House Update, or The Drywall Is Finally Drying

It's been about a month since I signed the supplemental contract for my house so it's time for a status report. So here's where we are: 

• The drywall is hung and mudded. Since the house was open for several wet months, it took longer for the mud to dry than anticipated but . . . 
• The house is closed up, the heater is installed and the house is heated. 
• The exterior painting is almost done.
• The kitchen cabinets and bookcases for the library/hall are under construction. 
• The door frames for the garage doors and the pantry doors are complete. 

Next steps include hanging the garage doors and priming the interior. Laying the floors shouldn't be far behind. The bookshelves should go in this week and the kitchen cabinets a couple weeks after that. The drive will be re-graded and spread with small gravel in a couple weeks.

I've ordered the appliances and chosen the flooring. I'm looking at light fixtures, tile for the kitchen backsplash and fans this week.

You may recall that we had some legal issues with the contractor. He and Frank had a parting of the ways back in October and we ended up with a mechanic's lien against the property and a half-completed project. At the time of his death Frank was working on finishing the project on his own, acting as the general contracting himself. He found that some of the sub-contractors were happy to work with him, but he was having trouble replacing others. 

I know that Frank would not have approved of my continuing the project with the original contractor, but in evaluating the situation I realized I needed to accomplish four goals: 

• Receive a warranty on the entire house. I didn't think a new contractor would warranty the first contractor's work.
• Cancel the lien.  
• Generate as little ill-will and publicity in this rural area where everyone knows my business.
• Finish the project in which I have insufficient subject-matter expertise. In other words, I didn't feel qualified to act as the general contractor.

I feel disloyal to Frank in having chosen to work with the original contractor. It's not the path he would ever have taken. But in contemplating my options I've concluded that decisions that were right for us are not necessarily right for me. 

The supplemental contract requires the house to be completed by May 31. We seem on-track to meet that milestone. With a little luck we may even come in a couple weeks ahead of schedule.

The Instrument You Were Born With: My First Sacred Harp Singing

Today I attended my first Sacred Harp Singing at Wofford College in Spartanburg. My experience was exhilarating, interesting and educational. 

What, you may ask, is Sacred Harp singing? Sometimes it's known as Shape Note singing. It's a tradition of a cappella sacred choral music that was popular in America from the eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries, and continues to be practiced today. Its notation uses the usual staffs and notes from conventional music, but instead of all the notes being ovals, different notes have different shapes. This notation was developed to help people without formal music training learn to sing multi-part hymns easily and accurately. The tradition today uses reprints of traditional hymnals, and some devotees still compose new hymns that use the traditional forms. 

The traditional Sacred Harp books are not "revised" like the hymnals most churches use today, so the lyrics reflect American Christian beliefs popular when the songs were composed: the closeness of death, the need for salvation, the expectation of being united with loved ones in Heaven, the magnitude of Christ's sacrifice. These songs are not necessarily politically correct. For instance, since I was raised a Roman Catholic, I was particularly charmed by one hymn we sang today, The Romish Lady, in which a young woman defies her mother's teachings, ignores her priest and dares to read the Bible for herself. 


At a Singing participants are divided into four groups: trebles, tenors, altos and bases. They sit on the four sides of the open square where the leader stands to lead each tune. The leader sets the pitch and tempo and selects the hymn. At our Singing, each leader led one song at a time in turn, in some cases a favorite, in other cases a song they'd not led, or even heard, before. 

The sound of Sacred Harp music must be heard, for it's indescribable. It is polyphonic; it employs fourths and fifths, largely ignoring third intervals. To me it has a sort of "drone" to it. The hymn still in use that's closest to Sacred Harp music is Amazing Grace, but our current version of it is different from the versions in the Sacred Harp books. Attending a Singing felt to me like sitting inside an organ.  

In the movie Cold Mountain, the congregation is played by experienced Sacred Harp singers and this clip gives you an idea of the sound. Notice that before the congregation sings the lyrics of the song, they "practice" the tune by singing its musical notes. Also, some of the congregation members keep time with their hands, just as the leader does. This clip is from an actual Singing rather than a Hollywood movie and gives a very authentic look at the experience. 


So, why would I -- who really can't sing -- attend this event? The sound appeals to me. The music is visceral. A Singing is not a concert; it's participatory. I thought that if I spent a few hours literally singing my heart out I would find comfort and catharsis. I was right, but I also found wonderful, warm, friendly people -- and the altos were too nice to kick me out for my very inexpert efforts!


If my experience has piqued your interest, you might want to stream the video Sweet Is The Day: A Sacred Harp Family Portrait or rent the video Awake My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp. And the Wikipedia article on Sacred Harp is informative.

Clearly Stated

I’m taking time out of my busy schedule to provide, as a public service, a geography lesson that the world sorely needs. You know how there are some places in the world whose names you've heard, but you don’t quite know where they are? Like Tajikistan  and Burkina Faso and Liechtenstein? Well, today is your lucky day. After this lesson you’ll have added an obscure place to your body of knowledge. You’ll know where it is and, even better, you’ll know where it is not. The place? South Carolina.

About five years ago Frank and I bought 29 acres in rural South Carolina. Frank was from South Carolina, and we figured we’d eventually build a home here when were ready to retire. And ever since then, I’ve had to explain, over and over, that we were moving to South Carolina, not North Carolina.

Apparently when I say “South Carolina” most people hear “North Carolina”. I’d be a wealthy woman if I had a dime for every time I told someone I was moving to South Carolina and he said, “Oh, my brother-in-law went to Wake Forest (in North Carolina)/Chapel Hill (a branch of the University of North Carolina)/Duke (also in North Carolina).” Or she said, “I love Ashville/Charlotte/Raleigh-Durham (all cities in North Carolina).” South Carolina is not the home of your cousin’s favorite sports team, the Hurricanes, the Panthers or the Sting. And South Carolina is most certainly not the bastion of vinegar-based bar-b-que sauce.

News bulletin, my friends: There are two US states with the word “Carolina” in their names. They were named for Britain’s King Charles I. North Carolina is like the more popular, outgoing sister, the one who was the cheerleader and the prom queen. But South Carolina is real. It has an Atlantic coast. It's between Georgia and North Carolina. It boasts beautiful cities like Charleston and Columbia and Greenville. It's home to two national forests, numerous national parks, many Revolutionary War and Civil War battlefields, and historic sites galore. You just have to stop, and look around, and seek out South Carolina.

I’m beginning to think South Carolinians are partially to blame for this confusion. They don’t toot the South Carolina horn much. I think they prefer that when people hear “South Carolina” they head a few miles north to Wilmington or Winston-Salem or Greensboro. They relish the idea that South Carolina is less well-known, and they can keep it all to themselves.

But you are welcome to visit. Just be sure that when you come to see me you turn right, not left when you get to Knoxville.

Reunion With an Old Friend

Frankly, I really don't have a whole lot to do these days. I've registered my car, got my South Carolina driver's license, filed our 2009 tax returns, done some legal business. I know when the house is done I'll have PLENTY to do sorting through all our stuff in storage, setting up the house and getting rid of the excess. In the meantime I'm metaphorically twiddling my thumbs.


I figured this would be a good time to do some sewing. I'm behind in making class samples of several of my quilt designs. I have, of course, sewing tools and fabric aplenty, but the thought of trying to find quilting paraphernalia among a couple hundred boxes was pretty daunting. Yes, as you might point out, I could have planned better and put together a kit of essentials in a clearly-marked box when I packed -- if I were as smart as you are. However, this is the real world, and one brown cardboard mover's box looks astonishingly like another. There was no way I could find the literal needles in the proverbial haystack.

So I hied myself off to the nearest fabric store. Now, coming from Southern California via Houston, I was used to a quilt store at every major intersection (between the nail salon and the dry cleaner). Here in rural South Carolina? Not so much. I did some web surfing and asked for recommendations on my quilting lists. The closest place is about 40 miles away. It's small but had a nice selection of fabrics, so I got the yardage I needed for my pattern Raising Cane. Then one day last week, as it turned out the day of the sleet and snow storm, I drove about 50 miles in the other direction to Hancock's Fabrics for some tools.

The last stumbling block to starting my project was a sewing machine. Luckily I had the foresight to mark my machine clearly so the movers would keep it upright; the box was easy to spot. With some undignified crawling and wriggling, I was able to drag the box out from under the dining room table where the movers had placed it for safekeeping. 

So here it is in all its glory. Not much to look at, right? But it really feels like an old friend.  Recently I met Janet through a quilting friend. When I asked her if she quilts, too, she said, "No, I don't have one of those machines with 2,000 fancy stitches." I chuckled because I don't, either. My machine has, well, one stitch. But it's a doozy. It's a good, accurate straight stitch. I guess you could say it's got two stitches, because if I press down that lever on the right side, it sews in reverse. My sewing machine is dependable, simple, strong, low-maintenance, dedicated. What more could one want in a friend?

My machine is like my friends. I'm lucky in my machine and I'm very lucky in my friends.

Thirty Years of My Life

Yesterday I retired from AT&T after over 30 years of service. 

I started with Pacific Telephone in Southern California on July 17, 1979. I remember chatting with a co-worker on my first day. We both said that we’d work as there for a year or so, then move on to something else.

I did, indeed, move on from that assignment, but all my work was with the same company. One of the benefits of working for a very large company was that I had the opportunity to work in different parts of the company and perform different assignments. For the last ten years I’ve led teams working in very different areas of AT&T’s billing organization.

While I didn’t see myself as a “leader” in my young years, that’s where I ended up. As I look back on my last few assignments, I realize I’ve learned some helpful things and I’m sharing them in case you find yourself in a group setting – and, face it, most of life is a group setting!

• Every group has the same people in it. This sounds counter-intuitive. Of course everyone you meet will be a unique individual. But each group will have certain types of people: the workaholic who can’t let things go, the insecure person who may just need a little push to become a star, and so forth. As you begin to recognize these “types” you can recall what helped you work with their predecessors. This is the foundation of the wisdom that’s your payoff for age.
• Other people aren’t like you. What motivates you, what makes you happy, what annoys you may be very different from what your work-mates prefer. If you’re a hiring manager it can be tempting to hire other people just like you. Resist this temptation. You will create a comfortable workplace, but you’re likely to lack the dynamic (if sometimes frustrating) atmosphere that makes the strongest teams. And coach your people to be tolerant of one-another.
• When you’re in a work situation, you’re on stage. All eyes are on you. You know how a two-year old will fall and look at you to see how to react? Adults aren’t much different in this respect. A good part of your job will include keeping people calm and focused, evaluating problems and keeping people on track to solve them, and learning from errors so you don’t repeat them. Keep your cool. A single event when you lose your temper can send years of calm, professional behavior down the drain.
• Don’t micromanage. If you have to check up on every whip-stich, in essence doing or re-doing your people’s jobs, you don’t need them and you won’t have time to do your own work. Surround yourself with people you trust. Within reason work progresses best if each of us tends to our own knitting and trusts our team members to cover their own responsibilities.
• Deal with problems promptly. Nothing kills morale faster than a team member who’s not pulling her own weight, and whom the boss doesn’t handle. On the occasions I’ve wussed out and decided to “wait and see” I’ve betrayed my good workers and the consequences were more grave than if I’d acted promptly.
• Be decisive and be flexible. This may sound like a contradiction; it’s the tightrope you walk. Sometimes the time comes when a decision is needed, when discussion and fact-finding have reached a point of diminishing returns. Sometimes you have to put a stake in the ground. Just know that most of the decisions you make will not be moral, ethical or legal decisions – they will be business decisions. Often there’s not one right way, but you must chose A right way. Do it, and be willing to make adjustments or even abandon the plan later if it doesn’t work just so.
• Take the blame. Blame is like mercury. It’s easy for it to get spread around and impossible to recover. If someone’s made an error, deal with him. But in the end, it’s your shop, so own it.
• Spread praise liberally. If a member of your team had the good idea, make sure everyone knows it. Never pretend you’re standing on your own. It’s your team that makes you look good. You’ll never lose by making sure your people get credit for their good work.

These were some of the principles that I developed over the last ten years or so of my career.

What can you share about how you work in groups?

A Single Woman Sees A SINGLE MAN

Yesterday I went to see the Tom Ford movie, A Single Man. It’s based on the 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood and stars Colin Firth. The action takes place on a single day in 1963 as George Falconer, an English professor whose lover’s death in a car accident a year before, has left him stricken with grief he cannot express openly. Over the course of this day we watch George meticulously plan his suicide.

Perhaps this was an odd choice of a movie for me to see – but I’m glad I went. At the risk of spoiling the movie for those who haven’t seen it, I took away some insights and some comfort about my fresh grief.

In particular, I understand better now how life compels us survivors as inexorably as the tide that catches George and Kenny during their midnight swim. Most newly-bereaved people experience the disjointed feeling when the rest of the world wags on as our world has changed profoundly and irrevocably. But tragically and magically, our path has now taken a different fork from that of our loved-one. Resist it as we may, we must follow the fork before us.

A couple weeks ago I signed up for an on-line mail list for widows and widowers, and it isn’t for me. The members range in distance from their spouse’s death from a week to over a decade. But they all seem to have the same story: Their spouse was their perfect soul-mate; they are paralyzed with grief; life no longer has meaning and purpose; life is over. They cannot imagine how life can go on without their spouse; they cannot even imagine that it CAN go on.
I am sad that Frank is gone; I’m shocked; it’s unfair; he was too young. My life will be very different than the life we planned together.

I need to forge this new path, but forge it I will. My life will, indeed, go on . . . because that’s what life does.

Note: Yes, I did see the end of the movie. But the beauty of art is that we may take from it what we need.

A Stove, A Fridge and a Dishwasher, Oh My!

The number of items one must choose for a new home is astounding. Right now it's time to pick kitchen appliances. I need a stove, a refrigerator and a dishwasher.

And I'm really at a loss. I mean, I like to cook. And when I have guests, eating out won't be a good option. So I need a stove that will, well, cook food. And I need a fridge that will, well, keep food cold. And I'd like a dishwasher that will, well, clean the dishes.

I don't need a Bosch dishwasher or a Sub-Zero fridge or a Wolf range -- at least I don't think I do. And, in frankness, my powers of concentration and my interest in kitchen appliances aren't really firing on all cylinders today.

You see, the house was really Frank's project. He would have had me select the stuff I'm working on now, but up to this point he'd been in the driver's seat. And without him, part of me is whispering, "What's the point?"

But that's only a part of me. The realistic, practical, managerial, control-freak part of me is saying, "It's your LIFE. Pull yourself together and GET ON WITH IT."

The choices will get made -- as will the choices of floor covering, and paint colors, and all the rest. Because as much as I'd like to hit my life's PAUSE button for awhile, life has an odd and annoying way of rolling merrily along.

On Being Homeless

Let me be clear: I know most certainly that my situation is very different from someone who literally has no roof over his head. But I have no home of my own right now. And this experience is giving me a good opportunity to reflect on what home is and how important it is.

I went away to college at age 17 and have had my own home since. Yes, I've had a couple roommates and a couple husbands. But I had a home -- it was mine or ours.

Now, I don't. In October Frank and I decided it was time to give up the apartment in Houston preparatory to our final move to South Carolina. So I packed up our stuff and called the movers. We also had a bunch of stuff in storage -- 1000 cubic feet of paraphernalia that had been in storage since we'd arrived in Houston in early 2007. The movers transported everything to storage in South Carolina. All I kept was clothes, my laptop and a few things, and all of it fit into my car.

I then moved into a room offered to me by a kind acquaintance in Houston. John and his dogs, Quincy and Nikon, were gracious hosts. I had a room, a bathroom and access to the U-Verse and broadband. It was affordable; my hosts were tolerant, kind and funny.

A week or so after Frank's death my in-laws and I decided I should find somewhere to live while I finished work on the house. I needed to be closer to the house, and I think they found me a constant reminder of the son they'd lost. I will never forget how kind and generous they were to me in the weeks after we lost Frank -- and they continue to treat me the same way.

Now, Newberry, South Carolina is not a metropolis with unlimited housing opportunities. I went on Craig's List and found a single possibility -- a room for rent in a house. I came to visit and took the place on the spot. It's in a quiet neighborhood, the woman who owns the house isn't here much, it's affordable, it has DSL -- really it's just what I need right now.

But it's not mine. Being here is forcing me to plan ahead to the time when I can move in to the new house. Remember, I have stuff that's been in storage for 3 years, all of Frank's stuff -- as I unpack I'll be getting rid of lots. I think I'll be pretty darned careful about what I have in the house (Is it useful? Is it beautiful?).

And I know that my few months of "homelessness" will make me very, very grateful when I'm back in my own home.

Building a House. And a Life

I'm surprised to see that it's been two years since my last post to my blog. It's time to re-activate it.

Most of you know that my husband Frank died unexpectedly on January 22. I had planned to retire on January 29 and join him in South Carolina. Our house was about half-way done. 


With Frank's death my first task has been to  re-commence work on the house. This past Friday, the contractor and I signed a supplemental contract and work has already begun. You can see from this photo that we began painting the exterior that very day. The paint is a little less green and a little more blue than I expected, but I think it will be fine. My goal is a house that will blend in with its surroundings -- it's low and unobtrusive in its setting.

The contract calls for the construction to be complete within 90 days. In the meantime I'm living in a rented room in Newberry, the county seat of Newberry county. I'm about 12 miles from the house.

I see that building and organizing the house will be a metaphor for building and organizing my life without Frank. We had plans . . .and you know what they say: Making plans is a good way to make God laugh.

And the Choices Begin

Our contractor has come back with the initial estimate for the house. The price is inclusive of the modular house itself, the septic tank, the rest of the utilities, and the permits. We still need to negotiate on paving, decking and so forth.

We've asked for HardiePlank rather than vinyl siding, and we've chosen a color called Cobble Stone.

We want wood floors. Actually they will be grass floors, to be precise, because we want bamboo. We had bamboo floors in our last house and liked them. This is the sort of bamboo flooring we want.

Lastly, we had to choose the brick we want for the foundation cladding, and this the sort of color we want:

There are still lots of decisions to make but, bit by bit, our home will come together.

A House Built in a Factory?

So when Frank and I were in South Carolina for Thanksgiving, we started the planning in earnest. My dream was to work with an architect to have a truly custom home -- one that was green, beautiful, and had all the bells and whistles. But I had woefully underestimated the cost of such a home. So, back to the drawing board.

Poking around the net I found the website for HandCrafted Homes

HandCrafted Homes is a modular builder. They build stick-build homes, but they build them in modules in their factory rather than on your site. Then they transport your modules to your site and connect them there.

Here are some of the benefits to building a modular home:

• Speed of construction: Once you've signed your contract with HandCrafted Homes it only takes one-two weeks to build your home in their factory. And once they have it built, they want to deliver it and get it weather-tight.
• Quality: Their factory environment allows them to keep their materials safe from the weather. Their workers are familiar with the tasks they work on every day. And each module (or "box" as they call it in the factory) is inspected at least twice at each construction step.
• Strength: 110 mph-rated homes are their standard, and they can build houses with a higher wind rating. Their "boxes" have to be strong enough to withstand transporting them long distances, so they build stronger. For instance they glue and screw the frame footers to the floors instead of nailing them.
• Energy efficiency: Handcrafted Homes seals openings like drywall joints, outlet openings and so forth in the factory.
• Customization. You have options in construction (for instance, 2 x 4 framing is standard, but you can opt up to 2 x 6 framing). And just about any home design can be used for a modular home. They can work from your plans, or you can choose and customize one of their plans.

We toured HandCrafted Homes's factory in Henderson, North Carolina, and came away feeling this is the way to go for us.

Building a House

So, how do you go about building a house in the middle of "nowhere"? Very carefully, I suppose.

Frank and I both have ideas of what we want the house to be -- how big, what sort of rooms, what to avoid that we've lived with before. For instance, Frank is over six feet tall and hates having to stoop and bend to take a shower. So a showerhead positioned high enough to allow him to stand upright in the shower is a must.

Here are some of our other requirements:

• very low maintenance and care (We don't want to spend all of our time taking care of the house!)


• energy efficient (We are in South Carolina where the summers are hot and humid, and the winters can be cold)


• a studio for me (I'm a quilter as well as a quilt designer and quilt teacher. I need to be able to spread out to do my work.)


• hard floors (Neither of us likes carpets. We both prefer wood, tile, and other surfaces that are easy to clean.)


• a library (I have lots of books, and they need a home that includes a comfortable chair and a good reading light.)


• a guest room (There is no nearby hotel, so we need a place to make friends and family welcome and comfortable when they come to visit.)


• a veranda (The property is so beautiful. We need a place to sit outdoors and enjoy it.)


• a single level (We know from friends and family who live in multi-level homes that climbing stairs gets more tiresome as one gets older.)


• a way to isolate the noise of a TV or stereo from the other person

Size is an issue. Too large and the house will be both too expensive and too much trouble to maintain. Too small and we won't have the rooms we want. So there are lots of things to think about as we make our plans.

This photo shows the approximate site we have chosen for the house -- near the tree that is leafless right now.

South Carolina Dreams

When Frank and I were in South Carolina for Thanksgiving in 2003 we happened upon a piece of property for sale in Newberry County, and we fell in love with it. It's in the middle of the Sumter National Forest. One boundary is the county road, and the other three boundaries are public lands that we don't expect to be developed. The surrounding area is wooded, but our property is clear excepting for a few trees scattered around, and trees around the edges.

The property is almost 29 acres, and it's where we plan to build our new home. It's truly out in the country, but it's only about 5 miles from a small town with a supermarket, and about 9 miles from the county seat.

Over the next few months I'll be sharing our plans and progress as we build our home.

Tale #1

OK, today's the day! I've finally started the blog I've been contemplating for months, Old Wife's Tales. This will be a place for me to share my thoughts on the world around me. I'm not going to limit myself to any one of my many interests, but, rather leave myself free to explore various topics that pique my interest.

A number of times recently, I've shared a thougth with friends and family, then read that idea a few days later, or heard some radio pundit saying my very words. So why shouldn't I be the one to introduce them to the world? This blog will give me that opportunity!

Right now I'm thinking about a few topics: President Bush's Social Security reform plan, observations on a new marriage, building our house in South Carolina . . . I just need to pick one and jump in!