It’s foggy in San Francisco. Big surprise. Due to my low serotonin levels I got depressed this morning and thought about an ex-colleague that made my life miserable. I wrote her a letter that I will likely never send:

Dear Finance woman who never smiles except when someone else is hurt or fired,
You are cancer.  I quit my job to get out of the same building as you because I started to get paranoid about natural disasters. I thought about all of those people trapped during Hurricane Katrina and it scared me to think that my last moments might be spent tolerating a bitter self-serving shrew like you. I suspect that when the shit goes down you will not be invited onto any life rafts…not unless you’ve managed to hoard food. Do everyone a favor and take more vacations.
Absolutely no Love,
Dana (The only Asian you know)

PAINMAKERS & KILLJOYS
Let’s face it, there are some people who make every interaction so excruciating that violence IS the answer. They are the cronies of cubicle culture, the saboteurs of other people’s success and the ones who make waiters spit in food. When you spend the majority of your waking life around these assholes you begin to plan your exit strategy pretty quickly.

LIVING OFF THE GRID
Convinced that I was dangerously close to going postal on my coworkers, I considered buying land in Molokai - possibly right next door to Eddie Vedder. That’s when I discovered Pacific Yurt. Don’t worry they don’t smell like donkey (they’re not even made with any animal bits). The Pacific Yurt ranges in diameter from 12- 30 feet and costs between $5,000-$10,000. It’s an inexpensive and self-contained structure for living, guest space or a summer home. I’ve actually even stayed in a spa-hotel yurt equipped with a full bath suite and ocean-front deck with hot tub. My plan was to get the land, buy the yurt as temporary housing, build a house when I got the money and convert the yurt into a painter’s studio. The dream is still alive…I just need that side of the island to get wifi.

*Note: This smaller option is better for camping or Burning Man.

The Ramsay Home Project started out as a blog from a family building its own green home from scratch; it’s now become much more than that – a great resource for anyone even thinking about taking on that particular challenge.  Recently the Ramsay folks pointed towards another “great home building blog” Paso Straw Bale Construction Blog, “In the year 2000 I started straw bale dream house that would be ecologically sound, environmentally friendly, and a place to finally call home,” Lesliehm says.  “In choosing Dave Exline/Three Little Pigs Construction, I ventured into house building hell.  This is the story of the building of that house. The story of what happens when you trust someone you should not. The story of bad decisions, poor quality work, and lack of accountability. The story of what it takes to salvage what was once thought unsalvagable.”  Sadly typical, home-buildilng-types tell us…but this one has a happy ending.

Stephanie Zhong of Fabulously Green – a great blog for green fashion and interior design – is a self-confessed paperphile, so she loves these sculptural Paper Vases by Team, Inc. “Soothing, organic shapes are formed by fanning pages of bookbound, recycled, colored newspaper around a recycled aluminum vase. The results are soft, stunning and refreshingly modern. A fabulously eco-design find. Affordable too!”

Fish Out Of Water is one incredibly busy lady. “In the past five and a half years my life has gone from somewhat dull to completely full and exhausting (but in a good way),” she tells us. “I got married in 1999, bought a house in 2000, bought three rental properties in 2002, and had a baby girl and started grad school in 2003, all the while being employed full-time. Somehow I turned into someone who is always doing a million things all the time. I often feel like a 12-year-old running around in adult’s body trying to “play house” and wondering whether I’m succeeding. (I just turned 30 in March — I guess I better figure out how to be a grown-up now.)” One of the ways Fish manages to keep moving is by getting and staying organized, and she does that with FlyLady.com, this remarkably effective site that takes you through a step-by-step plan to remove the clutter from your house and your life. The program includes daily “FlyMails”, calendars, recipes and household hints…and The Fish swears by it. “This site has saved my household! Still a long way to go, but now I have some support and some instructions on how to do it! Amazing.” That’s what we thought…

Some things are just too cool to ignore. I mean, look at these ceramic Egglings from Elsewares.com. They’re already a growing hit on ThisNext. They look and feel “just like real eggs,” Elsewares says. “Just crack one open, add water, and you’ve created a springtime oasis for your desk or window (even if it’s winter outside). Each comes with a terra cotta tray and seed pack. Growing is EASY — plants thrive for months in their shell and can be replanted in soil.”

Caroline Duke has already added them to her list. So has Scott Sommerville, who says they’re “clean and cool”, and and Audrey A. (aka audshmod) who knows they’re “cute.” Me, I just plan to give this perfect marriage of the natural and the whimsical to everyone I know who could use a little green in their lives.

It was really the description over at Delightful Blogs that guided me to Enon Hall: “the Web’s first and longest-running houseblog! Seven years and counting…”

What keeps me continuously visiting Enon Hall is the beautifully designed site managed by the cutest family ever which that lovingly chronicles the restoration of a very very very old Hathaway family house in Virginia.

This intrepid houseblog also boasts a highly interactive forum, wonderful “before” pictures of this historical home, and even History & Genealogy links about the Hathaway family. 

It’s like watching one of those really great PBS documentaries…it’s like the original Extreme Home Makeover.  Only, the show isn’t over in an hour - so we all have lots of watching, cheering, hoping and celebrating to do over at the Enon Hall.

Rob J. Hopkins’ Transition Culture is an “evolving exploration into the head, heart, and hands of energy descent,” and among his many fascinating topics is spreading the word about the cob house. As one of Rob’s rec, The Cob Cottage Company, explains, “Cob building uses hands and feet to form lumps of earth mixed with sand and straw – a sensory and aesthetic experience similar to sculpting with clay. Cob is easy to learn and inexpensive to build. Because there are no forms, ramming, cement or rectilinear bricks, cob lends itself to organic shapes: curved walls, arches and niches. Earth homes are cool in summer, warm in winter. Cob’s resistance to rain and cold makes it ideally suited to cold climates like the Pacific Northwest, and to desert conditions.” Rob also recommends The Handsculpted House by Ianto Evans, Linda Smiley and Michael G. Smith. It’s “the most compassionate, human and grounded book on building in print. It was the first book I read on building that completely resonated with my thinking on how construction should be about so much more that just shelter making. Buildings, the authors argued, should be so beautiful that they make grown men cry. Amen to that (and the colour photos in the middle are testament to cob’s ability to do just that).

My only disappointment in reading Mies and Carrots is that I haven’t had the pleasure of following it from it’s inception back in January 2006.

Written by a self-professed modern design and architecture junkie who is “a little obsessed”, this blog follows the process of a couple building a modern home in Austin because “writing a blog about the experience might be cathartic for me and prevent a nervous breakdown in the next year or so.”

With my love of pre-fab, this is such a great read (and we hope Scott doesn’t have a breakdown).  The blog is filled with floor plans, photography and links to pre-fab/modern architectural firms; plus it shopcasts lots of thoughtful and stylish home accessory finds.   

There’s nothing wrong with cookie cutter track homes, and prefab houses can be cool, but even 20-something-year-olds like moi can appreciate buying a home and investing TLC into it.

Tons of TLC.