Overly Ambitious Home Remodel and Other Schenanigans

Back in April, while Paula was away trying to figure out why some in Kenya put lizard poo on the umbilical cords of newborn babies, I was back here at home systematically destroying our house. I have to admit, I did a pretty good job of destroying and sense of comfort that our house provides. As part of Phase 2A of the Overly Ambitious Home Remodel, I took all of the interior dry wall down. However, since Paula and I got back from Africa, I've taken my home destruction to new heights. 

Living room circa Radmaker era.

It used to be, when you walked into the house, you were greeted by walls and ceiling. But no more. I've taken nearly all of the southern half of the house down to the studs/joists. So, now when you enter the door you can see through 2 bedrooms to the other side of the house. One of the perks of this, if you consider waking up in a home with no heat, is we've turned the furnace off. It made sense to us (or rather me) at the time since logic told me that if I could see through the ceiling to the roof, then it's a good chance any heat would see that roof and want to escape to freedom through the roof vents (and all the leaks we've discovered). Plus, waking up with a shiver is motivation to get this overly ambitious project done sooner than later. 

There's a hole in your floor, dear Liza.

Now that the demolition is complete, we've begun to actually try to put the house back together. We've taken out the shared closets between the master and guest bedroom, bumped out a wall a bit, and have begun to get ready for our new bathroom. We've decided on a tile bathroom floor, so we had to take out the hardwood in the new bathroom and replace the subfloor. Once that was done, Eirik came over to help frame up the new bathroom. Now, we're framing up the new closet and office and mapping out the new electrical circuits that we'll run. All is good on that front. 

Gordon reviewing the electrical layout I'm mapping out.

One thing that we've quickly realized as part of this home remodel, is that we're essentially the PPRRA (Per & Paula Recovery and Reinvestment Act). We're like a mini stimulus package, or "job creators!" A few things have happened recently that have really driven this home recently. 

C'mon roof!

The first of the unanticipated projects that we've discovered to be a high priority since we've started Phase 2A, is that our roof has decided to revolt and now refuses to keep water out of the house. Super sweet project we weren't expecting nor budgeting for. But, what is life without more debt? 

Our second unanticipated project we've decided to undertake is to replace our 1980's oil furnace. When we bought the house in 2009, we found out that natural gas was in the street to the east and west of us, but not accessible to us without us paying for the costs to tear up the street. However, the utility connected the two lines this summer. Then, we found out about a program that provides low interest financing for home owners who switch to more efficient heat sources. Not only that, but they have a special going to essentially pay for the removal of old, underground oil tanks. So, we signed up and got a bid. Between the efficiency incentives and the added costs necessary to bring gas to the house and run gas lines to a furnace, we decided to go with two mini split heat pumps. A few sweet things about these furnaces: 1) they're much more efficient, 2) even with the monthly payments they're going to save us money, 3) the furnace can fit under our stairs, so we get back usable floor space, and 4) we can get rid of half our ducting. 

El Shenanigan

Last but not least of our job creation-izing, is that my exceptionally patient, driven, intelligent, and hard working wife is about 9 days away from being done with her residency. Paula's going to make the difficult transition from working 80 hours a week to working about 24 hours a week. She'll be working at Children's Hospital in their Urgent Care department in Seattle, Mill Creek, and Bellevue. While she's excited about this, Paula's current mode of transport, when she's not riding her bike, is the Shenanigan...a 1992 Dodge Caravan that is eroding in front of our house.  I'm not sure her patients are going to take her seriously if she pulls up in this piece of modern art, assuming she makes it there. So, she's going to need a new subcompact hoopty with great gas mileage.


As always, we've added a few more photos to our ongoing home remodel slideshow for all to enjoy.

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Operation "Bless the Rains"

Per here. I'll make this a quick update since we're not exactly at a place where internet access would be expected.

Rich (Paula's dad) and I traveled to Kenya to meet up with Paula about a week ago. As you've no doubt read, she's been working with a Kenyan pediatric resident on a research topic for the past 2 months in Kisii (southwest Kenya). Of course she did a brilliant job and wrapped up the day/night that Rich and I flew in.

We didn't spend much time in Kenya though. We hopped on a bus to Arusha, Tanzania, where we joined up with a safari company and have been tracking down all sorts of amazing animals. We've gone to Arusha National Park, Lake Maynara National Park, the Serengetti, and now we're spending the night on the edge of the Ngorogoro Crater.

 All has gone brilliantly so far. I happen to be married to an excellent travel agent and trip planner, so this is nothing new. There has only been 1 major problem that we've encountered so far. Just as we were about to enter the Serengetti National Park (the size of Holland by the way), our camera decided to break on us. "Lens Error" apparently means we need to send the camera to Canon for them to replace it. No doubt our camera will be sent with a letter explaining that we were about to enter into one of the most amazing places on the planet with a camera we bought, in part, just for this trip with this park in mind when it decided to die. I'm not pleased with Canon at all at the moment. Fortunately, we have Rich and his amazing Fuji camera he bought impulsively on QVC. I will never again mock his impulse purchases. 

Today, on our drive to our lodge on the edge of the Ngorogoro Crater, we passed through 2 million (literally) wildebeests migrating to the southern Serengetti. Not to mention the elephants, zebras, Thompson gazelles, giraffes, lion, hyenas, jackals, dung beetle, and other super-sweet animals. Tomorrow we'll descend down into the Ngorogoro Crater where there's 18-21 black rhinos left from this area (very sought after by poachers). Hopefully, we'll be lucky enough to see one.  We'll post a slide show when we get back from our trip for everyone to check out.

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Zebras Schmebras

In the past 2 days I've seen so many zebras I'm actually a little bored by them. Bring on the lions, leopards and elephants oh my. It's been a good couple days of traveling through Naivasha and Nakuru...aside from the rookie mistake I made of not bringing the camera charger...ugg.

So here's what I've been up to...
I celebrated my bday here with dinner consisting of my favorite things...ie fruit, veggies, salad and chapati. No mashed bananas for me though! They had a little cake for me and we had a dindin together which was nice. I got lots of nice messages from friends and family back home and chatted with per and my parents which was great.

I spent the rest of the week working on the project...we're in the mode of getting all the data organized for presentation and write up which has been a ton of work...and then travelled to Nairobi on thursday where I spent the night at Grace and Ben's place again. Ben is one of the program organizers but as he's in the US currently, Grace decided to do a bit of travelling with me this weekend.

On friday we headed to Lake Naivasha which is one of the Rift Valley lakes. We walked among giraffes, zebras, gazelles and wildebeests on Crescent island. You're allowed to walk because there aren't any predators. It was pretty amazing to be just 10 feet from the giraffes...I like those guys! FYI-did you know that giraffes have the same number of cervical vertebrae as we do. I did. I learned that when I did a presentation on head and neck injuries...kinda interesting.

From there we wandered to Hell's Gate National Park. I biked (without a helmet...sorry mom and dad) from the entrance to the gorge trailedhead. It was just a couple miles but a couple miles of beautiful rock cliffs and more zebras and giraffes. I mean really, who gets to mountain bike with zebras! The hike was beautiful too. It was in a gorge, partly with a dry river bed and the rest with a little creek, which I'm sure becomes a huge river when it rains. I would not want to be there during the rains...it screamed flash floods to me and by the terrified look on our local guides'face as the rains were closing in, I'm sure it's a dangerous place to be. There are some hot springs there as well...the Masaai spa.

Next was onto a place called Kogoni where there were thousands upon thousands of flamingos. An incredible sight to see. Per the Master Birder would have been in awe. We took a boat ride to the hippos at which point I realized my rookie mistake as the battery on my camera started flashing red...suck! One hippo submerged and came after our boat. You could see the bubbles he was creating on the surface as he came closer and closer. A bit terrifying. They are big and not nice, so we got out of there.

In the morning we set out for Nakuru National Park which is "damn expensive" if you're not a Kenyan resident but it was worth it. It's one of two premier parks in Western Kenya. Totally fenced in to protect the endangered rhinos from poachers and with only a few predators (lion and leopard) so there are animals EVERYWHERE. Again, zebras schmebras! The park is centered around another Rift Valley lake and you can hire a taxi to drive you around to all the spots. More birds, buffalo, waterbuck, baboons, gazelles, giraffe and rhinos. All day I rationed my picture taking and kept coaxing my camera to please just make it to the rhinos...which were the last stop of the day. I was sure it wouldn't, but it did! It died just as a big boy was crossing the road behind us but I'd already taken picts of the momma and her baby so I was satisfied! One good thing about coming in the rainy/low season...lots of new baby animals to look at. Very fun for me the animal lover!

Today is Easter and we enjoyed a hike in Menegai Crater. The volcano is dormant now and last erupted about 300 years ago. We started on the ridge, went down to the floor and then climbed, literally, straight back up to the viewpoint. I think my calves and thighs will be feeling it tomorrow! It's a beautiful place, very quiet and calm. It was nice to just sit and look out at the scenery in silence...before heading back to the chaos that is every African town. While I love that people are out and about, the heckling and hassling (ie "sister do you want this one, what about this one, buy from me, promote (means buy) me with this one etc etc) gets a bit old. Too bad the white skin really gives away the fact that I'm a foreigner...

Hopefully the spelling and punctuation in this entry is acceptable for you, Per...I know it isn't perfect though.

Here's more picts!

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Overly Ambitious Remodel - Phase 2A

While Paula is off gallivanting around Kenya for 2 months, I get to stay at home doing all the exciting things...like taxes. It's a rough life to be sure. However, via Skype and email, Paula and I have been finalizing the plans for Phase 2A of our Overly Ambitious Home Remodel. You may be asking yourself right now, "Great! That means you guys are done with the kitchen, doesn't it!" And to that I answer, "Absolutely not!" Nevertheless, I spent this weekend beginning the messy processes of demolition.

To explain the difference between Phase 1 and Phase 2, I thought I'd give you a virtual tour. When Paula and I moved in 2009, the floor plan looked as such:

The kitchen and dining rooms were separate rooms at the top and right corner. The master bed is at the top left corner, 2nd bedroom at the bottom left, and an office/smaller bedroom just to the left of the living room.

Since we moved in, Paula and I have been wanting to convert the existing pink bathroom into a master bath and find space for another bath on the floor. After playing around with the floorplan a bit, Paula and I have come up with a layout that we're comfortable with.

With this floor plan, the shared closets between the master and 2nd bedrooms becomes the new common bathroom while the existing bath becomes the master bath and closet.  The office/smaller bedroom is turned into an office that opens off living room through sliding doors. So, with this layout in hand, the last two
weekends were spent taking down walls.

Before: View from dining room towards office/small bedroom.

After: View from dining room towards office/small bedroom.

There's more demo still ahead, but it's at least a start towards more chaos and unfinished construction, which seems to be the state of life that Paula and I seem drawn to.

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Where does the time go???

I was doing such a good job of blogging (by my standards anyway...which are quite low when it comes to blogging) and then all of a sudden it's been 10 days since my last post. Sorry Per! Anyway, I have been busy with project stuff and unfortunately wasn't feeling too great last week, but all is well now.

For the past week or so we've been working on data collection. We went with a couple community health workers to do home visits. It's amazing how people just invite you into their home when you show up on their doorstep unannounced. I certainly wouldn't do that at my house in the Wedg. We wandered the hillside and met with women and their children. I got harrassed by a bunch of electrical workers since everyone seems to think that yelling "Mazungo" (whitey) is completely appropriate whenever I pass. I guess political correctness hasn't reached Kenya. We ate matoke (basically mashed cooked bananas) at one of the CHWs houses. I must say, I felt a sense of accomplishment since I don't like bananas but managed to finish my whole heaping pile food. Everyone (except the person who provided our lunch of course who remained oblivious to my plight) was laughing as I choked them down with my water bottle always in hand.

We also had a couple community meetings with mums and community health workers. We did some focus groups and surveys. We also did a bit of health teaching. Unfortunately, no one seems to understand me, even English is the national language. Generally speaking though, people peak Swahilli and whatever their native dialect is. Anyway, apparently they say I talk out of my nose rather than my mouth. They say all americans do. Aw well, I keep trying and they all keep politely nodding their heads at me with completely expressionless faces...until someone translates.

Some traditional birth attendants we met told us about boiling blood to give to pregnant women who eat soil. Sort of amazing that they figured out a treatment that works...obviously it's like that throughout history. Eating soil is called pica and you have it when you are anemic...hence the blood as a treatment. We encouraged them to send the women to hosptial for iron pills though. They were an intersting group of women and open to share. They are really working for the safety of the women they care for which is great though occasionally misguided.

Well, that about sums up what we been doing for data collection. In other news, I got scolded (sort of not really) for running in the rain. It rains warm big buckets from 4-5 every day. Most people flee to whatever shelter they can find, including, incidentally, semi truck wheel wells which I realized as I was running by and they were yelling at me to come and sit with them. Apparently people here don't like the rain and think it's dirty. I enjoyed it.

We also went for a little night time stroll with the public health officer and a pastor who I realized, in hindsight, was probably brought along as a guard of sorts...he's a big broad shouldered man. When we first got to Kisii and were trying to decide on a topic, Kapar (the public health officer), informed us about how prostitution is a huge problem in Kisii. Being that I'm all about empowering women and girls, I immediately started asking how old they are, if they are trafficked, would they be possible to work with etc etc. I was told by my program mentor that working with these girls was not an option (enter sad face from me) but, Kapar did agree to take us for a walk. Let me tell you, it is sad. They are YOUNG, probably 14-18 year old, though I'm sure they lie about their ages. They are everywhere at night, incredibly friendly and are more than willing to talk, though I doubt much of what they say (at least when it comes to identifying info) is true. They get paid 100 shillings, about $1.20, for each guy they are with and they organize themselves into little unions to protect each other. They pay the street boys to be their security guards and look after them. Many are pregnant or have kids and many are elder siblings trying to provide for their younger sibs. Some have parents, who of course don't know how they make the money they bring home for the family, and some are married...or were married too young and ended up without options. It was quite interesting and eye-opening, but even more so, it was incredibly sad. We even went to a brothel which is apparently busier during the day than at night since at night they are out on the streets. It was just off the main road, up a few stairs and all there was were tiny rooms with animal print walls (zebra) and a small bed with animal print bed spread...I felt so dirty and disgusting just being there. Kapar, our guide, has been reaching out to he community for about 10 years or so trying to provide harm reduction strategies. He knows many of them and they all know him which is why we were allowed to see the brothel and talk with the girls. He works out of a one room office where 5-6 staff members work and spends his time on a wide range of public health projects from water quality, to child prostitution, to street boys to sanitation and community health worker programs...and still had the time to take us on a tour and have a cup of tea. It's impressive. The people working for others here are generally, very impressive!

Ok, here's some picts. (None of our night time stroll though as I didn't take my camera which made all the girls were quite sad as they all wanted a picture with me and my long soft hair...I've never had so many people hug me and pet my hair.)

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