Good-Bye City House!

We have slept our last night at the city house, and all that's left to do is gather up the few things which are still there and give it a final wipe down, and we're done!

I thought this moment would be bittersweet, but I actually feel like it's just a job to be done and good riddance, as two houses are too many to look after in the long term.  Life will be simpler from this point forward.  Sort of.

As we were taking the final load out of the city-house garage last weekend, our neighbor who shares our back alley was pulling into his garage.  He took a moment to come over to chat, and proclaimed that we are conducting the slowest move ever! 

 

Another load from the garage to the country estate

 

Of course, he only sees the city end of things, and has no idea of all the work we have accomplished at the country estate to date.  AND, I noticed that his garage is pristine enough that you could eat off the floor and there were about three garden implements hanging off the wall and that was IT.  Unlike our garage which has been a woodworking, metalworking, mechanical garage for the past 30 odd years with all the accompanying bits and pieces.  Not sure what he does for fun, but I have the feeling that he and Chuckles have NOTHING in common!!

Nicky

My little grand-dog Nicky was with us for the weekend.  We discovered Friday night that she had fleas, so Saturday morning bright and early I was at the Co-Op, buying shampoo and flea powder to treat her with.  I was a bit concerned that it would be like bathing a Tasmanian devil, and if you have ever seen her run from one end of our property to the other in 3 seconds flat, you would understand my concern!  Staying still is not her strong suit.  I had a sleepless night Friday thinking about the scratches and nips I was going to sustain, not to mention the potential of my newly decorated bathroom being destroyed. 

Happily it was absolutely the opposite.  Once I coaxed her into the tub and familiarized her with the running water and the spray nozzle, she acted like a princess on a spa day!  She rested her chin on the edge of the bathtub and was like a blob of jelly - so relaxed that when I moved my hand off her to get more shampoo, she slid down the side of the tub in slow motion as her legs splayed out from under her.  She would have stayed there all day if I had nothing better to do! 

We bought the exterior windows and doors for the barn reno on Saturday, picked up the load from the garage in the city and unloaded that at the country estate and basically sorted and tidied most of the day.  Until it was  suddenly 8 o'clock and we were starving hungry! We went to a restaurant in our little "downtown" area.  We have been trying a different one each time we eat out, which is not every weekend, probably every other weekend or so.  So far the Mexican place El Pollo gets my vote.  The one we went to this past weekend offered all you can eat ribs, which were pretty good.  The proprietor had a unique way of checking on his guests - rather than asking how everything was the conversation was more like:

Proprietor:" The ribs are pretty good aren't they?"
One of us "Mmmm yes they are."
Proprietor" "They're really meaty aren't they?"
one of us "Yes, they are."
Proprietor: " Everyone love them because they're so meaty, that's the trick, they're meaty!"
One of us "Yes, they are."

A variation of this conversation took place every time he came by our table - which was often, as he was attentive (in his own way). 

Every meal we have eaten since we have a similar conversation:

Me: " This cereal's really grainy isn't it?"
Chuckles "yes, it is!"
Me: "We really love it because its so grainy, don't we?"
Chuckles: "Yes, we do!"

Then we laugh.  Lame, I know.  But it amuses us!

We bought curtains and rods for all the bedrooms and put them up on Sunday, in preparation for both our sets of parents coming out for their first overnight visit next weekend.  Curtainless windows are fine when it's only us in the house, but when there are six adults  -  you never know who may need to run out to their car in the front driveway at an inopportune moment when someone else is getting changed in the curtainless bedroom!  The choice was curtains or after dark lock-down,  so we opted for curtains! 

I checked out Pier 1 Imports first, as I do love their stuff, but the didn't have much selection on rods and their curtains were terribly expensive.  So, I walked over to Home Sense and found just what I was looking for at a fraction of Pier One's price.   I have to say that Langley is good for shopping if you can tolerate the traffic chaos!

 I am going to leave the windows in the living spaces without window covers.  Privacy isn't an issue as our property is completely private from the road and neighbors,  and I like the unobstructed view of the green trees and fields so much!!

 

I would rather look at the gardens than at curtains or blinds

Tonight is our first night staying in the city in our commercial building.  We have partitioned off a space that will do as a make-shift bedroom so that we are not committed to commuting 5 days a week.  Since we have lots to do here to get ready for the business move down the road, our time will be better spent here sorting and downsizing (we have to fit 6000 sq ft  of stuff into 2500 sq ft of space), and we are getting back into our swimming routine next week - for which I am very excited!!  I have missed my swimming so much, and I know my back and hips will appreciate it too.

We will stay in the commercial space until we go on our vacations in October, then we can decide after that if the commercial space is working as a living space or if we want to bring the travel trailer into the city and put it at the RV park down the road.  It's kind of fun being nomadic.  Not something that I could do permanently, but I am enjoying the diversity now, knowing it is for a relatively short time.

And that pretty much brings the blog up to date!

Moving, Frogs, Apples and Dogs - It's All Here.

Moving day - that is, the official one where the movers came with their big truck - is 6 days behind us now. 

It was a smooth operation, 3 guys who knew their stuff, aided by the fact that we have taken a lot of the boxed items to the country estate already. 

When they arrived, I was a bit shocked to find that two of the men were skinny, little old men that I had to resist the urge to offer to help - they just didn't look strong enough to move our lamps, never mind the big old piano with the wobbly leg!  But their looks belied their strength and experience, and when I stepped back and let them go to it, it was clear that they had done this once or twice before! 

 

 

 

Here's the moving truck, arriving at the country estate to unload

 

At the country estate, it took them a couple of hours to unload it all and deliver it to the correct room (mostly), and then they were gone.  Within a few hours we had much of it in order.  A great lesson I learned years ago from my children's grandmother is that, when moving, set up the bedroom(s) first.  There is nothing worse than working yourself until you are ready to drop, then realizing there is no place to drop!  Where are the sheets?  Where are the blankets?  So we put the master bedroom together, then the living room, so we had two comfortable spaces to relax in when we were ready. 

 

Master Bedroom After Movers Left

 

Office area after movers left

 

 

 

On Sunday morning I went out first thing with my nemesis the extension ladder and several large containers, and picked the apples off the tree that had ripe fruit.  The other tree is a week or two behind.   

Apple Tree Set Up

 

Me, Up the Ladder

 

One of Three Buckets of Apples

 

The first thing I had to do was pick up the week's windfalls apples, which I put into a container and moved them away from the tree, as the wasps were swarming around them and weren't happy to see me at all!  Because this tree is badly in need of pruning it is very bushy, with the fruit mostly on the high branches on the south side of the tree.  Of course, there are spiders everywhere at this time of year and the trees are full of them, so I frightened quite a few of them as I suddenly ascended into their space!  As I picked, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.  Expecting another spider, I turned to come face to face with a little tree frog!  They are also plentiful right now.  Although I didn't get a picture of the one in the tree, I snapped this one on my car when I was leaving to go to the farmers market.

Tree Frog

 

While I was busy with the apples, Chuckles made a bird house disguise for a light to illuminate our address sign at the road

 

Birdhouse in progress

 

Finished Birdhouse Light

 

 

 

I got a little lesson from Chuckles on the ride on lawnmower and spent an enjoyable hour mowing the lawn - a job I have now happily inherited.  It's like a little ATV with a purpose!!  I also took my hoe and a wheelbarrow and made the rounds of the gardens to get rid of some weeds that had cropped up.  On my rounds I discovered that the one pear on the little pear tree has disappeared!  Deer?  Birds?  Not sure who the culprit was but it was a bit of a disappointment!

 

Pear tree missing it's pear

 

I was also really happy to see that the raspberry canes which had looked very sickly when we first took over the country estate are now much happier after some TLC and a heavy feed of compost.  There are lots of new shoots and plenty of ripening berries.

 

 

 Raspberries looking healthier

 

Living room set up

 

The rest of the weekend was devoted to unpacking and putting the house in order and the garage, garden shed and barn.  One of our challenges right now is that, although we have 5 acres - huge compared to our city lot, there isn't as much outbuilding storage space as we had in the city, when you take the barn out of the equation.  Since the barn is going to house our business, we need to build a storage shed for all the toys, which include motorbikes, ATV's, kayaks, ( notice all the plurals!!) as well as all Chuck's tools, project car, gardening implements, push mowe, ride on mower...the list is long.  We need that shed pronto!

 

The apples I picked are sweet/tart and very tasty, so we have eaten a lot of them, given some away and the rest I processed on Monday night and they are now in my deep freeze ready to be made into apple chips, crisps, muffins, cakes and pies.  There will be more in the coming weeks from the second tree. 

 

This coming weekend is our last weekend in possession of the city house.  We still have some garage stuff to move out, and then the usual cleaning up.  We are also looking after granddog Nicky this weekend - another doggie fix to top up our tanks!

 

Nicky smiling on the back deck

 

 

Next week we continue our nomadic lifestyle in reverse - living in the city in our trailer and going home to the country estate on weekends.  The big life change continues....

 

 

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

This week the kids have gone back to school, and I am sure many of them will be writing the obligatory "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essay.  Here is my version!

Just spent another busy weekend at the country estate, finishing up the painting and getting ready for the movers to bring our furniture over this coming Saturday, it seems a good time to recap the progress made on the big life change so far..

The new house front steps

Here's the whole list of what was/is entailed:
Purchase Suitable Property
Sell City House
Move Household to Property
Move Business to Property
Find Tenant for City Warehouse Business Currently Occupies
Enjoy our New Life on Country Estate


Purchase Suitable Property
Mid-May we put in an offer on the country estate, and after a minimum amount of haggling it was ours!  We took possession of it May 31st.

During that same period of time I got sick- the sickest I have been in my adult life - causing me to  miss singing in my choir concert, cancel a trip to Prince George to see my nephew graduate from UNBC and cancel a trip to New York with a group from my choir. I think my body was letting me know that now that the big life change was happening it was TIME TO FOCUS!

So focus I did.

Sell City House
The month of June was spent de-cluttering the city house.  Countless trips to the Sally Ann, packing boxes of stuff we don't use on a daily basis and moving it to the country estate, stripping wallpaper, painting rooms, and painting the whole exterior of the house ourselves!

Chuckles doing the prep work before painting the city house exterior

 In between, I laid on the couch, as I was still not very well, but was determined that I was going to help Chuckles to get the job done!  By the end of June it was completed and we listed the house the first week of July.

Every weekend in July was spent at the country estate.  The weather was marvellous and we cleaned up the gardens, entertained visitors, gutted the barn, and generally busied ourselves outside.  During the week we would be in the city working and doing our best to keep the house clean, polished, mowed and clipped to look good for the open houses each weekend.  Then, Friday night we'd drive out to the country estate spend the weekend and drive back to the city Sunday night. The Monday of the August long weekend, we got the call we had waited for from the realtor.  Not just one, but two offers!  They were presented the next day, and one was clearly the best.  We accepted - house sold!

Move Household to Property
August was all about the interior.  After my initial solo attempt at the painting, Chuckles threw his weight into it and together, in four short weekends (LOL) we have painted nearly the entire interior of the house.

 It is so much better we cannot get over it.

Dark paint

 

Finished in our choice of paint colour!

 

 It was originally Dark Chocolate brown, accented with Marian's Meadow green, colours which completely absorbed the light that came in through the windows, making the house extremely dark and dungeon-like.  We have left the hallway and foyer those colours for now, as the furniture movers will be in next Saturday, and in likelihood there will be some bumps and scrapes on those wall, so we will paint them after the furniture arrives.

So officially Saturday Sept 7th the furniture will be moved and although we still have possession of the city house until Sept 19th, none of our "stuff" will reside there any longer. 

That's where we're at.  Next up is moving the business, but we need to renovate the barn first.  That construction begins on Sept 9th.   Chuckles will be doing some of that work himself, as well as using some contract labour.  Still, we expect it will take a couple of months to complete.

Meanwhile, we will still be working in the city during the week, and at the country estate on the weekends, except  now it will be roughing it in the city and living in comfort on the weekends, the complete reverse of the past three months!  We plan to bring our travel trailer in and park it at a nearby RV park on the river, which will be a nice spot to live, close to work and all amenities, trails and the beach. 

One of our two apple trees, in need of pruning but still producing!

Now that the bulk of the painting is finished, I can turn my attention back to the gardens, the apples that are ripening now, and putting some of that delicious Chilliwack corn into the deep freeze before it's all finished for the season. 

Thanks to all of you who are following my little blog, I sure do enjoy writing it.  It allows me to savor the little experiences that make up my big life change!

Time to Celebrate

We spent a good part of the past weekend at Harrison Hot Springs Resort and Spa with Chuckles parents and his nephew and niece.  It was his parents 50th Wedding Anniversary on Saturday and their way of celebrating was to take us all away from our real lives for a couple of days.

It was heavenly.

Unfortunately Chuckles' brother and wife were unable to come for one reason and another, so we took their kids, 5 and 11 along, as the venue had been chosen partially with the kid's enjoyment in mind.  Actually Chuckles parents took the kids with them, and we met them in Harrison.

 

Our little group, minus me, relaxing outside our cottage.



We stayed in the little cottages, which are behind the hotel proper, with easy access to the pools and other hotel amenities.  It was perfect with the kids along as we had outdoor space available for them.  We took full advantage of the facilities, and used the pools a lot.  We took food along so we could manage for breakfast and lunch ourselves.  I also took Yahtzee, a deck of cards and Jenga along as the weather was not forecast to be great - however it only rained during the night which was ideal.  We spelled Chuckles parents off with looking after the kids, so it was fun for all of us, as we all had some free time, as well as fun time with the kids.  I even went for a massage in the spa.

 

Cottage 10 - "Our" Cottage



Saturday night we had a celebratory dinner in the Copper Room, which was only slightly marred by a temper tantrum by Ella who is 5.  The kids had had a very busy day and fell asleep just half an hour before we needed to get ready to go to the restaurant. We woke them up and were helping them dress.  Apparently Ella didn't want to wear the sparkly dress her mom had packed!  Things escalated from there. By the time she was calm enough to take to the restaurant she had changed into a grey T-shirt and hot pink skort, with her hair looking like she had stuck her finger in a light socket.  But, she was there and was even smiling and laughing once Uncle Chuckles got talking to her.  And we had a perfectly lovely dinner, and Chuckles parents danced several dances once the band started up.

Sunday morning, after breakfast, swims and walks and a what was supposed to be a half-hour excursion in the bumper boats for the kids, but turned into about 45 minutes including a rescue operation as Ella's boat stopped working - it was time to go. 

 

The kids in the bumper boats.

We stopped at the country estate and had a huge feed of corn and hot dogs for lunch.  The kids had not seen the place yet, so we had a look around, and Chuckles got his nephew Finn fixed up with a small bow he had, so the boys did some target shooting before lunch.

After lunch they all headed off for home, and we stayed and finished the painting in the living-dining room!  So we felt pretty good that we had been productive as well as mostly goofing off!

More exciting news is that we now have booked our movers for Saturday Sept 7th!  We decided to book them a week early to give ourselves time for cleaning at the old place, and to get things settled in at the country estate before starting the next step of the overall move - the barn renovation. 

I have another guy who has responded to the craigslist ad coming out to look at the stall doors this coming weekend, so potentially two more will be gone, leaving us with just two remaining.  I think (from his area code) that he is also from Washington State.

We still have to decide how we are going to work out the logistics of our business being in the city for the next few months, and our residence being in the country.  We have a number of options on the table, and we may utilize several of them over the period that we are waiting to move the business to the country estate.  But that's for future blogs, meantime I need to get back to work!

 

Gridlock in the City

As it so often happens, life has as way of clarifying whether or not you are making the right choices. 

So it happened on Tuesday evening when I drove my parents to the airport.

They live in the sleepy little coastal community of Gibsons, BC.  A lovely place indeed, as long as you never need to A) go there or, B) leave there.  That necessitates a trip on BC Ferries, which is an idyllic 45 minute mini-cruise through the picturesque fjords of Howe Sound.  Sounds lovely, doesn't it?  And it is, minus the expense,  the mind-numbing lineups of traffic at both ends, the overpriced and underwhelming food choices on board and the general inconvenience of having to travel at a scheduled time other than what is convenient for YOU.

So it was on Tuesday that my parents needed to leave Gibsons in order to get to Vancouver Airport to fly to Prince George, BC to visit my sister and her family.  Their choices of transport modes were limited from the ferry to the airport, and none of them really worked.  None of the ferry sailings coincided very well with the WestJet flight times.  The coach from Gibsons would get them to the airport 4 hours before their flight, which meant a long wait and a long day.  The transit bus would be difficult for a couple in their late 80's juggling canes, luggage and a laptop, and necessitate quite a lot of walking.

So, to the rescue was I - offering to pick them up at the ferry terminal and drive them to the airport.  Across the city.  At rush hour.  Since I rarely have to deal with the fray that is Vancouver traffic (except for our little commute from work to home which is all of 10 minutes) I manage to convince myself every time that it won't be that bad.  A bit like childbirth. 

And it's always much worse that I expected, a bit like childbirth.

I picked them up at 4:30 for their 7:30 flight and the plan was to drive to the airport, park and once they were checked in for their flight we would grab dinner together.

We stopped at a gas station first for Dad to get a bottle of water.  Mom said "hurry Jimmy, don't be long" and I said "Mom we have hours!" Oh, I was still so optimistic at that point!  We crawled over the Lion's Gate bridge, telling each other it would be better once the four lanes had merged into two.  We crawled through the causeway telling each other it would thin out downtown.  When I saw the gridlock that was Georgia St, we turned and went through the West End.  Very slowly, I might add.  Along Beach Ave we were practically parked, but with the motor running.  As a lone cyclist whizzed by in the new cycling lane that used to be for cars, I tried to visualize Mom and Dad on bikes of their own, and simply couldn't, it was too big a stretch.  But we'd get to the airport faster with bikes at this rate.  This stop and go (mostly stop) continued all the way to the airport.



 

Vancouver has the dubious distinction of the worst traffic gridlock in Canada.

 



On Granville St. Dad piped up with "I wonder how our lives would have been different had we bought a house we looked at just off Granville St back when you were a kid?  Instead, we bought the farm in Langley." 

Wow!  Had they done that, Chuckles and I probably wouldn't be moving to Langley again right now!  Actually Chuckles and I probably would never have met, I probably wouldn't have my lovely sons, and my parents might not live in Gibson's now - maybe a downtown condo?  It's so interesting to think about the choices we've made in life and the ones we didn't make, and where they might have led... but I digress.

It was clear when we arrived  at the airport that there was no time for dinner together.  It was well after 6 already and they still needed to check in for their flight.  So, we agreed to part at the departures drop off area, I put their luggage on a cart for them and we said our goodbye's.  It was disappointing for all of us, as we have seen less of each other than usual with the busy-ness of buying the county estate  and selling our city house.

I headed off for home.  At a snail's pace with the traffic still at the peak of snarl.   A stroke of brilliance prompted me to stop at a grocery store along the way to get the groceries I had planned to get at the store close to home.  Why do that?  I could do my shopping now, let the traffic calm down, then drive home under more pleasurable circumstances. 

The grocery stop took about 40 minutes, longer than normal since the store was completely unfamiliar and I had to keep retracing my steps looking for things I needed.  Oh well, more time for the traffic to subside.  I pushed the buggy out to the car at about 7pm, feeling my stomach growl at the smell of the hot BBQ chicken I had bought for dinner.  If I ever got home.

I unloaded the groceries and before I slammed the back gate on my SUV, I impulsively broke open the chicken package and yanked off a leg.  A huge bite later, I stood happily munching chicken in the Superstore parking lot, with chicken grease running down my chin, and no napkin. 

Hmm, with greasy hands I opened the car door and rummaged in the door pocket triumphantly emerging with a scrunched and pre-used Kleenex - that was all that I could find.  It was very inadequate.  Later I realized there was a roll of paper towel in the back, so I was able to clean up, grabbed an apple from my shopping bag and headed off in the much reduced traffic of the evening.

Driving home I thought about the convenience to the Abbotsford airport from the country estate, and the several routes to get us there - through country roads flanked by farmers fields, nary a traffic jam in sight (except Abbotsford Airshow weekend!) and realized that the decision to move where roads are wide, population is light and parking lots are half empty is a great one!

Movin' On

It never dawned on me that my mother would cry when I happily announced that our city house had sold.  But that's what happened.  She cried.

Now that I have had time to think about it, I understand her tears.  We have lived in this house for 17 happy years.  Seventeen years during which all our our extended family has had accommodation in the city whenever they needed it.   Our city house has been centrally located for all our out of town family who had city doctor appointments, who were flying out of town on vacation, who were enroute to another destination by car, but needed a stopover.  It has also been in Chuckles' family for 30 years, so there is a lot of nostalgia attached to it.  It seems my big life change is affecting everyone.

Combine my mother's tears with my son's query "I hope you had digging out the Japanese maple written into the contract" referring to the tree gracing our front yard that the boys bought for me when it was barely a twig.  And which Seymour the dog desperately tried to unearth when he was a puppy!  When I said they could just buy me another for the new place, he declared that it wouldn't be the same.  He's right.

Japanese Maple in our front yard

Memories, memories.

With the city house sold, and a move out date now carved in stone, I am wondering " is this all a big mistake?` Am I being selfish in making this decision that affects so many people?

Walking around our city neighborhood on Wednesday evening, enjoying the cool air after the heat of the day, I realized just how much there is that I will miss when I am gone. 

The lovely woodsy trails around the school fields and Loutet Park.  The huge garden at the end of the Park, now designated Loutet Farm with their gates sales of produce. 

 Footbridge in trails

 The Loutet Farm sign

 

Setting sun shining through the trees along the trail

Since the deal is done there is no turning back, which makes leaving, once so exciting a prospect, now very bittersweet. 

I understand my Mom's tears, as I feel my own right now, possibly for different reasons.  She is afraid of me being farther away, less accessible, and what that might mean.  I see now that we are leaving a neighborhood we have enjoyed for the past 17 years and the future is a big unknown, which is scary and exciting all at once. 

There's only one way to face it, and that's with the expectation that it's going to be great and we will make new memories in our new home.

Sky High Skylights

Well my painting project got off to a rocky start. 

The ceilings in the house at the country estate need painting badly.  So obviously that has to be done before tackling the walls.

I decided that the best place to start was with the skylights, of which there are four.  Four tall skylights.  I'm tall, but they are really, really tall.  Sky high, or so it seems when you are teetering up on a ladder, in a narrow passageway with hot sun beaming on your head, and the treetops visible through the skylight (if you are brave enough to open your eyes!).

After breakfast I asked Chuckles if he could help me, so he got the extension ladder from the garage and set it up in the foyer skylight, the lowest of the four.  Good place to begin.  He showed me how to work the ladder, where to set the rung so it was secure, and how to test it before ascending. 

 

Ready to paint the first of the four skylights! 

It took me a while to figure out which parts to paint by hand, what I could reach with the roller from the ladder and what I could reach with the roller attached to a pole and to overcome my fear that the ladder was going to slip out from under me.  Okay - I never overcame that fear.  I just persevered through it.  Unfortunately, on one of the skylight walls, a bit of the popcorn ceiling peeled off when I used the roller on it, but I was able to paint over the spot with the brush and it looks fine.

After an hour, I was done, and moved the whole process into the master bedroom, where the roof is higher, hence, so is the skylight.  Gulp. 

I set up the ladder.  Positioned the rung correctly.  Tested it for non-slip.  Climbed up with my paint pot in one hand and brush in the other.  Was unable to reach the very edge of the glass without climbing higher.  Could not make myself do it.  Climbed down and gave myself a good talking to. 
Didn't work.  Chuckles came in the house, so I told him I was nervous about climbing higher on the ladder.  He climbed to the top, pronounced it safe, went back outside and started up the lawn tractor. 

I can honestly say I hated him in that moment.

Following his lead, I climbed to the step I needed to be on to reach the edge of the glass.  I was actually wimpering.  I was up there, but paralyzed, I couldn't dip into my paint pot and begin.  I climbed back down to assess the situation.  It occurred to me that I needed to free up one hand to be able to hold onto the ladder, that would help.  So, I jury-rigged a bucket tied to the ladder to put my paint pot in, which meant every time I needed to dip my brush I had to go down two rungs, dip, then back up two rungs, paint.  But it worked.  And that was just to get the hand painting done around the edge and down the seams.  Then I used the roller from a lower rung.  However, even more popcorn texture peeled off in this skylight, so it took more work to repair/disguise it.

An hour and a bit later, I moved the entire production into the main bath where the going got tricky.  The skylight is over the bathtup, so I had to finagle the ladder around tub and toilet, as well as covering all kinds of uneven surfaces with drop cloths.  Finally done with that, and knowing that this skylight was even higher than the bedroom skylight, I decided to give myself a break and start with the roller rather than the hand painting.  I hoped I would be able to get so close to the top with the roller that I might not even need to hand paint!  But disaster struck.  First swipe with the roller peeled off a whole bunch of popcorn texture. 

 

It's hard to see, but the popcorn texture is all peeled off above the ladder.

At which point I packed it in.  I just had to walk away, and it was lunchtime.  Over lunch I told Chuckles how frustrated I was and how I had really wanted his help.  He was surprised!  He thought I had wanted to do this myself.  So I clarified my position.  I am good with the walls, even the regular height ceilings.  But I am no sky high skylight painter.  No sir.

An Unexpected Visit

Last weekend Chuckles went to the country estate on Thursday evening, the night before I went.  He arrived at dusk and everything was just as we had left it the Sunday before.  He hit the hay early, having big weekend ahead of him dismantling the barn stalls.

 

 

Here's the barn that is being converted to our workshop.

 

Here's the interior when we purchased the place.

 

 

And here's the interior currently with stalls down.

 

 

When he awoke Friday morning, he took his cup of coffee and went outside to enjoy the cool morning air, and survey his new empire.  To his astonishment, a large section of the landscape fabric we had laid the week before, complete with rocks around the perimeter to anchor it against wind, had been pulled up and bunched into a perfect little nest!  In the center of the next, there had been a small hollow dug, and the fabric was gathered around the hole.

 

 

 

This is the way the landscape fabric was left last weekend.

 

 

 

And here's a couple of pictures of the little nest!

 

 

 

Jenn and I put it all back together again, when we were bark mulching  but this area of landscape fabric is still exposed, because we are going to cover it with driveway material when we bring that in, as it will be a little parking spot.  So, I hope the critter, whatever it was, doesn't do this again, as now the edges are buried under the bark mulch we laid down.  Since we hear coyotes yipping and howling  most nights, it's likely that is what bedded down here. 

 

 

I went out to the barn late in the day on Sunday to call Chuckles in for a piece of .... blueberry pie, and he snapped this photo of me with the disassembled stall front walls.  That's about the extent of my help with the barn reno so far!

 

 

What Happens When Your Dog Dies

Hi!  When my dog Seymour passed away suddenly last November, it marked the end of a chapter in my life.  I didn't expect that, but that's what happened.

Poor old Seymour suddenly seemed to be going downhill, so a visit to the vet confirmed he had cancer in his spleen.  That was Saturday.  By Monday night he was unable to get to his feet on his own, and so Tuesday morning we had to put him to sleep.  Hard stuff, he was my best buddy.

And that was it - after the fog of grief lifted a bit, I knew I needed change - big change.
 
I am 54 years old, and have had in the back of my mind that I would "retire" at 55 for a number of years, but it's complicated on a number of levels.

My husband, life-partner, lover, friend, occasional enemy (or person I find really really irritating), soulmate and business-partner Chuck (Chuckles) and I own a small manufacturing business which we both work at.  He's not quite at the retirement age or phase yet, so part of the challenge has been working out how I can slow down a bit while he keeps on working.  He likes having me around, we work well together, and our customers like "us" as a package deal.  For those reasons, hiring a replacement has never seemed practical.

We have dreamed of a larger property often, pouring over the property listings online and fantasizing about the life we would have with space for all Chuck's toys and projects (he's a toy and project guy) and the huge garden we could have (I love gardening) and the outdoor space and privacy we could enjoy (we both are outdoorsy and like our personal space!).

So, in May, we bought 5 acres in the country, near where I grew up, about an hour away from Vancouver, BC where we live now, and we are going to renovate the barn, move our business there, and work from home!  I will still be involved, but won't be locked into the 8-10 hours a day just at work, I can be out in the garden, or playing with my new dog (yes! That's part of the plan!) with my iphone on my belt and can take calls, do the books on rainy days and in general devote more time to my own interests.   

One of the things I have always loved is writing, so I thought I'd start a blog about the experience of moving from a big city back to the country after 30 odd years (back for me, Chuckles has always lived in the city).   So here goes....