Architecture Wednesday: Tiny Holiday House

I do like to go big … in houses, I mean … but every once in a while—like with last week’s Poet’s Hideaway—small is better; and this is small.

In a serene and tranquil rural area of Mexico, is this small holiday home, designed to blend into its surroundings and provide its dwellers with as authentic and relaxing a natural experience as possible.

Intended to be a home away from home that feels completely disconnected from the hustle and bustle of city life, the Aculco project was specifically designed to take full advantage of the scientifically proven calming effects of natural environments.

Originally an abandoned old stone house that stood on land with absentee owners, two brothers stumbled upon it by accident and fell completely in love with, not the house so much, but the area. They purchased the plot and home and hired an architect to transform it into a holiday home.

But first the brothers tended to the land around the building for a number of years until they felt it was rehabilitated and ready for respectful change; they reforested the area and replenished the natural setting to its peak lusciousness.

Then they started on the house … they opted to interfere with its natural beauty and history as little as possible, though it was updated to withstand the elements that had weathered it in the first place.

Locally sourced quarry blocks were used to cover the floors, while wood framing and new windows were also added. But the materiality that was already there has been largely preserved in the state it was already in, so long as that state was good and solid.

Now the home presents a stunning space that opens out entirely into its natural surroundings thanks to wooden shutters and sliding glass doors in each wall. The house is linear in shape with a bedroom that leads around a separating wall into a main living space and finally into a fully equipped kitchen.

The spaces in the home’s interiors are wide open and have simple, easy flow throughout, with simple markers that define the rooms by their function without actually blocking them from one another in any way. This helps with air and sunlight flow as much as movement, letting the natural light from the wide-open doors and the big, new windows reach every corner.

It’s small, but when you take in the views it might just be the biggest house around.

Home DSGN

Jake Owen:Country Singer And LGBTQ Ally ... Believe

Of all the singers, in all the genres, in all the world, country singer Jake Owen released a cover of Cher’s 10998 hit “Believe” and dedicated it to the LGBTQ community—see a snippet of the song HERE, it's actually pretty good ... though it doesn't hurt much that Jake Owen is hot...

And naturally, because there are a lot of bigots and homophobes who listen to country music, when he received a negative anti-LGBTQ comment about the song, Jake said on Instagram:

“I believe #loveislove

Some of my closest friends and coworkers, are part of the #lgbt community and I couldn’t be more happy for the progress they have made. I’m inspired by people loving people no matter who you are. I BELIEVE the world needs more love. No matter where it comes from.

So with that said, I googled “gayest” songs of all time and the boys and I decided to put our country spin on Cher’s “Believe.” Hope you dig. I plan on releasing all of these backstage random songs we’ve created very very soon. Stay tuned friends, and most importantly, love everyone. 🌈”

And then another so-called fan responded:

“Suddenly I feel sick that I have tickets to your show here on Thursday night.”

And Jake wrote in response:

“I’m sorry you feel sick that you have tickets to my show Thursday night. Maybe it would do you good to come out, smile, laugh, sing along with a bunch of strangers that are all going through what we call “life.” I definitely didn’t delete your comment or anyone’s comment from this feed. It’s really only you and a few other ignorant people that make yourself look silly. If you make it out to my show, come give me a hug. You need one. If you decide not to come, trust me … we will all be okay. We like to share our shows with people that are kind, and loving.”

Thanks Jake, for being an ally, and for standing up to those who hate.

Update 7/27/2019

Whoosh .... what a week.

My Dad was sent to a rehabilitation hospital--closer to home, thank goodness--to learn how to maneuver a wheelchair or his KneeRover™ before he can be released; he needs to keep his new ankle off the ground at all times to avoid putting pressure on the new joints in his ankle.

And he was not happy' he said he would get out last Tuesday;nope. Then it was Thursday; nope. Then he was told he needed to have a ramp built because the stair and crutches would not be good. So, he called a guy who said he could build a ramp on Friday and so Friday was the day he was getting out. Nope; that guy was a no call no show, so we began again. Luckily we found a guy to do it on Saturday, but he's going camping Sunday and Monday, so .... if he finishes the ramp today, my Dad comes home Monday; if he finishes it Tuesday, Dad will come home then. Then Wednesday, it's down to Springfield to have the cast removed and a boot put on, and then the in-home physical therapy starts.

My brother will tag-team in on August 12th and help Dad get to his PT appointments, and I'll get home the 14th.

But Carlos and I will take those five days for our own little reunion/getaway, and blogging will resume the 19th.Until then ... play nice.

xoxo
Bob

A House.A Home.

This is the house the day we moved in; we told people coming to visit that it was the blue-gray house 

So, we had it painted. i envisioned this paint color the day I saw the house for the first time. I told our realtor, a little Southern Belle, and she said:

"You're going to paint just the porch red?"

And I said:

"And the sunroom, too!"

Then we became the house with the red porch for visitors.

And while we don't get snow often in Smallville, I love the way the house looks covered in it.

Architecture Wednesday: The Poet’s Hideaway

As Carlos says to me, often, Isn’t it romantic?

And this place, the Poet’s Hideaway totally fills the bill. And, since I’m out of town, though not entirely on vacation, we’ll do another vacation retreat—after last week’s Aussie Treehouse—but this time we’re headed to a luxury moorland retreat near St Breward, in north Cornwall, United Kingdom.

It’s cozy and quaint and warm and inviting, but, you know, if you must, there is horseback riding … bike riding … a nearby fishing village … narrow lanes for romantic sunset strolls … a moorland picnic among trickling streams and freely roaming ponies.

There's even a little Summer House on the property for getting away from your getaway.

And you can have all this for the low price, and it is a low price, of just a shade over $1,000 a week!

Where’s my passport?

One Kind Design

Mom and Me

Looking back, was there ever a doubt I was a little gay boy?

The way I held my hands? The purple knit shirt with the zipper? Lavender effing pants?

Oh honey.

Update 7/21/2019

Hi there!

It's me again. My Dad's doing fine; he was moved to a rehab facility much closer to home and will start physical therapy tomorrow. If that goes well, and my Dad is determined [read: stubborn] so he may come home this week. If not, he'll stay until the 31st when the cats comes off and he's fitted for a boot and then can come home and start physical therapy to get used to the new bionic ankle.

Other than that, all is well; I am being a very good nurse/assistant/dog-sitter. And Carlos is well, too; he's been keeping busy and seeing friends and getting out, so that makes me all kinds of happy.

Until the 19th of August ... unless i can update sooner .... play nice!

xoxo
Bob

I Didn't Say It ...

Prince William, on how he would feel if one of his three children came out as gay:

“Do you know what, I’ve been giving that some thought recently because a couple of other parents said that to me as well. I think, you really don’t start thinking about that until you are a parent, and I think—obviously absolutely fine by me. The one thing I’d be worried about is how they, particularly the roles my children fill, is how that is going to be interpreted and seen. So Catherine and I have been doing a lot of talking about it to make sure they were prepared. I think communication is so important with everything, in order to help understand it you’ve got to talk a lot about stuff and make sure how to support each other and how to go through the process. It worries me not because of them being gay, it worries me as to how everyone else will react and perceive it and then the pressure is then on them.”

I mean, we all know that if any, of William and Kate’s children were gay, they wouldn’t be the first, though they might be the first British royals to live out.

And that could be good, and I think their grandmother might have loved that.

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Bitch Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, promising he would give a new Democratic president’s nominee to the Supreme Court a hearing and vote in 2021:

“A lot of it depends on the timing of the vacancy. Obviously if you have a vacancy in the first year of a term of a president, you’re not going to fail to fill that vacancy for a very lengthy period of time, no matter what the political composition is.”

I guess it’s clear then that he ignored Obama’s pick because it was a black man’s choice.

Oh, and if the Democrats flip the house, Bitch will be out on his flabby white ass.

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Greg Gutfeld, Fox News’ The Five host, on with transgender kids:

“There are young children, when they express gender confusion, the push among these same activists is to transition these confused children at a young age to the hetero sex, meaning if you have a young boy with feminine qualities you need to transition that person into a female so that person would then become straight. What you are effectively doing is you are eliminating gays because experts will tell you a young boy with feminine traits might just grow up to be a healthy gay man who lives a long life. Instead you are going to push him in a direction that requires decades of drugs, decades of therapy and possibly surgery and higher rates of depression and suicide.”

First off, you twat, not all feminine boys are transgender; nor are all tom boy girls destined to transition to male. You think gender is between your legs. But it’s not, asshat. And if you think helping someone transition to their true selves is a bad thing, think about living your entire life not feeling like yourself.

Imagine, Greg, if you had to live your life knowing that you were born a bigoted moron, but because of societal pressures, you were forced to live as a decent, accepting, understanding  human being. You’d surely turn to depressing thoughts, asshat.

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Jake Gyllenhaal, My Husband In My head, on playing Jack Twist in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain:

“I think we had been cast for our ‘essences’ without really understanding what our ‘essences’ were—and that’s outside of our sexuality—we’re two straight guys cast in these roles, but who we are, who we were, Ang could see. And I don’t know if I could. So when the movie had the response that it had …. I don’t think we recognized what Ang had seen in us so we were blind at the profundity and the echo the movie made … and I don’t think we ever had any idea it would have the impact that it had. To make a movie that even just works is a miracle [but] when it resonates even beyond that, it’s impossible. And it has nothing to do with you in the end. Just being in Brokeback Mountain, that’s the feeling I have. I feel that deeply about it. It had nothing to do with me. It came to me, I was honored to be a part of it, and it is now everyone else’s in a way that I can’t even fathom.”

One of my favorite films with one of the saddest, most heartbreaking endings ever. I don’t think I’ll ever get over that last few minutes.

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Update: Thursday 7/18

Hey there ....

It's just me, from Oregon. wanting to let you all know that my Dad is doing fine, the surgery went well, and it looks like he may go to a rehab facility for about a week before coming home.

So all is well out here on the Left Coast; thanks for all your good wishes, they really helped.

Carlos is also doing very well; we talk many times a day and do some chit-chat ::::wink:::

I'll be back "live" or close to it, around the 19th of August.

Play nice.

xoxo
Bob

Architecture Wednesday: The Secret Treehouse

This is less house, and more take a vacation down under and rent a treehouse for a while.

The Secret Treehouse is nestled in 600 acres in the Blue Mountains of Bilpin, New South Wales, Australia. This secluded vacation treehouse rental is nestled between two natural parks and a World Heritage listed rainforest.

Climb up and relax high above a blanket of tree-tops overlooking the Bowen’s Creek Gorge and rainforest. Now, it’s rustic, to be sure, but offers plenty of amenities to really luxuriate and enjoy a romantic vacation; a spa, kitchenette, Queen bed, fireplace and floor-to-ceiling windows with views that go on forever.

And my stay there might go on that long, too.

One Kind Design

God Was Suspended

You may not know, but God has a Twitter account—I follow Her. It’s a satirical account, with over six million followers, that mainly mock _____ and faux-Christians, while supporting the LGBTQ community. But one recent pro-LGBTQ Tweet got God suspended from Twitter and God was not happy. The Tweet in question, from January 2019, said:

“If gay people are a mistake, they’re a mistake I’ve made hundreds of millions of times, which proves I’m incompetent and shouldn’t be relied on for anything.”

Months after the Tweet, Twitter said it violated their community standards and temporarily suspended the God account, and naturally, God was not happy …

“What the fuck, Twitter. Seriously. What the fuck. What the fuck is this.”

But when God appealed Twitter’s decision, the account was restored with the following message:

“Hello God, Our support team has received your account and it appears we made an error. We’ve determined there was no violation and have restored your account to fill functionality. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate you taking the time to submit your appeal to request to us.

Thanks, Twitter”

But God is not to be trifled with, and so a God Tweet was issued:

“’Hello God?’ Please. Don’t try to make all kissy-kissy with Me now, Twitter. It’s too late. You messed with the wrong Near Eastern Bronze Age sky-father-king projection. By the time I’m done with you, MYSPACE will laugh at your relevance.”

It just proves you don’t mess with the God of Twitter.

I Didn't Say It ...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, on Ivanka’s role as Daddy’s Pet Girl:

“It may be shocking to some, but being someone’s daughter actually isn’t a career qualification. It hurts our diplomatic standing when the President phones it in & the world moves on. The US needs our President working the G20. Bringing a qualified diplomat couldn’t hurt either.”

Maybe next time keep the White House Spokesmodel, AKA Daughter Wife, at home and bring actual qualified people.

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Van Hansis, former As The World Turns star, on his career, and being part of the first gay male kiss on an American soap opera:

 “When you’re an actor, to get a recurring role a soap opera—that was kind of my first on-camera professional job—I was not in any place to turn anything down. Luke was such a rich character and such a wonderful experience I ended up having for five years. It was a blessing. Back when I started with Luke, and it being my first thing, a lot of people who were telling me, ‘Don’t come out publicly’ … back then, it was a different world, sort of. It was not like it is today, especially for an actor. If you come out gay, you’re only going to play gay for the rest of your life. [However] in retrospective, I wish I had come out earlier publicly, but I was out in my private life. Even to this day I keep my private life pretty private. I do social media, but I don’t do it a lot. I really try to choose what I put out there about my life because even though I have a public career, I am a private person. I want to stay that way.”

I think he paved the way for a lot of young men, and women, to come out, after seeing themselves on television for the first time. And while ‘ Luke’ came out in 2007, Hansis waited until 2014 to officially come out to his fans during an interview about “EastSiders.”

Still, it’s not when you come out, it’s that you come out.

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Judd Deere, White House Deputy Press Secretary, is gay and defending his boss:

“The left really wants to continue to push what I consider to be a disgusting message that LGBT Americans are threatened under this administration. It’s just a smear campaign. They’re going to say that I’m helping the enemy. That’s because I don’t agree with them 100% on all issues — they think that I’m in the wrong because I’m a Republican who also happens to be gay. They can get mad at me. I don’t go into a dark depression because somebody hates the person I work for, or wants to get upset at me because they think I’m crazy for working here, because it just doesn’t matter to me.”

Hey Judd, you traitorous ass-kissing, goose-stepping asshat.

He’s trying to ban trans Americans from military service; he’s denying trans Americans access to homeless shelters; he’s trying to make it legal for hospitals, doctors, nurses, and just about anyone, to deny service to LGBTQ Americans because God Hates Fags.

So, you go ahead and sell what’s left of your rotted black soul, but don’t come crying to any of us when you’re being forced back into the closet.

And, if I didn’t make it clear … Fuck.Off.

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Frank Bruni, speaking truth to power, and perhaps to Judd Deere, about _____ and the LGBTQ community:

“His treatment of gay people perfectly reveals the flabbiness of his convictions and his willingness to stand at odds with a majority of Americans if it pleases the smaller number who adore him. He’ll suffer our anger for their ardor. Decency and principle don’t enter into it.”

Which is one reason, of thousands, why I can’t understand an LGBTQ American supporting him. He doesn’t care about you.

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Alphonso David, the first civil rights lawyer and first person of color to serve as President of the Human Rights Campaign, [HRC]:

“I believe that together, we can harness the strength that’s inherent in our differences, to stand together in the face of fear and division. And that’s exactly what the Human Rights Campaign was built for. If we want to win full equality, that’s going to require us to come together, to dig deep, to be resilient, to embrace our differences, to tenaciously defend the most vulnerable among us, to fight with every ounce of determination we have. I promise you this, I will fight for each and every one of us. All I ask is that you join me, that you join the Human Rights Campaign in our fight for true equality. In unity, we will fight back and we will win.”

He sounds ready to fight for us, and we all know that the fight is far from over.

Welcome, Alphonso, and let’s get busy.

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