to get rid of her scraps.   

*The Singularity is Near.  Kurzweil, Ray.  I personally don't believe I'll live forever, but that sliver of possibility really changes the way one approaches life and the decisions one makes, eh?  

*Willpower.  Baumeister, Roy.  Partially because I love spinning through the pop lit version of the heavy duty lit review authors of theses past.  Partially because when times are tough, I'd rather believe I just need to muscle in 10,000 hours, however crappy they may be, and I too will be considered a virtuoso (see also:  Talent is Overrated)...  oh, and Baumeister offered more insight into why MacGyver is so careful to make sure my glycemic index does not drop perilously low.   

*A Pattern Language.  This group rocks.  They pull apart all of these patterns that change the way you look at architecture and space.  I was so inspired, I got MacGyver to rotate my work desk 90 degrees in order to have a more "quiet back" and feel less paranoid.  Elements of their observations are baked into every home design decision we've made, and even the meta-process of slowly revamping and prototyping, rather than gutting the house and designing it's rennovated version in a vacuum.  

*Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft.  Buckland, Raymond.  You ever have something you just couldn't bring yourself to purchase when you knew someone else would be reviewing the credit card statement.  Yeah.  Not planning to do any "skyclad" rituals on the next Samhain, but it is kind of cool to see where Science and Religion (however disorganized) diverge and maybe laugh quietly to myself when the trend reverses.  

*The Secret.  Byrne, Rhonda.  See above.  

*The Illiad & the Odyssey.  Homer.  Because we needed some handsome leather bound tomes.  Plus I've read both as an almost-classics major and James Joyce enthusiast.  

*The Lord of the Rings.  Another handsome leather bound tome.  Plus a good overall story, if you have the time to sit down and crack it.  

*Faceforward and Making Faces.  Kevyn Aucoin.  Incredible coffee table books of one famous actress being a dead ringer for another famous actress/actor using the magic of makeup.  Eye Candy.  

*Caravaggio.  Him and Bernini were the highlight of studying abroad in Rome.  Eye candy.  

*V for Vendetta.  More eye candy.  And nerd cred.  

*Fell... misc. Ben Templesmith graphics.  Modern day Caravaggio, imho.  

*Game of Thrones.  Martin, George.  The HBO series was so good!  and true to the books!  Midway through book 2 and this is my go-to read on my phone for those long plane rides.  

Big update lots done.

We finished the penny floor and are 95% done with the office. It is currently in a good enough for government work state and we have moved focus on to the bedroom and bathroom. After the floor was surfaced I transformed one of the el-cheapo mirrors into a pretty cool looking wall mirror with some redwood and old electrical wires from the basement.
We added some antique furniture from my Grandmother and Aunt and popped the super comfy reading chair in the corner. The room looks really good!
Today I finished stripping the old wallpaper in the bedroom. About halfway done patching all the cracks in the plaster. After that it is primer and then we are going to test some paint colors to see what looks good.

Another quick win was tearing the old runner from the stairs. The wood needs to be refinished but is otherwise in really good shape. We are most likely going to just restain it and leave it naked. Here is Belle cleaning the stairs after I pulled all the nails out. It was actually really gross carpet, but we are desensitized at this point. The snowflakes were horrible dustballs.


The big project however is the bathroom downstairs. PaGyver is spearheading the effort to turn the stinky old bathroom into a very cool but appropriate wet-room. So far we have completely gutted the room and ran new drain pipes for both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms (no more galvanized!). This involved cutting a hole in the foundation to run the new pipe through and attaching it to the sewer outside the house. We have already connected it up and patched the foundation. Tomorrow the goal is to get the electrical in, finish the shower drain and put in a new wash machine intake/drain. We are turning the front closet and bedroom closet into a washer/dryer room while leaving some closet space on the bedroom side. The front closet will get moved to a hidden passage under the stairs. Very exciting.