ganesh is our gangsta

Our cozy Christmas living room.
















On the right: Western religious thought represented by a nativity scene.















On the left, a collection of Eastern philosophy...

with a little Western thought for good measure.

Covering all our bases.

well, then--pour me a harp!

We're getting a little frustrated with the community groups in our neighborhood. There are neighborhood associations and then there is a group supporting environmental concerns in the area. A lot of people are involved in a lawsuit with the environmental stuff, and nobody can talk about anything. Which makes it frustrating enough, but then when you throw in the fact that the groups don't seem to be talking to each other, or at least don't seem to care what the other is saying, then it gets even more frustrating.

There is a public hearing set by the Georgia EPD for December 11th concerning the permit renewal of a large industrial plant in our city. Supposedly this plant is also a Superfund site, although I can't seem to find anything online that supports that fact. Our neighborhood holiday party is set for the same date, but an hour later. The neighborhood association suggests that perhaps we could attend both events, due to the time difference, but the party is always on this date each year.

This indicates to me that getting a regifted gift and having some beer should be more important to me than the future possibility of having children with the incorrect number of appendages.

I thought we moved OUT of the suburbs?

creative loafing column about east point

Well, this article is kind of old, and even though seven years have passed, I'm still not sure that East Point is a "hot" destination, but the neighborhood has certainly begun an upswing. It's funny, because we keep saying, "In another year or so, East Point prices will go up." And they have...certainly from when this article was written, as the payoff amount on our mortgage will attest to. But it's not another East Atlanta...at least, not yet. The article mentions Lance Rhodes, but doesn't mention (or pre-dates the fact) that Mr. Rhodes is now one of the city councilman for our neighborhood.

And while I didn't realize we had an official "chant," East Point is definitely the friendliest place I've ever lived.

-------------------------

East Point: Diversity draws new residents to this southside destination
By EMILY KLEINE
Published 11.04.00

"Black or white, gay or straight, come to East Point and renovate." This is a common chant among residents of the rapidly renovating East Point. The stand-alone city, just five miles south of downtown Atlanta, has been encouraging all walks of life to buy and renovate property. When Lance Rhodes was ready to move out of his Midtown apartment two years ago, he wanted to find a place accepting of gay and alternative lifestyles. He looked at property all around Atlanta, but he finally settled on a 1930s cottage in East Point. "Many of my friends with alternative lifestyles lived in East Point, and they encouraged me to come down and take a look," he says. When Rhodes moved in, the friendliness of the neighborhood amazed him. He said neighbors came by to introduce themselves and helped him unload his boxes, something he never expected.

The diversity and small-town feel also lured Kevin Hudson to his un-renovated bungalow in East Point. "East Point really is a small town," says Hudson. To prove his point, Hudson recounted the story of going to East Point City Hall to have his utilities turned on. The ease of it all surprised him. "It took all of three minutes," he says. Plus, while he was there, the clerk called over a passing city council member and introduced Hudson as a new resident in his district. "Imagine that happening at Atlanta's City Hall," he laughs.

Not only does East Point have a diversity of residents, it also has a diversity of architectural styles. East Point is about the same age as Atlanta, and many of the houses date to the turn of the century. There are also many bungalows from the 1920s, cottages from the '30s, ranch houses from the '50s and recently built subdivisions of new homes.

East Point's historic downtown commercial area is also an asset. The city recently joined the National Main Street Program, an initiative that encourages commercial investment in historic downtown areas. According to East Point City Council Member Melvin Pittman, the Main Street Program has caught the eye of potential developers that are "extremely enthusiastic" about East Point. Pittman guesses that in "one year at the most" East Point will be a hot destination.

wanna be our neighbors?

This is the house next door. It's for sale, and has been since we moved in. It's actually the house that brought us to East Point in the first place. We saw it on Craigslist and decided to drive out and take a look. It's an adorable Craftsman bungalow, but it was a little small for our storage needs.

Several people have been by to look at it recently, but as far as I know, there's no contract on it yet.

Check out the most recent ad here:
http://atlanta.craigslist.org/rfs/482555445.html

neighborhood flag contest

We were very excited to hear about the neighborhood flag contest, since we really don't like the current design (blue with a crooked window and a cat). Brandon planned to draw our entry, but when we found out it had to be submitted electronically, we ended up doing this one with Publisher.

Unfortunately, the flag that won was very similar to the old flag, which many people seemed to dislike, yet it won anyway. We joked that we just might not pay our dues next year, if it means we've got to put up that new flag! I guess if we decide to secede from the neighborhood at any point, we've got our own flag all ready.

Check out all the entries and the winning flag here.

If you go back and look at the recently posted photos of the front of the house, you can see the old blue flag to the left side of our porch.

more yard photos

I took these photos this morning. If you look carefully in the second one, you can see the shadow of me in the car taking the picture.

instant shrubbery!

Well, I'm sure Brandon and his mom don't think it was instant :) They spent an entire day digging up shrubbery and flowers from B's parents' Forest Park house (which they'll be selling early next year) and transplanting them to our house. I hope they survive the cold weather and the watering ban! You can see the new shrubs in the left and right corners of the porch. Also check out our new rock flower bed borders!
Our existing camelia bush. It hasn't bloomed yet but it's covered in buds. Just to the right of it is one our newly transplanted Indian Hawthornes.

insulation: yet another view

I didn't take any photos after we were totally finished, because I was simply just too tired. Maybe one day I'll climb up there and take another photo. If you're that interested, next time you come over, just let me know and I'll get you the ladder ;)

attic insulation: before and during

This is a photo of the attic with the existing insulation. It was the blow-in kind, and once upon a time was probably fairly sufficient. Over the years, though, it looks like it has gotten compacted down into a layer that's only about 1-2" deep.
At this point, we'd hauled the insulation up into the attic (thank goodness for the way it comes bagged now--we never would have gotten the old roll-style though the tiny attic door!). You can see the boards on the floor that have probably been up there since the house was built. Some are nailed down and some aren't. You can see on the left where we've installed some of the new insulation...on the right is still the old fill insulation.
The project took us about 9 hours over two days. Probably about 8 hours of actual time spent in the attic. Lots of cutting and figuring in some places, and making sure that the old wires (some of which don't go anywhere but might be live!) didn't get covered up.

End of day 1.

attic insulation: part 1

Brandon getting ready to climb into the attic...and temporarily blinded by the camera flash. Oops.
Six bags of insulation. I took this photo thinking this was ALL of it...silly me, there were ten more packages in the garage!

We ended up spending about $650 for enough insulation to cover 1200-1500 square feet. I wasn't sure how to measure for it without getting up into the attic (the common-sense but more complicated approach), so I measured the outside of the house!
A closer look, anyone?

blog updates and changes

I've been looking at other blogging sites recently, trying to decide if I wanted to move the blog to another site. After looking at lots of cool features of several sites (including WordPress), I decided to leave the blog here, at least for now. The templates offered by other sites didn't have as much versatility, at least not for free, and not for the level of experience I have with writing my own code (very little).

I did manage to update the header with a more personalized title, complete with Craftsman font. I'm still trying to figure out how to arrange images with Blogger...they never seem to end up where they were intended. Any suggestions on this are welcome!

october / november update

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since we've posted. October was a busy month--at least socially--although we didn't spend much time working on the house. The first weekend in October was spent at B's parents' house on Lake Rabun. They held a bluegrass pickin' for B's dad's guitar friends, and my parents drove up to go with us. Mom wasn't feeling too well, and it was a three hour drive total for them, but Dad thoroughly enjoyed the visit, I think. It was their first trip to the former "cabin," now a huge and gorgeous lake house designed by B's sister, Brooke.

In mid-October, we headed south to Meriwether County, for B's grandfather's 80th birthday party. His grandparents have a big piece of land there, complete with pond and woods. B's grandfather seemed to enjoy the day, even though he got fussed at for stealing a piece of his birthday cake before anyone could even put candles on it. I got to meet lots of relatives that I hadn't met before, which was fun. The party ended with guitar playing and singing. We talked to some of the family that used to live our very own street in East Point many years ago. Turns out B's grandfather used to drive a cab in EP once upon a time. What a coincidence that we ended up on the same street after all these years, when we didn't even realize there was a family connection to EP. After the festivities, B and I took the golf cart down to the lake and gathered up cart-load after cart-load of rocks to take home for landscaping our flower beds. (Look for photos coming soon!)

Also in October, we got a visit from B's grandparents, along with his Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Dave from Florida. They got a tour of the house, and we had a nice little dinner at Fina Italian Bistro in College Park.

In late October, we managed to pull together a game night party for a few friends. Old-school style video games (Atari and Nintendo) and finished the night off by playing Cranium.

November began with a girls' weekend at the lake. Normally the weekend is just for B's mom, Patrice, and her sisters and cousins. No kids or menfolk allowed! Well, this once they made an exception (at our request)...of course, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and I doubt we'll ever be invited back! Everyone's babysitter bailed, Brittney was in a car accident, Brooke ended up at the wrong restaurant to meet us (half an hour away in the mountains)...I can't even remember everything that went wrong. We had a lot of fun, though, took a looong walk with the kids, and even managed to relax a bit.