Posts Tagged ‘planning’
Packing Drill
You know the drill. We are packing, yes we are. There is so much to be dealt with that I find myself a little overwhelmed. I like to have a plan, but I am just a peon compared to the way Cyndie processes things, and her methods tend to swamp any thoughts I might have about how to organize the monumental task.
My methods thus far have been a bit random. I went into our closet and pulled out all of my stuff, filling duffels and travel bags in my collection, with clothes I will keep, but don’t expect to wear in the next month. Last night, I already needed to dig into the bags to pull out proper attire for a wedding we attended.
I gathered all of my camping gear and put it in one box, clearly labeling the box, before Cyndie could mix my things with hers and pack it away where I may never find it again. Obviously, my methods are only a bit random, as I am partially operating in a mode of self-preservation by preemptively packing specific things I wish to have some control over.
This is the first time in my life when I have had to make an entire move in one large trip, and thus, ever needed to have everything prepared in advance for someone else to load and unload. It is a different beast to be reckoned with.
Friday, after having pulled every last item out of our electronic entertainment cupboard, except the primary components, themselves, I ended up with a pile of items I didn’t know whether to keep, or throw. The stack remains on the floor in that room. It consists of VHS tapes that probably tell the stories of our lives, but which no longer match the equipment we have in place to view them. More than once, we planned to have them converted to digital, but that keeps not happening.
There are also a variety of old software discs and books, which probably deserve to be discarded, but seem so un-trash-like that it is going to take an extra day or two before I can convince myself to just jettison them.
Yesterday, in effort to avoid that pile of stuff, I redirected my focus to purging some files. I dug out the manuals we have saved. I want to gather all of the things that pertain to the appliances of this house, to leave for the new owners. It was a kick finding how many documents we have been storing for items that are long gone from our lives. We giggled our way through them in a trip down memory lane.
There was the warning sheet about assembling the crib properly. That piece of furniture is long gone. Does anyone else keep the little flyers from their Conair curling irons and blow dryers? Or their Casio watches? Apparently, we have bought a lot of those devices over the years. Cyndie couldn’t remember how long it has been since we had a hot-air popcorn popper. We still have the manual for it.
I am hoping that the discovery of all these documents that we have never, ever pulled from the files for reference, …that we wouldn’t even think to look for in the file of manuals, will inform our future decisions on what deserves to be kept, and what doesn’t.
Tough Decisions
Here is a view of Cyndie in her glory, enjoying the great outdoors in the company of horses. Now, imagine this poor girl stuck inside a public school office building, in a big city, dealing with bureaucratic foibles, facing impossible situations, operating among a crowd of people with mixed agendas (many of them hidden, and some of them hostile), for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. That’s the way her work sounded to me from her descriptions. I’m wishing that she would never have to go back to that type of environment.
At the very least, I’m hoping she could do it as an outside consultant, with control over the hours, to allow her opportunities to spend quality time working with horses.
We are at a crossroads now, with her between employment, and us on the cusp of our dream. We are trying to move forward toward our vision, but are wrestling with how to do that prudently, in order to minimize risk of being under-prepared, or getting in over our heads. It doesn’t make sense to us, to throw caution to the wind and go for it, if we do so in a way that will have too high a risk of failure, leaving us unable to take care of the animals and property for which we become responsible.
Our happy-go-lucky styles are coming face to face with a need to make some tough decisions.
Suddenly, time seems to be moving pretty fast for us. Nonetheless, I think we are both finding pleasure being on this wild ride.
On Vacation
As of today, I am officially on vacation from the day-job. My ‘away notice’ has been programmed for the work email account, and I don’t plan to be back there until June 18. I found out yesterday that the onset of my vacation coincides with the school kids in my neighborhood, because yesterday was their last day of school. They are on vacation for the summer! Of course, that meant they could stay up late last night and party outside in the beautiful June night air.
I enjoyed hearing their laughter and mirth, because I wasn’t trying to sleep. I was staying up late to finish laundry, hunt for long-hidden items for camping, and generally preparing myself for this years’ bike trip. I am almost ready. The lawn is mowed, I got cash from the bank, and new batteries for my flashlight.
I have been slowly pulling out things I think will be coming with me, and they are strewn about in several rooms. This morning I need to pack them up and see what makes the final cut. I will be asking myself, several times, “What am I forgetting?”
I did my darnedest to thoroughly enjoy my bed last night. After having done this bike trip for many years –around 16 or 17, I think– where we sleep on the ground every night for a week, I know how much I will be missing my bed in few days. It was the last time I would be on this bed for coming days, and I really wanted to appreciate it.
I did, sort of. I was asleep for too short a time, being awakened early by lovely chirping birds at the crack of dawn and my busy mind, plotting how I was going to get myself prepared by the appointed hour of departure. The one thing that I didn’t accomplish yet is, giving my bicycle any attention toward cleaning and recalibrating. I think my chain has stretched a bit, and it hasn’t been cleaned in a long time. The shifting doesn’t seem as smooth as usual and I think the cables need to be pulled a bit tighter.
If I don’t have time, it’s ride-able. I’ll deal with it on the trip. We are supported by a van from Penn Cycle and a very capable bicycle technician. As much as I would prefer to have my bike in better shape, it wouldn’t be the first time someone relied on his expertise to get their ride in ship-shape condition.
I need to pack my things! And eat breakfast. And vacuum, sweep, and otherwise prepare the house for showings while I’m gone. All minor hassles, and, at the same time, wonderful things! Because, I am on vacation!
This Moment
Is it apparent that I don’t write as much about living alone? I am definitely noticing how the situation is feeling less significant for me. Part of me thinks that might not be all good. There have already been moments of frustration when a certain someone returns for a visit and my latest routine suddenly gets disrupted. What if I find that living alone becomes more appealing to me than living with my wife?
It that happened, I think Cyndie would gladly find space for me in the barn.
I don’t remember if I mentioned that Cyndie is coming home today for the weekend. It is supposed to be our final push to prepare our home for showing. I hope that goal is accomplished. However, I am detecting moments of feelings of insecurity as we get closer and closer to the reality of having our home of 25+ years sold.
Part of that is a result of not yet having actually seen any properties that inspire me as being potentials to meet the vision of our dream. If we don’t find a suitable place, after we sell this house, the teasing I have done about becoming homeless would turn into reality. My stoic front projects a readiness to deal with the inconveniences, but the little boy inside me feels more apprehension about the realities and the potential for extended duration.
They are just feelings. Feelings can be ameliorated.
I have less success managing my unconscious behaviors. I think I am clenching my jaw more lately. In the past, I have experienced bruising of my teeth from the pressure I exert. It can feel just like a cavity or other tooth problem. The tooth even becomes sensitive to hot and cold. When I am doing that, I’m obviously not relaxed.
I might be taking a calm walk on a beautiful morning, stopping to capture images that strike me, and at the same time, I am firmly clamping my jaw, without knowing it.
The day-job is in the midst of an extended period of amped-up stress, my chores at home exceed the capacity of my time and energy, and life as I have known it for a long time, is slowly being pulled out from under me, a little at a time. I clench my jaw.
I am also cognizant of the loss of my thrice daily endorphin fix from exercising, in the form of play amongst good friends that make me laugh. I am in need of some serious cycling time, both for the exercise and for the conditioning to prepare me for the annual week-long trip in June. The heavy load of the day-job responsibilities and the house renovations are conspiring to preclude access to pedal time.
One solution there, is to get organized enough to bike to work. Maximizes efficiency by providing exercise while getting me to the day-job. I just need to be sure I don’t need vehicular transportation during the day. Currently, that’s not something I am able to be sure about.
One simple solution: Live in the moment. This moment, right now. It’s all good. I smile, jaw relaxed.
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.
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.
Naked Truth
Hello, I’m John W. Hays, and I have a problem with planning. It bugs me.
I don’t know why it bothers me so much to plan in advance. There are times when I do pretty well at it. Maybe, it is the very fact that I am bothered by the need to deal with planning, that I tend to get it done. If I didn’t give it any thought, I might not prepare myself for anything.
When it comes to planning, truth be told, I don’t even like deciding what clothes to wear every day. That chore gets compounded, twice a week, when I need to prepare to leave early in the mornings to play soccer before work. If I don’t take care of that preparation the night before, I am hard-pressed to get out the door on time. This week, I have the added burden of making sure I am packed in advance to leave immediately from work on Wednesday, to get to the airport for the trip to Boston.
I suppose the thing that makes this such a peeve for me is my ongoing dilemma of focusing on being fully present in the moment, at the same time as being prepared for future moments. And that doesn’t take into account my interest in genealogy and remembering the past. It all seems so at odds. It is, and it isn’t. A lot like everything in life.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the thing that is really bugging me in this regard is the recent addition of needing to decide all my own meals every day. It is proving to be a great calorie reducing diet for me. Last night, I didn’t get around to taking care of the decision about what to eat, so I just didn’t bother eating. It is a solution I can live with when in need of some relief from the burden of at least one little planning decision.
That is a much more acceptable detail of life for me to neglect planning, than say, choosing my daily wardrobe. It’s not like I could get away with not bothering to wear clothes and going about my days naked, after all.
Adventure Deprived
It occurred to me last night, that I have developed a bit of adventure deprivation. I have allowed myself to become all wrapped up in the activities of moving Cyndie to Boston and figuring out how to function on my own at home; granted, both adventures of their own, but not the kind I long to explore.
My mind has been busy dreaming about our future on a horse-hobby farm, another good adventure, but right now, entirely virtual. I also haven’t been venturing outside lately, for my back-health-promoting half-hour walks. (Oops.)
Getting the house insulated in the nick-of-time before winter has been something of an adventure, but one that is contrary to the kind of which I am feeling deprived.
Alas, my good friend, and fellow Himalayan trekker, Pam, has alerted me to the upcoming Midwest Mountaineering Winter Outdoor Adventure Expo. After reviewing the talks, and the trailer for one of the films, I realized how far I have drifted from the mindset of plotting such bold adventures.
This isn’t meant to imply that I haven’t been putting a little thought into preparing my Icebox igloo tool for the coming snow season. I have. It’s just that it’s been very little thought. Also, I harbor a fair amount of skepticism based on my inability last year, amid generous amounts of raw material for the project, to successfully complete what I started. I’m missing some of the mojo that is required to push myself to the next level there.
Pam and I will listen to presentations on the subject of adventures in the Everest region and watch world-class movies of extreme adventurists and I will soak up some much-needed inspiration to knock me out of my outdoor adventure complacency.
Come to think of it, I will also have the advantage, this winter, of not needing to shovel off my roof every time it snows. I should have that much more energy available for whatever entertaining explorations materialize on my horizon.
Regular readers here will recall that I am big on the planning. It’s as much a part of my adventures as the events, themselves. Just reading about the Outdoor Adventure Expo –the presenters and their seminars, and planning out what we are going to attend– has energized my mind, awakening the thrill and feelings of well-being that outdoor expeditions do generate.
I thoroughly appreciate this readjustment of my thinking, as I was getting a bit too focused on my upcoming non-adventure: navigating airports on the busiest holiday-travel weekend of the year. Julian and I are scheduled to fly to Boston to be with Cyndie for Thanksgiving.
That… –the airport part– is one more of the kinds of adventure that I have NOT been longing to explore.
It’s Happening
The weekend is over and the date has passed when Cyndie was to give an answer on the job offer she received. There are still some issues to be worked out before a contract is signed, but she has given notice that it is her intent to accept. I will announce the position when it becomes official.
It is official enough for me. On Sunday, she was cleaning out her closet to figure out what goes and what stays. By evening, she was sorting the silverware to find a set to take. The garden has been fully harvested. It feels like she is getting deployed. It is an interesting step in our dream to move us toward living on a small horse farm, but we still envision it as just that: a step toward our dream.
I think I may have more time to write. And, I think I may have less time to write. It isn’t clear what life will be like for me in the house all alone. I’m looking forward to exploring to find out. Obviously, I’ll have a story to tell.
Great Anticipation
It is Thursday and I am now just two days away from a week of vacation, when I will be free from the demands of the day-job. Since I didn’t get a chance to take my usual week off for a bike trip back in June, and Cyndie and I didn’t take the 3 weeks off in July to travel to Portugal, I have claimed a week in August, while there is still some summer in the air. I intend to catch up on some sleep. I plan to watch some movies. I hope to create some art. I’ll probably take some pictures, and swim in the lake. Most important, I won’t be at work. I will be at our favorite getaway place, at the lake in the woods of Wisconsin.
One of the movies I want to watch is a repeat. I want to see “Dances With Wolves” again. Last night we stumbled on a television broadcast of the making of Dances With Wolves. That movie was made over 20 years ago. My, how time flies. It was interesting to see interviews with people who have aged since the filming and to recognize the passing of that amount of time by the changes in their faces. Obviously, the actors who were just kids at the time, show the most dramatic transformation.
I am a big fan of the movie. I do not feel swayed by any of the negative things I have heard in relation to it. The back story of the making of the movie revealed a fair number of instances where the project seemed unlikely to succeed. It is a marvel that all the potential hurdles were overcome and the final result received such acclaim.
I am looking forward to seeing it again. I am also looking forward to overcoming any hurdles that may arise to threaten my planned week of vacation. I am enjoying the simple pleasure of anticipation for the week that is to come. It is the first step in a process of getting the most out of time-off from work.
Relative Something 