Weekly Update 2/1-2/7/21

 Welcome to February!

House updates. We had our pre drywall walk through at the house this week. We review all the things that we have ask for any updates or last minute changes and then sign off. That was Wednesday. Then they did the insulation and delivered drywall.  If all goes well that will be in next week. We are also thinking the stucco will be put on. Once that is completed then they will paint and then the rook goes on. They don't roof until after paint because the spray the paint. 

The house next door is painted, roofed, drywalled, textured and they even started doing trim and doors. We are a only about 2 weeks behind them, so that is exciting. We are still shooting for the end of March to close. Fingers crossed.

Went for another night bike ride. Short but intense. Didn't crash so that's a plus! Took a ride to Oracle on the motorcycle, interesting to see the mountains form the other side. Finally we were invited to a Super bowl party. One of the guys I ride with invited us over for an outside, socially distanced mask wearing affair.  Game as kinda boring but the food was really good. Tri Tip, Carne Asada, Chicken fresh tortillas and more. Look at us making friends! 

Also saw our first snake on the walk with the dogs. Baby rattlesnake.

Bi-Weekly Update? 1/18/2021-1/31/21

Wow. ok, two weeks again.

Lets get the boring out of the way.  House stuff.  Nothing really new. They delivered the material to the roof but nothing more has been done. Still waiting for our pre drywall walk through.  We started looking for a fridge. Man that is crazy. So many style and features and prices.  Waiting for presidents day for some sales. We also had one company come out for a pool estimate. That's kind of exciting. Still hoping for a March closing. We have been here over 90 days now. The adventure of living here has worn off. Although we realize we could probably live in a tiny house after this experience.

Since last post we had a few fun things happen. Kiki turned 21! We had a low key party. Dinner and a few drinks with her old roomies. Old as she is now living in Scottsdale for the time being do to her nursing school. From here on out we need to rock paper scissors for a designated....

I had off of work on MLK day so I decided to try my hand at off road riding. Took the motorcycle up Reddington Pass for a 34 mile round trip in mostly dirt, sand and rocks. Fun and exahusting.

You Tube video 

Finally the last interesting thing that happened was the weather. We had rain for several days, which then turned to snow! Enough snow they opened Mt Lemmon Ski hill. I guess we can't get away from it. 

That's fine with me, I rather enjoyed it. I had a better video but it wont let me attach it here. Where you an see it falling and sticking to the ground. 

Until next week or the week after......

Whoops - Weekly update 1/17/2021

 Sorry I forgot to get the update out last week. Not too much was happening.  Well that's not entirely true. Mackenzie moved up to Scottsdale, to start the next few semesters in nursing. Cruelly,  of course she is selected for the Gilbert campus not the Tucson. It's just an added expense we could have avoided for rent in a more expensive part of the state.  Sucks, but she is on her way. 

Weather has been great. Did another night mountain bike ride, did a hike with Tracy ran my fastest 5k yet at 27:29. (under 9 minute miles). Tracy and I also did a house and grocery run, stopping for some outdoor live music and beers at Borderlands Brewing. That was nice.

These reports kind of bleed over as yesterday was MLK day. Tracy and I both had the day off.  I took the motorcycle up Reddington pass. A Dirt road for 4x4 and who ever feels adventurous. 36 miles and it was fun but exhausting. My legs feel it today. You don't just sit in the seat, its a stand almost the entire way taking the bumps and jumps with your legs. I will try to put a video together on that in the coming week. Felt pretty good and will do it again, as there are many many roads like this out here.

As far as the house goes, they added roof sheathing and the patio door the previous week and this last week they did the electrical, the exterior lathe and the roof tiles have been delivered. The super says we might have a pre drywall walkthrough this week. The house next door has insulation and drywall delivered. It's only a week or two from possibly being drywalled. Exciting. We are still hoping for March move in. Today is the 80th day in the Casita. 

Weekly Update 12/27-01/02/2021

 Well we made it through Christmas and into 2021.

What a year it was. Largest amount of change in one year in probably my lifetime.

Covid, restricted work and leisure travel, social distancing, both Tracy and I are now offcial full time remote employees. We sold our first house, moved across the country. I got my license and have a motorcycle, I section hiked the Appalachian Trail. Living in a the smallest house ever. Building a new house....

I can't complain though, a lot of people are having large changes too, all not as lucky as we are.

This week  there were no late night bike rides this week either.  We did have Kiki for New Years Eve had some take out BBQ, played cribbage and Yahtzee. Had drinks round the fire.  We even stayed up to make it to real new years day in our time zone! 

In the morning I got up and went to the park for a long trail run. More than 7 miles and 1200 feet of elevation gain. I did a trail run last new years day as well,  slightly different environments. I do miss the snow.

                                            2020

                                            2021

After that we went to look at the house. The HVAC is almost done, the rough plumbing is in, the tub and shower surrounds are in. We also have windows! It's starting to really look like a house now. I assume they will finish up the duct work and plumbing this week. Maybe put our patio door in and then work on electrical? 

We are starting to get excited and have started looking for items like fans, pendant lights, and certain appliances. (I have also looked ate water softeners, filters, Wi-Fi stuff) The house comes with a range dishwasher and microwave. Man when did refrigerators get so expensive? If we can't find one right away we do have the basement fridge we brought with us in storage, if it comes to that. 

HVAC OCTOPUS

Master Bedroom Window

Kitchen Island Plumbing

Front Window

Weekly Update 12/20-12/26

 Christmas week!

House update - framing is done, electrical main is in. HVAC and plumbing this week?

The crew went for a night mountain bike ride again. Didn't get started until 8:30 didn't get home until after 12 am again. 16 Miles.  These guys are a bad influence on me. 

Not much after that other than picking Joel up from the airport and then eating and drinking too much as usual when we get together. The whole family in the Casita for 3 days. Talk about close.

We had a nice Christmas and I forced the family to go on a hike.

Another easy week of work and then 2021.  

Weekly Update 12/13-12/19

Another week in the books and as of 12/20 we have been in the Casita for 50 days. Not that we are counting.

Last Sunday we visited the house and they had started the framing. We are very excited to see real progress. It feel much more tangible.

Front

Back

Kitchen through living room to backyard

Which then brings us to the "Design Center". Where we pick out all the electrical, finishes, countertops cabinets, carpeting, tile...you name it. We finally had our appointment on Friday. Started at 9 AM and ended at 4:45 PM with an hour for lunch. Mentally exhausting. We ended up with a complete departure from the old house with all the wood and oak trim.

Another fun thing Mackenzie and I did this week was view the Geminids meteor shower. Sunday night we drove to the Alta Loma trail head and hiked 2 miles in on the Hope Camp trail to a small hilltop. Much of the area is designated dark sky in the Tucson area but, this just helped get any city glare to be gone. The additional benefit was it was a new moon so the sky would never be darker. We sat and watched the show of quite some time. Into Monday morning. We did not get home until almost 2:00 AM. Nothing like hiking in the dark in a national park at 1 in the morning. It also made for a very tired workday. But it was worth the time with my daughter. I took a ton of pictures but have not had time to put them all together like I want.  Here is some fun we had with some light painting.

Also here is the link to my Mount Lemmon Motorcycle ride from last week. 

The edit got screwed up, so the sound is off and even though it was shot in 4K it rendered in not quite HD. I would redo it, but the internet in the Casita is so bad, it took 36 hours to upload this. I don't have the patience for it.

Weekly Update 12/6-12/12

 Not too much new here. The house wasn't framed as of Thursday, but even though more lumber was delivered.

On Tuesday the crew called me up for another night bike ride. It was the most aggressive ride to date. almost 10 miles. Starr Pass Loop. Listed as Intermediate/Difficult. At night it was definitely difficult. Didn't crash or anything, I did have to slow down and even walk in a few places. Overall it was still a good time.

We got quite a bit of rain on Wednesday and the temps cooled down considerably. The water does not really soak in here, but just puddles and run of. Still standing water in many places 4 days later.

Oh yeah, Tracy had to do some work Saturday, so I took the opportunity to take my cycle up to Summerhaven. 25 mile ride on the Catalina Highway topping out at over 8,000' in elevation.  It was a blast. Except traffic slowed me down a lot. It was very pleasant 65 decrees when I started and at the top it was 41 when I stopped at Mt Lemmon cookie cabin. I had my normal riding gear and layers underneath, but it was very chilly in spots. Still snow on the road and in the forest at that elevation. Thank goodness this old bike has handgrip warmers. That helped a lot.  I will be putting a video up the mountain ride out in the next week and will link to it. 

That's all for this week.

 

Weekly Updates 11/29-12/5

Hard to believe it is December already. 

We have been here 1 month and a few days now. The vacation vibe has worn off. The cuteness of the casita is gone. Now it's just a stepping stone to other, better things. I did make some bigger meals this week. although it isn't easy. Swedish meatballs and a Pork Tenderloin were both made. Stuff easily made will no longer be taken for granted in a kitchen with 3 square feet of counter top space.

Which brings me to the house update. We have a slab now and lumber is also onsite.

We expect it to be framed next week. It's it starting to feel more real. We have our design center meeting in 2 weeks and only thing I know what I want is lighting, fans and outlets.  

I also did two bike rides. One on the mountain bike. They crew assembled for a Tuesday night ride. I had my cheap-o bike light from Amazon. Highly rated! Um no. not for the riding I was doing. Luckily we were able to get a different light before hitting more trails. There are no shortage of trails around. This particular set is called Fantasy Island. In a very populated area, infact you bike past peoples houses on occasion. There are a ton of trails an loops from easy to hard, including the bunny loop. The crew assessed my skills on the last ride and said lets do all the hard ones. Ok fine, how hard can they be? It was way more technical than the last ride, tighter, looser, way more up and down. I  think I handled it just fine, only a few spots were what I would deem code brown. Maybe it helps going at night? Can't be afraid of what you can't see?  

I had the go pro on but it was set for more daylight shots so they didn't turn out that well.  Plus my bike mount was not made for this and would often point at the ground or the sky based on the bump.

over 11 miles!

My second bike ride was on the motorcycle. After many attempts I was finally able to title the bike. I have an Arizona Drivers License and now my first vehicle titled. (I am holding off on the cars, registration is not cheap down here) Also, after a few Amazon screw ups I had all the parts I needed to fix a few things. With that done in the morning I did  bunch or errands. All gastronomical in nature. 

First up. Tucson Coffee Roasters. Ran out of the stuff from Collectivo and Stone Creek so I figured it was time to try local. By the way, if anyone wants to send me some Collectivo, let me know I will give you my punch card app info. I have around $180.00 of credit on that including a free birthday bag. They won't let you use it for online orders, unfortunately. Anyway, from there I went looking for Roma Imports. Closest thing I could find like a Gloriosos. Not quite a market but close with a full deli/take out and lots of frozen meals (lasagna, ravioli etc.), sauces, and importantly Italian sausage. I grabbed 5 links of the hot and mild, put it in my insulated bag in the top case of the bike. Last stop was Penzy's. Not that I needed much, but just to find where things are in my new city and it is good to see something familiar. From there I took the longest, hilliest, curviest way back home. Riding a motorcycle on December 4th, mid 60's. Perfect weather. Not cold, not hot, just right. 

Came home and grilled up those sausages. What's the verdict? The grind is much like what I like, coarse, not the over processed grind of some supermarket brands. The spicy were pretty good, missing something. The mild were very much the same good, but again missing something. my guess is fennel. 

Maybe I take up sausage making when we get into the new house? Ha, only half joking.  

Weekly Update 11/22-11/28

Another week in Paradise!?

This week we started off with a Sunday AM sunrise hike. 

Its so nice to have so many neat trails so close. We did a 5 mile loop. We need to get Tracy some better shoes for this.

The work week wasn't too bad and it was a short one. Which leads us to Thanksgiving. Only the second one ever spent without family. Can you guess the first time? 

Our kitchen is so damn small, there is no way I could ever cook a full Turkey and all the fixings. Having access to only a pots pans and other accoutrements, it wouldn't be worth the effort. We ordered a full meal for 4 from Whole Foods. They have a huge catering business I was unaware of. 

We got a full 8-10 pound turkey, mashed potatoes, maple sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, extra gravy, green beans and a pumpkin pie. 

Mackenzie brought her roommate over to eat with us. She wasn't going home, so we did what we could to make her feel at home. 

I made bacon wrapped water chestnuts for an appetizer, thanks to Taylor who asked me about them earlier in the week. After dinner we did a little face time with family and then sat outside with a fire.

I also got a set of solar Christmas lights to liven up the yard.

Saturday, we did a bunch of running around. Went to 7 model houses to start getting design ideas. Man, not sure how we will keep this all straight? It can be overwhelming. Speaking of house updates, we also stopped by the lot. It is ready for the slab! They post tension the concrete for strength so thats what all the cables are. Exciting that's for sure. A few photos here, but I will link to the full house build album on the side bar here.

Speaking of albums, I finally got around to editing all the pictures I took at the old house as the trees turned colors the last month we were there. I will miss that for sure. 

Click here for that

Weekly Update 11/14-11/21

 Week Three is over. We finally feel like we are settled in. It also feels like we are getting somewhere on the house.

Waste plumbing is in and they will backfill for the next step - the slab. Exciting! The house next to ours is already framed! So it goes fast once the slab is in.  We also finally made the appointment with the design center. Where we will go through all our options. Electrical, Floors, Cabinets, counters fixtures and the like. 

We also, did a few more items around the house. Got the Smokey Joe from storage and made brats. Ya Wisconsin. We also had a fire again, and I made Tracy here first Old Fashioned in Arizona. 

Took Tracy's car in for an oil change. Almost killed me to do that. I always do my oil changes.

I did a lot of biking this week.  

I bought my first motor cycle. I know, that didn't take long.  A used BMW F650GS. That was Wednesday. Looking forward to riding that around as the temps get cooler.

On Wednesday afternoon my realtor turned friend, texted me if I want to go do some night mountain biking with him on Friday night. Desert riding? At Night? I tentatively tell him ok.

I need to get a helmet (buried in storage) I also need pedals, as the ones I have are clip in and well my shoes are buried in storage. I jump on the cycle and go to the bike store. Helmet and pedals in hand, I let Mark know I am all in.

He picks me up around 5 and by the time we get all in and started its 6:30 PM. Got off the rail at 10:30 PM went and chowed and had a post ride beer. Didn't get home until almost 1:00 AM.  I might have had a good time.

I cannot even explain how ape shit crazy this was. Its DARK, a little bitty light on the handle bar lights up about 20 feet in front of you, Oh and the hardest part is - you can't look ahead with your head because the light is only where your handlebars are pointed.

Huge river washes, deep sand, cactus and trees trying to bite you everywhere. We did 18 miles and 1200' of elevation gain! I only crashed twice in deep sand.. One guy caught a flat. One guy had cactus spines all over. I busted a spoke. We would do a section, rest talk and turn the lights off.  The half moon just lit everything up. It was amazing. Mountain and dark silhouettes. 

Totally going to do more, just need to not do 18 miles the first time. I am still sore. The crew I was with, my realtor Mark, and two of his friends Carl and Ian were really cool and they even gave me props for keeping up with them. 1st night ride, first desert ride, 18 miles. My old side pull brakes and hardtail design and tiny 26 " wheels. (one guy had a fully decked out Specialized Carbon Fiber StumpJumper basically he paid more for that than the motorcycle I just bought). That's me, giver all, act the bad ass and crawl back home to die when no one is watching. LOL 

Weekly Update 11/8 to 11/14

 This week, gets a little better. Tracy's network issues are lessened by the hot spot. Not perfect but it's as good as it will get.

The washing machine outside on the porch broke. So they gave us a new used one. They turned the heat on, but it doesn't seem to work. Yes, we may need heat. This week it snowed in the mountains. Frost everywhere for a few days an high temps only reaching 55.  Yes, this week it was warmer in Wisconsin than here. Apparently we brought it with us.

We have been trying to find the best grocery store, and we have not had any shortage of eating out. Whole foods: Nice but spendy. Frys: They are a Kroger brand. Safeway: meh.  Albertsons: Again just kinda meh. Sprouts: Nice produce bet everything else is kinda hippy dippy.

I order a small desk and lamp from amazon. I can now work better than using a standing dresser for hours on end. I also added a WiFi Extender. Doesn't help speed but it help the network drops from being less frequent.

Bought a Christmas Cactus and a metal owl.  OH also ordered Thanksgiving Dinner from Whole foods. Should be interesting.

Made an appointment at the DMV so we can become official residents of the state,

Starting to see progress on the house. Forms are up and they are trenching for waste plumbing.

Weekly Update 11/1 to 11/7

 Man I may get back to full time blogging. For a while anyway.  Every week I will do a short update on the our adventure and updates on the new house.

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week we finally get settled in. Set up for work. We have Tracy's desk and I am working from a dresser. The internet access, I was assured, is really good. Wrong. It might be for all the snow birds we live with but it cannot handle 2 people working full time. 

I had wanted to jump from AT&T for some time and now was my chance. We upgraded everyone to un-limited data and 20GB of hotspot, which is how Tracy will work. My network is more forgiving of dropping the connection than hers. The cost is a wash over what we had so no big deal.

We slowly unpack the clothes and stuff we will need for the next 5 months. We can't wait for Saturday to unwind and relax.

Right now nothing has been done to the house or lot.