Life's a Stitch

C and I decided on the spur of the moment to advance our retirement plans and hightail it out of the rainforest. Where to? Not far. As Canadians we want to stay north of the 49th to keep our medical benefits and be close to our children. But I'm not looking at real estate anywhere until I know when we'll have a cheque in hand. Been there, done that,  buying a house before the first one sold. Won't do it again. Especially in retirement. Now we are faced with the monumental task of sorting and packing 19 years of stuff.  (Note: No worries, Boesen family members, we will still be here for the May reunion.)

I agree with the notion that in time you will eventually fill to capacity the available space in your house. And more. Sometimes I have the feeling that we come across as borderline hoarders; preppers maybe. It struck me that when we move we will be hauling six bottles of olive oil and a case of sundried tomato pesto.

We moved to Vancouver more than half a lifetime ago from a 1600 square foot house to 2300. Four years later we downsized to 1800. That was a healthy exercise in decluttering. Then came the move to 3500 square feet. Over 18 years I have come to the realization that somewhere along the way I broke my personal promise: for everything we brought into the house, an equal item of bulk must leave.

Three kids, 65 foreign exchange students, those friends of the kids who we took into the lovingly dubbed Northvanage (rhymes with orphanage), some leaving their own piles of stuff. You know who you are, this is fair warning.  All I can say, readers, is you don't want to miss our massive moving sale of the century. That is unless you are going through the same exercise in frustration.

We have made four trips to the dump. packed nearly 20 boxes of stuff, gotten rid of plenty, and those were only items that were visible. Haven't even hit the cupboards. In walks the realtor, followed by the house stager this morning. Thier first comment? You have to get rid of the clutter.

Round two was quite productive. I think the house is thanking me for reducing its burden. It sounds different. I detect an echo in destuffed rooms that hasn't been there since we moved in.

I'll miss the forest hikes:

Especially when accompanied by an unexpected hiking partner:

But I'll appreciate a break from the rain:

And we're looking forward to sunnier paths.

 

I was fortunate to take a course with world famous artist Jean Haines,whose loose, ethereal style melts subjects into nothingness. My style is so realistic or illustrative and I was looking forward to pushing the boundaries beyond my comfort zone. I did this painting of my first Scottie, MacTavish and sent a off picture to my adult children. One replied "Cool!!!," while the other two said "Creepy." I'll not identify the owner of each opinion as a matter of respect. 

C came up with a brilliant idea. Do another painting, but instead of leaving half the paper white, paint in a drape as if Mac is peeking from behind. I like that idea so long as I don't have to change the original, complete with Jean Haines signature drip. It was fun watching Mackey come back to life.

Next time: the monumental task – sorting and packing through 18 years of stuff. 

In a time of need long ago, I found a wonderful book explaining death to children. It's called Lifetimes. It calmly explains that every living being has an expected life expectancy and that death is the natural end. I remember changing the age of the human lifetime to beyond the 72 years it mentions, so that I didn't scare them with the possibility of the imminent death of my mother, who was nearing that magic number. Thankfully she lived at least another ten years. 

I need to write a book on the life span of non-living, but very much a part of our lives, things in our house. Let's start with the house, for example. In our neighbourhood a house has a lifespan of maybe 5o years. Seriously, if your house is older, when you sell it, poof (!), it's torn down and replaced by a bigger, better and exorbitantly more expensive model. The house across the street was sold a few years back, having been renovated with dark hardwood floors and granite countertops. Overnight it was gone. It made me uncomfortable as it was nicer than our house. Here are the before and after pictures:

Recently our 1998 VW Jetta, living with our daughter in Calgary and dubbed, Carlos, achieved his lifetime. Then there was Athena, our year 2000 Starbucks espresso machine. Athena was the name of the model, and was know for its longevity, but reached its expiry date the same week as Carlos.

Last month our 1958 downstairs toilet bit the dust, and despite this house being destined for the wrecking ball in a matter of a short time, compared to its long lifetime, it needed replacing. No picture required.

I guess that's the point. This house is nearing its lifespan and will soon be meeting the wrecking ball, or more accurately the excavator, and replacing its contents is throwing money down the drain so to speak. I went to buy replacement floodlight bulbs for the kitchen pot lights and the Home Depot lighting person tried to convince me to buy LED bulbs with a loooong lifetime and a commensurately hiiiigh price tag. I politely declined. I suppose I can unscrew the bulbs on the last day and take them wherever we end up. Actually I had a childhood friend whose practical Dad did exactly that when they moved out of their family home, but that was in the days long before LED bulbs and his kids thought him unreasonable as the house was not being torn down. I don't think I'll be going there. I'll stick with the cheap replacements and let the demolitionists deal with them.

I submitted another assignment to the ink and watercolour illustration course I'm taking online (I LOVE retirement). It's of a Vancouver anomaly, the Vernon Drive Grocery store, which has had an extraordinarily long lifetime. It has existed as a convenience store for over 100 years. It's a different style than the painting in my last post, but I'm really enjoying the change and look forward to trying some of my house portraits using this method (this is the post with the first assignment I submitted for the course).

Maybe I'd better do one of our house before it's gone.

 

 

 

How often can you say that? Although only scheduled to be gone overnight, the pink garage has been dismantled. I can see the grass on the lawn for the first time since we left last August. Want to see what was inside?

It's the Coupe de Thrill unpacked, their Burning Man art car off to an event this evening. Aren't you glad you're not my neighbour? Spry Bry is on the left, with a friend behind him, On the right is Skylar, pal since babyhood, C and Footloose, whose Mom is visiting. We wisely kept our distance. May I comment on how nice is is to have a female presence in my fraternity house.

Thank goodness there has been time for my own creative endeavours, which occupy a much smaller footprint and don't involve tarps of any colour. This was last week's watercolour painting. I'm anxious to do it on a larger scale, this one being 10×13. That would be inches. Time to get out the big brushes.

Not in this house, especially one filled with creative types. And B's creativity levels far exceed one person's worth. Look closely, what's hiding in my yard? No, not another school bus, but a portable garage. In hot pink. He couldn't get the white, grey or cool camo variety, it's shocking pink. 

Now why might he need a portable garage, you ask, when he doesn't currently have a valid driver's license? To house his art car, of course, in preparation for Burning Man 2016. Introducing, The Coupe de Thrill:

We've also taken in one of the Coupe's troop members, M (AKA – Affectionately Known As Footloose to his friends), who in an industrial accident in December, all but severed his foot and will be non-weightbearing for eight months. With the two boys living here, I think this makes me a later, rather than never, stay at home Mom. 

The good news is that, while we were on the Camino, B finished the last three credits toward his degree and this arrived in the mail this week:

We have successfully put all three of our kids through school. I remember my uncle, who was proud for getting all seven of his through college. I guess the true measure of success for them would be for all to be self-supporting. Or better still, making enough to support their parents in their old age 😉 So, if you need the services of an award winning videographer, here's his website.

C creativity has manifested itself in carving stone in the garage, treating the house to loads of dust, loud clunking sounds and streams of swearing. I don't understand how that type of creative endeavour is relaxing in the least. My therapy has been an online course in pen, ink and watercolour illustration, with Seattle's Steven Reddy. No clunks, and a total of one curse word for this project, a collection of items from my kitchen entitled "Handles and Spouts":

I'm looking forward to applying this technique to my house portraits.

Never a dull moment here!

I have a soft spot for long, close to the ground dogs, having had close relationships in my life with a Basset Hound and my two Scotties, MacTavish and Gracee.  Blogless Marsha, our friend, Phyllis, and I recently had the pleasure of attending the Palm Springs Kennel Club Dog Show. 

As for the giant canine variety, daughter Elina and grandsons, Rye and Parker, and I visited the Yard Dog sculpture located nearby our place in the Coachella Valley, the antithesis of long and close to the ground:

As promised, here are a couple of photos from Joshua tree National Park. The unusual trees were named by the migrating Mormons who were reminded of biblical Joshua, reaching his hands up to the sky in prayer.

The unusual recent rains added a damp dimension to the scenery:

Next thing you know there will be fishing in the desert.

 

…well maybe not all the rain, which wouldn't be a good thing. Taking a break from the Christmas sunshine in California stories, to report on our break from the rain in beautiful British Columbia. When we moved to Canada, 32 years ago, people asked us why we would choose to relocate to such a cold Canadian climate? They weren't familiar with BC's lower mainland temperate rain forest weather, similar to the Seattle and Portland areas. We wanted to live in a place where generally, precipitation didn't have to be shovelled.

I heard an interesting simile on CBC (Canada's public radio), that people in BC are like ants. When it is rainy, they walk in straight lines. When the sun suddenly shines, they come out in droves and scatter. Our neighbourhood is located in an area where most streets lead to forested mountain hiking trails. Within minutes of a sun break, dozens of folk appear, generally oriented toward one trail or another. I can understand the lone person, noticing the change in light, but there are often small groups. I need to discover how to get on that text group, those who are not at work and are able to hoof it with little advance warning. 

Really, though, I don't mind walking by myself, listening to the birds or an audio book. Boys in the Trees, Carly Simon's autobiography, is my current walking partner. Complete with background music, I highly recommend it. My other walking interest is photography, in search of painting subjects. Here is today's favourite, which reinforces how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful area that it includes scenes like this within blocks of our house:

Back to California in the next post.

I was thinking, why are we referring to our time away as a vacation? As in C's complaint observation that he spent his entire vacation down south replacing flooring. Vacation from what? We're retired. Every day is either Saturday or a vacation. 

More lessons:

Pavlova goes well with Rioja

Who says you can't have pavlova twice in one week?  A double lesson here – it's cheaper to buy whipping cream by the quart.

The cold weather didn't keep us from the pool.

That same weather encouraged our yardbird,  the road runner, to stay warm on the patio furniture and once, he even came inside for a visit.

I'll leave you with some sunset pictures, thanks to B. Next time will be on dogs, giant and otherwise, and Joshua Trees.

 

Apologies for the absence, we were in California with the entire family and friends.

While there we talked about a co-worker of my daughter's, who at the end of each day reflects on what was learned on that particular day. You can tell she worked in academia. A nice concept, though. And although I can't give you an example for each day, I can start with a few. 

I learned:

That Canada Post charges $50 to hold your mail for a four week period. And I thought the post office was a public service paid through our tax system. Nominal fee maybe, but $50? 

It is naive to think that you can change the flooring in a two bedroom apartment over a four week period. It was mayhem, but thanks to the S's-I-L, C, friends Wayne and Margaret (who loaned us essential tools such as a jack hammer and shop vac), Dave of Blogless Marsha fame, and Jose from B&B Flooring we got it done in the nick of time. This meant a mostly cement floor in the kitchen and living room from before Christmas until the second week in January. It also meant powerful grinding of said cement floor, after the boys removed the ceramic tile, with resulting heaps of dust. I should have invested in Swiffer prior to starting the project. There were times when nobody was happy, but we reminded ourselves such is the nature of first world problems. 

Those familiar with the area will recognize that I plied those boys with date shakes from Shields. And In 'n Out burgers. 

Torrential rain in southern California results in roof leakage, flash flooding and mountains with beautiful snow to compliment the palm trees.

Two environmental anomalies can happen 12 hours apart. Flash flooding followed by earthquake. No kidding. I never said I lead a dull life.

Noro virus sweeps through a household with a voracious appetite. Maybe appetite is the wrong word. Apologies to Blogless Marsha and Dave, whose visit last week included such exposure and resulting effects.

In the Palm Springs area, if you need a stuck ring removed from your finger, you pay a visit to the fire department. Marsha's Dave experienced this first hand, so to speak. 

I think six lesson are enough for this post. To think that just weeks ago, we were walking in reflective solitude on the Camino de Santiago. But I am the first to say that life is about balance.

Over the years we have simplified our Christmas traditions to a table top tree and no gifts, stockings only. Thinking back to more frenzied times, I have an appreciation for those working families who maintain the cultural expectations and customs. I don't know how you do it. Christmas aside, like all retirees I know, I don't know how I had time for life while working full time, hardly able to fit in everything in now, without the job.

I lie. I did ask for a practical early Christmas gift, a 13.5" cast iron pan as my current non-stick one was peeling at a dangerous rate and I was tired of replacing them. Trouble is, it weighs 7.5lbs, and there's no shuffling of the food with an elegant tilting of the pan and flick of the wrist without risk of significant injury. Considering my wrists, what was I thinking? It is now a permanent fixture on top of the stove, a form of kitchen art. It is getting used, then slid back onto the stove after washing, as there is going to be no lifting of that behemoth in and out of the pot and pan drawer.

There was a fun deadline for this holiday season, a painting commission for a house portrait. Still standing, it was built in the 1600's in Quebec, and was inhabited by her many times great grandparents who raised 14 children in the house. We combined aspects of three photos of the house, old and current, changed the season to fall, and came up with this:

The real house, magnificently renovated, is currently for sale for $529,000 CDN,  beautifully perched above the St. Lawrence River. I love doing house paintings and learning about the building's history and the people who lived there.

Much of the painting planning process was done while listening to my favourite CBC radio in the background. There was a talk show regarding Christmas traditions and one mom shared her family gifting formula. Four presents: something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read. That simplifies things a bit. I might add something hand painted to hang on the wall ;-)