April 6, 2016
At the start of the evening, we were told that “Tight lips sink ships.” And that a key component was for everyone to communicate with one another. If you can imagine the fun and chaos that ensues when 16 people are trying to figure things out collectively… you can imagine what went on.
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April 3, 2016
Last night, we decided that we needed to focus on just getting one of the garden boxes set up – as Liz has a certain planting schedule she’s trying to keep. So while we’ve been working on two boxes, we shifted to just work on getting one fully up and running.
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April 2, 2016
Once we were ready to take things outside, we were greeted with… a small snow shower. This would be a recurring thing on a very unusual day, weather-wise.
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March 29, 2016
What took us the better part of Sunday to complete, we knocked out in just over two hours. Liz and I were both very proud of ourselves, in that we really felt like we were learning from our previous sessions… and were feeling a little more confident about our motions and decisions.
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March 27, 2016
For me, this part of the process was the most daunting. I was worried about screwing something up. After a few pilot holes though… I quickly became more comfortable about the process.
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March 26, 2016
Our process was more or less this: we’d cut off about an inch off one end. Then we’d flip the board around, having measured the distance from the end stop to the saw blade. We double checked this quite often, but once we got things aligned… we more or less knew that any piece of wood placed against the stop would result in the desired length.
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March 25, 2016
I’m not sure if this is due to the pressure treated lumber being new (sometimes it’s wet), or due to the wood being outside during yesterday’s snow/rain storm. Either way, some of these boards were sopping wet and were about 5x heavier than I expected them to be.
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March 24, 2016
We’re using this set of instructions as our primary guide, taking some tips from this guy’s implementation. For the most part, we know what materials we needed… it was just finalizing the overall dimensions (which would inform how much wood we would need to get).
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March 22, 2016
Tonight, Bob stopped over with Julie and helped us configure our new miter saw. We got a 12″ 60 tooth blade, which he showed us how to install. Unlike normal screws, the one used for the blade actually works in reverse. A regular screw, when rotating with the blade, would become more loose over time. So that’s why it’s reversed – in that if anything, it will become tighter, not looser.
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March 21, 2016
We’ve done a lot to convert the space back here into an actual yard. And this spring, we’ll be hopefully making it into a space where we can spend more time – with one another, and with friends. We’ve done plenty of removing. Looking forward to adding more this year.
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March 12, 2016
Note my fancy workstation. I took a few photos of some items Bob/Julie wanted to get rid of and posted them to Craigslist.
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March 6, 2016
While some things are the same from this photo circa 2013, a lot has changed. We’re no longer in our lovely apartment in Logan Square, and have been living in our new home in Hyde Park for nearly two years.
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March 1, 2016
Videos were recorded of all the readers (there’s a really impressive archive on YouTube), and I’ll share mine once it’s up! Really great time, and truly enjoyed the chance to read my poems again in a public venue.
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February 28, 2016
There was a good amount of “stuff” in the attic, but all in all it wasn’t that bad. They had experienced some squirrel damage to some items, and a lot of the work involved sifting through what remained undamaged… and what was worth keeping.
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February 22, 2016
It’s funny in that, talking to Liz, we both realized we were kind of excited at the idea of Permaseal coming. We’ve been getting so much done and ready for their arrival, it’s almost turned into a mini-milestone.
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