'Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, except for a mouse;

The drainpipes were slung by the chimney with care,

In fear that the winter rains soon would be there;

The Marrokal guys were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of cabinets danced in Jay & Mir’s heads;

And Jay watching football, a book in my lap,

Had just settled down for an evening nightcap.

When out on the street there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the couch to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

And knocked over everything there in my path.

The moon on the Volvo parked on the curb

Reflected an image that just seemed absurd.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and pink,

I knew right away I had too much to drink.

As I came to my senses, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He glanced all around, his face looking stern

Soon we all realized he made a wrong turn.

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

Jay glanced at me and I shook my noggin,

I knew it was time that I got to bloggin’.

So from us to our followers far and near,

Happy Holidays to all, and a Happy New Year!

She Came In Through The Bathroom Window

Yes, it's windows, windows, windows in our new home! And while many might think this is timely enough given the rainstorm in San Diego over the past few days, the holes in the walls and lack of drainage from the home are still making Durango a muddy, soggy mess.

We had a couple of design team meetings over the weekend, and found out that we are close to 40% complete! Certainly doesn't LOOK that way, but building the guts and bones of the house involve a lot of effort... and while it doesn't have the sex appeal of materials and selections, it's good to know that we're making such progress.

Our San Diego interior designer, John, was gracious enough to invite us to his home over the weekend, and we were delighted to be able to view a number of the materials that we are also going to be using in Durango. His place is fabulous... we are now more excited than ever to see how our home evolves over the next months! Those pictures with attractive furnishings are from his home; sort of a preview of some of the things you'll see in ours.

It's turning into a crazy time at work for me; while most folks seem to be winding down and preparing for the holidays, the heat on me has been cranked up and I find myself, for the first time in MANY years, with more work than free time! So far, it's been fun. I'm looking forward to an upcoming trip to Las Vegas in January, where I'll do some work, but mostly looking forward to visiting cousins Tracy and Summer, and hopefully getting in a show or two while there.

I'd also like to introduce you to my pal, Black Cat, who drops by once a day just to check in, see what I'm up to, and if I have some food. Or maybe it's just about the food. Anyway, he's a cool little kitty, and reminds me of my old cat, Grover, who I had for 14 years (til I met Jay, who decided he preferred breathing to his cat-induced allergic response). However, Black Cat is tiny compared to Grover, who tipped the scales at nearly 20 pounds :-)

Til next time......

Why No Pictures?

One of my blog readers made a rather "astute" observation this weekend (which comes as no surprise since all of my readers are quite brilliant) which was, "Gee, Mir, your blog seems more of a social blog vs. a home remodeling blog." He is right. But only because I assumed it would be boring to show yet more photos of framing, and to spend a huge amount of time detailing the behind-the-scenes progress on the house with no visual cues.

However, to be fair to Durango, I will, provide you with an update on things - no pictures included. By next week, hopefully, there will be some more interesting film footage of the remodel. If not, you'll have to suffer through holiday pictures of family instead.

1. The past week or two has been devoted to wiring for electrical and lighting (imagine here a picture of guys pulling wire around joists, thru imaginary walls, and into rooms). Next week, they will dig a trench and set up a new junction box for our power upgrade, and finish their work on the lighting.

2. Plumbing - ditto the above, only instead of wires think pipes.

3. The solar team has begun wiring the house for our new solar power system. Try to envision Jay and I signing the contract to purchase and install solar panels, signing documents to get a tax refund, and jumping for joy when our future electric bills show up in the mail.

4. Pretend, if you can, that you are seeing all window framing now complete, ready to accept the new windows that should be arriving in the coming week. Along with that, see if you can picture our new front door - also coming in a couple of weeks, our new kitchen and bath tile which will arrive shortly, and all of our plumbing fixtures and supplies which are likely at the plumbing company awaiting pickup.

5. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Rachel this past week or so, finalizing more of our light fixtures for the house. This is no small task (especially for Rachel who lives in Wheeling, WV, and REALLY has to use her imagination!). Also a testament to Rachel's skills, she has come up with some amazing flooring options for us, and will be working on paint color and some furniture selections in the coming weeks.

6. My appliance selections are complete, and won't be ordered for a few weeks, anyway. In addition to a few of my favorite things (Wolf, Subzero, and Bosch), the coolest appliance that we bought is an automatic coffee maker, making single cups of coffee (and espresso) on demand with the press of a button. Now THIS is something I can see really clearly!

7. Our 2nd floor deck will get its flooring application and fireplace installed within the next week or so. It will be an amazing location to enjoy a cocktail and watch the sunset over the canyon and the ocean.

There are boatloads of other activities going on behind the scenes, whether it's finalizing glass for internal doors and cupboards, figuring out the upstairs fireplace, deciding on carpeting options for the bedrooms and office, ceiling fan designs.... and we haven't even begun to think about our landscape project!

We are having a tough time just staying put in our rental, given all the cool and fun things going on at Durango. It promises to be a long 5 months ahead of us. Still, it beats living in the 7 degree wind chill conditions during the Pittsburgh/Dallas game today....

Dusty Shoe and Thanksgiving Too!

It has been a busy time for us, with the Durango Project, and with family visits as well. Last week we conducted our "dusty shoe walkthrough," essentially the time when most of the framing work has been completed and the house is ready to get wired. Also the time when the contractor asks us for a big check (so all we can afford to wear are old dusty shoes after this, I guess). The walkthrough was a time consuming effort, and took a lot of imagination to decide where we wanted to have lighting, electrical outlets, light switches, ceiling fans, AV equipment. Thank goodness we walked in fairly well prepared, thanks to help from Rachel who pulled together suggested furniture layouts and offered some cool ideas for light fixtures!

Our visit with Jay's folks this past week was great fun, enjoying some desert heat poolside while Jay officiated at the Ironman Race in Tempe. We spent a lot of time hanging out, enjoying some wine, shooting pool, and watching football (OK, the football stuff was out of control). It's always a great football day, however, when Ohio State KILLS Michigan. O H _ _! On our way home, we ventured into a very cute little diner, called the "Space Age Cafe" with some great dishes, murals of spacecraft, and posters of aliens for purchase. Food wasn't too shabby, either.

I invited many interesting responses to an experiment with my hair style, with Jay's reaction most interesting - most folks liked it, though, and I thought it was a fun change. Leticia, my hairdresser (shown in the photo above) spent over an hour flatironing it - she had more fun than me. I'm posting her picture, by the way, because she is an amazing woman who has just celebrated 1 year of being cancer-free. A strong woman, and good friend.

Thanksgiving at Jay's sister's house was a ball, and many kudos go to Dave, master chef of the whole affair. Awesome dinner, as always. Post dinner the group engaged in some rather aggressive rounds of Euchre, the official card game of Ohio, I believe. I played a game or two, but had more fun hanging out with our niece, Amy, playing Scribbles - a drawing game that my dad invented when I was a kid - we used to play for hours! That's her sitting on the floor in her bedroom.

We were witness to an amazing rainbow on Thanksgiving morning - the first I've ever seen in San Diego! The photo you see above was taken off of our back deck - the rainbow touches the ocean, and then spread across the entire sky right behind our home. Unbelievably spectacular!

This weekend, our nephew Shaun and his wife, Lindsay, will be arriving for a couple of days. I'm guessing more Euchre and football. They are residents of Cleveland, after all.

Not sure what is happening next week at Durango; but you can bet your dusty shoes that we'll be all over it.

It's All About Me

We are back from Florida, where Jay finished up his racing season at the Clearwater race. The venue was fantastic, weather spectacular and we also got to spend some fun times with my beautiful young cousin Shannon and her boyfriend, Joe. As you can see by the photo, Shannon and I bear a strong family resemblance....not! I spent my birthday standing around with thousands of my close friends watching triathletes test themselves against some of the best talent around. Unfortunately, it was difficult to make that day all about me, which goes against my whole philosophy of birthdays... so I still feel a little cheated. But I got so many beautiful ecards, emails, cards and phone calls (thanks for the singing telecalls, Monica, Larry, Aunt Betty, Madelyn, Brandie, Bobby, and two strangers from Ft. Wayne) that it's clear that I was in everyone's thoughts this year. And a great photo/card with a birthday greeting from my cousins from Italy - Sergio, Daniela and their kids Zeni and Wondi! Not a bad way to kick off a new year of life.

While we were away, the Durango gang put together some cool new framing features, such as the round ceiling that will sit over our library bar, our deck fireplace, and my new decktop garden boxes that will contain something good to grow and eat. It's difficult to stay patient while all of this work is being done!

I want to make special mention of my friend, Ray's, comments from my last posting, which he feels could have had a more powerful title. There's a photo of me next to a stairway that appears to be leading up to heaven...OK, I'm guessing you know where I'm going with this. However, although I am clearly buying a stairway, Ray, and it looks like it's going to heaven, it's a tad on the short side for what might be the distance to heaven. Not that there's anything wrong with being short.

Next weekend we are heading to Phoenix to watch the Ironman race there - Jay may be involved in some officiating at the race. The in-laws arrive, too, so Jay has been instructing me at pool (the game, not the water) in preparation for his dad's visit. He's a bit of a shark.

Otherwise, not much else to report. Just enjoy some of my photos from this past week (I also threw a picture of cousin Elizabeth and Ron from my Beverly Hills Party Night), and be sure to sign up as follower to my site!

Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters

For those of you who are fans of J.D. Salinger, the title of today's blog is for you!

We saw great progress on the house this past week, with some of the coolest ceiling features I've ever seen! Almost wish we didn't have to cover them up with drywall; they are real masterpieces, and Doug and his gang have put a lot of time and attention into the detail. I have a photo or two of them for you to check out. And that photo you see is of me and Elyse, my pal that I wrote to you about in last week's posting. It was a BEAUTIFUL day at the beach in Del Mar; nothing like hanging out by the Monongahela, close to her home in Pittsburgh.

Each week I learn something amusing about our project. I've been informed that the inspector that I referred to as "humorless" in an earlier post actually DOES have a sense of humor and is now reading my blog! Pretty cool. And it appears that yet another neighbor of ours was not following code and was reported to authorities, forcing them to change their landscaping project! Not sure how or if that was related to us in any way, but Jay and I are keeping a low profile in the 'hood these days.

I see that a few more folks are now following this blog, and really would like to see more of you sign up to be followers. For those that sign up, you can expect a special gift from me when this whole project is done. It's real easy, just click on the upper right part of my blog page and follow the instructions.

Today, of course, is an epic day for the country as we forge into new political waters. I, for one, will be deliriously happy when folks stop calling my home, business, and cellphone with their highly personal recorded messages, asking me for my vote. We have a TV ban going on in the house today, because we just can't deal with media and their nuttiness. By newstime tonite, we'll all know the results, anyway, so watching them count the numbers, state by state, well it all just seems sort of silly to us.

It's a busy month for us, between decisions on Durango, our trip to Florida for Jay's 1/2 Ironman race, a trip to Phoenix to check out the Ironman Race there, a visit from Jay's parents and our nephew Shawn and his wife Lindsay. OH yeah, and the whole Thanksgiving thing which has taken on a whole new twist with my inability to digest things like eggs and dairy (no pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, butter, deviled eggs, green bean casserole - stop, you're killing me). At least meat and veggies are in, so we don't have to go the tofurkey route.

I'm getting excited about what Rachel is cooking up for lighting ideas, and John has been tremendously helpful in helping me visualize some other modifications on sinks, lights and cabinets.

We had some rain today - how nice! but Rob and I were disappointed that the pool isn't yet holding water. Just kidding Dan.

A final note about one of the best evenings I've had in a long time - cousin Elizabeth and her man, Ron, treated me to a night out in the Beverly Hills area on Saturday, when I was there for a nutrition conference. We dined at the Mulholland Grill, listened to some jazz at a cozy bar next door, then toured Mulholland Drive, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and landed at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons for dancing and cordials. Did have one movie star siting, Harry Hamlin, who still looked great (although not quite as great as he looked in Clash of the Titans). OMG, the music was unbelievable, and the company devine! It certainly made for a rough morning at my conference on Sunday, but well worth it. When I can grab a photo or two, I'll be sure to post.

Are You Following Me?

As of this writing, only one person has admitted to following my blog.... Rob, our project manager. So, would the rest of my family and friends be sure to sign up, so I know that you're out there paying attention to all of the jewels that I so diligently summon forth each week? By the way, that's a photo of Rob with Jay in our new storage area. They've become quite close.

It was a fun week, personally, as I got to visit with my childhood buddy, li'l sis Elyse, who I've known for *gasp* 50 years! We have both come far since the days when I performed surgery on her with a butter knife when she was only an infant. Anyway, she came to town for a few days visit with her husband and brought along her niece, too, and we had great fun exploring the house. I also want to wish her mom, Claryne, a speedy recovery from a nasty fall this week, and is nursing a punctured lung and several broken ribs in the hospital in the 'burgh. My week was capped off by a very fun boxercise routine, led by my friend and masseuse, Jean, in our backyard. As always, she kicked my butt and had fun doing it, too.

Framing work continues at a speedy clip, and each day brings new delights - and surprises. Looks like we need to make a change or two, like shifting the guest bath mirror up, so people like my cousin Elizabeth at 6 feet tall won't have to squat to put on her makeup (although not a bad way to tone those glutes), or can avoid scraping knuckles on the nightstand to open the bedroom window. Little things like that.

Photos from this week include some images from the new master bedroom - the ceiling will have a couple of tiers, with some cool uplighting; and Jay standing in front of the wall 'o windows. There's a good shot of the open floorplan downstairs, quite a change from the dreary cave in the original design. Obviously, the floorplan is more open now than it will be once the drywall goes up, but you catch my drift.

Not much more to report tonight, but keep checking us out. As you can see, there's loads more to come in the days - and months - to come!

You're Gonna LOVE This One!

Last week, Jay was chatting with the concrete guy at Durango, who was relating a story about the concrete inspector - apparently a man who has no sense of humor. While inspecting the concrete work on our house, the inspector heard a racket coming from next door, where our neighbors were doing some tile work. He raced over to the neighbor's house... and discovered that they never got a permit for their work. So he shut their job down! Not only are we irritating everyone with our noise and dust, but we are getting them in trouble with the law. Kind of amusing.

I couldn't get my blog updated til now; I was in wine country (near the Russian River Valley) at a nutrition conference. Met some great new associates, and learned a TON about diet and disease prevention. Also unraveled part of the mystery of my curious GI distress last month. My biz associate, JJ Virgin (http://www.jjvirgin.com/) did some testing and interpreted my lab results for me. I have developed an allergy to eggs and dairy - and have now exorcised them from my diet. Very hard for me, because cheese is life to me, and eggs are in nearly everything. But I'll do anything to stop the pain in my gut. The good news? Coffee and wine are still IN the diet. The conference left no time for winery touring, however, but seeing the Fall colors made my heart soar like an eagle (a la Little Big Man)! Pumpkin patches lined the highways, and the leaves on the grapevines are turning gold. Gave me some wonderful memories of the (few) years back in PA. Nothing prettier than Fall.

Oh, yeah. The house! We continue to press on, and you can now begin to envision our jacuzzi/hot tub in the back yard. Framing continues; an outline of my new office can be seen - the room with the angled wall (well, boards on the concrete that appear to be angled). We continue to stay on schedule - perhaps a bit still ahead of it.

I've also added a photo of the great spider hunter, Jay-Z, who usually cases the perimeter of the rental home each morning, knocking down the webs built by the fat-bottomed arachnids that are literally EVERYWHERE in this neighborhood. It's nuts. By late afternoon, they have re-built their webs, often across the pathway to our front door - and we have come too close too often to smacking face first into their dangling bodies. We have a rule with the spiders: "stay on your side of the walkway and we leave you alone. Otherwise, better make a run for it."

Working at a Hare's Pace

Yes, it's true! We've been advised that, so far, things have been moving along so well that we're ahead of schedule. Well, we're gonna bank that comment, because it may come in handy down the road somewhere.

With all the ups and downs (mostly downs) in the market these days, we are most amused by comments from folks like, "Gee, do you really think this was a good time to remodel a home?" Well, no of course it isn't, but, hey, have you seen the house lately? What do you suggest we do at this point?????? But I digress.

This week's photos reveal some new cool things, like the steel framing of our pool/jacuzzi, the removal of the upstairs deck - to make way for the bigger one to come! and a view of the house a couple houses away from us ALSO doing major renovation on their landscape. The neighbor next to us is fixing something that requires tile cutting, so between our 3 homes, there are enough workers, trucks and noise to disrupt entire colonies of lizards, rattlesnakes and Argentinian ants occupying the amazingly beautiful canyon across the street (also a photo of that, too). Would be cool if the mosquitos would take a hike, too.

Mostly, we are very excited about what's going on at Durango, and as master framer, Doug, slowly reveals what should be real rooms some day, we are envisioning what life will be like in the not-so-distant future. Eight months sounds like a long time... until you start thinking of things like, wow, we've been married 18 years? Or, no way I've got my 35th high school reunion coming up. And everyone's favorite, when did that start to sag so low?

Above is a video of workers at our home this morning, hacking away at a new "discovery" as our contractor called it (for your information, "discovery" = "more expense"). Something about a wall not having a footer to attach to, and needing to pour a new footer something or other. Anyway, they are fixing the "discovery" which is good news, and have also been able to uncover the reason behind the strange mildewy smell that used to come from my office. Seems that the gutter/flashing from the roof deck was corroded, so the water was draining into my office WALL, for God's sake. Thanks BeBe for pulling me aside and solving the mystery. Glad that'll be fixed, too.

It was awesome getting comments from cousins in exotic places like Italy (no, Daniela, I'm not wearing a skirt - are you kidding?) and Pittsburgh (Dara, I miss you too!), and I really look forward to visits from all when things are complete.

Remember, you can click on any photo, and it will enlarge - so if you want a real good look at what's happening, click it and blow it up.

Keep your comments coming!

She's Come Undone

As I thought, the neighbors are very happy with the progress we made on our home this past week. As workers saw cut and jackhammered through the concrete slab to make room for new plumbing, and to pound through the sandstone bluffs to set up the pool, the noise was (from what we were told) unbelievable!

We ran into Shelly, our neighbor and also our supplier of all things plumbing, as we were making final selections on our sinks and tub and faucets at her company, El Cajon Plumbing & Heating. Got an earful from her (but in a loving way :-) Guess the noise was pretty unbearable for her and her family this past week... but she has a hell of a showroom of plumbing supplies, and her staff are knowledgable and friendly. So get yourself down to El Cajon today and shop for your new kitchen sink (OK, Shelly, are we good?).

As you can see, the home is now stripped down to its bones - for those of you who have had the privilege of spending the night with us, you should enjoy the new view from the guest room where I'm standing in the above photo. Downstairs, the floors are cratered with deep trenches, making way for new plumbing, and upstairs Jay is admiring the new framing leading into our bedroom.

Meanwhile, back in our temp home, the carpeting has been replaced, and holes in the wall are awaiting final repair and paint, following the aftermath of our plumbing problems HERE. Aside from this mess, we remain content in our holding cell while the Durango work continues. We even had our first dinner party last night with local pals Christine and Greg, and Jane and Ray. We enjoyed the wild caught salmon and halibut that Jay and his pal, Dennis, snagged in Alaska in August (see the 200 pound brute that Dennis caught above!). Tasty stuff. We shot some pool, talked (briefly) about the economy, and overall had a swell time just laughing, talking, and ignoring the fact that only a couple blocks away our beloved home has been completely destroyed.

Be sure to tune in to next week's episode of "Roof? What Roof? We don't need no stinkin' roof."

Our Neighbors Must LOVE Us

We were awakened at 7:15 a few days ago by the brain-jarring sounds of a jack hammer; construction going on at a home behind our temp location. I can only imagine what our Durango neighbors are dealing with. This year, we're thinking holiday gifts for everyone within a 1/4 mile radius of our home - maybe IPODs with high quality headphones.

The drywall continues to crumble, along with it all of the mistakes made in the original design of the Durango house. That photo you see? No, that's not Iraq - that's what's left of the backyard water feature/fire pit that seemed so totally out of place and oversized for the back yard. We certainly won't miss that little number.

I want to welcome the Marrokal Design Team to my blog - that's them in the photo with Jay and me. We are very excited to be working with such talented people, who are promising to deliver a fantastic home to us ON SCHEDULE. Once I can pin down the landscape team, I'll get their photo posted, too. And soon, I hope to add one more person to the design team to help close the gaps on so many important details - my friend and design pro Rachel Pavilack, who helped us turn our Pittsburgh home into an award-winning showcase! We won't let a little thing like your location in Wheeling, West Virginia get in the way of designing our new San Diego project, will we Rachel?

Be sure to take special note of our new open air skylights in the photos! Parts of the roof are slowly being peeled away in an effort to change some of the roof lines (and ceiling treatments) in the house. Good thing it never rains in Southern California.

This week, excavation work will begin for the endless swimming pool (of course the pool ends, silly, but the swimming doesn't) and framing new spaces continues. Windows will be ordered, the front door has been selected, and cabinet layout will soon be determined. I also have a date with the plumbing company to finalize all sinks, tubs, faucets, & towel racks this week.

I've also posted a photo or two of our temp home - nice swimming pool - unheated, so not much fun to get into this time of year. Jay brought be an old wetsuit of his to try on so I could possibly take a dip one of these days. We'll see about that.

Subscribe to this feed so you can constantly be updated as I post more info. Meantime, happy reading, and be sure to post any comments you might have. I love reading them!