Thinking

Plans change.

We'd been giving occasional thought to remodeling this house. The way that it's laid out, our bedroom, and our daughter's, are at the far right end of one floor; below is part of the den, and the storage room (formerly the garage). You get into the current garage by going through the storage room. Our thought had been that we would put a room above the garage, opening the wall from our bedroom into the new room, making that our bedroom, and turning our current one into both a closet area and a terminus for an elevator from the first floor. Now, we're not so sure. Like many people, the current financial instability is making us think that perhaps committing to a radical change -- and around here, putting in an elevator is a radical change -- might limit the sale potential of the house. Probably not, but still. On the other hand, putting a room over the garage is common. (A friend noted that in his new house, the blueprints referred to it as 'Family Room Over Garage'. He thereafter called it 'the FROG room'.) So, we'll ease into it - put the room in as a shell, open the wall. Wire it with sockets, etc, but leave it in construction state -- wood floor, bare framed walls. Use it for storage (that area is currently accessible from within the garage, and there's a fair amount of boxes and luggage stuffed in there; that'd have to be accomodated in any construction) . Then, if we still want to, go ahead with the second phase. Carpet it, paint it, put in lighting, that sort of thing. Make it an actual bedroom. And only then, if we still want to, put in the elevator. If not -- golly, look at all that closet space!

I haven't been doing too much baking of late. I had picked up a copy of Breads from the La Brea Bakery, but so far not too much of it is inspiring me. I think I'll find a couple of recipes that look good, photocopy them, and return the book to the library. It's ironic, I suppose -- I waited a long time for this copy to get here, and now it's been sitting, unread, for three days. Last night, we went to the store to pick up a few things -- one of me had forgotten to get the ground beef we'd need for a recipe, and my daughter needed some stuff. While I was waiting for my wife to come back from an excursion to the far reaches of the store -- it's cold back there; frozen, in fact -- better bring your woolies -- I was looking through the rack of magazines. I had to chuckle when I realized that of all the things they had that might be expected to appeal to guys -- car magazines, a few audio or PC ones, and, of course, about four with cover illustrations of incredibly buff guys, each with a title indicating that this was easily achievable -- the magazine I actually picked up and leafed through was Fine Cooking. Though reality did set in; I realized that however intriguing it sounded, the odds were that I wasn't going to find an occasion to make a Sticky Toffee Pudding or Apple Pan Dowdy any time soon. So, not too much there. I surprised my wife by asking that she not refer to the cookies I baked the other day as 'my cookies' when she gave them to coworkers. They weren't mine; we'd bought a fund raiser pack, and inadvertently left them out to thaw, so it was either bake or toss them. Not that they were bad -- they had a bit of a tang, which I liked, thinking that it might be some kind of spice, but just as likely some fourteen syllable chemical stabilizer -- just that when I say 'I baked', I mean 'start to finish'. They may not be great, but, by god, I did it all. I guess I'm a little bit of a snob, that way.

I'm ready for this election to be over. I really am expecting dirty tricks, this month, last month of the election. I really am. I'm pleased that my candidate is doing better, and I know I'd feel differently if he were on the downslide, but still: lets get this over with. And then there's the bailout. Good god. I learned yesterday that that $700B number doesn't even come from any specific source -- it was intended as a big, attention getting, this - will - cover - everything number. Okay, perhaps it isn't possible to say exactly how much they need (and leaving aside the rightness or wrongness of that concept). But couldn't a little precision have come into play? I've heard it said that this is another 'Shock and Awe' move by the Bushman, and I agree. And we all know how well the last one went.

Winter's coming. The house was chilly last night; for the first time since the weekend, the electrical blanket was comfortable. This is good. I'll miss the warm weather, and there are always times when winter is bleak, but I like the changing seasons. I guess you grow to like what you grew up with, hmm? We had thought, once, that we might try to build a house in one of the classic retirement areas, like North Carolina -- I once heard it called the Halfway State; people from the north move down to Florida, find it too hot or buggy, and decide to return home, getting about halfway before saying 'hey, North Carolina's not bad at all' -- but, as I mentioned, we're just going to mod this house.

Plans change.