JOBLESS! JOBLESS! Almost!

I got the word today, I'M APPROVED TO RETIRE! The deadline was extended so I will work to the end of October, time to finish up everything and pack up offices. All the changes over the past couple months are piling up and it is definitely time to go. New rules, new policies, new paperwork, increased duties, less staff. All this does not add up to improved working conditions.



Now the "West" Region of SRS takes in most of the state (the grey area) and we are taking bets on the likelihood one of the Florida imports to SRS, brought in by the new secretary that Brownback brought in from Florida, will end up running all of it from Emporia. Emporia, by the way, where I was born, is so far from western Kansas, it is not even in the middle! That last little county, sticking out on the east side of the grey area, is where Emporia is located.



carving



I was amazed at how happy and relieved I felt when I found out I was approved. The thought of staying home, working on my own house, my craft projects, my art and my family, including the dogs, has really grown on me since I first decided I was going to take the retirement option. Sadly, I won't see much of the people from the office since I've been working 35-80 miles away from my home for about 8 years now. That means it won't be real easy to drop in and say hi to those I used to work with. I'll miss seeing all of the coworkers I've spent years with but not enough to make me want to keep working.

LOSING MY MIND HERE!

OK, so I debated on retiring. I decided I was going to go for it, it made sense. I'm ready to stay home and put new floors in the house, visit grandkids more often, play with my dogs, do more art, more scrapbooking, and other things that I like to do. I sent in my notorized form to sign up for the retirement incentive program that came up.

After making the decision, I was excited, thinking about things I want to do. THEN I find out they are going to wait until after Labor Day to tell us who gets approved. That means that when I finally get notice, if I am approved, I have only 8 more days in the office to clear up anything that is still hanging. I have worked out of 2 offices the past 4+ years so I also have 2 offices to clean out.

If I thought banging my head on the desk would help, I'd do it till I was cross-eyed but after years working for the government, I know EXACTLY how much good it would do. OMG! I don't even know what else to say. For me that is a statement in itself. NO! NO! NO!

LONG, HOT summer!

Guess what! The guy who was going to give me an estimate for putting in a new furnace AND AIR CONDITIONER did not come back in the spring so the simmer (pun intended) has been pretty harsh with just window units running. I don't think the inside temperature has hit 90 but it has been uncomfortably close a few times. The bedroom and dog room is cooled by a window unit so sleeping is cool. Doesn't improve my desire to get up in the morning though. If the dogs would be quiet and I didn't have work, I'd sleep in every morning, just for the cool.

Now, on the subject of getting up for work, there is a possible retirement plan on the horizon. The new governor is driven to cut, cut, cut and as a result, there are offices being closed and now they have offered an early retirement package. Although it is not technically "early" retirement for me, since I am eligible for my pension plan, I was planning to work until eligible for social security. If I get this package, I will have insurance until I am eligible so I could stop working now. This idea is sounding rather fascinating because things have been changing dramatically in my job in the past couple months. These changes and the ones rumored to be coming, are making the job much more stressful and frustrating. I'm feeling like being retired could be a pleasant and relaxing change.

On a lighter note, the house has paint all the way around, although the back needs a second coat. July has been entirely too hot to work on it so that second coat has been pending for quite some time now. Retirement could give me that much needed time to work on this and all the other projects I want to complete. I'll have more time to spend with the dogs as well, which will be good for them as they need more training time than I have for them. I'm actually pretty excited about the prospect.

Pretty Posts

Tradition is to use trim colors on turned porch posts on a Folk Victorian house. The problem is, there are no instructions on how to paint them. I couldn't find more than a couple pictures of painted posts, none close to the shape of mine.

How much is too much? Not enough? How do you know when you get it right? I guess it is just done to taste, or maybe you stop when you get tired of painting little colored stripes around the posts. It ended up taking almost 2 weeks to get the posts done, mostly because I would paint a section, take a picture, then paint another section, trying to figure out just how much color I wanted on them. Of course, after figuring it out, I had to do 4 more posts, just the same. The reward is, my porch is starting to look really good.

With the long weekend, maybe I will start putting the ceiling on the porch. It would change the look tremendously as the open rafters are unfinished. I would have left the rafters exposed and painted but whoever built the porch did a very unsightly job of attaching it to the house. Not something that can be repaired without tearing the porch roof clear off so putting a new ceiling up seems to be the best alternative.

Metamorphosis

The transformation is nearly complete! Four years ago, my little house had grown quite sad in appearance. In 1985, I moved into my cheap little house, bought at auction for only $17.5K . By 2008, the paint had faded and peeled, the masonite siding had swollen in places, warped in others. It was just ugly, the only good looking part was the roof, which I had replaced a few years earlier. I decided it was time to make some improvements. Initially, the plan was just for some painting and siding, it turned into a major makeover.
The outcome pleases me! I love how my house looks now that it has new paint, siding, windows and a door. It is definitely unique in the little town I live in. With the new turned posts and colorful gingerbread trim, the addition of the porch brackets will finish off the ornate look popular in the original folk Victorian style home.

There are many things yet to be done. My deck in back will have proper legs put under it as I didn't want it attached to the house again and it will have a new roof put on it. The porch ceiling needs to be installed and painted. It will be ther rust color from the trim, as will the front door. The soffitts will also be replaced as poor material was used on them previously. I would like to re-face the porch steps as well. Of course, the rest of the house needs painted, only the front is done so far. I'm really proud of how far I've come and look forward to finishing the rest of the details.

Happy Mother's Day to myself!

Yes, I LOVE these new porch posts. How much better gift could I get for Mother's Day than having my siding and porch posts done? I don't know if this house really had a porch before it was added to back in 1975. That was before I lived in Norton so I don't know what it was like. I did find a picture of a house that was very similar to mine when they were built. It was one of the pictures I found when I started researching my house.



I discovered my house is "Folk Victorian" style, even though it was built a couple decades after that style was popular. FV let the middle class have some of the fancy details in their homes that wealthier people enjoyed on their Victorian and Queen Anne style homes.


The little house with purple and blue trim has a pair of doors on the small wooden porch. The one to the side as one walks onto the porch, is in the same location as the tall, thin window in my library. While working on that window, I discovered there had originally been a door there.


Overall, I am quite pleased with how the house is coming along. The addition of a 4th post across the front of the porch gave a more balanced look and the turned posts lend that extra
touch of vintage to the look.


Tomorrow is dedicated to doing some painting. I will be going over all the gold trim with better quality paint and painting the window and door trim with the same gold color. Guess I will be up the ladder again this summer. No worry, it is all downhill from here as far as my workload goes.

COLOR!! Color! color?

Much of the siding is on the house already. A couple more days and it should be done. The contractor will then install my patio door in back and possibly the porch posts. Although I was originally planning to do all these tasks, the idea of getting this part of it done is very appealing. I will still have all the painting to do and cutting the rest of the porch brackets, all the landscaping and years of inside projects so it isn't like I HAVE to do all of it.

It has been rewarding to do as much as I have on my own. I cherish my independence and my ability to do almost anything I set my mind to. When I hire someone to do something, I want it to be because I CHOOSE not to do it myself, not because I am unable to do it. Of course there are things I choose not to do because I don't want to try them. I have no urge to try snake charming, skydiving or bull riding or things that might seriously damage me.

As I have grown older, I recognized my own unwillingness to suffer pain when not necessary. Granted, climbing up and down ladders all day, lifting boards over my head, dropping boards on my face and hammers on my toes causes pain but that is somewhat necessary. Well, maybe not the dropping stuff on me part.

Philosophical stuff aside, now I really get to pick a color for my house. I have brought home dozens of paint cards over the past 3 years. Getting the right colors for the gables took at least 5 complete color schemes before settling on what I liked best. Since then I have picked many color swatches for siding. I've photo-shopped multiple colors onto pictures of my house, hoping to figure out what I wanted. I did eliminate the idea of the rust/red color and blue just didn't appeal to me for my house. This left me with variations on the yellow/gold tones. It is truly amazing how subtle the variations in colors can be, yet make so much difference. Too much pink in the tan, too much gray in the cream, too much blue in the yellow. Finally, I think I have found the right shade for my siding. It is called "Venetian Stucco" and it is very close to the same hue as the trim on the house but in a much lighter shade. It is hard to tell now if it will be too yellow for my taste but hopefully it will match beautifully and make my house a true gem in the neighborhood.