Work

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Final Thoughts On My Year in Lethbridge

It looks like I am on schedule to pull out sometime tomorrow morning. I have decided to meander through southern Saskatchewan rather than race to the border as I am leaving a couple of days earlier than planned. I’ll therefore be overnighting at the Walmart in Swift Current tomorrow.

I’ve been asked a number of times about how ready I feel about leaving, with the meaning being “How sick are you of Lethbridge?”

The answer is that I am not sick of Lethbridge, but I am ready to go. I know that what I needed to do here has been done and it’s time to move on to new challenges. My being here has not been unbearable and if I needed to stay a while longer, that would be fine. But I have come to a point where I feel that I would gain nothing more here.

As I wrote at the beginning of winter, I very much believe that we all have a life plan. I can always tell when I’m following that plan or not; the further I get from it, the more chaotic my life feels. When I am firmly on it, like I am today, I am awash with a feeling of serenity. When I ignore the niggle at the back of my brain, as I’ve done several times in the last three and a half years, I feel uneasy, worried, and out of control.

My time in Lethbridge has allowed me to gain professional growth that I truly believe I would never have had in my old life because I wouldn’t have believed myself capable of the challenges of management. When I last saw my boss, he confessed to me that it was only the office manager’s urging that allowed for me to take charge of the apartment complex starting in late June. He trusted her that I would grow into the position. I feel that it took me till well into November to really feel comfortable with the job. But he said that he knew by the end of July that I was going do great in the position! I appreciate so much that I was allowed to make mistakes and that my judgment was trusted. My feelings for this company are difficult to put into words. I am just so happy to have worked for it for the last nine months and am still in disbelief that I have such a wonderful tangible reminder of how I felt while working for them.

The personal growth that came from this job is also immeasurable. I was finally able to let go of my need to be liked and that enabled me to be respected. What an adventure and a half that was! I have finished a rough draft of the little ebook I’ve promised about my winter adventures and I hope to have it out shortly!

The idea of Travels with Miranda isn’t just of physical travels, but also of a journey of the soul, of a half-baked person seeking to find her true voice. So often we get lost in the minutia of daily life and others’ expectations for our life that we never learn to grow into our person. I am returning to Quebec very confident and ready to hold my head high against those folks who measure success in financial statements and who told me that I was throwing away my life. Oh, I did do that, and look at the life I am now living!

I have a ton more stuff to move back into the rig and an apartment to clean, so I’m off to do a final burst. Departure tomorrow is scheduled for 11ish, but no sooner than when an order of Jody’s muffins arrives. 🙂 I’ll post before I take off, then it will depend on cell coverage in Saskatchewan, which is spotty at best.

 

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Last Night in the Apartment!

I can’t believe that tonight will be the last of sleeping in the same room that I cook and work in! And no more noisy fridge!

I have a few hours of transcription to do, and then I am off for a solid week. I have handed in my final time card for the apartment complex, so I am officially done there. Oh, I am available for questions, but I’m not going to be sitting in the office any more.

Sometime tomorrow, I will pull out and get Miranda prepped, then Jody (who has decided to come after all) and Gary will be coming to help me with the furniture. The Apartment doesn’t look anywhere ready, but I know that everything will come together quickly. I haven’t decided yet when the cats are going back into the rig. They will either be shut in the bathroom here or in the back of the motorhome during the move, but I want them to sleep in Miranda tomorrow with me as leaving them alone in a half empty apartment will be traumatizing to them.

I can’t believe how quickly the last six months have passed!

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On Schedule, But Feeling the Pressure

I have another full day of transcription, so I didn’t start anything in the rig today that I couldn’t finish in a few hours. I woke up feeling ambitious and was going to put on a coat of yellow in the front room and loft, but the amount of transcription ahead of me this week curtailed that enthusiasm. I will paint one wall that is getting on my nerves, but that is all.

So today I redid the entrance stairwell. I cannot believe what a difficult project it is to make it look nice and still be water tight. It’s much, much better than the last attempt to improve it, but still not particularly photogenic.

I also brought down a couple of loads, including some food! Having food back in the rig is really starting to make departure day feel very real. I started the fridge on AC yesterday, and it’s already nice and cold, but I won’t be putting anything into it until I fill up the propane.

With all that needs to be done with the rig, it’s easy to forget other issues I need to tend to before departure. The biggest priority are my taxes and end of this invoicing period’s bookkeeping. I did remember to call the credit card company today to inform them that I’ll be traveling through the US, but declined to purchase my travel medical insurance until I know for sure what date I’ll be attempting a border crossing (it looks like Monday, not Tuesday, at this point!).

Jody has decided that I don’t need her help to get my mattress back in the rig and the borrowed furniture out of The Apartment, so departure will really depend on Gary’s schedule. I asked him for help the last time I went for dinner and he was amenable, so it’s just a matter of finding a matching free time slot. I would really rather do it earlier in the day so that I still have a few hours to square away The Apartment so I can spend just one night in the parking lot here, but if it ends up being a couple of nights, that’s fine.

A week from today, I will most definitely be back home, on the road. This winter, the best of my life, has been an incredible personal and professional journey, but I am more than ready to see what comes next.

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Just About Ready for a Homecoming

It’s amazing how quickly I was able to get the rig squared away this morning! Except for the case of the missing driver’s side curtain (very curious), I’d say my study is looking pretty good!

Now:

versus before:

Here’s the small bookcase and desk with the new tops:

Here’s the best before shots I have of the set up before:

and

Where the top was just put there for storage/picture taking and wasn’t attached or usable in any way.

Doesn’t it now almost look like a built-in now, instead of a mix of two unrelated pieces of furniture? The top is fantastic; it fits perfectly, so no more dropping things behind the small bookcase! I will probably end up putting a hole in it for feeding wires so that I can keep my external hard drives on the bookcase, but I won’t know for sure until I get my tech back in here later this week.

I also squeezed one of the end tables in beside the filing cabinet… and forgot to grab a shot of that! 🙁 I wish I would have thought of doing that sooner so I could have refinished the top. But I’ll leave it as is for now. I just didn’t have space for it in the library and it gives me some space to store all the leftover paint. 🙂

I’m going to bring one more load down, then I will get back to transcription. My time management today has been excellent and I am making great progress with both projects. Another thing that is helping me feel accomplished is that I have put two bags full of donations in the car and I know I can at least double that amount by the end of the week!

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Behind Schedule, as Usual

I was asked to do some transcription this weekend. I’m currently working for my beginning of May pay cheque, so I’m trying to get in as much work as possible as it will be lovely to have some real income in the middle of my travels. But I took my client to his word that he’d sent 131 minutes of audio (9 hours of work) when it was actually 161 minutes (11 hours of work)! I didn’t clue in to this till late today and what was supposed to be one hour at the apartment complex stretched into three. So I’ve been in income mode for most of the day. I’m not complaining. 🙂

This has actually been a blessing in disguise since it’ll give the brown paint an extra day to cure before I start shifting things in the rig. I did put on the three coats of sealant to the bookcase and desk tops. I hope that will suffice to protect the paint job.

Each time I’ve gone down to the rig, I’ve brought a small load of things. Croft asked in a comment how much extra stuff I’ll need to lug down and the answer is nothing. I’m actually going to be giving away a lot of clothing, which will actually mean I’ll be bringing less into Miranda than I brought into The Apartment. This should serve as sufficient proof to the continued doubters that I continue to have a full-timer’s mentality. That said, I brought everything up over the course of six months and plan to bring it down in about two days, so it’s going to feel like a big job! I need to get into the habit of not going down the stairs without something for the rig.

I plan to bookend tomorrow with transcription and move forward with squaring away the rig in the middle of the day. Once everything is away, it’ll be easier to start bringing in loads of things on Monday.

Departure day is really going to depend on what day I can get help from Jody and/or Gary to get things back into the rig, but it could be as early as a week from tomorrow, but hopefully no further away than eight days!