D E S I G N /// ck

After a flurry of blogging last month, it seems I've slowed down here at DESIGN///ck. I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what's going on. Right now I'm reading C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, currently on That Hideous Strength. I took a break from The Fountainhead, but I'll probably finish it up later this month. It's always a good reminder why I wanted to be an architect in the first place. Some friends that are on vacation lent us their Wii for a few weeks, so I've been busy getting my skill levels up to Pro on Wii Sports. See why I haven't been blogging? We've been landscaping our yard and putting out our garden. Alice has been ambitious, and I think we'll have tons of vegetables this summer. But we want to can a lot of them and save them for winter and save money on food. She also put in a beautiful flower bed around the tree in the front yard. I built the brick retaining wall in front and mulched it. Also, I bought a lawnmower on Craigslist and have mowed more than I ever have since I moved out of my parents' house. The joys of home ownership! We've been keeping Colleen's dog Callie this month and training her, but she'll be heading up to Indiana to rejoin them this weekend. We're going up to see Colleen and Cevin's final projects presentation, and to celebrate Mother's Day with Mom and the family. My company has reduced all of us down to 4 days a week and 4/5 pay, so I have more free time (three day weekends!) but less money to do anything (reading and Wii, see?). I'm starting to pick up odd jobs to make up the difference, the first of which is a small trim carpentry job I'm starting tonight. On a grander scale, it looks like I'll be taking a few weeks off and building a garage for the 'rents in WV. Tomorrow I'm looking at bidding a reroof for one of the pastors at my church. So God is good, and provides ways to make money to those who aren't afraid to work hard. Let me know if you guys have any projects for me! With Alice off school in two weeks, she may be able to help me on projects, which would be cool to spend more time with her. This spring has been hectic for our schedules. Hopefully summer will be slower and she can relax a little. One more thing, I'm starting to take on organizing and coordinating the building projects for the Friends of Fort Liberte nonprofit group in Haiti. I'm also master planning and designing the next phases for the orphanage down there. So more work in my free time, but it's definitely a labor of love. And it looks like I'll be getting back into the groove of going to Haiti every year, something I've missed. I'm set to go in December, and I hope Alice and I can go in May together. She really wants to get involved with really helping other people, and I think Haiti and her will be a good fit.

So that's the main stuff. Now you know about as much as I do about my life right now.