Relative Something

Noticing what comes to mind this morning, but not really putting any effort toward structuring the thoughts with reason or rhyme.

I seem to be tolerating well enough living in our house alone, while my wife works in a city 1500 miles away.

.

.

.

.

.

Living in a house under repair/redecoration is a great motivator for recognition of the value of feng shui.

If I don’t see crap that is broadcast on television, I free my mind from unwanted influence.

I am sentimental, yet I feel prepared to jettison much of the miscellany that I have collected over my lifetime.

It is way too easy to lose connection with people who were part of my life, but simple to keep trinkets.

When I lose motivation to prepare my own food, the quality of my meals plummets.

Allowing myself to be isolated inside the disrupted living quarters on a gray, rainy day, drains motivation.

Trying to catch up with sleep deprivation can make a Saturday disappear uneventfully.

Watching spectator sports is greatly enhanced when shared with like-minded fans.

It takes motivation to become energized to attend a social event.

When a Saturday has dwindled away, it makes Sunday feel way to close to Monday, and the work-week.

Music of favored artists is a wonderful motivator.

Sunshine is also a good motivator and a balm that soothes.

I am resonating with the idea that less is more.

Wondering if I could generate a more meaningful post by writing less.

There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of free time in my days of late, but when I can steal a few minutes for leisure reading, I have been following the activity of a current expedition on the mountain that Sherpas call, Sagarmatha, (Mount Everest). I want to give a shout out to the sources of information, daily providing almost real-time reports from the individuals taking part in the adventure.

There are others up there, but the expedition I am watching is co-sponsored by The North Face and National Geographic, with support from Montana State University.

The Mayo Clinic is also involved in doing research on the members, and providing some blog posts, so I suppose I should say this post is four shouts (three shouts just sounds better).

There is some fascinating reading at the sites I have linked to above, and also plenty of really great images captured. I encourage you to take a peek of your own. The North Face blog is mixing in other content, so you may have to scroll down some posts to find the Everest reports. I have found the writing of all the participants to be really high quality. Well worth the read.

It is interesting for me to think back to the discomfort I experienced at a fraction of the elevation they call home for a couple months. It is a special breed of people who do what these explorers are doing at, and above Everest Base Camp.

For inspiration, I’m throwing in one of my favorite shots that I captured of Himalayan peaks (not Everest).

We are well into phase II of our home project. If you are a new reader, my wife and I have hired professionals to freshen up our house in preparation of offering it up for sale.

The completion of phase I was very rewarding and led to a fair amount of cleaning and packing while Cyndie was home last weekend. Now, I am alone again, and phase II work is creating a return of an unfortunate amount of white dust from the sanding of drywall repairs, and the lingering unpleasant smell.

The first time around, that smell was perceived as progress. This time, fatigue has me thinking about it with a little less enthusiasm. I am really looking forward to the conclusion of sanding, painting, and new carpet installation.

Others have suggested the possibility that these improvements will lead to us wanting to keep the house, because it will look so good. We are both open to that possibility. We are fortunate, in that we don’t have to sell right away. We’ll test the waters, but if the interest isn’t there, I have no problem continuing to live in this house by myself.

I’m definitely not being very rough on the place, so any improvements we make now should still look fresh if we hold on to the house for another year or two. It also means we have the luxury of being choosy about the horse property of which we are dreaming!

I have no idea how long Cyndie will be able to endure the struggles of trying to accomplish some success in Boston, so that aspect of our future could end up being decided before we even get around to changing our living accommodations. Either way, the house will be ready, and I will be ready.

************************************

Speaking of ‘second phases,’ the entertaining Stanley Cup playoffs of the NHL will soon be entering the Conference semi-finals. I have lost most of the teams in which I had interest. Out are the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Redwings, Pittsburgh Penguins, and last year’s champion, the Boston Bruins. Tonight, there will be two game-sevens, out of which there is only one team I would care to watch in the next round: the New York Rangers, because former Minnesota Wild center Marian Gaborik now plays for them.

It will be interesting to see if I stay engaged enough to keep watching the games as the playoffs continue, if I no longer feel a connection to any of the teams involved. That would be sad. I might have to get off the couch and actually go out and get my own exercise. Now that I’ve given up my thrice-weekly morning indoor soccer games, my exercise regimen is uncharacteristically thin.

I will need to enter the next phase of my over-50 workout program… more bicycling! That would be smart, since I hope to be appropriately prepared for a week of cycling in June, when the annual Jaunt with Jim ride happens. Yay to sleeping in tents and getting up before the sun for a whole week of vacation! It’s a good thing the people on the ride are so great, it makes it worth any discomfort we may face.

Discovered this 20-something-year-old message on the back of Elysa’s bedroom door. It is a pleasant reminder of raising kids in this house we are cleaning up to sell. Soon, this place will be ready for the next young parents looking for a place to spend their child-rearing years…

The amount of things that Cyndie had stored in the closets of the kid’s two bedrooms surprised even me. You’d think I would know better by now. We are hoping to ‘stage’ the house for photos and then actual presentation to potential buyers. It is looking like we will need to find some storage space for the excess furniture and typical variety of other appurtenances that have accumulated over the last two and a half decades here.

My occasional de-cluttering efforts over the years have been trivial.

Well, dear readers, I am happy to report sweet relief in my struggle to endure the chaos of the piles of inverted furniture stuffed into our library room. On top of that blessing, this weekend I am enjoying the company of my wife, Cyndie, home for her once-a-month visit from Boston.

With Cyndie’s unparalleled energy for managing chaos, in just one day so far, I have seen rapid progress in the tasks necessary for us to show our house to potential buyers. I tend to take care of one thing at a time, and often neglect to notice the next thing lingering beyond, soon to need attention. Even though I try to think ahead to a point that will keep me from doing things twice, I am being reminded that I don’t visualize to the depth that Cyndie does.

She really wanted to go get more boxes this morning, but I had a strong desire to just focus on the immediate task at hand: getting the furniture out of the last two bedrooms, to make room for the drywall company to scrape the textured ceilings and prepare the rooms for paint. I made her go up to the rooms with me, so I could show her what needed to be done, and why we shouldn’t need boxes. She took me to the closet, which won’t need any attention from the drywall or paint crews, but will need to be cleared for the carpet installers.

“You need to go get some boxes,” I said.

In some ways, the progress is scary fast. Phase II of the drywall work starts Monday, and painting could start by the end of the week. If everything falls into place, the carpet could be installed by the end of the following week, and we would be ready for a final clean-up (Cyndie’s specialty) to begin showing the house. Unfortunately, Cyndie won’t be back again until Memorial weekend, and the plan there was to head up to the lake place for a getaway. There is no space in the schedule for her to ply her magic in final preparations around here.

That leaves this weekend, which means a lot more work, in a very short span of time. That’s more work than I realized we were facing.

Speaking of which, I gotta go! There’s work to be done!

I am back to sleeping in the master bedroom! Yahoo! I am amazed and thrilled at the rate of progress on this project. The painters were already prepared for the carpet crew to start yesterday, and the carpet guys showed up earlier than anticipated, successfully completing all of the work that was possible in this first phase.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to get furnishings moved right away last night without help, but after learning my first two contacts weren’t available, I gave it a shot. I felt motivated enough to take on the struggle to get the king-size mattress out of the room it had been stashed in, and drag it down the hall to the master bedroom. That was the hardest part. The rest of the task to get me a place to sleep upstairs turned out to be well within my ability to manage on my own.

I am very, very pleased to be out of that library sleeping situation.

Yesterday I was fretting over the color choice the painters were suggesting for the areas on our main floor that had previously been whiter. They felt the shade that we have used in the upstairs bedrooms would work well in the kitchen. They talked me into it. I think they were right.

I am also pleased with the look of the new carpet and how it fits with the wall color I selected from the two options the painter offered. Whew! That is a relief. I was fretting that one.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what I think. And that’s the hardest part for me. These decisions are being made to appeal to some strangers that are going to be looking to buy this house to live in themselves. That has made me more inclined to go with the suggestions being offered to me, even when they don’t feel like the choice I would make for me. Time will tell whether buyers approve, or not!

Some before and after shots…

The house project is making good progress, but it involves a level of disruption that I failed to anticipate. I think I let myself become over-satisfied with what I thought was an impressive level of preparation I had achieved. I had pictures down off the walls. The furniture that could be removed was removed. I figured it was ready for paint.

When I got home from the day-job yesterday, I saw the level of preparation a professional painting company goes through to do a job right. Light fixtures have been removed, and the wires capped off. Plastic has been taped up over every surface that doesn’t get paint. The kitchen sink has paper taped over the faucets. I can’t open the cupboards to my dishes because of the plastic taped over them.

I hadn’t honestly considered the details of this level of the project in the kitchen and main floor bathroom, and I’m now having second thoughts about my idea of living here throughout the entire job.

Luckily, the two upstairs bedrooms appear to be done. The painters have removed all the tape, plastic, and tarps. This afternoon, a floor covering company is scheduled to put new carpet in those rooms. My original hope was to move my bed back into the master bedroom, and then empty the last two upstairs bedrooms of furniture by transferring it all to the two finished rooms. Then the drywall crew comes back and we start this whole process again.

At this point, I just don’t know when I will have things moved to allow the next phase to start. This weekend, Cyndie is coming home for a visit. That may, or may not, help progress. I’m not sure.

I’ll find out today whether we can overlap painting and new carpet installation. Will they really be able to bring in new carpet while the painters are working on the main floor? It might be easiest to take a screen out of an upstairs window, and pass new carpet up from outside.

It’s just part of the adventure, you know?

I know it is a logical guideline to eat three meals a day. There are 24 hours in a day, and we are supposed to sleep around 8 of those, so the remaining hours are divided for our intake of nourishment. The digestion process is not instantaneous. Time is required to break down the nutrients and distribute them to the appropriate body part or organ. It just doesn’t work to take in a day’s worth of fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins, and fats all at once.

Regardless my goal of seeking optimal health, left on my own, especially on weekends, I frequently fail to achieve the recommended 3-meal routine.

Certainly, the fact that I don’t like to prepare meals, must account for part of this deficiency. But beyond that, I just can’t get myself to make it a priority with the time I have available in a day, even though I know better.

One of the problems for me, is the fine line that exists between ‘optimal’ and ‘good enough.’ I liken it to the more extreme versions of why people will smoke tobacco, drive distracted, ingest intoxicants, or be sexually promiscuous. The ultimate consequences are not immediately apparent. It doesn’t seem to be harmful in the moment.

I have found it rather easy in my life to eliminate obvious unhealthy actions, like smoking, eating an unhealthy diet, and not getting exercise. Just like sanding and polishing a sculpture, after you take care of the big flaws, the ones that previously appeared insignificant, suddenly stand out. In the grand struggle of survival, it is not a big deal to skip a meal. But, it is something I could improve, which is the whole point, when working a path toward optimal health.

Eat healthy and enjoy your meals today, …all of them!

It’s only been two nights of NHL’s Stanley Cup playoff hockey, and I’m completely consumed by it, regardless the fact my team from Minnesota didn’t even come close to qualifying. So much for getting anything else done. Every game is being broadcast by the NBC networks. That’s probably why I found myself up too late the last two nights: because the games were on TV! There’s nothing like playoff hockey.

Progress on the house continues, and there is new paint on some surfaces. Mostly, there is tape on all the trim. Seems like painting is the smaller part of this job. Most of the time is spent preparing to paint.

I’m chipping away at the landscape work and quickly feeling the absence of Cyndie’s handiwork around our yard. Don’t know how I’m gonna keep up. It is a little weird working on things in the yard with the thought in mind that I may not be around to see it all reach full growth. An article in yesterday’s newspaper was highlighting the upswing in home sales. The guys working on fixing up our house all seem to feel it will sell quick.

One of our painters brought a flyer for his father’s horse property after he heard our plans. I can’t wait until Cyndie visits so we can talk over the pros and cons of the 8+ properties that are currently on our radar.

This weekend, Julian and his house-mate are visiting Cyndie and exploring Boston. Then, next week, Cyndie will be home for a few days. I am hoping to have painting completed in two bedrooms upstairs, and new carpet installed. If we don’t get our bed set up again, we’ll probably be staying at her parent’s house. The little twin I set up in the library will not cut it for two of us.

I am counting my blessings today. Sure, we should do that every day, but it seems more pertinent in light of three situations I learned about yesterday.

It all started when the name of a friend and former coworker was discovered in the obituary column of the local newspaper. That was followed by word of two different instances of couples separating.

It’s unsettling.

I am growing more comfortable with my circumstance of having my wife live in Boston while she works for the city’s public schools, as I remain in Minnesota and work my day-job, and prepare our home for being put up for sale.

Difficulties I face here seem a lot less significant in comparison to the tough news I’m learning about others. I wish it made my struggle over which color paint to pick for the bedrooms, a little easier. It doesn’t seem as important to me as it did a day ago, but a decision still evades me.

Regardless, I have many blessings for which I am feeling very grateful. I’m making a point today, to count them.