In November of 2015 David and I went to a party

The idea to dismantle our koi pond and garden and build a house where the koi pond and garden used to be came to us as we left a party on November 7, 2015. In 2011 David and  I downsized from a house that had 4,300 square feet of living space (and a 400 square foot garage in addition to that) to a much smaller house in the heart of Georgetown. Our current Georgetown house has two floors, each with 1,120 square feet, for a grand total of 2,240. Everything we need fits into it. Beyond being the perfect sized house for us now, it came with something that I longed for: a flat, vacant 4,000 square foot.  It had a sidewalk on the street on one side and level alley access on the other side.  It became the garden project of my dreams.  While we realized it could have a house on it, we never planned on building anything more than a great yard.

Then we went to this party. The party was a joint effort of Joe and Kim who own JAS Design Build and two sisters who each had a home of their own before they decided to buy this little Wallingford bungalow and downsize into it together. JAS did the gut and remodel to the bungalow and the work was enchanting to David and me. We had such a nice time at this party: great cocktails, great food, cool glassware, all served up in a wonderfully designed space, perfect space. We spent most of the night taking each other aside and saying, “Hey did you notice the way . . . ” or “Take a look at the way they . . . ” or “This is how we should live, in smaller but higher quality space.”

We stayed at this party way longer than we planned to stay out that night and we took it all in. It was, in our minds, the perfect event. Mary and Melinda (the sisters) gathered fun, interesting people together and presented them with a wonderful spread in a great space. As David and I were closing the car doors and pulling away from the party, I looked at David and said, “Fuck. Now I want us to build a house.

And that’s how it all started.

A Huge Sigh Of Relief

I can finally relax.  December 17th and I can finally relax.  I just hugged and kissed David and Opal and waved goodbye as they drove off on a road trip to Palm Springs.  I am alone and calm, things are progressing as planned.

Today THE LETTER could start arriving at people’s homes.  The mass mailing went off without a hitch this year (as far as I know since this is the first year I didn’t actually go to the bulk mail division of the post office and mail it myself).  I picked the 20 page missive up at Kinkos, took it to my office, and with 5 helpers stuffed it into next year’s calendars, then stuffed those into envelopes, then sealed the envelopes, then labelled the sealed envelopes, and then sorted and counted them by zip code.

537.  This year the mailing was 537 pieces.  At this point this year I was done. Usually at this point my faithful friend Tim and I would box these up, load them into our cars, and drive to the bulk mail post office.  It was always a negative experience for me.  Stressful.  Depressing.  They have crAZy forms that must be filled out by doing complicated math while following about 17 rules the Postmaster has devised to make the experience miserable.  (Really, I’m good with most math but theirs is most complicated with multiple factors that each have 5 numbers trailing the decimal point and that vary based on quantities to certain zip codes and by piece weight and, my favorite part, the teeny-tiny boxes on the form that you can’t fit a 7 digit number into neatly.)

Last summer I was dreading this out loud to my friend Matt and he told me there was a woman who worked in his office who did this for hire around the holidays to make extra money.  I called her in July and literally set a date and time for her to pick these up in December.  We settled on 2:00 PM on Thursday December 15th.  I wanted to get on her radar early and secure a slot.  This gave me a writing deadline that I don’t usually have.  But it also gave me peace.  Renee arrived at the exact time we set back in July and I sighed with relief and turned my focus to getting David packed and on the road for Palm Springs.

Can I Blog?

Today I finished writing our 2016 Christmas Letter.  I was exhausted and working on a deadline so I never proofed it, I just took it to Kinkos and said, “600 copies please.”  And now I’m staring at WordPress pages wondering if I can blog.  And more to the point, can I blog well enough to replace 600 copies of a 20 page letter?