Category Archives: DIY

Something fishy going on.

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Looking out the front door.

Less than two years ago we bought a rental home that came with a tenant. He had lived there for years and was a solid guy. He worked in construction. But then he had a heart attack and his wife left him the same month.

He told us he could no longer afford rent on disability and without his wife’s income, too. He inherited a house in Puerto Penasco, Mexico and decided to move there.

After he left, we put a lot of work into the home. It needed carpets ripped out, new flooring, paint, yard work, you name it.

Our realtor found us a new tenant who checked out great on paper. A woman with a credit score in the high 700s. My husband called and texted her, wanting us to meet our new tenant in person. She never replied. We drove down three separate times to meet her. It’s a 45-minute drive each way. She was never home or at least wouldn’t answer the door.

That was the first sign something was off.

We decided to let our realtor collect the rent and Venmo it to us. She was communicating with him. She lived there for five months and then May came. She didn’t pay rent. When she didn’t return our realtor’s calls and texts, he went to the city and filed for eviction.

Thankfully in Arizona, it takes five days to get someone out. I can’t imagine how long it takes in California. My husband and realtor met the Constable, who handles evictions, at the house. The Constable was 6’5″ tall and armed.

The tenant left before eviction day.

Not only did she leave — if she ever lived there — but the place was a mess. And strangely there were mattresses all over the floors in every room. There was also a peephole drilled into the garage door fitted with a fisheye scope. Because the front door is recessed (photo above) they couldn’t see who was outside — so they rigged the garage to keep an eye on the exterior and street.

What do you think the was going on at this house?

The big box

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I made myself a treat. My husband had to meet with clients over the weekend, so while he was busy, I bought two pounds of little neck clams and made myself a feast. I had clams while I was visiting Seattle, of course, but I can never get too many!

I’m finally attacking some chores that I’ve tried to avoid. When I say avoid, I mean I’ve successfully put them off for years!

First there was a huge box that my brother mailed to me in 2015. I know the date because its stamped across the two-foot by three-foot-long box on the UPS label. It was a box from Mom. I hadn’t looked at it until after she died. When I was getting ready for my trip to spread her ashes on on our riverfront property, I thought perhaps I’d take a peek inside the box. I found several photos to share with family and promised myself I’d get into the box when I returned.

The box had lived in our hallway closet in Palm Springs until we moved. Then it found a home in a hallway closet in Arizona.

I ordered a couple photo storage boxes and decided I needed to sort through the photos from mom’s childhood through my adulthood. The keepers are now in a 11.25″ X 7.75″ box.

I discovered tiny little photos from my mom’s childhood of relatives I’ve never met. I think Mom said she had a Brownie camera. I wonder if that’s what made the teeny tiny photos?

I found color polaroids from my childhood. Photos from our trip to Hawaii when I was in second grade. Vacation days in Victoria BC where my brother and I were dressed up like we were going to church. Several years of birthday parties with neighborhood and school friends.

Mom also had tons of photos of my children, from when they were babies to beginning grade school. I did more throwing out than saving and felt somewhat satisfied to toss the huge cardboard box in recycling.

Now I have four boxes out from the same hallway closet to conquer. I’m on a roll and don’t want to stop now. These boxes are full of framed photos. I think I’m going to take the photos out and if I want to keep them, store them in a photo box. The frames I’ll take to the Kiwanis Thrift Shop. It will feel good to get rid of all this stuff that’s sitting in boxes for years. These are boxes that were stored for years in Palm Springs and rather than making decisions about them before we moved, I moved the boxes with me.

Here’s a photo my mom took of my husband and me when we first got together. My husband was my son’s age!
Do you have any chores or boxes in closets that you’ve avoided?

About the “right way to drink coffee…”

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This is a wreath I made several years ago for our Palm Springs home. I found a spot for it on our gate in Arizona. The wreath has nothing to do with this story, but I found it in the garage and we hung it yesterday.

I read about the correct way to drink coffee in the Wall Street Journal and wrote about it HERE. That was a little over two weeks ago and I’ve followed the plan wondering if I could tell the difference or not. I’m surprised to report that it REALLY works for me! Who knew?

I feel better, I’m more alert. I have lost that groggy feeling I’d have when I needed coffee to get out of bed. The trick is that you don’t drink coffee right away, but wait 60 to 90 minutes to allow your body to naturally wake up. Cortisol is the hormone that tells your body to be awake and responsive. Having coffee right away interferes with the natural process.

Instead of my husband bringing me a cup of coffee and placing it on my nightstand — which he has done for the past 36 years — he has converted to bringing me hot water with one quarter of a lemon. The hot lemon water has its own benefits, smells wonderful and is cleansing.

I don’t have my cup of coffee until after I’ve written my morning pages. I’ve adopted my morning routine by following “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. Then I do daily Bible readings, get out of bed and get ready to walk. I’m fully awake and ready to go — and sometimes I forget to have coffee altogether when I return.

I was very skeptical about this and surprised how this small change makes me feel better and more productive.

If you’re a coffee-first-thing-in the-morning person, give this a try. I’d like to hear if it had the same positive effect for you, too. Will you be willing to give it a try?

This was the wreath on our Palm Springs gate.

Quiet time outside with kitty

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cat asleep on pet grass.
Olive is sound to sleep today on her pet grass next to boxes of grass I’m growing for her.

Yesterday as I recovered from my big day of DIY with sore muscles, I decided to put the harness and leash back on Olive, our 10-year-old cat. Olive used to spend half her time outside until we moved. Now that we’re living with a bobcat, hawks, coyotes and other wildlife, we’ve been advised to keep the cat inside.

I ordered a harness and leash online when a friend who lives nearby said it worked for her cat. I’ve tried it a couple times and it’s been a disaster. I don’t know why I thought about giving it another try, but I did.

cat in harness and leash
Olive wearing the harness and leash.

Olive seemed more comfortable yesterday. She sat on my lap, nose sniffing, ears moving in rhythm with birds chirping. Her tail twitched. I moved from the comfort of the cozy outdoor chair at the table to our patio bar. There’s a saguaro with baby woodpeckers living inside across from the pool. They make loud chirping noises when their parents are gone and there’s also the excitement of the parents coming in and out to feed them. I thought it would be a lively place to sit with Olive to have an unobstructed view of the action and sounds.

Where Olive wanted to jump on the bar for a better view of the woodpecker’s nest in the saguaro.

She leaped from my lap to the bar. I grabbed her mid leap and ended up with a bloody scratch on my thigh. I don’t know why I didn’t give her the freedom to make the leap. She was on a leash after all. But it was my instant reaction to protect her.

We sat for a while longer and I think we both enjoyed the quiet time outside just listening and observing nature. At least I know I did.

Do you get outside to sit, listen and watch? I’m finding it very peaceful and entertaining. What are your favorite views?

Hard work never hurt anyone?

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pug in mortar board with college grad
My daughter and Waffles during college graduation.

A few years ago my daughter graduated from college and was recruited by a Scottsdale, Ariz. firm. We told her we’d love to go apartment hunting with her. My husband was impressed with the area and wanted to move to Arizona someday (spoiler alert: we did during COVID). What we discovered with our daughter was very expensive housing for renters. And relatively cheap homes to purchase — especially compared to California. A mortgage payment was close to $1,000 less per month than a rental payment. Plus it made sense as an investment.

So, we decided to buy a small house. It didn’t take long for my daughter to realize she was in the wrong career and really didn’t like her job. She applied for several jobs and had a couple offers. This was all pre-COVID lockdowns when there were more jobs than people applying. She took a job in the Bay Area where she’d be living a few miles from our son, her big brother.

pug on a sofa
Waffles inside the house where my daughter lived.

After our daughter left, we decided to hang onto the house and rent it out. This weekend the current tenants moved out. We have new ones coming in a few weeks. We were shocked at how the house looked today, compared to when my daughter took such good care of it. Two of the rooms have so many holes in the walls it looked like someone was playing with a machine gun. Seriously? Who puts 50 holes in a wall? I guess three college students do and did. The yard needs a lot of work, too.

We decided we didn’t have any plans this Fourth of July weekend, so we’d be DIYers. We started by patching holes and prepping two rooms for fresh paint. After working on the house from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. yesterday, I’m feeling muscles I didn’t know I had. I can barely walk, bend over or sit in a chair. I was reminded of the saying “Hard work never hurt anyone.”

These are the holes I patched in one bedroom. Next comes primer and paint. I already finished taping the floorboards, closet doors. It’s going to be a light, light, grayish blue when done.

I am hurting. Big time. I’m also very tired. Despite us getting cranky with each other (to put it mildly!) and sore muscles — I think in the long run this is good for us. We aren’t used to doing hard physical labor. At least not since chasing around little kids, working all weekend on my feet at a swim meet, or working in the yard at our old house.

I think the toughest part for me was the painters tape. I taped up the floor boards, doorways and windows. Bending over or sitting on the floor trying to get the tedious work done was an adventure in itself. With my post surgery knee that has never been the same, just sitting on the floor in a semi comfortable position is work.

Here’s to getting the house and yard back into shape and having tenants who take better care of it.

Before picture of the back yard.
The lawn today.

What do you think about DIY projects? Do you enjoy them or would you prefer hiring someone? What projects have you done?

Striving for an attitude of gratitude

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I woke up the other morning thinking I was in my old Palm Springs home. Have you ever woken up not sure where you are? It happened frequently when we first moved to Arizona but it hasn’t happened to me for months. But, I started to miss my old Spanish Colonial home that day. It was a very pretty and unique home. Filled with memories.

A view from the kitchen to the living room of our old house. The mirror is now in our master bedroom.

It had a good location, too. So why did we move? For many reasons. Although I loved living downtown Palm Springs, we were right behind a hotel. We constantly had to call the ABC or police when the hotel violated their restrictions on noise. Living next to a busy hotel when they violate their liquor license with outdoor amplified music in the middle of the night wasn’t fun. During 2020 the hotel closed. I’m glad we sold the house before it reopened.

rustic small kitchen

The house was stunning, but not that practical. The kitchen was tiny. We called it a one-butt kitchen, but it worked. I could unload the dishwasher, cook and open the fridge without taking a step. I’d rotate in place. I had more than one friend ask me how I dealt with such a tiny kitchen.

master bedroom with open tub and pillars
The master bedroom of our old home.

Some of the things I didn’t like about the house was it had a carport, not a garage. The carport flooded every time it rained. It also got dusty and dirty, because the desert is dusty and dirty.

Another thing I didn’t like was the lack of storage because the house was built in the 1930s. Also, it was so cold in the winter that my fingers would go numb. And don’t get me started on the four-digit electric bill in the summer.

Another thing I don’t miss is the homeless man who peaked through our bedroom windows and slept in our yard. He terrified me. I’d spot him on our cameras every time we left town. He was watching us. I’d leave for my walk and return to find him in our yard.

Spanish colonial Movie Colony home.
View of our old home.

But we have tons of good memories. We raised our family for more than 28 years in that home. Yes, I’ll miss it even though our new house is so much more practical and less expensive to live in. My husband would like the ability to retire someday. Arizona makes that possible. I also feel like I’m living in luxury with a real garage and a kitchen with more cupboards than I can fill.

So I am grateful to be in Arizona. And I’m thankful for my friends, my cat and my family. You see, I’m practicing more gratitude. I have a lot to be thankful for. I’m going to start my gratitude journal and practice the three blessings before I go to bed at night.

The Three Blessings Exercise

This exercise was created by Dr. Martin Seligman and it is extremely easy to follow:

Before going to sleep every night, write down three things that went well that day. They don’t need to be big things. They can be little things that made you happy or that made you smile, or simply that had a positive impact on you. Then write why they went well.

By doing so you focus on the positive aspects of your day instead of the negatives. After a while, it becomes a habit and your mind gets wired to have a more optimistic approach to your daily life. Studies show that after months of doing this exercise, your well-being increases and you feel overall more optimistic.

http://warriorsnotworriers.com/three-blessings-well-being/
I have attempted to do this exercise in the past, but then I forget about it. I think it’s time to get back to it.
sunset view from the Old Movie Colony.
View at sunset from our old backyard.

What are you thankful for as we begin the Fourth of July weekend?

Views of flowering cactus

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I thought the blooms on cactus would be over. But we seem to be having another round. Living in the Sonoran Desert for the first time, I’m learning how each month or week brings new sites and new life.

blooming saguaro

Our yard is currently a mess. We had a broken pipe in the yard that formed a large pool of water. Then after that one was fixed, another one burst. So we hired our gardener to completely replace the entire system. Our yard is a criss cross applesauce mess of trenches and pipes laying everywhere. It’s been five days, it’s not done, and we are watering plants with a hose or watering can. I think I lost my gardenia plant.

blooming cactus

My husband has gone full Bill Murray from Caddyshack. He comes in with hands and arms filled with almost invisible stickers after trying to stop the rabbits and chipmunks from eating our plants. They love to munch on cactus. Who knew it would be so tasty? He’s tried traps, solar zappers and smoke bombs. Nothing seems to help. They not only eat the cactus above ground, they burrow underground and eat the roots. We’re skipping the poison method because we don’t want to kill the hawks or our bobcat.

red buds on cactus
white blossom on cactus
This blooming cactus is outside our front door.
cloudy desert sky
I was hoping for rain yesterday, but it never happened. Beautiful clouds though.