Hello? Is there anybody in there?

Hello? 

Is there anybody in there?

Just nod if you can hear me

is there anyone home?
(Roger Waters, David Gilmour)

Remember me? The gal on a 5 year plan to retirement? The gal who thought life wouldn't start til I retired? The gal who met a life changing man named Michael?

The gal who is now on the final leg of her working career? With only 259 days left til retirement? 

Yup, that gal! That's me, Jane! 

Now that I'm into my final year of teaching Part 37A, Section 271B has kicked in. Basically - get rid of as much sh-t as I can so I don't have to move it when I sell the condo...and fix up the condo so someone will actually want to buy it. Ah yes, the final lap!

We are now surrounded with storage bins and boxes which are rapidly filling up with the detritus of the past 20 years that we've lived in this condo. Much has found its way to garage sales over the past 3-4 years, some has gone to second hand stores, some is listed on Kijiji and the rest we trip over constantly!

Shelves and cabinets are being emptied. Flooring is being ripped up - yes, we haven't always lived with plywood floors!

There are currently 15 gallons of paint in the basement waiting upon us to fill in nail holes in the walls.

There he is - wave to Michael! He's had the wonderful job of ripping up the carpet. And right now he's driving with the truck full of patio stones to our former trailer where the current owners are going to put them to use.  We are going to replace the patio stones with flagstone to upgrade our patio area. He sure got a good workout yesterday loading them into the truck!

So we are living in chaos but oddly it feels just fine. Actually it feels great to finally reach the final stages of divesting ourselves of one life and preparing for another. 

We feel we are going on an adventure and the waiting is finally over! The idea of having an adventure before us as we head toward our 60's is exciting and scary and magical!

Kazi's room - obviously we haven't started in there yet!!

It would be nice to get everything done by Christmas so we could enjoy our two week break but I think that's being a bit too optimistic. 

When I look at these photos I see so much STUFF still to deal with.  But we've made a great start! We've ordered new carpet for the upstairs bedrooms, new ceramic tile for the kitchen and bathrooms and new bamboo hardwood for the dining and living areas. We'll have professionals install the carpet and we are going to do the ceramic and hardwood ourselves with the help of experienced family members.

I hope I can get in the habit of keeping you updated on our progress but I think it's better not to make any promises :) I've been on a blogging break now since May so who knows if I'll be able to keep it up now that I'm working AND redecorating. 

My feeling is that I don't really want this to be a personal finance blog - that was never my intent but that was the habit I sort of fell into. So, I've eliminated my financial goals (which really don't change anyways) and want to focus on our day to day adventures...or maybe there won't really be a focus at all! 

Thought I'd say hello...

so.....HELLO!!

See, that's me!  I do exist.

I've missed you guys. I mean, REALLY missed you guys. I thought I should give you a little update on my situation....the GOOD, the BAD and the UGLY.

The Good:

• last weekend Michael and I went to Chatham to help a friend celebrate her 50th birthday. We had a great time, so many laughs and so much dancing my knees are still recovering!

I'm with the band :)

• my daughter is now officially a graduate of Western University!! One more year of post-graduate work and hopefully she'll then be gainfully employed.  She is gainfully employed, don't get me wrong, just not using her degree yet!
• only 47 days til we hit the road to PEI!
• only 778 more days til I retire!
• both my electricity and natural gas were only $45 each!!! I budgeted $55 each so saved $20
• I paid $83 interest on my now non-existent line of credit - the last interest payment and now I can close the account!
• made my 4th $88 payment to my mastercard to cover my half of the cost of our new TV, only one more payment to go! 

The Bad:

• unfortunately those are the only GOOD numbers! I would advise you that if you take a week or so off from posting don't also take a week off from keeping track of your money or if you're like me the money will grow wings and fly away!!  I have made the following purchases - the lovely "fire burner" as seen in my last post (it arrived safely via UPS); two fans, a frying pan and a pair of sandals from our local Zellers - it is going out of business (it's been bought up by Target!!), a few much needed (not really) clothing items from Talize (a little retail therapy - $40 worth), lots of stuff for school which will be reimbursed to me eventually, and I paid my May installment of PEI property taxes - $288.  I guess that's not so bad. I'd rather use fans than the central air since electricity is so pricey these days.
• I only have $76 of misc $$ left to last the month plus $30 in my wallet. This isn't going to be enough as we are going away for my birthday weekend in two weeks.  I didn't plan that too well now did I?
• Michael has had his hours cut back at the shoe store and at Jambalaya
• I have yet to pay the $74 for my car's license sticker...grrrrrrr.....looks like I won't be saving as much as I thought this month!

The Ugly:

• the work situation I'm in continues to be UGLY!! Although I have an additional educational assistant it hasn't lessened the violence. I don't think I have any other choice but to do a work refusal.  In the words of the Health and Wellness person I have contacted:

"It sounds like you are working in a land mine with

explosions ready to happen at any minute and I don't know how you have
done it!"

     I have the option of taking a stress leave and while that would help ME it wouldn't do anything about                      the classroom situation.  Unless a miracle happened.  So it looks like I need to bite the bullet and take a stand. I wish I didn't have to do it, being the introvert that I am I hate to have the spotlight shone on me but once in a while you have to go outside of your comfort zone to enable change to happen. 

So here goes....

Who Am I.....really...

When I was a kid I looked just like Scout, maybe scrawnier with more sharp edges...but the same haircut, the same older brother, the same determined look on my face, the same tomboy clothes and habits. But to my knowledge I never dressed up as a ham. But I did climb a lot of trees (fell out of more than my fair share too), asked a lot of questions, worried about what was fair, spied on the weird neighbours and was a wee bit afraid of old Mr. Lees, a sinister-looking man who lived at the end of our street.

I also identified with this young lady, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her family's struggles as pioneers starting over and barely making it through long winters of near starvation and unfriendly Indians in the American midwest. She was a survivor, a real spunky kid who would do anything, eat anything, whatever it took to make it til spring.

Just look at those fierce eyes. Not much got past her! What a strong-spirited girl. I sometimes feel as if I really knew her and I'd like to think I have the same will for survival that she had. Just when it seemed winter would never end and the stock pile of potatoes, carrots and turnips was at its end she'd discover a row of turnips that hadn't been dug up or make some kind of deal with Nellie's folks at the store for a bag of flour in exchange for her first-born child that would see her family through the final three week blizzard of yet another treacherous winter.

I once sneaked a peak in one of my brother's journals as I was waiting for him to make a pot of tea. I found that he compared me to this fictional character:

I chose this picture of Scarlett O'Hara because she is wearing a dress she made out of some drapes in order to make herself look like a woman of substance instead of a half-starved destitute survivor of the Civil War who was looking for a rich husband to help her save Tara.  Yup, I would do that too if I had to....though my drapes aren't nearly as nice...
"As God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor  any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again."

Here's my Tara, my little homestead on the prairie. I planned well, you see, nestling up to my land are several fields of potatoes and occasionally a field of soybeans. I've also heard rumours of quail or partridge in my forest. And if all else fails I'll raise me some chickens...and when a hen is done laying I'll feel no qualms about wringing its scrawny little neck and throwing it in a big soup pot! (Yes, I'll pluck it and gut it first - sheesh!!)

So even though the government wants to mess with my pension and even though I'll be living on less than half of what I am now I know I will survive. I hope I won't be reduced to boiling birch bark for tea and scrambling for grubs  - I know you'll send me a care package if I need one! I've lived frugally all of my life and can't imagine living any other way. Even though I don't blog about money as much as I used to it's still something I think about every day. I don't really consider myself a personal finance blogger so much as a personal LIFE blogger so I hope you're not disappointed by my lack of financial updates and what have you.  Nothing much changes from month to month.

I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination and I'll always have to pinch my pennies and stretch my dollars. It's what I do - I'm a survivor. As opposed to when I lived paycheque to meager paycheque back in my 20's and 30's I DO feel rich now in comparison.  I have some savings and own my condo and I'll retire without debt other than my small PEI mortgage. Although my dad felt my best quality was my SPUNK I feel it's my resourcefulness that keeps me going. As a single mother of one it took some ingenuity and juggling of funds to keep a roof over our heads and food on our plates but I did it and can now look back on those as some of the happiest in my life.

I had no benefits for seven years and relied on a daycare subsidy while I taught part-time. The worst time was when I had to pawn some jewelry in order to pay some utility bills and use a credit card to buy groceries. But, you do what you have to in order to survive. Day by day, year by year my financial condition improved, especially after I managed to get a permanent contract with benefits. Now I have 20 years in, lots of seniority and although our school board is laying off 104 teachers as of today, I'm not one of them. I'll put in my remaining couple of years and move on to the next stage of my life. And I'll be rich as long as we're not talking about monetary riches!!

How has your life changed over the past 20 years?