Vacation Envy

In July it seemed everyone was on vacation.  Jan went to Vegas, Catherine went to China, various other friends set off on road trips and camping expeditions.  I moped about and felt quite sorry for myself.  Why couldn't I take a vacation?

Summer travel doesn't make a lot of sense in my life at the moment.  Having waited months for some long overdue heat, it's time to be working in the garden, grooming the lawn and preparing the farm yard for the eventual arrival of our chickens and alpacas - all of which are activities I enjoy.  Nor is there anywhere I really want to visit right now - I have a couple of winter escapes in mind for when the snow closes in but being a tourist in the extreme heat has no appeal.

When my children were much younger and time and money were tight, we sometimes took "at home" vacations.  We'd stay in our pajamas until noon, putter about the house, eat takeout and watch movies on DVD.  Other days we'd venture out to explore our own city and try new restaurants.  Not as memorable as visiting a more exotic location but nonetheless satisfying and with the bonus of not needing to deal with airport security or travel sickness.

I briefly considered an "at home" vacation and concluded, apart from the takeout food,  it was too much like my regular life.

I spoke with my nephew who is enjoying a 6 week break from his job at the moment.  "Can't you take vacation?" he asked.  "Are you too busy right now?"

I had to laugh.  I'm retired so I'm more or less on a permanent vacation.  I'm not in need of a rest from my exertions or a break from stress.  Putter around the house is what I do most days and I can spend my life in my pj's if I choose.  What I do need - and what a vacation provides - is a change.    Because I've discovered over the years that a change in scenery provokes a change in perspective which, in turn, leads to a new enthusiasm for one's daily life.

I judge the success of vacations by how anxious I am to return home by the end.  Not because I haven't enjoyed myself but because I've been inspired by the things I've seen and done and I can't wait to get back to my "real" life to put my inspirations into practice.

So I've marked off the second week of August in my calendar as "vacation" and I'm planning to head to the cottage.  We're at the cottage most weekends from May through October and I hadn't thought of it as a vacation destination - we spend much of our time there working - fixing things, cutting the grass, planning renovations - much as we do at home.  What is significant about the cottage is the activities I don't engage in - doing laundry, watching television.  I think I'll leave my knitting and quilting at home as well - things I used to do in my spare time but which in retirement have become serious occupations.  I'll bring a sack of books and my camera and leave the dog at the farm.  Hopefully I'll emerge with that "vacation" feeling.

If not, next year I'll go to China.

Barn Saga - Part 1

Our barn is 130 years old - 18 years older than the farm house.  From the road it is still an imposing structure, rising 3 stories from its stone foundation to the curved steel roof; the 6 lighting rods poised as if to catch and pierce a low lying cloud.

On closer inspection, there are spaces in the board siding where planks have been blown off by the gale force winds that sweep through here regularly.  At one end there are gaps in the stone foundation.  (The missing stones puzzle me.  Pat and I would be hard pressed to budge any but the smallest of the stones between us.)  Inside, a couple of the supporting beams have shifted.  Despite all of that, the building seems in better condition than many of those we pass on our way home from the city - smaller, more precarious looking structures that are still being used to house animals and farm equipment.

Ted, the previous owner, issued dire warnings against entering the barn which Pat quickly dismissed.  I am more cautious and, mindful of the warnings, peered through the doorway expecting the interior to be dark and dank.  Instead, it is dry and filled with light (and junk - Ted, like every man I've ever known, didn't send anything to the dump if it could be stored in an outbuilding).  Apart from the broken furniture and rusted tools, the barn is surprisingly clean.  There is no trace of the animals it must have housed once.

My friend, Christine, tells me it's the absence of animals that has caused the barn to deteriorate.  Apparently the humidity from their sweat and breath is what helps wood retain moisture.  Without them, it dries and crumbles.

Ted insisted the barn was beyond restoration.  He told us other prospective buyers had brought in engineers and architects with the hope of converting it to a studio or a guest house and had concluded it was impossible.  One of my mantras is that anything can be rebuilt or restored for a price but I don't need an engineer, or Ted, to tell me that the price would be astronomical.  In any event, I'm not in need of either a studio or a guest house.  I need a home for my alpacas

It is tempting to think that we could replace a few boards, fill the gaps in the foundation from the quarry's worth of stone that sits behind the barn (another puzzle - we assume it is left over from the barn's original construction but why would the builders have hauled in 4 times as much stone as they could possibly use?), shore up the leaning beams and bring in some goats and alpacas whose body heat would preserve the barn for another 130 years.  But it is not to be.

The "R" Word

I recall taking my then 85 year old father to visit a retirement home.  His health was in decline and being a practical sort, he knew he couldn't continue living on his own much longer.  He dutifully toured the facility and, ever the gentleman, complimented the administrator on the decor and amenities.  As we left, he turned to me and said "it's a real nice place but, honey, everyone there is OLD."

A few months later, he gave up his condo and moved into the retirement home.  He adjusted rapidly and was soon encouraging others to make the move to assisted living.  He was genuinely enthusiastic about everything - the food, the staff, the other residents.  He would always conclude "of course, they're all much older than me."

For the past three years or so, I have been cautiously, and with some reluctance, wading into retirement.  Having spent the prior two decades dipping my foot into the career pool, there was not a significant change in my daily routine.  But with my son's graduation from high school and the move to the farm, it seems I've finally taken the plunge.

I've had the feeling of treading water for the past several months - it's a relief to recognize just what pond I've landed in.  I've joined the legion of retirees.

Like my father, I want to add the disclaimer that I'm much younger than everyone else.

Bucket List - The Elusive Last 10 Pounds

I've spent a significant portion of my adult life thinking "I should lose 10 pounds".  And I have - several times.  Having been through the process, I fully realize that the only thing that changes is my dress size.  As a size 10 rather than a 12, I still need to deal with bad drivers, stoop and scoop after the dog, pay my bills.  But these things seem a bit easier when my pants aren't pinching my waist.

I thought I'd have come to terms with my weight by now - either I'd have mastered maintaining the weight loss or I'd have accepted my body as it is.  At 51, I have no desire to stroll down a beach in a bikini - my kids would be horrified  and rightfully so.  My doctor is happy with my weight although she'd like me to exercise more regularly.  My partner has no complaints.

It seems it might be easiest to buy some stretch waist jeans and get on with my life.

But the legacy of several decades of diets seems to be that if one is not actively losing weight, one is packing it on.  What happens when the size 12 jeans start to pinch?  I'd rather not find out.

It seems #10 on my bucket list needs revision - daily servings of chocolate cake are out.  

Bucket List

Last week an internet friend posed the question "What would you do if you had 30 days to live?"  I'd just spent the morning paying bills and cleaning dog vomit off the bed so my first thoughts were of the things I wouldn't need to do - file my 2011 taxes, deal with stubborn stains, go to the dentist...  In that frame of mind, I came up with the following: 1. Toss out my dental floss. 2. Hire a cleaning service. 3. Update my will (still on my "To Do" list from last year). 4. Visit my home town. There are lots of more exotic places I'd love to visit but I'd rather spend my time in a place I know and love. 5. Buy white bed linens since I wouldn't need to worry that they're not practical. 6. Hug my kids, even though it embarrasses them. 7. Throw a party and invite everyone I know (but I wouldn't tell them it was a farewell party because that would put a damper on things). 8. Pick my favourite of my several dozen unfinished craft projects and get it done. 9. Get Pat to take me dancing, even though it embarrasses him. 10. Acknowledge that I'm probably never going to lose those last 10 lbs. and eat chocolate cake every day. Another friend, reading my list, suggested I do all of these things this year - with the exception of abandoning dental hygiene.  Yesterday being my 51st birthday, it seems like a good time to start working my way through the list. But what should I toss instead of the dental floss?  My hair dye?  If I had only 30 days to live, would I really care about my grey roots?  Or would I choose to go out looking my best?

Feral Knitting

Many years ago when I was a much younger and less experienced knitter, I decided to make a fairisle sweater for my then 3 year old daughter.  In my youthful enthusiasm, it did not occur to me that the project might be beyond my abilities nor did I think to consult a more experienced knitter or even an instruction manual.  I picked up my needles and jumped in.  I enjoyed the experience - it's always fun to make children's clothes because they work up quickly - and my daughter seemed quite happy with the result.

When I proudly displayed the sweater to my mother in law, she promptly turned the sweater inside out and showed me all of the errors I'd made in carrying, or failing to carry, the yarn across the motifs.  "I didn't know that you knit" said I.  "I don't, but I know how not to knit" she replied.

Undeterred, I made plans to knit co-ordinating sweaters for the entire family to wear in our Christmas photo.  A two year stint in Miami derailed my knitting career for a bit - working with wool in the sub-tropics is of limited appeal - and by the time we returned to a cooler climate, our family had grown in number, in girth and in taste.  Knitting four largish sweaters and coaxing them onto the backs of unwilling models was beyond me.  I swore off knitting in two colors and embarked upon a, mercifully brief, affair with novelty yarns.

Until I spied a kit for a fairisle purse in my favorite cottage country yarn shop and my friend Jan presented it to me as an unbirthday gift.  I consulted my sister who provided me with directions for the two-handed fairisle technique, purchased the requisite bobbins and needles and installed the project in my knitting basket.

Where it sat for over a year.  It wasn't just the fairisle that intimidated me.  The base of the bag is knit in seed stitch - possibly the world's most boring stitch.  It also required I knit an i-cord which made me think of some painful gynecological procedure.  And I discovered an error in the pattern but lacked the confidence to make the obvious correction.  I felt quite paralyzed.

Periodically Jan would ask how the bag was coming along.  I admitted that I kept it confined to my knitting basket, at a safe distance from my armchair, from where I imagined I sometimes heard it snapping and snarling at me.  We took to referring to it as the "feral" bag.

Little by little, I moved the chair closer to the bag until one day, outfitted in suitable protective gear, I picked up the needles and set it free.  Apart from the i-cord, it was not nearly so ferocious as I'd thought.  (I have this to say about i-cord: it's silly.)  I quite enjoyed taking the project on outings; it impressed novice knitters ("that looks hard!") as though I had a tiger on a leash.  (They didn't realize I would return home to spend an hour or more undoing what I had knit in their company - keeping the feral beast in line required my undivided attention.)

Here is the finished project.  It's lined with a remnant of quilting fabric and I used webbing for the handles rather than i-cord.  A second bag is on the needles as I write.  And I'm considering the color options for our 2015 family Christmas photo...

Patchwork

The interior of the farm house is decorated in a style I call "mid-century old lady" - a lot of dusty rose and smoky blue and several hundred feet of almond trim.  Mercifully, there is no shag carpet or country themed wallpaper border to be removed.  There was, however, a bevelled mirror "feature wall" spanning the first and second floor stairwell.

I attempted to take a "before photo" but the resulting flash burned my retinas.  Think "Vegas hotel" or "Liberace's bathroom" and you'll capture the image.

Pat removed the mirrors with great care.  We're both somewhat superstitious and 48 mirrors at 7 years each might have resulted in several generations of bad luck.  Thanks to his efforts, the mirrors survived unscathed but not the drywall.

Our options - fill and repair a few hundred holes or cover the entire space with new drywall.

On closer inspection, the previous owner had already installed a second layer of drywall - whether as additional support for the mirrors or to cover an earlier "feature wall" (I envision flocked velvet wallpaper) we don't know.  So we're working on the first option.

It's a long process.  Each hole must be primed to prevent moisture from accumulating in the drywall then filled, sanded and primed a second time before we can prime and paint the entire surface.

Viewing our work in process, my daughter came up with a third option - install a large tapestry.  A vintage tapestry is beyond my means but the challenge of creating a 10' x 20' applique quilt  has a certain appeal.

So Pat continues with his patchwork and I with mine - we'll see who gets there first.