An indication that today was probably not the best day I’ve ever had…

Visual learners must draw pictures to buy the correct amount of lumber. And also find online calculaters based on the Pythagorean Theorum to make sure their bench legs will be the proper length. (Damn math teachers were right… It DOES come in handy.) Sigh.

A couple of weeks ago MysteryMan and I drove way out of our way to the only Ruby Tuesdays left in the greater Toledo area (because some Sundays call for mini-burgers and the unlimited garden bar) and the iPhone map led us through an area of the city we both swore we’d never been in before. Now… I spent a few years in various States of this great nation, but still, between the two of us we’ve got more than 50 years in the Northwest Ohio, Southeast Michigan region. It seems like in fifty cumulative years, we should know every square inch of this area and I find it vaguely depressing (and a little pathetic) that we don’t.

So of course I said, “you know what we should do?” And then got that look on my face that makes MysteryMan’s eyeballs roll so far back into his head I think I might have to extract them with a pair of pliers.

So I know it only appeals to 17% of my audience here (thank you google analytics), but having new stuff to post to this website is one of the few things that motivates me to do things outside my comfort zone… and although more often than not that manifests itself in things like perching myself on the roof of a dilapidated building with a hammer, sometimes it means putting on a dress and standing in front of a camera.

I mean, let’s not pigeonhole ourselves, shall we?

So… I’m sacrificing a little time and DIYdiva real estate to searching out all those things we should be doing in Toledo, but for some reason aren’t. (For the rest of you, I’m doing my best to include some fun photography so please direct you attention to the picture of the big ass snake below and consider that I took that picture without a zoom lens.)

Fate smiled upon this crazy idea of mine when my friend E (gorgeous umbrella maiden, pictured above) came into some last minute tickets to the ZOOtoDO at the Toledo Zoo.

Dressing up and eating with the monkeys? Uh, duh… how could that not be a good time?

Let me introduce you to the guest of honor, Monty…

I’ve actually been acquainted with Monty for a long time, and there is video footage of this exact snake mistaking my mothers foot for something that could be suffocated and swallowed whole way back when extra permed hair was extra cool, which is to say decades ago. She had to stand on one foot for a significant period of time until 12-foot-long Monty realized he would not be having any of her limbs for a snack. In Monty’s defense it really was a case of mistaken identity and for having a body as thick as my waist, he’s pretty damn cool.

After visiting with the guest of honor we ate four times our body weight in free snacks from dozens of different local restaurants. And after having redeemed no small number of beverage ticktets, we decided not to waste a perfectly good opportunity to MacGyver something, and turned this centerpiece…

…into the props for a very glam photoshoot.

And then proceded to act even more mature.

But listen, the best part about ZOOtoDO is that the standard dress for the evening was tuxedo jackets with bermuda shorts and sneakers. What could be more fun than actually being a grown up, but getting to pretend that you’re a kid playing dress-up?

As far as things to do in Toledo, ZOOtoDO isn’t cheap, but it sure is fun.

Price: $$$
Fun: ****
Info: ZOOtoDO page; Toledo Zoo site

This weekend we worked hard and then decided playing equally hard was also in order, so we got into the patriotic spirit a little early.

My good friend E decided what we really needed was some sparklers, and what I decided was that we also needed to capture this on film (figuratively.) This is the kind of fun you can have with objects on fire and overriding the shutter on your camera.

E was pretty good at “sparkler cursive” which is a lot harder than it looks on camera, as evidenced by the fact that after I saw this picture I was like “let me do mine!” and determinedly spelled out the letters K-I-T, which showed up on film like this…

Apparently in my sparkler cursive, KIT also looks a lot like POO.

I was much better at abstract ideas, like turning E into an angel…

Heveanly, isn’t she?

Then, with Santa as our witness we set off some bottle rockets…

Along with some other explosives that I imagine anywhere else we would be arrested for lighting on the road… but not in the country.

Ah, well… all kinds of things sound like a good idea after midnight around a bonfire.

Photography Note: On the Nikon D40 you can go to manual shutter by putting the camera in M mode, pushing the info button, and the scrolling the click wheel all the way to the left until it says “bulb” and then “–”. If you have a remote (I have the ML-L3) the “–” setting allows you to open the shutter on the first push, and close it on the second. (You’ll also have to go to Menu > Shooting Mode > Quick Response Remote, to enable the remote.)

The Story:
It’s been almost a year since MysteryMan and I took a walk in my neighborhood and he sprung the news on me that the house that borders his family’s property was for sale… cheap. He’d been house-shopping for the previous four years (or some other such ridiculous number) but had yet to actually commit to being a full-time homeowner. Some weeks before the life-altering conversation we were about to have walking to the movie rental place, we’d both realized that while we thought we’d just been “dating,” we’d actually been living together for nearly a year. And as it turns out, we both kinda liked it. And just as I settled into a life of having a handsome man pick up after me for all of time, and MysteryMan realized his tool collection just tripled, three acres of country land and a 900 square foot mother-of-all-diy-projects landed with a thud on our brand-spankin’-new committed relationship.

So we looked at eachother, blinked eleven times, shrugged our shoulders, and said “What the hell, let’s do it.”

And it’s only taken us 11 months to figure out what the hell we’re going to do with ourselves, not to mention the Memorial House.

The Project:
The alternate title to this post could be “How an Angel Architect Saved our Sanity”. So here’s my first bit of advice to anyone who is DIYing an addition to their house… do the whole damn thing, from foundation to drywall on your own, but for gods sake, hire a professional to do the house plan.

The trick, I imagine, is finding a good architect. And if you’re in the greater Toledo area, I can help you with that. Her name is Edit Karakas. Even if you’re not in this neck of the woods, I suggest you contact Edit and see if you can work with her remotely because this is the woman you need to design your home.

When MysteryMan and I walked into her office — skeptical, downtrodden, and feeling like we’d given up– we took everything we had, everything we wanted, laid it out on the table and said “Edit. Help.” And boy, did she deliver.

The blue outline is the original house. We new we wanted 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, a big kitchen, vaulted ceilings, an open area for the computer, and some nice outdoor living spaces that get sun throughout the year. Added to which. we are restricted on three sides of the house, and don’t have enough room for a second floor.

Some of my favorite things that Edit included: The first floor laundry room (maybe I’ll actually do some laundry then), small closets everywhere, the open “study” area with the stone fireplace in the middle of the great room, and the wrap-around porch… something both MysteryMan and I wanted but figured there was no way to make it work, so we didn’t even bother to ask if it could be done.  (And yes, that is a 7′x10′ closet in the Master bedroom.)

As far as what it looks like?

This…

Becomes this…

And this?

Becomes way more inviting…

The “front” entrance is to the right of the steps there. We have a couple of minor tweaks (and picking out the actual colors and materials for the exterior of the house is already giving me a twich in my right eye) but I would say we’re 97% of the way to finished, and both of us are thrilled.

There’ve been some moments of acute pain in the last year, being a young, non-traditional (and by that I mean happily unmarried), headstrong couple that is building a  house with the plan of spending the next 70 years there together. And I’m glad we went through all of that to end up where we are… but boy it wouldn’t have hurt us to find Edit six months ago either.