Personal

by

Waiting for a Clearing

It feels like years have passed since my last post. That’s how it feels, sometimes, when the internet is down a for a few days!

I learned at 8 o’clock Sunday morning that my duties at the resort ended at 11PM Friday night. At least, I was eventually informed of this…. My last ‘discussion’ with management really got my butt in gear in terms of departure preparations. I’m not hanging out here a day longer than I need to. I’m waiting for a clearing in the weather (or, at least, ‘less worse’ weather) and confirmation from the park I’m going to that it will be okay to pull in on December 31st or January 1st. What irritates me the most is how hard I worked at a job for which I will not be getting a reference. I so badly needed this reference in order to update my resumé in the areas of hospitality and bookkeeping. But if one place was willing to hire me based on outdated qualifications, surely there will be another.

The park I’m going to sounds like paradise. The difference in cost between parks located near Vancouver isn’t very much, so I picked one with an indoor pool, hot tub, and sauna!  I will be walking distance to the United States and about forty minutes from downtown Vancouver. Fewer than 400km separate me from this park, but the terrain between here and there is mountainous. Poor weather here could mean very bad weather on the road; I am expecting the drive to take a full day and my backup plan is to break up the trip with an overnight stay at the Walmart in Chilliwack.

Miranda is just about ready to go. I would have liked to pull out at first light tomorrow, but we had tons of snow again today so I must go back up on the roof and clear some of it off, plus I’m pretty sure that my sewer hose is frozen solid (author pauses for a moment to laugh at the absurdity of her life). So, tomorrow will be a ‘apply heaters to all external fixtures that need to be removed and packed away’ kind of day.

There was a thaw on Sunday that allowed me to begin assessing the damages. My air conditioner cover cracked from the weight of the snow, but the fault line is on the side, not on top, so I do not think this is something I should worry about. A hose melted in the basement compartment I was heating, but I’m not sure what melted it, or even what the purpose of the hose was; I need to do some research on that. Within Miranda, there is evidence of water damage, but it is too early to tell yet if the damage is from condensation or infiltration. I hope it is the former! Only a test drive will tell if she is mechanically sound. After recharging the engine battery, I was able to start and run the engine without any effort, so I think Miranda is as ready to leave as I am. I have faith in her. “She’s tore up plenty, but she’ll fly true.” Another quote from the movie that gave Miranda her name. 🙂

I am melancholy. I remember how enthusiastic and naïve I was when I arrived in Oliver in October. I feel so much older now, worn out and wrung out. The past eleven weeks have sometimes felt like eleven years and there is not much of them I will wish to remember when I look back on my first year on the road. But I do not regret this time, or, more truthfully, I am happier to have been malcontent here than I was back in my old life.

Because the winter thus far has been exactly like I planned, my spring will not be. Unless something extraordinary happens, I will be in British Columbia until May. I have but one goal when I get to Surrey, one that makes me laugh: stability. I need to find work and rebuild my coffers and keep one thought in mind: summer will bring me to the Yukon.

Even though the past weeks have not been good, they do not diminish the quality of a life that allows me to leave when I have had my fill, a life that makes it easy to find fresh beginnings when endings taste like ash.

by

Fragrant Memories

Some travelers collect pins, others shot glasses or bar coasters, tee-shirts or ball caps; little trinkets to remind them of where they’ve been.  I have no patience for things that are just for looking at, so over the past few years, while I was still bound to a sticks & bricks existence, I collected blue willow dishware and artwork. Since hitting the road with Miranda, I have, for the first time in fifteen years, begun to rely solely on photographs and journal entries to remind me of where I’ve been. However, there is one purchase made in Edmonton, at Rutherford House, that I like to pull out on chilly mornings like this one, to remind me of those heady first weeks on the road: tea.

I like visiting museum giftshops because you can occasionally find unique items there. At the Rutherford House giftshop I was greeted by a lady who just had to proudly show off her personal tea blends, packaged by herself into tiny and rather pricey packages. The blend she was most proud of was the Rutherford House, which she based on the Queen’s favourite tea blend of jasmine and Earl Grey, with a personal twist. I took one sniff of that mix of my two favourite types of tea, with a secret ingredient I couldn’t identify, and I just had to have it! I think the lady was surprised to have a sale!

Since that September day, I’ve only had four cups of this tea. I have to ration it out because there is so little in the bag, enough perhaps for two or three more cups. It is a strong and fragrant blend, rather exotic, more reminiscent of warm climes than of Edmonton, and yet each sip transports me back to the parlour of Rutherford house, with its apricot walls and emerald green draperies.

Such a souvenir is more transitory than a painting, but when the tea is gone I will associate Earl Grey and jasmine to Edmonton. That is the kind of memory that lasts a lifetime.

by

If Not the Weather, the… Cats

I had water at 6:30 this morning, but not at 8:30. I got the heat gun, set it up, opened the tap in the bathroom sink, and went out to open the guest facilities. I wound up getting tied up there and didn’t get back home for twenty minutes.

That was just long enough for:

  • the heat gun to work its magic;
  • water to start gushing out of the bathroom tap;
  • one of the cats (probably Neelix) to leap up onto the counter to get at all that fresh, yummy water, and;
  • knock a washcloth into the basin where it stopped the drain.

*sighs*

I suppose that’s one way to wash the floors. I used a heater to dry out everything and the room looks okay. I hope that the water didn’t have time to infiltrate.

In other dismal news, I believe that my loft is now leaking. I’ve got a nice chunk of ice in one corner. Inside. I’m going to get the heater up there next, but I’m sure the damage is done. Caulking will have to wait until the weather warms up.

In happier news, it was SUNNY today!!! I went out to do the cleaning this afternoon and switched to a light sweater and a kerchief, instead of the sweater, coat, and tuque I’ve been living in. Sure, it was a tad ‘brisk’ (-11) walking around the park like that, but it felt sooooo nice to be unencumbered by a million layers of clothing. Of course, the sun is already setting (can’t believe it’s four, where does the day go?!), but I definitely got my vitamin D quota for the day.

This afternoon, I managed to run my errands in preparation for Thursday’s dinner with the guests. My contribution is mashed turnip (rutabaga for you purists) with brown sugar, which I will have the pleasure of serving in a bowl that belonged to my dad. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I served mashed root vegetables in that bowl over the past twenty years and I am very happy to bring a piece of my father with me to this traditional Christmas meal he would have enjoyed so much.

by

Order and Chaos

This entry is about organization.

I wanted to attend one last writing group meeting last night and decided at the last minute to just go for the whole thing even though I had said I was just going to pop in. I therefore wanted to be on time, but I needed to change first. I became incredibly frustrated, even angry, that I couldn’t quickly find what I needed to get out the door quickly.

I had just spent a year where I was almost perfectly organized, especially in regards to my wardrobe. To go from sorted drawers to piles everywhere was depressing. My home hadn’t always been neat. *laughs* There were often piles everywhere. But I could, whenever I wanted to, restore order very quickly. Everything in those piles had a home. If there is anything I learned over the past year it is that neatness is physical state while organization is a mental one. Someone who is very organized isn’t necessarily neat, and someone who is very neat isn’t necessarily organized. I had been disorganized AND messy my entire life until I realised just how much of my life had been wasted because of this. I finally clued into the number of things I had missed out on because I had more important things to do… like procrastinating on getting myself organized and neatened up. I decided that, once and for all, I would purge what needed to be purged and organize the rest. I succeeded. And then I moved into the RV where, that first night, it seemed that I would have to start all over.

A friend said to me that she wouldn’t worry about getting the RV all sorted out before leaving; that she would just chuck everything into a big bin to deal with later. I’ve been doing that my whole life. I’m tired of living like that, in a sort of organizational limbo. The last thing I wanted to do was spend my month on the road ‘getting organized’ again! My things had been organized in the house; it was just a matter of reorganizing them to suit the setup of my new home.

So, Tuesday’s order of business was most definitely clothing. The load done at the laundromat on Monday and dried outside was ready to be put away. I looked at my wardrobe and realised that perhaps it isn’t suitable for a bank of drawers, but that’s okay. I prefer to hang my clothes! 95% of my clothes are hangable! I like sliding open a closet door and seeing all my clothes hung neatly with like colours together. Why try to reinvent that system when it has worked so well for me? So, I hung up everything again. It’s a bit tight in there, but everything fits since I’ll rotate out of season clothes. I then used the drawer underneath for under things and sorted the rest of the stuff into the extra Ikea Kassette boxes. Since I don’t have more clothes than I actually wear, I only needed one box per category: scarves, shawls, camis, summer pjs, winter pjs, regular socks, cold weather socks… It’s not as nice as opening a drawer, but the boxes can only stack two high, so it’s not a huge hassle to take a box out of there. I filled a larger see through bin with pants. My running wear went into a basket. I used what I had and it worked! Today, I was able to go to work without having to pull an outfit together frantically on Tuesday night.

Tonight, I don’t have anything to organize. Put away, yes, but not organize. I still have a ton of stuff to do, but it won’t be as overwhelming as the last few nights have been. I started with several loads of laundry (one nice thing about laundromats is that you can do several loads at once!) and then move on to putting away the last odd bits left so that I can drive off safely tomorrow. I still need to carve out more space for groceries, but I can find everything now. So, I’m good to go.

What I am most surprised to discover is just how much I have come to need that sense of control over my life. Having lived in chaos for most it, hiding it relatively well from my peers, the new organized me found a lot of free time once she wasn’t dealing with stuff.

To have gone from the mess on Saturday to this is absolutely astounding. I found room for everything. Go figure.

by

The End of a Dream

This morning, as I slowly eased Miranda into a parking spot at Home Depot and then shortly thereafter began to rip apart the back room, I realised that a lifetime’s worth of dreaming had come to an end. For better or for worse, I have begun to live my dream. And, thus, the dream is now reality. What will I dream of now?

*pauses*

So, I made it to Home Depot this morning. I decided to forgo the backup monitor installation and leave it for next weekend. I’ll be taking Miranda for her first overnight expedition and that will be a nice project to undertake then.

Visit the page about the study to see pictures about the flooring installation.

Step 1: Get the mattresses out of there

Step 2: Dismantle the right-side box

After taking apart that box on the right side, I decided that I didn’t want to muck around with the left-side box as glue is involved. So, carpet removal and floor installation would have to go around it.

Step 3: Carefully remove any trim so that I might be able to reuse it.

Step 4: Marvel that the coach has wooden floors. Which explains why it cost twice what the mobile house cost.

Step 5: Check to see if the room is square. It is. Blink.

Step 6: Install flooring. Takes about an hour and a half once you figure out the best way to lay it out.

Step 7A: Waste only one piece because you can’t measure.

Step 7B: Pat yourself on the back.

This is Allure flooring in ‘chocolate’, available exclusively at Home Depot. It is a combination of floating floor and peel ‘n stick tiles. You get a strip of three 1’x1′ vinyl tiles (so the strip is 1’x3’) with sticky tabs that interlock. It’s quite easy to work with, although getting tight joints is tough. I’d give my results a 9 out of 10. To cut, just score deeply with a utility knife, bend, and snap (like drywall, only tougher). So, it’s a really easy product to work with and produces results very quickly.

Step 8: Reinstall the trim you saved and the little threshold thingie that creates a joint between the hardwood and the vinyl.

Don’t they look nice together?!

Left to do in this room is to rip out the carpet on the upper portion of the floor and then finish up the trim. I wanted to wait until the desk was in before doing the final touch ups. Plus, by the time the floor was in it was 3:30 and I was exhausted!

Tomorrow, I’m going back there to look for desk materials so I can finish up this project. I stopped off at Ikea on the way home (literally on the way) and was reminded that I hate to shop there. So, hopefully the Home Depot will have the necessary materials to build a nice desk area.

I stacked the two mattresses on the left side and discovered that the ‘sofa’ is going to be pretty high up off the floor. I’ll live with it that way since I don’t want to get rid of the second mattress at this time.

Today’s mileage: Another 30km!