Several friends and acquaintances of mine from the group, See Jane Write Birmingham, are participating in a month long “blog like crazy” challenge, led by Javacia Harris Bowser.  The challenge is to post meaningful content once a day for a whole month, which is definitely a challenge since normally I post more like once a month! Partly because it takes me so friggin’ long to write a post; I’ve written and re-written this paragraph about 8 times!   I’ve also been unsure of the direction I’ve wanted to take my blog, which along with being so busy, is another reason I don’t write more frequently.  I love sharing my struggles and triumphs because it helps me see where I’ve come from, and it helps me connect to myself and other people. After some out of town friends left this morning, I felt intensely lonely.  But as I sat down to write, the loneliness faded.  By writing and being part of this challenge, I feel connected to a whole community of women out there, many of whom I’ve never met.

I also know how much it’s helped me to read other people’s stories at moments when I’ve really struggled.  Today I am a pretty happy girl.  Most days I really do feel peaceful, content and centered.  I struggle with how to concretely create the life that I truly want, but I no longer live in a dark, depressed and hopeless world.  For many years, I wished that I had never been born.  Life felt like too much of a struggle, and I saw myself in a hole that I didn’t think I would ever climb out of.  But there were a few key people around me, one woman in particular, that consistently and lovingly held up the possibility of hope when I couldn’t believe in it myself.  And that was life changing for me.  It wasn’t a fast process, and I didn’t get out of that darkness as quickly as I wanted to, but I’m so happy now to not live in that state of constant misery.

I want to be a beacon of hope for people who can’t quite believe in it for themselves right now.  Because I truly believe that if we keep walking, if we keep putting one foot in front of the other, we’ll get where were going.  There have been many times in my life where it took everything within me to keep walking.  And I’m so glad I did, because now the peace and meaning I’ve found in my life is more than I ever could have hoped for.

I know this blog is about building a Passive House, and sometimes it feels kind of strange to one day post about such personal things and the next day write about how to build a super-insulated, air tight wall.  It might make more sense to have 2 separate blogs, but it’s about all I can manage to keep up with one.  So for now, I guess my techie construction friends will have to put up with some painfully introspective posts, while my other friends endure the occasional post about  ventilation systems and green building.  It’s a testament to me really because I’m all those things.  If I had a blog about only one thing, it would almost be hypocritical given how much I love variety.  It’s probably the thing that I love and hate most about myself.  The diversity of all that I do and the people that I’m around bring a true richness and excitement to my life, and it’s also what makes me feel scattered, overwhelmed and lacking in focus. That’s my journey, trying to live a life full of variety and meaning without being too stressed to enjoy it!  So I’m giving the blog like crazy challenge a shot.  I love the idea.  I’m not going to pressure myself into writing every day if I don’t have the time or don’t feel inspired.  But I’ll challenge myself to write more frequently this month.  Thank you for reading, and thanks for the inspiration, Javacia!

There hasn’t been much happening in the way of Passive House lately and the peaceful life thing kind of comes and goes.

I should really quit proclaiming with such confidence what my next step will be. I’ve felt some sort of pressure to define where I’m headed and then follow through with it. I think I’m scared of looking like an idiot for starting a whole blog about a Passive House that isn’t being built.

But the larger message of this journey and project is about creating a life that’s more in line with my deepest values and the life I want for myself.

I believe that this house will be built someday, but I don’t know that for sure. And if it does happen, I don’t know when it will happen. The truth is I don’t know anything. Although I can hedge my bets on what tomorrow will bring, I NEVER truly know what the next moment holds. A minor car accident, a busted sewer line and a broken air conditioner within the last few weeks have been good reminders of that.

For the moment at least, I’ve taken some pressure off myself. The number one thing I know is that I’m tired. I need to rest, and I need more time and energy for me, and my patience for riding out the uncertainty of all this is waning.

I’ve enrolled in some certification programs to learn more about some things I’m passionate about and want to make part of my professional life, but I need more space and less responsibility in my life to dive in fully and really make those changes.

I had planned on building the garage first and possibly living there while I built the rest of the house. But the city gave me a big huge NO on that one. Then I decided to finish my basement. I was going to rent it out and create more income that way. I had started gathering materials and checking out thrift stores, getting prices from subcontractors and was just waiting on the carpenter to get started.

Then last Thursday, I got a call from a realtor that handles corporate relocations. He thought he could easily find people who would be interesting in renting my property. Based on the monthly rent he quoted me, I decided that was a good option. He listed the property on his website and a couple is going to view the house today. Who knows if they’ll rent it, but when I looked at the numbers, this option really does make the most financial sense.

So that’s the idea of the day! I’ll lease my home, live with my mom for a while, and take some time to myself to figure out what I can achieve professionally and personally, some time to focus on me without having to take care of anything else, just existing and exploring!

I’m sure by my next blog post, I’ll have a totally different strategy, but I’m trusting myself, one tiny half step at a time and seeing which doors aren’t dead bolted shut.

And those are the doors that I will walk through. Sometimes I walk up to a beautiful door that I REALLY, REALLY want to open, so I turn the handle, but it’s locked.

Then I knock really loudly and even yell to see if there’s someone inside who could let me in. When that doesn’t work, I pull out my sledgehammer and try to beat the door down.

But when that iron door still doesn’t budge, that’s usually when, exhausted, I take a step back and ask myself if maybe there’s another door that I could open with a little less effort ☺.

Trusting myself is something I’ve talked about in theory for a long time, but I’m really just beginning to understand what it means to live that way. And that’s the most valuable and rewarding thing this project could bring me.

Most of my life I have longed to feel passionate about something, anything. I would think to myself, if I just knew what I was passionate about, then, I would gladly pursue it.

It’s hard for me to believe, but I now have an inkling about the kinds of things I want to spend my life doing. I still have a lot of fears and doubts, but it’s like I’m standing on one side of a raging river and the fog has finally cleared enough for me to see through to the other side. Now I just have to figure out how to build the bridge to get there.

It’s pretty amazing to live in a world where it’s possible to fine tune and tweak my deepest desires and longings. I have enough support and security to move beyond survival mode and create my dream life.

I believe it more than ever, I believe that I can create a life full of fulfilling relationships, and professional and financial fulfillment, no excess, just bountifully, beyond my wildest dreams enough.

(As far as concrete progress with the house, the city did approve the variance for the garage, so that’s good news! I turned the garage to take up a little less space in the setback area. Here’s the visual if you’d like to see the updated site plan. I like how it frames in the back yard. Site Plan 2_070212)

In Avondale, the zoning regulations say that a detached garage can’t take up more than 30% of the back 25 feet of a lot, but since there’s no alley access and my lot is so narrow, a 2-car garage would take up about 40% of that area, which means I have to apply for a variance. Here’s a link to the site plan if you want to see a visual of where the garage sits on the property. (You can also see the first floor plan; we angled the back wall of the master to create a little more space in the bedroom without encroaching on the driveway!) Site Plan_062012

I spoke with the variance guy at the city today about getting the approval, and apparently the deadline for their July board meeting was yesterday, but he said if I got him the paperwork today, he could try to squeeze me in. (I swear it feels like there’s some unwritten rule saying that every tiny step of the building process must take a minimum of six weeks!)

So I rushed to get everything together and ran down to city hall between appointments.

I walked in, and the building was vacant. It seemed strange, but I looked around and tried to walk through the metal detector. At that moment, a guard appeared and said I would have to leave, the whole building had been evacuated because of a gas smell that has been permeating the city of Birmingham today.

Shucks!

So I called and left variance man a message. Hopefully he’ll still take my paperwork on Monday, and hopefully, they’ll approve it in July! That’s the first hurdle to getting the building permit.

If the variance gets approved, I should be able to take my elevations, color rendering, material samples and landscape design to go before the historic design review board in July. Once we have their approval, then we can finalize the construction documents and start building!

I did get some disappointing news last week when I talked to a city official. Things seem to change according to who you talk to, but when I went in person, they told me I wouldn’t be able to get a permit for the garage alone. I’ll have to get the permit for the house and the garage at the same time. Because the garage is an accessory structure, you can’t get a permit for the accessory structure unless there’s a primary structure that’s already built. I’m still hopeful that I’ll be able to move along more quickly with the garage, so that I can use it for storage while I build.

Here are some images of the exterior elevations, so you can start to get an idea of what the outside of the house will look like!

I’m working on a color scheme right now, but I’m leaning towards an old looking Bessemer like red brick for the foundation, the brick columns, and the partial brick walls of the house, then a blue/green/ grey color for the siding, chocolate brown on the window trim and eaves, and a bright red for the doors and window grids!

Any thoughts?

🙂