Posts Tagged ‘change’
Lost Contacts
It took quite a few years, but I have finally joined the fraternity of individuals who have destroyed their cell phones in water. The relic, which was almost retro in its dated flip-phone design, is dead as can be.
I went through the routine of common methods used to recover a wet phone, but it was too far gone.
In my frantic multitasking to prepare for our first open house on Saturday, I tossed multiple things into the clothes basket for the trip downstairs from our bedroom. On the main floor, I took out everything I could see that wasn’t dirty clothes. Eventually, I came back around to hurriedly dump the basket into the washer. The phone wasn’t discovered until the final spin-dry cycle had ended. I was transferring clothes to the dryer, when the machine started to make a strange sound. I tried to deduce what could be going wrong with the washer, but, finding nothing, went back to pulling out clothes.
That effort soon revealed the source of the odd noise to be one flip-phone, stuck in permanent vibrate mode.
Of course, there is never a good time to soak your cell phone, but I just provided my cell number as contact method for people working on our house, as well as realtors who will be scheduling showings. This is a really bad time for me to not have my phone.
Fortunately, it is a real good time to upgrade my cell phone and take advantage of more current technology. I went out yesterday and purchased an iPhone as replacement. So, I now have a new phone, but I was unable to carry over my contact list, so if you are someone who may have reason to expect a call from me, you need to send me your number.
I will do my best to recreate my contacts, but I didn’t even know my own children’s numbers, having consistently relied on auto-dialing to reach them from my phone’s memory. I keep making gestures to reach for my old phone to look up numbers I am trying to remember, which is an interesting demonstration of habit over consciousness.
I’m hoping to get a tutoring session real soon, expecting there should be a simple step to save incoming calls to the contacts. I haven’t found how to do that on my own yet, as I am busy trying to determine simple things like, turning it on or off, and getting it to ring when I want and be silent when I need.
There is nothing like the acquisition of a new electronic device to demonstrate how far you lag behind the curve of common technical knowledge. It reminds me a bit of the feeling of growing old.
Doubts, Sure
Yesterday was the day we finally pulled the trigger. I signed a bunch of documents and Cyndie consulted over speaker phone as the realtor we have chosen to find our future dream horse property, talked us through the price we will set for selling our current house. Photos were taken of the rooms and we created the list of features that will paint a picture of how irresistible this place is.
Meanwhile, we have received a new batch of listings for properties that meet some aspect of our search for the place we want to buy. There are currently 75 to consider! It is a bit overwhelming. A couple of really fine-looking options are about as far away from my current employment as they could get, while still being in our range of reasonably proximal to the Minneapolis International Airport.
Two thoughts come to mind… How am I going to keep the day-job, if the property we choose ends up being really far away from work, and how am I going to keep up with the chores this new property will require if I am driving for hours to spend days at the job-place? Oh, and another one… How will we afford the new mortgage if I don’t keep the day-job?
Sure, I’ve got doubts. But this is our dream, so you dispense with the doubts and trust the worthiness of the dream. Somehow, things will work out. Even if I can’t see how, yet.
The magic elixir of excitement and anticipation is coursing through my system. It’s invigorating.
…And a little nerve-wracking.
Dream Hesitation
What the heck do I know about owning a horse farm? With the brains of this organization off gallivanting around Boston right now, it is I, your humble correspondent, who am on the front line of decision making. Yesterday, we received the first batch of properties from the realtor we met with a month ago, and I noticed some things about the listings that triggered a little apprehension in me.
“Do we know what we want to spend?” she wrote. Um… no. Well, that’s not true. We would like to spend nothing, but I assume that is not going to bring the results we are hoping for.
Private sewer? This property has a private sewer. Oh, just what I always wanted, a sewer of my own.
One property had a lot of acreage, but within a flood plain. Do I want to open that box?
Then, there are all the improvements we did to our home of 25 years. Looking at this first list of potential properties, I see all the things we’ve already done here, needing to be done all over again. Oy. Siding, insulation, gas fireplace insert, gutters, windows, garage door and floor, new driveway, landscaping, kitchen remodel, bathroom upgrades. Did I mention siding?
And, of course, now we are going to have all the walls and ceilings here repaired, freshly painted, and new carpet installed! How many of you can see John deciding to stay here and rent a stall in a stable nearby for Cyndie to have a horse?
Cyndie is the true dreamer of our team. I’m just a tag-along. I fill in some of the creative blanks, but I also tend to drag in a bit more realism (read “pessimism”) than she wants to hear. I guess we are a good balance, eh?
It doesn’t feel right trying to do this without her around.
But, hey, don’t let me get you down. This is just a normal phase of my processing things. I’ll get over it. Seriously. And, Cyndie visits again in about 3-weeks. In just a few minutes of arriving, she’ll have me back up on our dream cloud and we’ll be designing our little paradise together as if it is what my whole life groomed me to be doing.
Meanwhile, maybe I should sneak out to visit the horses she tends to here, on my own, and just stand near them… see if I can hear what they have to say. I could use a dose of their wisdom.
Decisions, Decisions
Here we are again, with the clocks adjusted ahead, moving dusk beyond the dinner hour. That means darkness is delayed long enough that chores can be prolonged later into the evening. Oh, joy.
I spent the weekend removing wallpaper from 2 bathrooms. I am really glad that is done. Now I am struggling to figure out how to choreograph the next phases of drywall repair and painting. Ideally, the furniture should be moved to a neutral location, but we haven’t got a room that doesn’t need work.
I have no idea where I am going to end up sleeping.
I will likely have to ask the crews doing the work to break the job up and just do portions at a time. That would allow me to empty some rooms by putting everything into a different room that will be done later.
On the surface, that may not seem like too big a deal, but I am here all by myself, and moving furniture alone is an onerous task, especially with degenerating discs in my spine.
It is less than a year now since I suffered the first symptoms of pain from degenerative disc disease, for which “the first line of treatment is usually to avoid aggravating the condition. Modifying activities to preclude lifting of heavy objects and playing sports that require rotating the back (e.g. golf, basketball or football) can be a good first step.” (from Lumbar Degenerative Disc Disease Treatments by Peter F Ullrich, Jr., MD)
On the subject of not playing sports that involve rotating the back (or pounding up and down the hardwood gym floor), I was considering canceling my membership to the sports club where we play our three-times-a-week morning futsal games, and just quitting cold turkey. I had already reduced my attendance to Mondays and Fridays, but since my most recent flare-up, haven’t played for 3-weeks, and I will have plenty of work to do on preparing the house for showings, and will ultimately be moving to a more rural area that will likely pull me away from the games anyway. It seems to me, quitting now would be a logical thing to do.
But… maybe I have played too many years with these guys to just disappear. Something is keeping me from taking that step that would guarantee the conclusion of my participation. Part of me is wondering about the possibility that I might experiment with altering my level of play to become more conscious of how I move during action. I could practice being light on my feet, and deliberate in my attempts. I will be a bit slower, and probably less effective. I’ll finally start acting my age out there. If I learn to play more prudently, I may be able to prolong my opportunities to mingle with a great collection of friends who share my love of soccer.
That is, until we move out to live with horses.
Change Happening
I’m contemplating the relativity of fast, and slow. Change feels like it is picking up some momentum around my living quarters lately. At the same time, the process of preparing the house for actually showing to shoppers will take weeks that could turn into months. The process of selling the house could drag on for months. Actually closing on the purchase, when a buyer commits, will likely be another month or two. Who knows how long it might take to find a horse property that wins our hearts and fits our bank account?
Thinking like that helps drive me to get going! If I don’t get some progress in motion right away, those accumulated months will just keep landing farther and farther away.
Regardless, I feel like things are happening fast. I have a meeting at the house this afternoon with a friend whose company can do drywall finishing to finally clean up the holes punched in our ceilings during last fall’s insulating project. We also have some seams that need fixing, and a fair amount of nicks and dings in walls. After all the drywall is fixed, work moves on to the painting. The last step will be carpets, in any rooms where I am unable to convince Cyndie otherwise.
I’ve disassembled our electric piano for Elysa to pick up this weekend. I have removed an old television from the wall-hanger in our bedroom and will be passing that on to someone at work who offered to find it a good home.
Last night I was looking for manuals to put with the piano and television and was amazed to see how many manuals we still have in our files for items that are long gone. I should say, “still had” because they’re in the recycle bin now! It feels especially good to be making progress on de-cluttering.
Took some steps related to a name Cyndie and I are considering using for our new property.
Feels like things are happening fast! Sort of.
Meanwhile, we don’t know if Cyndie will be working in Boston for a short time, or a long time. She is due home for another visit in just a week and a half, so we’ll see if all the changes I accomplish by then have an impact that motivates her in any direction.
Finally, Progress
One of the things that feeds my hesitation to get underway with projects –like the most prominent one before me right now– is a lack of a clear plan. I don’t like to just jump in and get under way without enough forethought to avoid unnecessary inefficiencies, like moving furniture multiple times, or missing a step that should have occurred earlier in a process.
I don’t have a firm grasp on either the big picture, or the individual details of the process we will be going through to sell our house and move. I have what I would describe as a rudimentary vision of preparing our house for sale, while also shopping for a new property, and figuring out what to do with our belongings if the timing doesn’t seamlessly align.
Most immediately, we intend to spruce up our current living quarters. I’m told we will replace some carpet, remove some wallpaper, and paint some rooms. The first thing I was planning to do was take down everything hanging on our walls. One thing that has delayed my start with that project was my not being able to visualize what to do with everything I take down.
I started to collect some boxes and packing material, but quickly realized it will be unlikely that many of our items will fit into boxes. The items that could fit are going to require a lot more boxes than I have so far. I researched how moving companies suggest preparing framed pictures. We are going to need a LOT of bubble wrap, too.
Yesterday, in order to make some progress, I decided to just stack pictures for the time being. I ended up with multiple stacks in about 5 different rooms.
.
Then I went throughout the entire house removing nails and picture hangers from the walls. The person who hangs most of the items on the walls in our family (not me) tends to use a wide variety of nails, screws, and hooks.
Once I got started, I decided to give some of the old wallpaper in our bedroom a little tug. Most of it came free without even needing to get the old glue wet. On one wall, there was older wallpaper underneath, but the other 3 walls had none.
.
.
It looks a little crazy, but at least I finally got the first task underway. Unfortunately, I’ve still got a LOT of work to do, protecting all the picture frames I took down. And after I accomplish that, I’ve got to figure out where I’m going to stash them!
I’d sure like to avoid having to move them more times than is absolutely necessary.
Helpless Feeling
Waiting, powerless, for nature to take its course and drape our trees with heavy burdens of ice and then snow, is a real exercise, but not one that is very rewarding. I am always fascinated with dramatic weather events, but when a storm involves the slow stress of accumulating ice on otherwise innocent tree branches, my fascination becomes tumbled with a bit of anxiety. Presently, this region is beset with an ugly, grumbling winter storm. Trees are drooping big time.
What can I do? I binged on a few extra Girl Scout cookies last night that were left as gifts by guests of our weekend event. It doesn’t quite solve the helpless feeling, but it massages the pleasure centers of taste and texture, providing a temporary distraction. (All those good intentions of last week, where I walked and exercised every day, diminished, by a moment of weakness.)
We have lived in the house on this lot for about 25 years. Just 3 days ago, Cyndie and I met with a realtor to begin the process of selling this home, and buying a horse farm. It would be a shame to lose trees any time, but right now would be very unfortunate timing. I won’t be available to clean up downed timber. I am tasked with removing wallpaper.
What is the deal with wallpaper? When it was installed during our remodel, it was the crowning achievement. It finished the rooms beautifully. All the comments we received were positive.
Now that it is time to sell, wallpaper has got to go. Out with it before somebody sees it!
What changed?
Why do people even bother putting wallpaper up if they are going to have to take it back down again, and it is such a pain to remove? I don’t understand “decorating.”
Drooping tree limbs. Wallpaper that has fallen out of favor. They both give me a helpless feeling.
Yellow Orange
The color of the landscapes in my region seem to change by the hour lately. It is mesmerizing. Yesterday, when I left the driveway to head off to the day-job, the leaves of our trees hardly hinted of the end of summer. Upon my return, at the end of the day, the difference was downright shocking! The honey locust tree that dominates one side of our lot had changed to a glowing yellow-orange color, and in the span of hours, was already showering everything beneath it in a blanket of those tiny leaves.
Unexpected Surprise
From the file marked, “You never know what’s around the next corner,” …I walked into my local auto repair shop to pick up my car that was in for service yesterday and began chatting with one of the friendly technicians. I had my mind on having just left work, getting to the shop before 6 p.m., paying for the car being serviced, and figuring out how to get the extra vehicle back to our driveway.
While the guy behind the counter tended to another customer, I greeted Tom, one of the more social techs, and asked how he was doing and if he was enjoying the weather of this time of year.
He revealed himself to be a big fan and began listing the things he likes about it, like the decline of the pesky mosquitoes. I tossed out another aspect that I liked, the end of mowing season, and he stopped me there. He still has mowing to do on his property. I questioned why he would prolong that chore. Wasn’t it dry enough lately to just let it go? As he began to describe his situation, my eyes opened wide. He has a hobby farm with multiple 1200 pound manure producers, he was telling me. I don’t know what that has to do with needing to mow, but that didn’t matter to me any more.
Manure producers? “Tennessee Walkers,” he explained. I was talking to a guy who works on my cars, and who lives on a horse hobby farm like the one Cyndie and I are dreaming about. I gleefully described our (now somewhat delayed) dream, and then his eyes lit up. He told me that there are three horse properties surrounding his that are for sale and have been on the market for a long time. “It is definitely a buyer’s market right now,” he said.
He seemed so excited for us and the possibilities, that he said, several times, that he was going to stop at a couple of the places on his way home and pick up the brochures for me. I found it interesting that the feature he felt most worth mentioning regarding one of the places, was its driveway that went on and on. It is one feature that particularly appeals to both Cyndie and me. For some reason, we both want to have a long driveway. It seemed valuable to him, but he didn’t know that it held special value to us.
Listening to him talk about the farms was both fascinating and intimidating. I quickly became aware of how little I know about this type of thing. It was also very inspiring, leaving me feeling like we may find it easy to make the move from our suburban home to a rural hobby farm. He said that in his community there are more horses than there are people.
I can’t tell whether this will make Cyndie’s time in Boston go by fast, or seem like it is taking forever. If we find a place that we want to buy before she ends her work out east, it will be a difficult situation. With the challenges we will face if we are to become farm owners, I have a feeling like it will seem like it is coming at me faster than I can prepare myself for, even with all the time we’ve spent lately conjuring up this dream.
To think, all I had on my mind when this started yesterday was picking up the car…
Tennessee Walkers, eh?
Altered Perspective
Nothing is ever really as hard as we make it out to be. It is remarkable, the mental power we have to influence how realities play out. If I think that some task is difficult, and I keep repeating that message to myself, it seems only logical that the perception I develop is bound to make the task more onerous than it would otherwise be. Especially as compared the choosing to entirely refrain from telling myself anything negative, and forging ahead without hesitation to tend to the task at hand, regardless the challenge it presents.
I spent the majority of my life under the duress of a negative perspective. It is a complex collaboration of insecurity and dysfunctional thinking that conjures up a belief that this is a sound and logical manner of reasoning. Yet it is the kind of thing that one defends with stubborn resolve. It is such a misguided effort.
Nothing is as bad as it seems. The pains we cling to, the wrongs that we have experienced, are ours to release at any time. It is absolutely possible to give them up in an instant. Both Cyndie and I have learned to do this. In time, it is possible to become aware enough to avoid even taking on certain mental burdens in the first place. It is something that I wish I had learned to do much earlier in my life.
It was never as hard as I perceived it to be.
Relative Something 