| What the..?! What a crazy spring it has been. I missed March & April Blog posts but I think you can understand why. So many things have changed… I’m going to be frank. I really wanted to step up and be a voice in the darkness. I had visions of bringing you inspirational ideas to keep you busy and happy during our ‘lockdown’. Instead, like so many others I think, I just kind of crashed. My whole family is at home and that disrupted my usual schedule as follows: quiet coffee with CBC Radio, make a little Instagram post. Check my emails and go out to the Studio to either paint or just look at what I have done… then in to the office to form a plan for the day and answer the many (or few) client questions via email. Then it is lunch and down to work. I like to finish the day off with a little creative painting time before making dinner. All that is gone now. I think for the first few weeks we just waited in uncertainty. I for one, did not leave the house. My hubby does not call me a bubble child for no reason. If it is out there, I get it - and hard. So I sacrificed him to do the weekly grocery store run. Then we sat and waited. And listed to the radio. (We don’t have TV thank goodness). though I have been exposed to some rather disturbing press conferences. I shut that down pretty quickly when it happens. And I've stopped listening to the radio for the most part. Now I listen to my favourite music. It is much nicer! Fast forward to binge watching Netflix, then Crave, then Amazon Video. And into the mix throw trying to get your ADD 18 year old to adapt to online learning. I don’t want to say I am giving up here, but yes, I give up. I think. (My son would beg to differ because I am a PITA). I think our communities all have just…. crashed…… Emotionally and physically this has been exhausting. When I think about it, maybe it is that collectively we were all already emotionally and physically exhausted but never had the time or took the opportunity to really drop it all and …sleep. I think we have done that now. I certainly have. And like any good nap, we are all waking up now and thinking “Ok, time to get something done”. (I hope we will all be smart about how we do that!) So here I am waking up now and I guess I should back up to reveal some circumstances that initiated our next response - Last year Sucked! My husband’s office was failing managerially, a difference in the provinces management style was very conflictual. So as his job came to a close we had some decisions to make. Last year I had the worst back issues imaginable. I was bedridden, drugged to gills and basically immobile . So in the new year I altered my business dramatically and began offering only on-line consulting and planning. It is something I have relied on in the past but to move exclusively to that is scary from a business viewpoint. We barely got off the ground when Covid hit and as much as I would like you to be focussing on decorating, I know you have many more things of importance. Like sleeping. I had the overwhelming feeling, when all of this started that it was a cue. A cue for change. But what can you do when you you have been self employed for decades, when your country basically puts a hold on everything and your whole family is at home staring at each other. Well, you move of course! This takes an extreme leap of faith and surrendering to the idea of fate. We are still leaping, but with a little more direction. So we put our house in the hands of a very competent real estate agent and said with bravado “whatever happens"… Half a day later we had a firm offer over asking and it was a done deal. No open houses and 2 showings shy of a nervous breakdown and it was all over. The emotional response went like this. “Wow!”….pause … “shit”. I have to say packing kept us busy. But I think in some ways we packed too soon - I noticed I had to keep opening boxes to find things I needed. Next on the covid trail was - where do we move to and how do we do it? Would we find a moving company? How do you say goodbye to all your clients and friends you love? How would we get rid of all the things we didn’t want when the dump and the thrift stores were closed. And most importantly, would we find a house?????? We decided to move to Leamington. We had been talking about it forever. My husbands family live there (fantastic people). There is open water, beaches galore, fresh produce and people we love. What more could you ask for? Oh ya… it is the warmest part of Ontario. So lets go... con't below ..  Screeeching halt! Houses were scarce and a couple we like had holds put on their listings. No one wanted strangers coming through their homes. Our agent had a hard time understanding what our intention was, since it was pretty much the opposite of ... all her clients. Our request: a one floor house with a garage. With good bones but a little sad. 'Here is one with a bathroom update'. Hell No. 'New kitchen'-Nope! How do I like my houses? RAW. I bought a finished house once. It sucked the life out of me. I never said I wasn’t a little crazy…. But though we wanted a raw house - we didn’t want a ‘falling’ down house. Apparently it can be a fine line.. Do you ever have moments where you you've convinced yourself you are calm. Ya, I’m cool, totally chill. We will find something. No biggie. I admit, I was starting to freak out! |  RE-DISCOVER SOME LONG LOST MUSIC YOU HAVE LOVED. A Belated Happy Easter |
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