nevermind the mess

Our new home came with a 6' dog kennel, and we don't have a dog. But we do have a garden--and I've been vying for a greenhouse. So I put on my re-purposing hat and decided to transform that puppy pen into a hothouse humidor for my growing collection of greens. I wanted a cheap and easy dog kennel to greenhouse conversion. My first impulse was to run over to the Home Depot and buy plastic sheeting to cover it. That vision abruptly ended when I did a quick search and saw the price tag on the stuff. The greenhouse conversion was starting to sound a little too  green,  if you know what I mean .  The next morning, inspiration struck me the moment I stepped into the shower. I was face to face with the very vinyl I would need to cover my greenhouse! I quickly got dressed and ran out to the local Big Lots (with my hair still wet) and picked up five  clear shower curtain liners  with metal rivets at $6.00 a pack.  Home we drove to set up shop. First, ...

Since last June, we've viewed at least 22 houses. Countless hours have been spent on Zillow zooming in and out on homes in great neighborhoods with beautiful landscaping. I've wasted away dozens of precious sleep hours (we have a nine-month-old who still won't sleep through the night), googling terms like escalation clause,  agonizing over whether our current offer would be accepted. During waking hours, I find myself daydreaming of our daughter having her own room, so that my husband and I can finally resume our marital relations without an audience. Our finances are in order, our loan has been pre-approved, and we have an agent who is professional and experienced.  We've made four separate offers on four different homes. We've waived all contingencies. Offered above asking price. And still nothing. Why can't we get a house?!? Because we live in San Diego, and my husband, a high school math teacher, might as well be working at Burger King because his yearl...

The Magical Mystery Books Box Something strange is going on and I love it. Remember that Books Box  I built outside my house? Well, I am now convinced that it has magical powers. I built a free library in front of my house for people to give and take books. I never could have imagined what resulted from this one small act of neighborly love. It seems that by building the Books Box, I have inadvertently constructed an antenna which picks up signals from another dimension, and I am now tapped in to the power of the law of attraction and all the universe has to offer. Let me try to explain. The idea of a little free library is simple. Construct a shelter, fill it with your old books that you no longer want to hang on to, and offer them to others, no strings attached. Your books quickly find themselves with new owners, and new old books arrive to take their place. Read. Return. Repeat. People walk buy and I hear them get excited to take a peek at what's new, or old. Th...

The San Diego Zoo is known as one of the city's biggest and best attractions, and enjoyed year round by tourists and residents alike. You can go hundreds of times and never see the same thing twice. After countless trips to the zoo, I began to notice a trend. Every time I go, I see several people wearing Pink Floyd tee shirts.    You know when you learn a new word and then start seeing it everywhere? It was kind of like that, but I can't remember the last time I've seen anyone wearing a Pink Floyd shirt outside of the zoo, and it got me thinking.  Maybe there is some sort of cosmic connection between the San Diego Zoo and Pink Floyd. It then dawned on me that Pink Floyd has an album entitled  Animals .  It appears there's a sub-culture of zoo visitors who, inspired by the music of Pink Floyd, are making a subconscious effort to get in touch with their primal, instinctual selves, and to seek out the company of animals. So here is my theory of the correl...

I live in San Diego.  It's a desert, but it's far from deserted. It is home to over a million people, yet there's no source for drinking water in sight. How is this possible?  Like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and the Imperial Valley, we get 80% of our water from the Colorado River.  That's over a thousand miles away!!! What's more, Southern California is prone to drought, fires, and seasonal dry winds, yet we use water like it's in limitless supply.   We sprinkle green golf courses. We build fountains and swimming pools. We take long, hot showers and baths. And we do one very special thing that shows we clearly just don't effing care. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... the courtesy flush.   The courtesy flush means flushing the toilet a second time to better clean the bowl after you've number twoed in it.  Yes, that's right. W e would rather waste gallons of perfectly clean, fresh water than suffer the embarrassment of letting other people find o...