British Columbia

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Feeling Blue

Today’s our first sunny day in over a week and I’m feeling down. I spent a couple of hours this morning troubleshooting my water heater (more about that to follow) and I’m looking at a costly repair.

This is definitely not the winter I’d envisioned or saved up for. Just about everything I had went to the brake repair this fall and the rest to keeping me afloat until I got full-time work hours. It’s already the middle of January and I haven’t done any exploring or renovations. At this point I’ve pretty much conceded that neither is going to happen.

My cashflow has improved slightly, but not nearly enough to make up for how much financial bleed I’ve had since leaving the Yukon. I really don’t like to talk in great depth about my finances, but I think I need to make a comment on the subject. My global financial picture is sound, but my daily budget isn’t. I ‘have money in the bank’, however it is off limits for daily expenditures. The only way I am going to survive financially in this lifestyle of unstable income is to limit my daily spending to what I’m taking in through my various income streams rather than continuously dipping into my investments and savings. Exploring counts as daily spending. Renos and maintenance have their own saving account, but maintenance takes precedence, of course, and there’s a minimum cushion that needs to be in there at all times. Soon as I hit that limit, I can only use the money for real emergencies and not for sprucing up my home.

I’m a homebody, so a part of me doesn’t mind having an excuse to stay home, watch movies, read, and go for long walks on the beach. However, I didn’t enter this lifestyle to have such a monotonous sameness to my days. It’s only the thought of my imminent return to the endless Yukon summer that enables me to remember just what it is I’m working so hard at to build. I can tell that I’m making progress at supporting myself on the road in a manner that will enable me to travel freely. My various income streams are slowly picking up and my writing contract is a major step in the right direction. However, I have conceded that this winter is looking at being a wash and that there probably won’t be much more to blog about until I take off in May.

This situation is of my own making and only I can fix it. I never forget that I chose this life and the financial instability that it brings, that I made a decision to honour my belief that the true riches in life are not material. So, please do not take this post as a ‘woe is me’ type of update, but just an honest comment on where I am right now. I don’t deserve pity or sympathy because I could still be an analyst for the government, living in a nice house in the city with no debt and plenty of disposable income.

In my about me page, I quote Sterling Hayden. Here are more of his words that ring so true to me:

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsman, who play with their boats at sea — “cruising”, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and have the means, abandon the venture until your fortune change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.
“I’ve always wanted to sail to the South Seas, but I can’t afford it”. What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of “security”. And in the worship of security.

I’m off to take a long walk on the beach so I can enjoy some of that fleeting sunshine!

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Dealing With Wet Clothes in an RV

It wasn’t until I had to deal with wet bathing suits that I finally came up with a place to hang up a wet or snowy coat in my RV. In Oliver, I found myself draping my wet things over the lounge chairs, which I realised a couple of months later was really stupid seeing as the solution was in my hardware box.

The solution is a ‘valet hook.’ It fits over the side of my shower and gives me a hook for hanging things as well as several spaces for hangers. I bought it so long ago I don’t remember how much I paid, but I’m sure it was no more than a couple of dollars.

CIMG0002

hook1

It’s great to be able to come home at night and have a place to put wet things or to hang things that I hand washed. The only caveat is that moisture seems to stay in the shower and things take a while to dry, so cracking open the door a tad is good idea if the radiant heaters aren’t on.

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Pineapple Express

Without getting into technical meteorological terms, a pineapple express is an atmospheric phenomenon that brings a heck of a lot of rain to the Pacific coast. In BC, this also means that the mountains get a lot of snow. Once over the Rockies and emptied of its moisture, the pineapple express becomes a Chinook wind in the prairies that can dramatically raise the temperature.

In short, it’s really warm and wet here in Campbell River this week, averaging eight or nine degrees. I’m ready to pull out my shorts (well, almost) and am increasingly sick and tired of the spoiled Campbell Riverites complaining about the rain and how ‘cold’ it is. I feel like shipping a few of them out east for a week. In Ottawa, for example, it’s minus thirteen right now while in Campbell River it is PLUS EIGHT. As for Dawson City, cripes, it’s MINUS FORTY-ONE.

Campbell Riverites really need to travel more… 🙂

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Common Decency

This post has me on a soapbox. I witnessed something today that enraged me and I really need to talk about it.

As a bit of background, gas purchases need to be prepaid in BC. When someone lifts a nozzle at the pump, there will be a grating beeping sound inside until the pump is activated by a cashier. Today, this sound went on for five minutes as I dealt with customers. I was becoming increasingly annoyed with the person who had left the nozzle in their tank while they came in to pay. I was incredibly busy, but as the line dwindled down I concluded that the person whose pump was shrieking wasn’t in the store. The alarm finally turned off, but I could still see a car parked at that pump. For some unfathomable reason, a feeling of dread overcame me. Something just felt wrong.

I still had several customers waiting in line and I told them to wait while I went outside. There, I found an old woman sitting on the curb, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I fell and I can’t get up,” she whispered. The first responder in me kicked in and I did a quick evaluation. She seemed okay, although her knee was swelling up a bit. I helped her up, no small feat as she was quite heavy set, got her pump started, and helped her gas up. She assured me she was okay to get home and that she was going to be seeing her doctor tomorrow. Remember that I still had a lineup of people in the store as I was doing this.

When I came in, I apologized to everyone for the delay and explained what had happened. Two people replied “Yeah, we saw her go down as we came in” in the same tone that they would use to state that the sky is blue.

WHAT?! While this poor woman was on the ground crying two men just walked past and ignored her. They were about my age and I have to say that this sort of apathy is too common within my generation. I feel ashamed.

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PLUS Nine!

I woke up in the middle of the night (which is the early hours of the morning for me 😀 ) gasping for breath. I kicked off my blankets, did a very nonathletic drop down to the lounge, turned off the heaters, cracked open a window, and took all the blankets off the bed.

*pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseletthewarmweatherstay*