Is Summer Vacation an Oxymoron?

ox·y·mo·ron noun \ˌäk-sē-ˈmȯr-ˌän\

a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly :  something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or incongruous elements

I’m not sure about you but lately I don’t feel like I’ve been on vacation, the summer has been very busy, long days of working hard and a few days (or should I say hours) of playing hard. Since I quit working in 2001 it’s often felt like I’ve not only lost my house cleaning team but I lost vacation days and paid holidaysJ.

I know it’s been sometime since I’ve done an Austin update so before time gets away from me again I thought I’d do a quick update. Really not working is not boring there are still a few days when it feels like there is never enough hours in the day to accomplish all that I want to do. And through it all I don't try to live my life through my computer and phone, there is so much more to life than emails, texts, facebook, twitter and all that other stuff that has little impact on those around you, which in the end only takes me away from the present and building those future memories.  

We had our appointment in Mid-June with Hematology, all numbers in his CBC w/differentials look good. Knock on would – we haven’t seen any of the complications associated with a splenectomy. As of our appointment we only have to have blood draws once a month now, next one will be July 8, just one more thing to put on the big calendar of life to make sure I don’t lose track of when the last one was done and when the next one is due.  When it was once a week I didn’t have any problems remembering.

Remember I am a “senior in training” so I’ve got these little quirks occasionally when I’ll walk upstairs and forget what I went up there for, walk all the way back down and then remember what I was going to do.  I call this “senior exercise” when you have a two story house with a basement.

I’m starting to plan Gen’s next hockey trip, in less than a month we will be in Boston for another tournament, we are both looking forward to this trip, we had so much fun last year, and for me it’s a great break from routine in the middle of summer.  Then I looked ahead to August and was surprised that driving to Vermont isn’t really much further than Boston (as long as we hit the Toronto area at the right time as we cut across Canada), and after making those two trips Stoney Creek – Ontario, Cleveland – Ohio and Ottawa – Ontario (two tournaments in September and Ottawa is the first one in October) should feel like a walk in the park.  I’ll cover as much as the fair weather traveling as I can and I’ll leave Jer with the snow storms.

And now it’s 9:40 p.m. and as a “senior-in-training” I think I’m going to call it day. Even though I don’t have to get up early sometimes I’m wide awake and ready to go at 6 a.m. I think that comes with age too.  You’ll really know I’m getting this down pat if I make Gen go to dinner at 4 p.m. in our travelsJ.  I figure in a little over three years when I turn 60 I should have this down pat

Good thing “Hair is for dying, and Life is for Living” 

Don’t sweat the small stuff

Self-talk often helps, so when you see me wandering around just talking to myself don’t judge me, I’m just trying to keep my sanity.

I’ve been in this old house for a very long time and in the beginning we had made some improvements and then all of a sudden it’s felt liked we’ve stalled, for years.  Naturally, we’ll blame it on the kids and my hubby has also blamed it on me (I was the one who decided to quit working in 2001 and I still have no regrets about that decision although I do miss my cleaning crew quite often J) and I’ll blame it on Jer, he’s always saving for retirement, I swear he wasn’t born in ’65 but he must have lived through the great depression, he doesn’t like to carry any debt, he’s a cash man.

So we’ve started changes, and we have planned some big changes into the next year (roof - again 20 years passes pretty quick and new siding.)

We are starting in the kitchen since I still have the same old Formica counter top that was in the house when I first moved in – it’s time. 

Updates were done in the 90’s and 00’s in the Kitchen (but like I said 20 years passes very quickly), Jerry can be quite handy when he has the time, I love the custom cabinets he built, and I love when he re-did the window and door trims, but when whoops (aka Genevieve) came along it seems like everything stalled (I didn’t realize child #4 would have such an impact.)

Years ago faux wall paper paneling was put up in the kitchen (actually twice in one year because I burnt the nipples – baby bottle nipples – boiling them in a small pan when I got a little distracted and the water evaporated – amazing how six little nipples could cause so much smoke damage). I plan to have the paneling removed and I had hoped to restore the wet plaster walls. 

To prep for the new countertop and back-splash Jer has removed some of the paneling and my heart sank just a little, construction adhesive was used, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to save and refinish the wet plaster (I will call in the experts and then I’ll need to determine if we save or if we gut and just replace with drywall).

The difficult part in all of this for me will probably be the passing of time from start to finish. Countertop, Sink, back-splash first, then the wall demo and repair and lastly I’ll move to the floor. The last time I did the floor I did all the demo and prep work for the new floor, was surprised when I removed the linoleum to find much older floor material probably from the 50’s and of course under that was the old hardwood.

That was back in the days when I had a lot of energy, 20+ years also has had an impact on my energy level.  And I chuckle every time I hear Jerry say how sometimes things seem so much more difficult or intense to accomplish, how he feels it so much more the next day. Then, of course, I remind him you’re preaching to the choir, I am 8 years your senior, just wait until you’re my age J.

Right now I just need to keep my OCD in check, to remove some of the paneling Jer removed some of the cupboard doors, honestly it’s driving me nuts every time I’m in the kitchen because I want to close the doors.  Self-talk isn’t helping.  I actually think I’m going to have him put the upper doors back on and if he won’t, I’ll do it.  I’ll have to continue with the self-talk, deep breath, eventually it will be done, the master plan will all work out and in the end I’ll be happy. I’m happy already that I’ve got Jer spending a little J. 

Funny story about the new sink, I picked one out I liked at Menards, Jer found the same sink online but cheaper, we ordered – didn’t know the seller was going through a third-party, third-party shipped the wrong sink, low-end.  When we contacted the seller they discovered that the third-party changed their inventory without notifying them and they gave us a full refund and told us to keep the sink (which I’m not going to use, not sure what we’ll do with it yet). Now that’s customer service.  Honestly, I would have been very happy if they would have just gave us the credit and sent us a return shipping label.  So I have a double-sink, looking for a new home at a much discounted price.

But for now, I’ll just keep taking those deep breaths, it will pass, the end will come – at least for this project until it will be time to start another. 

Please close the cupboard doors :-), you can see all the construction adhesive on the walls under the paneling.

Jer, years ago refinished the door and replaced the trim, this will stay. 

Number One reason for the wall demo, there is just dead space above the fridge, I want to open it up some, also I don't want to be limited on the height of the fridge.  

For the most part the cupboards have held up well, after all they are Jerry Built, who would expect anything else.

I love the detail Jerry put into the replacement trim, if only he had time to do more window trim in the house, the honey do list could be huge. 

Missed Turns

What’s one of my favorite things about traveling with Genevieve to unknown cities for hockey tournaments – it’s the missed or wrong turns.

Even with maps and Tom-Toms (GPS) I am sure of one thing on every trip we take together; there will be at least one missed turn, at least one time in which we will make a loop-de-loop as I call it.

Our journey to Brampton was pretty low-key, we arrived at the hotel with no problems.  It was almost eight in the evening and we still hadn’t ate dinner. She wanted to go somewhere where she could watch the hockey game (go figure) and picked Kelseys as her top choice.  I didn’t plug it into the Tom-Tom, I had done a quick search on yahoo.ca before we left and the directions seemed simple enough.  With a quick glance I thought the step-by-step directions would be all I needed so I only printed the steps (trying to be green and not waste paper or printer-ink.)

After two right turns, as listed on the directions, the directions (while driving) just didn’t make sense to me. I thought the restaurant was much closer, so I pulled off into a strip mall area and plugged the address into the Tom-Tom which still sent us in the same direction we were heading. 

The next right turn we started laughing because we ended up on the same major road we had taken off the highway to go to the hotel, with bumper-to-bumper traffic we realized we had just done a huge circle. And then we laughed even more when we thought of WWDD (What Would Dad Do) he would have been cursing a blue streak by now.  It ended up the restaurant was only about a block-and-a-half from our hotel.  Through this adventure we discovered/realized that from numerous streets in the Toronto suburbs you just can’t do a left turn, on major roads left turns are not frequent, often your only option is to turn right. Left turns are only allowed at major intersections with lights. We laughed even more on the way back to the hotel because what took us 30 minutes to get to our destination only took us a few minutes for the return trip.

We had a few other mishaps during our weekend, a GPS is great for locating a restaurant based on an address but sometimes a little misleading when you can see the restaurant but the address has no entry way from the road you are on, in our book just another reason for a loop-de-loop.

My lesson to Genevieve during this trip was that in life we will make a few wrong turns, a few wrong choices, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. It doesn’t mean we need to stress out, there is no need to fall apart or meltdown. It just means we need to do a loop-de-loop and follow a different path.  With a few extra turns, a few extra steps we can still arrive at our destination. In life there will always be a few learning curves and they don’t have to be crushing, they don’t have to be negative.  Life in my book is always meant to be an adventure.

As common in many of our trips together, by the end of our stay we got really good at navigating around our little area of Brampton. We mastered the learning curve and found the short-cuts, the side streets to navigate that same journey that took 30 minutes the first night to only take a few minutes in the end.

And, through it all I still chuckle, because if I just would have done it the old-fashioned way, asked for directions from the hotel staff, instead of relying on the GPS or map directions, we might have shortened that first trip right off the bat. There are days I think old-school, no electronics, doesn’t really get the credit it deserves.