I already want to take a nap tomorrow....

 because I get tired just looking at these photos!  Above is Kazi's room, below is the cat's room, my former bedroom. (We have a 3rd bedroom in the basement which is where Michael and I sleep.) I wanted to show you a picture of the big desk in Kazi's room which Michael and his son Dane took apart on Friday...but it's kind of hard to see underneath the accumulation of stuff! If you look really hard in the upper right quadrant you can barely see it behind the mirror....well, anyways it's GONE!
It's hard to believe that in one more week her room will be empty. I just took a double dose of ibuprofin after yesterday's exertions left me with a sore shoulder - yes, the same one that was immobilized due to a pinched nerve in January, :( so I better get some help clearing out her room!

Our almost 20 year old cat Tisky did a great job of cleaning up her room...har har har! Just a few pieces of furniture to move out in preparation for new carpet laying taking place on Nov. 4th. Little does Tisky know however, that she will be moving to the laundry room - I'm not allowing one cat hair on the new carpet! Morbid as it sounds, I honestly, truly thought she would be in "kitty heaven" by now, buried out back with our 4 hamsters. I've had 3 other cats over my adult life with none of them living past the age of 11. Tisky will be 20 next June...who knew??

Ever wondered what was under your flooring?  Well, don't...it ain't pretty! I spent 2 hours yesterday vacuuming up the dust and dirt - YUCK!!

There isn't much living going on in the living room! It's been turned into a repository for the upstairs furniture while it gets newly carpeted.

Under the dining room table are the boxes of bamboo hardwood which we'll do after the carpet is installed - we'll move all the furniture upstairs and/or outside on the patio if the weather is ok.

The staircases look particularly ugly with the carpet ripped off of them. The one set below will be recarpeted as it flows from the bedrooms upstairs but the one to the basement...well, let's just say we haven't figured that one out yet.

So that's this week's update on the renos...hopefully the next update will show some completed work. I still have some wallpaper and border to remove but I'll either have to do it with my left hand/arm or wait til my right one feels better.

In other news...my daughter is planning a trip to Australia after Christmas! Yes, she wants to see a bit of the world and perhaps work there for awhile. Her best friend is there for the next two years in law school so Kazi is taking this opportunity to visit her and explore job prospects and a different part of the world. I'm excited for her - this is the time to do it and I hope her horizons will be broadened by seeing how other people live.

Patio Stones - GONE!

Going, going GONE!! That is the theme around here these days. I am quite enjoying the dismantling of the home I've lived in for almost 20 years and watching things disappear! Rereading the last sentence makes me wonder if I've lost it! Well, har har har, if I haven't lost it then I'm getting rid of it!! Good riddance!

The last in the long list of things to BEGONE are our old patio stones.

Remember these ugly things?

No, not my hand-me-down moccasins (I call my style "Early Kazi") but the patio stones behind them. Stained, not level anymore, ugly as sin patio stones?

 All 27 of them carried to Dougie the Dodge by Michael! #28 will continue to reside under the central air conditioner.

Only Michael could still muster up a smile when about to carry #27 to the truck! Honestly, we did try to borrow a wheel barrow with no luck. Michael also asked his son to come and help out but gave up waiting for him to arrive. Kids these days...

Once loaded Michael drove Dougie the Dodge to Bayfield and unloaded all of the patio stones at our old trailer, which friends of ours now own.  We thought they could extend the dance floor....

....which isn't nearly large enough once I get going!  And they could put them behind the trailer where the weeds are rampant...or both!!

I'm just glad they're Gone Baby Gone! (We watched that movie last night on Netflix! How apropos!)

Here's what we plan to do next....

...IF this were our yard...but since it isn't it'll look more like this...

...except we need to get more flagstones and fill in the spaces with something and of course it'll be a bright sunny warm day when we are ready to sell not cold and raining like today!! Hah!

So far we've purchased 1/2 ton of flagstones but they don't go very far. Each time we have to carry a load like that we are soooooo grateful for Dougie the Dodge. He's so big and strong!

And you too Michael, you too!!

No More Lazy Boys for Me!

 No siree bub!! They're gone - a matching pair that we've lounged on, read our favorite books on, cuddled on, even SLEPT on!! I listed them on Kijiji on Sunday and they were gone by Tuesday! We even delivered them thanks to Dougie the Dodge. We got $300 for them - they didn't even dicker and they were thrilled with them. Perhaps I should have asked for more.....?

But no, that's ok. They loved them, we saw them put in pride of place in their living room - they're just starting out together, furnishing their first apartment together. As Michael put it - they've found a new home and that makes me happy!

Now, if someone would only buy our dining room set!

The downsizing continues!!

HAPPY CANADIAN THANKSGIVING!!

Greetings from Canada eh? Yes, here in Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving looooooong before Christmas. We don't like the stress of having one major holiday (Christmas) follow another major holiday (Thanksgiving) so closely! We're funny that way. Yes, funny "strange" not funny "hahaha"!

Actually the real reason is that we can stand getting together with relatives only so  often - twice within 4 weeks is really too much.  At least at Christmas we're rewarded with presents whereas at Thanksgiving we only gain a few pounds. That's yet another problem with holidays so close together- weight gained over Thanksgiving in Canada has time to drop off by Christmas.

Theoretically, that is :)

My photo above was taken pre 1998. The reason I know this is that gorgeous maple tree fell on my parents' home during the Norwich tornado June 8, l998.  Now it no longer exists except in the form of a few carvings I made from a branch I saved. It was something my mother always worried about - the tree falling on the house - and us kids always scoffed at - ain't gonna happen! Well, as we know, mothers are always right!

But in this picture it is how I remember it being in the fall - full of glorious reds and orange, leaves carpeting the ground. My dad's Ontario flag flying bravely, the proverbial white picket fence still in place - HOME SWEET HOME.

Now someone else lives there, my parents have both passed away, the tree and flag are gone but the memories remain. For which I'll be forever thankful and blessed.

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! 

Edith Jane Eileen Catton

The other "Mother's Day" post below is from two years ago though the content has been updated to reflect what's happening today - which is pretty much the same. Wow, how boring is my life!?!

But while I love to pay tribute to "mothers of blogdom" I also want to pay tribute to Edith Jane Eileen Catton - my amazing mother. That's her in the picture and my two brothers and one of my sisters. I'm the wee one with the pout. I have a few pictures of myself at that age and I often pulled a pout - even then I wanted to always have my own way! Stubborn little puss I was!

Somehow my mother had the patience of Job. By the time I rolled around she had already parented 4 other children and probably didn't have much patience left! Happily for her my two sisters were (and still are haha) 9 and 11 years older than me so they pitched in to help raise me. Even so I had enormous admiration for my mother - she was someone I aspired to be like when I grew up even though she was very much unlike my "cookies and milk" friends' mothers. When I came home after school it wasn't to cookies and milk, oh no, it was to the sound of the typewriter keys being tapped away in another room, a room with the door closed.

And while I might have wished for "cookies and milk" I was also filled with pride because my mother was so very different from other mothers. She was so so intelligent - she wrote stories whenever she could carve out some time from caring for 5 children and a husband. She was a stay-at-home mother except for one day a week when she worked at the local "Sales Barn" where farmers brought their critters to market. She helped with the accounting. And she also sold her stories so you can imagine my heart swelling with pride when she'd purchase a Jack and Jill magazine for me and there was her name in print beside the title of the story she'd written!

So while I had to forage in the kitchen by myself it was worth it. No doubt it helped me become a more resourceful child - I don't remember ever resenting her for being behind a closed door when I came home from school. I knew she was special! While other mothers slopped around downtown in slippers and curlers she was creating!  When she did go downtown she was very well turned out. We weren't very well off but boy did she have STYLE!!

I grew up in a different generation from my older sisters. I grew up not thinking about marriage or having kids when I was finished highschool- I grew up thinking I could become a writer or anything else I wanted. I knew that I would work and have a career. There were many bumps along my road and I didn't do things in the usually accepted way but then neither did my mother. I admired her for being so different from the average mom so is it any wonder that I have lived such an unorthodox life?

Edith Jane Eileen Harrison - I wouldn't have it any other way!!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO AN AMAZING BUNCH OF MOTHERS!!

I know that not all of my readers are mothers (though some of them may be mothers in a few years) and I know not everyone recognizes Mother's Day. 


My feelings are this: I'll take what I can get bwahahahahahahahaha!


Sure it would be nice to have say, one day a week, like Sunday, when everything is done for me instead of by me. Perhaps if I had started that tradition when my daughter was tiny I'd get taken out for breakfast every Sunday, but I didn't. I only had one child and I took care of her every need - in fact - I admit that I did more for her than I should have. 


However, she is still my precious little 22 year old bundle of joy and I'm still her "momsy". And if all I get is Mother's Day on which to be appreciated more than usual then I'll take it. A free breakfast is a free breakfast after all lol!!


So, here I sit, it's 9:30am and I'm waiting, as always, for everyone else to get ready. I still had to wake up Michael and Kazi but that didn't bother me in the least - when someone promises to take me somewhere I hold them to it! After all, I am a mother and this is MY DAY!!