Another trip to Tucson

When we were first buying the house in Tucson I kept saying, “It’s only 10 degrees hotter there”. And that’s true during the season we were most worried about – summer. Albuquerque is very nearly as hot as Tucson at the hottest time in the summer. But it turns out Albuquerque has bigger temperature swings over the rest of the year. The weather difference is closer 15 degrees to 20 degrees during the shoulder seasons and in the winter.

The afternoon temperatures over the weekend in Tucson were in the high 80’s. It was hot! We got back last night, and here we are in Albuquerque on this lovely Monday morning; it’s freezing. Literally.

John is supposed to be part of a group outdoor picture for an award his team won at work. If I remember correctly, that photo is supposed to be happening at about exactly when I took this video just now. (In case you don’t like clicking on links, it’s just 20 seconds of hail, you won’t miss much.)

So that was our welcome back to Albuquerque this morning.

We had wind on the way back yesterday. I have an excellent app for predicting winds in a visualization that works well for me. Here is the prediction on Thursday, for the wind on the following Sunday (which was yesterday, when we drove back to Albuquerque). It’s a great app, it’s called windfinder.

I hate driving the van in the wind. It’s a big nuisance going to Tucson frequently, and it’s probably not strictly necessary. But we feel better after we’ve done some yard work, cleaned the pool filters, checked on the drip irrigation, and tidied up the chaos in the house. For example, there was an entire full “big gulp” of coffee growing mold in the living room. I didn’t even know coffee could grow mold, but I guess if given long enough, it can. I don’t understand why they can’t pick up after themselves a little better. I think the problem is the tile guy. I really can’t wait until the floor tiling is done. It is such an invasive job, impacting every square inch of the house.

I went through the box of books that were ruined in the kitchen flood when they were doing the kitchen demolition work in August, and ordered the ones I wanted to replace. Ugh, $280 worth of cookbooks (actually we lost more than that, but $280 was the total for the ones I decided were worth replacing). We also lost a small flokati rug to mildew. I took it to Albuquerque to try to save it, but was unsuccessful.

I spent a lot of time getting the thick construction dust off my houseplants, which should have been temporarily covered in plastic during the drywall work. My contractor said he’d water them for me, but houseplants are not really his focus right now. I’ve brought the smaller ones back to Albuquerque and are hoping the larger ones will handle an intermittent watering plan. Very intermittent!

Here’s the living room after we tidied up some.

And my plants, dusted and in a better location:

The main reason for going out this weekend was to check on the completion of the screened porch. We had our back porch screened in by a company that specializes in that kind of work. Our contractor wasn’t involved in it, so we needed to go out and approve the work ourselves before paying the remainder on the invoice.

We are super happy about our new screened-in porch. As you have heard me mention (repeatedly), the mosquitos in Tucson are a problem. Tucson seems tropical to us – less dry than we expected, particularly in the summer when there’s significantly more rain than in Albuquerque. The tropical vibe comes complete with tiny aggressive tropical “tiger” mosquitos. They are small, fast and impossible to hear. And they bite all day long during the summer. The porch will allow us to enjoy the outdoors without the bugs. We already love it. The entire big panel on the left rolls up with a remote control, so if we want to open it up during the bug-free winters we can.

There are just a few tiny cracks along the bottom where mosquitos could get in, but those will be covered once we tile the patio floor.

John wants to put a doggie door in the screen door, but I think it would end up being a mosquito door. Plus, Biska already has a doggie door in and out of the house via our bedroom. She doesn’t need to be going in and out of the screened porch on every whim. She doesn’t need to be in the screened porch area at all. If we’re out there and we want her to join us, we can always let her in ourselves.

Meanwhile, on the inside of the house, we continue to be happy with the quality of the work itself, unhappy with the unnecessary mess, and disappointed with how long it’s taking. Luckily, the kitchen is starting to look somewhat less scary.

Unfortunately the cabinet company shipped two cabinets the wrong size, so we are waiting for replacement cabinets to arrive before our contractor can install them. Here you can see a corner base cabinet isn’t long enough:

It wasn’t my contractor’s mistake or my kitchen designer’s mistake. It was a factory mistake. The replacement cabinets should arrive soon. It’s always something.

I had a friend who wanted to come in early November – oops, we’re not going to be ready after all. Callan and Chirstina wanted to come at Thanksgiving, but I don’t think we’ll be ready for that either. Maybe Christmas? We’re definitely not ready for guests yet. Here’s the guest room, complete with its own toilet. Oh wait. I guess that one’s not usable, lol.

It’s a trip trying to figure out what is and is not useable. For example, the remodel of the master bathroom hasn’t started yet, and the original sinks are still in place and should be working. But for some reason they have been disconnected and aren’t usable. You would never know just from looking at them.

Yeah, that is one ugly set of sinks. At first we were thinking we could get away with just changing out that vanity and removing a similar one on the other side, but it’s looking more and more like we’re going to end up gutting the whole master bathroom. It’s very small and an extremely poor use of space. It will always be small, but we want to make it more useable, and able to accommodate a wheelchair.

Last time we went to Tucson the house was so torn up and unusable that we parked the van in the street in front of our house and lived 100% out of our van, including sleeping in the van at night. This time we were able to put together our bed in the master bedroom, utilize the pool bathroom, and use the new screened porch for our kitchen-dining and hang out space. Here’s our temporary kitchen on the back porch:

The cooler from the van is plugged in on the right, and we have a countertop microwave that came out of our old kitchen, which didn’t have a built-in microwave. There’s no sink on the porch, so we have to go out to the pool bathroom for water. It’s currently the only fully working bathroom. At least there is one!

The pool bathroom, by the way, is a bathroom that was added onto the back of the garage and is accessed from the backyard. My contractor calls it a cabana bath, but there isn’t a cabana, just a small addition onto the garage. You cannot access the pool bathroom from inside the house. It’s specifically for using when you’re using the pool. It’s also not heated or air conditioned, but I plan to put a portable unit in there, plus a fan. In the summer it can get so hot and humid you could pass out in there. There’s an idea. Add a bench and we have a sauna.

Ok, enough about the remodel! In other news, while in Tucson I managed to make it to my hairdresser. I don’t go on a very regular basis. I think the last time was sometime in July. I had him cut it pretty short because knowing me, I won’t have it done again for awhile.