52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 1

After managing to read 60 books in 2009, for 2010, I have decided to take the time to document the books I read.

To kick off the year, I read The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton. It is a book that delves into why we respond to certain types of architecture and design and how the spaces we live in impact our lives. 

Here are excerpts of some of my favorite passages:

"It seems reasonable to suppose that people will possess some of the qualities of the buildings they are drawn to."

"Our working routines may be frantic and compromised, dense with meetings, insincere handshakes, small-talk and bureacracy. We may say things we don't believe in to win over colleagues and feel ourselves becoming envious and excited in relation to goals we don't essentially care for. But, finally, on our own... we can slowly resume contact with a more authentic self, who was there waiting in the wings for us to end our performance."

"We might even come to better understand God through beauty, fot it was He who had created everything beautiful in the world... In contact with attractive buildings, we could imitate some of the refinement, intelligence, kindness and harmony of their maker."

 "They were falling in love with the natural in their art precisely because they were losing tough with the natural in their own lives."

"Beauty lies between the extremities of order and complexity."

Outdoor Adventures | 2009 edition

2009 was one of the hardest years we experienced. Daniel was laid off in March and our lives were turned upside down. Our focus became finishing our house remodel, Daniel studying for his P.E. license while also trying to find a new job. We didn't have a lot of time or money to devote to adventures. We spent a lot of time walking our newly adopted dog on our local greenway while trying our best to stay afloat.

March
Daniel was laid off and it was life changing...

May
We adopted our first dog.

June
Hiking at South Mountain State Park | Connelly Springs, NC
Colonel Francis Beatty Park | Matthews, NC
Linville Falls | Linville, NC

July
Backpacking at Carver's Gap, NC

September
Canoeing on the Haw River | Saxapahaw, NC

November
Hike at Max Patch Bald, NC

I Love You Moore, even when our sense of normal isn't normal

So what do you do when you are young and don’t have a clue about renovating? You just dig right in and you don’t look back. This early in the game, you believe it will only take a year or so to finish (even with all of your big plans).

You rip out carpet with a vengeance. You paint walls like you always had mad skills to use a spray gun with oil-based KILZ. You wind up with your eyelashes fused together and scratch your head wondering what got you into this predicament. You tear out walls and tell yourself it will be back to normal soon.

A year later, you thank God that you finally have a working kitchen and wonder when you will have floors installed on every surface (verses exposed plywood sub floor).

Another year passes and you learn to ignore the unfinished things. You start trying to reclaim your life and stop sweating the small stuff. By now you have learned what to waste your time arguing about and what to let go. And your sense of normal has changed significantly.

Another year passes and you complete your master bathroom. Did it really take almost four years to get here? 

Your friends bug you continually about when you will finally throw a big party and let them see all of the progress. You say “soon” and then realize you have been saying “soon” for months (maybe years).

The employees at the local Lowes Home Improvement store think you are contractors. You don’t have the heart to tell them that you are just a husband and wife who are on a journey and that you just finished painting the walls and staining the concrete floors in your basement.

You come away with battle scars (including a scarred leg from a chainsaw, bruises from falling (1) off of a ladder that collapsed under you and (2) through an uncovered vent), but at the end, it is all worth it.

We purchased a 5-speed Subaru Forester today. It is the *youngest* vehicle we have ever owned - coming in at 10 years old.

It is due for a timing belt change, but once Daniel does that, we should be good to go for another 100,000+ miles. Well that is not completely true... it is used and will have general wear and tear on the engine but our in-house mechanic (Daniel) does a pretty good job of keeping our old vehicles in good working order.

I talked to my brother today and this is the gist of our conversation.

Mark: How was your new year's?

Me: Good. We bought a car today.

Mark: Awesome. What kind? How much did you spend?

Me: A Subaru Forester for $XXXX.

Mark: Wait... you won't spend $4 to buy more Christmas lights for your Christmas tree, but you will spend $XXXX on a car?

Me: Yep.

Mark: You guys are going to be millionaires some day.

I Love You Moore than our House Renovation

Once upon a time {about 5 years ago} a young couple {Cheree & Daniel} purchased their first home. They had grandiose ideas of renovating. He was an engineer. She was a {graphic} designer. It would be so easy

And it was.

Kind of.

Starting out was easy. They had no idea what they were doing, but they jumped right in. They ripped out carpet. They installed new floors. They painted. They disassembled a kitchen. They tiled. They did a custom master bathroom with a CUSTOM shower. They moved walls. Seriously. They moved walls. They were nuts.

They learned how to argue and disagree about things like what appliances to buy, what would be the best {most complicated} tile pattern to lay and what walls to move. What walls were load bearing and couldn't be moved. What was possible. What was not. What was ridiculous.

He learned that all of her idea generations was just her way of brain storming. She learned that Excel spreadsheets are absolutely necessary to renovate. They worked hard. Through blood {including a chainsaw accident}, sweat and tears they made a home.

And now due to a lay off and subsequent job in a new city, they have to move...

We are on the verge of finishing our house and we will put it on the market soon so that we can move to Chattanooga and start again. Friends and family always ask if we would do it again. And we emphatically shout NO. But truthfully I can see us doing it again. It would be different. Maybe room by room instead of GUTTING an entire house and putting it back together while we lived there.

We always say we would do small things like paint. And put in wood floors. And of course tile. And replacing a kitchen wouldn't be that bad, right? A bathroom renovation? That would be a piece of cake. Staining concrete? Sure.

We would probably hire out dry wall work. Daniel hates drywall.

 In the coming posts I will share pictures and advice of our process. What we did. What we wish we had done. What we would NEVER do again. At times, this project has taken over our lives, but it has taught us so much about ourselves. We gave up hobbies for our house, but the experience we have gained is invaluable. In the future we would work to do a better job of balancing our hobbies and life with our house projects. Being consumed by a never-ending house renovation can be overwhelming. But we are thankful for our experience.

Reading Resolutions

I was planning on making an unofficial resolution to read 52 books in 2010 - one a week. And if I had time, I would blog about the books as I read them.

Out of curiosity, I looked back at the books that I read in 2009 to see how many I read. After reviewing my online BookShelf and tallying them up, I discovered that I had actually read 60 books last year, so I'm thinking that 52 books is kind of a low resolution.

60) Heaven
59) One True Thing
58) The Middle Place
57) The Virgin Suicides
56) The Schopenhauer Cure
55) Julie and Julia
54) Farm City
53) Traveling Mercies
52) The Glass Castle
51) Always Looking Up
50) A Long Way Gone
49) The Help
48) A Grief Observed
47) The Road
46) Left to Tell
45) How Capitalism Saved America
44) Beautiful Boy
43) Blue Like Jazz
42) Honeymoon with my Brother
41) Sorrows of an American
40) The Vegetable Gardener's Bible
39) Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant
38) Good Dog. Stay.
37) World Made by Hand
36) The Sex Lives of Cannibals
35) Things I Want My Daughters to Know
34) Love and Respect
33) See You in a Hundred Years
32) The Geography of Bliss
31) Queen of the Road
30) The Year of Living Biblically
29) The Time Traveler's Wife
28) Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook
27) Scratch Beginnings
26) Tweak
25) This I Believe
24) Three Cups of Tea
23) unChristian
22) Buyology
21) The House on Sugar Beach
20) The Memory Keeper's Daughter
19) Loving Frank
18) The Knitting Circle
17) Deep Survival
16) The Forgotten Man
15) The Alchemist
14) The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted
13) Internal Combustion
12) Hinds Feet on High Places
11) The Rise of the Creative Class
10) 365 Nights
9) Outliers
8) Letter to a Christian Nation
7) Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
6) Forbes Great Success Stories
5) Quiet Strength
4) Many Waters
3) Live What You Love
2) Notes From a Small Island
1) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Word for the Year: Fortitude

I was reading the blog, Bloom, and came across a post contributed by MySparkle regarding New Year's resolutions. Instead of picking specific things to accomplish in the coming year, she focuses on choosing a single word that represents an overall theme for the coming year. 

I love the idea of purposely choosing a word to set the tone for the year.

As I look at 2010 I know that we are on the brink of some major life changes. A new job. A new city. New (and old) friends. There is a lot to think about and to plan for in the coming weeks and months. But we are ready to embrace these changes. 

Fortitude: Strength of mind that allows one to endure pain or adversity with courage. 

I believe this sums up how I feel about the changes to come. We will embrace strength of mind and face the changes to come with courage.

It is exciting, but also scary to move to a new place. To start over. We have no idea what is in store. We don't know if I will still have a job. We don't know where we will live. There are so many unknowns. But we will face them all with fortitude.