Uncategorized – Melissa Winning

New Home Details – Small California Cottage 1920’s bungalow.

We moved during the pandemic, while I was pregnant. It was crazy…our previous house which we loved and had a fabulous yard with many plants (my roses!) curated by myself over about 8 years, and owned by my partner for 15 years, was due for so much work and maintenance that we felt leaving that home and moving to a better school district and more walkable, safe neighborhood was the best for our family. I know, sounds so yuppie, but that’s where we are at this time in our lives, kids come first and being able to walk places has been amazing.

Anyway, new home has no entry way closet, a cute built in cabinet in the dining room, 2 original bedrooms, and our additional main suite which was added on in a remodel. The kitchen has great lights and skylights, great cabinetry which makes it much more efficient as it is about as big as a galley kitchen, skylights also located in one of the 2 original bedrooms and our ‘main’ bath. Off of one of the orginial bedrooms is one of those huge closets that has a window in it, so we store a whole lot in there, and just use a coat rack for now in our entranceway.

Whole house is only about 1250 sq ft but it’s efficiently laid out and has everything we need-including 2 bathrooms; thank goodness we live in a warm climate and get outside most days and afternoons, because it’s SMALL.

I hope to add a new lighting fixture/chandelier to our dining room, wallpaper the entranceway and remove and plant a new rose bush in our side yard this year, 2023. When we moved in we had grand plans for the upgrades we would make but more on that later. We had insane property tax bills years 1-2 and did I mention that baby I was pregnant with came into the world safely and happily ….yeah, $$$$$, so we are taking our upgrades slowly.

Big Updates!

Moving –

We sold our home during the pandemic to capitalize on the great ‘sellers market’, and moved to a more desirable school district and neighborhood that’s way more walkable. It was CRAZY because we had a lot of pressure on ourselves and our timeline- for one thing I was pregnant. This market was no joke and we struggled with finding a suitable option for our budget- aligning the financial reality of what loan we qualified for and desired lifestyle was TOUGH.

Baby –

I had another baby this August! We had a little girl and I will post about being a working mom at some point soon…..when I start working again or maybe before as I contemplate what this next phase holds. This is *top* of mind as I go back to work in late November. Having a second baby was MUCH harder than I expected for the first 6-8 weeks, particularly for my son and by extension ME. Now that she is 13 weeks, we are seeing my son and daughter become much more harmonious and my husband and I sorting things out as we all get more sleep, get settled into our new home, etc. There are so many factors here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello, are you preparing for a small and pared down Holiday? I hope not too lonely or feeling isolated. I haven’t had a lot of DIY or house stuff to report. We are just working away busily from home, taking care of our son, and doing some small clean up of the yard for winter, which can be pretty slow to arrive here in temperate Northern California. I started to prune my climbing roses, and have cut back most things that need pruning, such as our grape vines in the side yard. We have two ‘table grape’ varieties; one is very happy and prolific, the other is sort of smaller- but they both made several hearty clusters of grapes this year, and we had fun picking and eating them and hey, no smoke taint a la Napa this year, 2020! I’m also drying out my fabulous begonia tubers and thanking them for another fantastic year of blooms, even though I got them in hanging pots and a few planters late this year, they really came into their own in Sept/Oct. when we’re in our warmest days. I’m also starting mini-African violet leaf cuttings, a tiny windowsill project that’s going surprisingly well!

Otherwise as far as projects and focus go (beside some career things in the works!!)…..

I guess I’ll confess even though I am not totally comfortable sharing IVF & fertility stuff , yesterday we did a frozen embryo transfer! After a planned date in early November was pushed off because I ovulated, this timing seemed better, as we know who the next president will be, I had the week off to relax, and now we can just rest around enjoy this (weird) Thanksgiving. This embryo is ours from a procedure in 2017, and we used one from that cycle to have our 2.5 year old son. That procedure and pregnancy’s was pretty easy and chill, and of course resulted in a healthy live birth. It was a HUGE relief yesterday to hear from the embryologist (yes, that’s a persons job!!!) that the thaw had gone well and hopefully the transfer ‘sticks’ and the little thing decides to make a home within me. Fingers and everything else crossed.

It’s definitely a strange time, but I will know soon enough if it worked, and my pregnancy is progressing, so for this week we are just as I said, planning some walks and small projects like getting rid of clutter – which is a continuous process- taking things to Goodwill, and my husband will be cooking. He makes his extravagant pasta salad (never a tradition in my family, but a Thanksgiving dish his family loves). He’s also making mini-Shepard’s pies for all family members to take home, since the gathering will be outdoors. I am being UBER lazy this year and ordered a pumpkin swirl cheesecake from a bakery.

What projects are you working on to keep sane and soothe your mind as this pandemic rages on to give you something to look forward to each day? Have a Happy Holiday, and be safe!!

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone is having a safe and fun Halloween. We were lucky to do one outing today over to our extended family pods’ house for an outdoors ‘haunted house’ and family party for the kids. It was great!

Now that the windows are permitted, we are just waiting for them to come in. We are getting Marvin brand, with a fiberglass outdoor finish and the wood interior. This is what we have in the back room of our house, and so far so good, although some of the hardware is starting to wiggle and seems a bit loose after only about a year or so. The lead time for delivery is 10 weeks! So that means we are firmly into 2021 for installation and then we have to contend, we hope, with rain. It’s been another extremely dry fall in California, so we are hoping that by January, we see something! However, the dryness would be nice for our installations.

While we wait for the windows, I have put out a RFQ to a local electrician to get a quote on a ceiling fan for our entranceway. This has been interesting because our ceilings are not that high, we have a very very, small crawl space above ceiling, and we have really old wiring. It seems as though we have an electrician who is open to all of that and will give us a fair price for installation/box/additionally needed work to get it done.

Says it ionizes air!? That is impressive, no?

Next question is; what style fan!? I have a few favorites in mind, but some of them need a taller ceiling than I have space for- and I should say, I want a ‘fandalier’ which is sort of like the mullet of lighting fixtures!? It has a chandelier/multiple lights and a fan! Trust me, we need this air flow in our small house which has no central air and has been getting SO hot in the summer and fall. Also I realize I have to choose the correct scale for the room, not too low down, and so it will not overpower the space- another reason shopping online, while often a better deal, can be harder for me than in person.

https://www.overstock.com/Lighting-Ceiling-Fans/Miyaka-6-light-Metal-3-blade-29-inch-Rustic-Bronze-Ceiling-Fan-with-Remote/20981057/product.html?option=34890136

Here are some ideas. How has having a celling fan worked in your space and what do you recommended?

https://www.overstock.com/Lighting-Ceiling-Fans/Modern-Chrome-Crystal-Ceiling-Fan-3-Light-Chandelier-N-A/30889442/product.html?refccid=QH6YELNHX47Z3H2IUS7FO2J4HI&searchidx=12&kwds=&rfmt=

New Windows and ‘Pulling Your own Permits’

Today was Monday, and I had such a hard time getting going. I had a good weekend but as the pandemic wears on, I’m wearing a bit thin. Probably the highlight of the weekend was going to the lovely Marina with my son on Sunday morning to play at the playground and check out the shoreline on such a warm and beautiful day, and having the contractor for our new windows come over on Saturday and confirm measurements, because our PERMIT got approved.

I really struggled to get these permits first formatted, then properly submitted and accepted to be approved/reviewed at all. For a few weeks I was stressed about it, knowing it wasn’t getting crossed off my to-do list, and just feeling down about being a procrastinator. Finally my husband stepped in because he thought the windows had been ordered weeks ago (they had not!), and I provided him with all of the information I thought we needed or I had already filled out. He was able to format the PDF files to the correct dimensions (helps to have a licensed version of the software!) and used an app on his phone to take a very detailed looking photo turned sketch/rendering of the window to show the ‘before’, while our contractor provided the ‘after’. Don’t even go there about why our contractor didn’t do the permitting…sigh! The county had just updated their website to make online permitting happen, and I had started the process prior to that launch, so we had to change from using email to web submission mid-process which also added to the confusion and time lag.

Once we had all of the forms, in the proper format, the rest was ‘easy’ and our windows will be permitted! Part of the reason this is important to me is this is the biggest window in our house, it’s huge, almost floor to ceiling, and it needs to be compliant if we ever want to sell our house (in my opinion!) It’s also going to be a huge energy savings and keep the room cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter. As it is, our living room basically acts as a greenhouse. Ahhhh, the joys of a pre WWII house. Of course, once the permit got submitted payment was requested, and it was not ‘cheap’, like anything worth doing, right? (Eyeroll, California is very expensive, to put it gently.)

Anyway, glad we are ready to proceed- the sad thing is, with everyone getting home projects and improvements done this year, we may not get the windows shipped/ready to be installed until after Thanksgiving, and it may be late December/Christmas if we are lucky that they do get installed! Weather dependent, of course-since it’s a huge, Western/Bay facing chunk of wall we are opening up- including stucco and our redwood lathe walls that they will be breaking and repairing. But this year looks to be a dry one in Northern California, so that may work in our favor.

Another part of this project is we hope to get serviced in conjunction with the windows is the hardwood flooring restoration in our living room and perhaps most of the rest of our home, which is all hardwood or parquet hardwood, except for the bathrooms and kitchens. The floor under our huge picture window is so water damaged, as well as some water damage under two smaller windows we are also having replaced, plus wear and tear from years of abuse and this houses’ years as a rental, it’s really time to show the parquet floor some love. I look forward to having this done almost as much as the windows, knowing how satisfying it will be when it all comes together!

Staying in Touch & Entranceway

Hey Guys! I should say gals too, although at this point I have literally 0 readers, that is okay, someday when I have enough posts and get a bit more cohesion with my website I have no doubt I will have more traffic and followers, ha.

I’ve been up since about 6:00, just thinking about Christmas gifts, chatting with my husband about the upcoming elections and making coffee, as well as browsing the web and looking at Etsy, Pintrest, and emailing an old friend I have not heard from in a while. I really haven’t heard from him in a while and he is in his early 70’s, we met when I was a sales rep in his area and we worked together, he ended up being such a great mentor and business partner, and when I worked in Santa Cruz we would go out for a meal. I hope he is okay – he had a surgery just before COVID and had lost his wife early in 2020. I’ll update if I hear from him, which will be a huge relief.

Besides my framing project (see framing post, here), I’ve been thinking about a wallpaper project in our entranceway. We have an older, at least by California standards, early 1930’s (1929?) home, and the entranceway is THE largest room in the house, almost as big as the living room. The square footage is very generous but it has a total of *6* doors or doorways going in and out of it, so it’s a tough space for flow with only a few solid, long walls- one of which you face when you enter the house. I’ve been thinking about wallpapering this wall. (Photos to come.)

Here are some ideas for wallpaper from my entranceway. Note we have a parquet floor which is kind of a complicated pattern. What do you think about these patterns?

Being More Open Minded

Envisioning what 2021 will be like is frankly a bit scary. I started working on my Q3/4 business draft and am looking ahead to 2021. What do you think your biggest financial goals are for 2021?

We paid of one of our cars today! With a little extra money, we were able to pay off one of our cars. It’s gotten us thinking about how to move up in house, if we even should, and what do with the “extra” money we are not paying toward the car. I think it will go back into retirement, fixing up the house, and helping pay off my car.

Some things I hope to work on are overcoming fear and anxiety around money and having another child. We have had fertility issues in the past and I lost a baby this spring that was about 13 weeks along. It was a surprise and felt like a miracle that we got pregnant naturally at all! But it was so close to the time (end of first trimester) that’s considered past the most ‘at risk’ time, it was quite sad and awful. I don’t really want to blog about my fertility but maybe more on this another time.

It’s been hard to gain the courage to want to try again and also makes me feel guilty for not totally appreciating our little one who is 2.5 years old.

Pitcher Plant at the UC Berkeley Arboretum

What do you think will happen with COVID in 2021? I wish I could say I think that things will magically get better in January, but I am not feeling optimistic. I read a lot of articles about women stepping out of the workforce to help with their children, and one thing my husband complained about when we were discussing the coverage is none of the articles cover the wage gap aspect of that- as in, the reason the women are the ones stopping work is they make less. The wage gap is even more so between women of color and white men.

waterway leading to San Pablo Bay - Pinole

To get back to the them of the post, I would say I am trying to be open minded about what 2021 will be like. It may be better for some of us then we expected, or maybe it will shake things up in ways we can’t imagine.

Therefore, for us, a big goal is to just stockpile cash and keep away from debt. Yes having another baby would incur costs, but we are at the point where we feel that we shouldn’t wait just because of COVID.

I hope everyone out there is doing well and dealing with things as best as they are able.

Figuring it out

I’ve only just started this new blogging project. It’s Friday night. My son is sleeping dreamily. People are setting off fireworks, and my husband is actually gone! He went to have a small gathering on a friends patio with his homeboys. It’s a fantastic feeling to go into Friday night feeling this way. I feel content and okay with not reaching for another glass of wine, 2 was enough!

Some of my favorite obsessions at the moment – Cool Jams Pajamas

The bralette sampler pack underwear on the Jockey website.

The Wreaths made of dried Bay and Chillis on Etsy. So much so that I have a big fantasy of going to Sedona or Santa Fe during Christmas to be cozy and festive during a Southwest Holiday, some year.

This condo, where we want to have a town and country like situation. A little city place here, and a nice little pad out on the country. We talk a lot about where we want to retire but sometimes I’d rather just work forever doing something I love (which would be what, exactly??!) and never have to leave California, which be honest, is what we will have to do.

VMV Hypoallergenic Skincare! I can’t wait to try this. I will do another post on dealing with skin irritants. fragrance and eczema another time- we have some serious skin allergies and issues in my household.

I’m Melissa

It feels incredibly self indulgent yet necessary to do something, anything, to connect with others. I’ve always dreamed of starting a blog. Why?

I used to think of myself as Harriet the Spy, as an observant and brilliant young lady and then, somewhere along the way- must have been puberty- I abandoned that image of myself. I even stopped journaling for many years, burying things I felt.

I hope to connect with other people who are willing to be open about who they are, who like to be active, stay positive and doing their best in their career in in their lives, taking care of themselves!

I hope to create a space to share a bit of what I like, what is important to me, and maybe show that there are normal moms out there who don’t take flattering photos of themselves and thier kids at all times but still do a rocking job.

I absolutely love Drag, Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman (yes, both of them!!) personal finance, gardening, using my planner and budgeting, figuring out how to manifest my desired life, food and fine dining, wine, weed, (working on those two, don’t judge me!!) linens and real estate. More on all of these if it seems interesting.

However …..I am not putting my energy into some of the things I love and give me joy the most- why is that??

Framing the Problem

Something I have been struggling with as I work through my finances; being real with myself about the true cost of items.

During COVID-19, my empty living room walls (more on this later) have been starting back at me.

I’ve been meaning to get these prints on Etsy for years, I mean YEARS! I have stalked, I mean poured over all sorts of images and panels and stretched canvases over the years to find something like this so when I finally bought them, what happened? I realized I didn’t know how to stretch canvas to create a floating frame. Before you hang a canvas print, you need to stretch and mount it on wood or do some sort of floating frame (unless you are going very raw and nailing up the canvas)!

So now, I have the canvas images, which were actually quite affordable- they are fabulous and came from Italy so quickly – in a tube in my basement. I thought at the time I was getting ‘deal’ by buying art in this form, but in reality, I am still out for either the materials to frame myself, or the cost of having it professionally done.

Why do I do this? Well, being very budget minded, I have to wait to get the pictures done- I am not very handy so I will be getting it done professionally- and the cost means that I will have to delay gratification to get them done. Ultimately, I will pay cash to get them framed and am really excited for that to happen in November. The other side of this want vs. need post is: I waited for so long to get what I wanted. Should I have just settled for something similar to what I wanted, but made in China? Or could I have found a cool print at a garage sale? For me I have these insecurities about choosing things on the spot and being confident in my choices.

What about you- do you buy things that are affordable but unfinished and then don’t have the money to complete the project, or do you start a lot of projects and feel guilty about not finishing them?