uhn-sur-tn-tee

un·cer·tain·ty

Spelled[uhn-sur-tn-tee]

–noun,plural-ties for 2.

1.      the state of being uncertain; doubt; hesitancy.

2.      an instance of uncertainty, doubt, etc.

3.      unpredictability; indeterminacy; indefiniteness.

4.      the state of my life at this moment.

You know we’re moving, right?

Packing up, heading west?

To scale some mountain peaks?

Oh, and for Buzz to start a new job?

If you haven’t heard before…well, yes ma’am (sir) we sure are!  Buzz has accepted a transfer to do a clean-up job at a resort at the top of Tod Mountain, a quaint alpine resort just north of Kamloops, BC.

I’m thrilled for this move not only because the West is the Best, but also the fact that Buzz was tapped for this opportunity means the work he has done here on the sandbar is being recognized by those important people that count…you know…the ones that sit in their office towers in the centre of the universe and decide the fates of people below them?  Those people have Buzz on their radar and it’s a very good thing.

So yes, a couple of months ago the call came:  “We need you.  We want you.  We must have YOU.  Because YOU and only YOU can save the universe from collapsing in upon itself.  Oh, and because you did such a good job on the sandbar, we want MORE of your YOUness in the west.”

The decision to go wasn’t hard.  Aside from 30-days of pro’ing and con’ing, the choice to list our house, quit my job, load up the Dude & the Midget and make tracks west really wasn’t tough at all.

It’s all the OTHER stuff that came along with that one decision that’s filled our lives with so many “uhn-sur-tn-tees”.

We had some friends for dinner Saturday night and as our move is (theoretically) impending rather quickly of course the conversation turned to us and our plans.  They had lots of questions:

           

          Them                                                      Us

Q1       “So, when exactly are you leaving?”                          "um, don’t know."

Q2       “When do you start there?”                                       "um, don’t know that either."

Q3       “How long will it take you to get across country”     “depends on the answer to Q1 & Q2”

Q4       “Where will you live”                                                “um, not sure”

Q5       “What will you be doing, Kim?”                                “uh, don’t really know”

Q6       “Where will you spend Christmas?”                           “hopefully not in a tent, but don’t

really know”

Q7       “What will you do with your house if it doesn’t sell?”“REALLY don’t know”

Q8       “How long do you think you’ll live there?”               “beats me”

And so it went for over four hours.

Sigh.

It’s hard to make plans when you don’t have answers to some of life’s most basic questions.  And you all know, I’m a girl who always likes to have a plan.

I’m trying to look at this time before our move west as a real growth opportunity for me.  Not having a plan buttoned down means I’m trying not to control every little contingency.  It means an opportunity for me to take a deep breath and just go with the flow.  It’s a chance to really test my ability to not eat away my anxiety.  (So far, so good, if you don’t count the big bag of Hallowe’en candy I just bought for my “students” nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Someone’s Facebook status update recently said:  “let go, let go, let go some more.”

It’s becoming my mantra as we approach the end of our time here on the sandbar.

Let go, let go, let go…some more.

It Has to STOP.

Usually I use the space on this blog to write about the minutiae of our life here on the sandbar and to muse about the uncertainties ahead on our road west.  I like to keep it lighthearted, humorous and mostly frivolous.  Usually.  But yesterday, I came across a post on a blog I follow that stopped me cold in my tracks, moved me to tears and made me so angry.  So today, my little blog, with my small following will become my soapbox in the hopes that the more people are aware that this is going on the more voices we can raise to stop the bullying that's killing kids.

I see it every day at the school where I teach.  Kids who think they're being funny, or smart, or just for the sport of it think it's okay to demean and demoralize another, just because they're different.  This particular article is about gay teenagers being bullied, literally to death...I haven't seen that yet at my school, but I can easily see how it could happen.  We've all become really good at tolerating intolerance, turning a blind eye, pretending we didn't hear that racial/sexist/homophobic slur.  When we pretend we don't hear or see we are in fact promoting the behavior.  It's time we stopped.  So they'll stop.  And then the kids will stop...killing themselves.  

 Here is the article I'm referring to.   I hope you'll read it.  And then do something in your local community/school/office/work-place/park/mall to  MAKE THIS STOP.

Tree, Frog, Downward Dog

This summer I took some time off from the fitness regime I started last year.  With the long, hot days of summer I just couldn't bear the thought of locking myself away in a gym to run on a treadmill, or even worse, to sit amongst 30 other  sweaty gym rats at a 90-minute hot yoga class.  Instead I tried to earn my activity points by daily walks, working in the garden, outdoor bootcamp, etc.  This is how much things have changed for me...I actually chose to go hiking when we were in Alberta & BC this summer.  Yup - I'm a certifiable move it or lose it kinda gal these days.

But, the days on the sandbar are getting shorter.  And wetter.  And windier.  With the coming of fall and the beginning of my teaching contract I don't have as much leisure time to slot my activities in whenever I feel like it, so I thought it best to get back into some sort of fitness routine.   I've returned to the gym and starting last week to my Monday Night Sweat-a-Thon - Hot Yoga.

If you've never taken a hot yoga class, or a Bikram's class let me tell you what you're missing.  Typically the classes are 90-minutes long.  The yoga studio is dimly lit and intensely hot.  So hot that the thermostat reads 105-degrees (f).  There's typically a fan blowing the hot air around the room and, in the case of the classes I take on the sandbar, about 30 other like-minded individuals in varying degrees of dress and undress spread on their mats about the room.  The less you wear, the less you suffocate.  The more you wear, the more you sweat.  A case can be made for either side.  I choose to dress somewhere in the middle - enough clothing to cover up all the jiggly bits and not so much that I die of asphyxiation.

So, last Monday, there I was kitted out in my bike shorts and tank top, lying prone on my neon green yoga mat trying to calm the voices in my head and clear away the day...breathing in...and...out...in...and...out...when I heard the creak of the studio door, felt the cool breeze of fresh air rushing into the room and with it, the smell of a newcomer. 

He smelled like old socks.  Old socks that had been left in a hockey bag to ferment over the winter.  Old socks in a hockey bag that had first been rolled in poop.

Guess where he chose to roll out his mat?

That's correct...right behind mine.

To add insult to injury (and let me tell you, I was injured after spending 90-minutes inhaling hot, sweaty and STINKY air) I managed to catch a glimpse of the offending yogi whilst twisted into a "happy baby" pose.  The guy with the big stink?  He was one of my former students.

So yeah, hot, tortuous class, coupled with overly ripe former student who was mostly nekked.

Can't wait for tonight's class!

Well, If Oprah Can Do It...

Oprah's been doing it for a couple of years.

I have other friends that have been doing it a while too.

This week, even my MOTHER started doing it.

So really, what choice did I have?

I had to join the Digitals and get with the program.  After-all, I couldn't be bested by a woman 21 years my senior who admittedly thinks the technology that allows us to pick up a plastic device in one's home and talk to someone on the other end of the country (you know....the "telephone") is mind-boggling.

I got a Skype account.

Let me tell you how my world has changed by simply downloading an application to my computer that allows me to call people and video chat with them...LIVE!  It is SO cool!

I know by even admitting how cool I think it is, I am now by definition completely and totally uncool, but there you go - that's the story of my life.

I Skyped with my mom first.  I watched her drink her scotch while we chatted.  All these years, I had no idea she drank while we talked.  The things you learn in a digital universe.

Yesterday I Skyped my 13-year old niece and we had a great laugh about where to position the camera so you don't have a double chin...or making sure to wipe the dust off the monitor so it doesn't appear that the person you're talking to has a big booger in their nose...you know, important stuff like that.  We also caught up on movies we've seen, how our school years have started and where we each respectively write our thoughts to share with the world.  I'm a blogger, so is she.  Again, the things you learn when you can look at someone when you're talking to them.

But here's what occurred to me this morning as I was thinking about the Skype call I'm scheduled to make today at noon.

Most of the time I look something like this:

(truth be told, I seldom have a glass of Sangria in my hand, but it's a cute picture, so there you have it)

But now that I'm Skyping to talk to my friends and family, I'm going to have to do my hair and make-up - otherwise everyone will know that in reality...I normally look like this:

So, did I just improve my life by learning how to video call or complicate it more?

I Don't Know Where I'm Going, But I'm on My Way!

Phhhhhhh…..Here I am blowing the dust off this old blog.   I’ve been gone for a few weeks and that seems to be the trending theme with this old blog lately.  Sorry.

I’ll tell you why I slowed down stopped writing a while ago.  It wasn’t that I was soooo busy redecorating, traveling, gardening or reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy.  Nope.  It wasn’t that I was too busy to write; au contraire, I had plenty of time to for that.  Uh-uh.  It wasn’t that I didn’t have things to say; if you know me, you know I always have something to say.  Nope, it wasn’t any of that at all.  Here’s what happened:

My blog got discovered.

I mean, ordinarily, in the blog-o-sphere having your blog discovered is considered a good thing.  Right?

More readers = happy writer?  Right?

Well, probably for most other bloggers that’d be true.

But not for me.

You see, my blog wasn’t discovered by “the masses”. 

Nope. 

It was discovered by one person. 

Snapshots was discovered by …

One of my former students.

And so, why would that keep me from writing you might ask?

Well, people, I had to pause for a bit to figure out how I felt about someone from my place of employment having insights into my personal life.    Because, just like in the Republic of the United States of America, I like to keep Church (work) and State (life) separate. 

I mean it’s one thing to share the details of our life with  friends and family spread across this vast and wide continent, but isn’t it another thing entirely to have people outside of my inner circle reading the daily minutia that makes up our lives here on the sandbar?

So, it’s taken me a couple of months of thought and here’s what I’ve decided.

There are really no state secrets on my blog.

It’s a great tool to share what’s happening in our world, so far from our families and closest friends.  It’s a creative outlet for me.  It’s a place I can showcase my growing skills at photog’ing (new word meaning the taking of photographic images).   It’s fun.  I like it.  I’m not giving it up dammit.

Buzz and I are about to embark on a really big adventure in uncertainty that will take us many more miles away from some family & close friends (but closer to others) and what better place to keep you all apprised of what’s happening with us than to continue to update here?

I may redesign this site.

I will probably rename this site.

I don’t know.

Just like almost everything else that’s going on in our lives, this too is changing.  Come along for the ride, won’t you?

The Sound of Silence

We have friends here on the island that have a dog that doesn't bark.  Doesn't that sound lovely?  Well, the dog actually does bark, but when he does he makes this weird, laryngitis-sounding squeaks.  At best, he sounds hoarse, but mostly he just sounds ridiculous.  As a former show dog (and when he was owned by someone else), they had his vocal chords nipped.  Isn't that horrible?  I think it's horrible.  I would never do that to one of my dogs.  Nope.  No sirree.  It's just not right.

Or so I thought.

But then The Gidge, over the last couple of years, has developed this incredibly annoying, jump-out-of-your-skin, barking tirade habit and the more we had to endure it, the more we started wondering "just how much do you think that vocal chord surgery would cost?".

You see, she may only be 10-lbs of Silky Terrier, but in her mind, she's 1000-lbs of Grizzley Bear.  To say she's territorial would be an understatement.  She's got hair-trigger nerves, and, well, it's been a bloody bark-fest around these parts for way too long.

Some of the things that could set her off?

• A ballcap resting on a doorknob
• Inconsiderate placement of the tv remote control ("inconsiderate" is anywhere within her sight line)
• Me, dancing in the kitchen
• Snickers, whenever he moves too fast for her liking
• Frieda
• The wind whistling through the trees (dare I mention that here on the sandbar, it's always windy?)
• Perhaps the worst of all though is anytime anyone knocks on, or rings our door.  That unleashes a tirade that only stops once she's hunted down the culprit and heaven forbid we lock her in the kitchen while we attend to the person at the door.  That will set the Gidge into a fury the likes of which you'll hopefully never know.

Oh, we consulted with our vet who in turn consulted with the animal behaviorist on staff at the Atlantic Veterinary College.  We thought it was anxiety and perhaps it is...but the behaviorist diagnosed it as adult-onset crankiness.

What?

"It's the breed" said she.

"The breed?"  said I.

"Yes.  This breed of dog is known to be exceptionally territorial and the older they get, the more this comes out in their personality and really, there's not much you can do about it, short of medication."

I just couldn't see myself shelling out $$ every month for valium for the dog when I don't have my own prescription, so we muddled on, hoping and praying that the Gidge would perhaps grow out of this phase.  I mean, she grew into it?  Maybe she'd grow out of it?

It just got worse.  The barking, while not exactly non-stop, sure felt that way.  You can see the attraction of the vocal chord surgery, now, can't you?

Well, before we went down that road, I went to my local pet store in search of some sort of training device that might help us with this problem and lo and behold...my local pet store guy had a couple of solutions.  One involved a very expensive sonar/vibrator/I don't know what else contraption, but that would only work if she were an outside dog.  And as thrilling as the prospect of putting Gidget outside for the rest of her life was, we remembered the birds of prey (not to mention the local coyotes & foxes) and decided, no, she's best suited for the indoors.   That took that device off the table.

Which left us with this:

It's a little battery-operated device that when activated by the sound of barking emits a little citronella infused spray of air, right into her face and guess what?  IT SHUTS HER UP!

Really, it's quite funny - she's surprised every time it happens and she looks at me with a "WTF just happened?" expression.  But it does the trick.  It breaks her fixation on whatever has her attention and she stops barking.  Silent Gidge.

I put it on her every night, about a half hour before Buzz comes home (because, yes, as soon as she hears his car in the driveway she starts with the announcements "he's home, he's home, he's HOME") and while she may bark once, she does not bark incessantly.  It is a thing of beauty.  Silent Gidge.

We've been using this little contraption every night since Friday.  Which means we've now had six nights of uninterrupted sleep.  Six nights of silence, courtesy of Silent Gidge.

You have no idea how this has improved the quality of our life.

Nookie Nookie

Oh, get your mind out of the gutter...I know what you're thinking!

So, hellooooo!   Is there anybody out there?  It's been so long since I've posted anything I'd be shocked if I still had readers!  It's no excuse, but I've been busy producing my very own version of  Extreme Makeover, the Kim & Dwayne Edition the past few weeks and, in between vacuuming up drywall dust, rolling miles and miles of paint onto thirsty walls, pushing furniture around, restoring old furniture and you know, traveling, putting the garden in, etc., etc., etc., well, it's been a busy summer so far.

So what led to this sudden desire to re-do the old farmhouse?  Well...On a dark and stormy night  way back last April, our roof blew off the house.  Okay, it didn't exactly fly off the house, but suffice it to say enough of the roof blew off that we ended up replacing the entire thing, tar-paper, shingles and all.  It just made sense given the interior damage caused by the rain that fell into our attic and onto our upstairs hallway ceiling.

There's no worse enemy to a house than water.  Take my word for it.  The havoc it can wreak - it's ugly.

The resulting repairs took 8 weeks, not because roofers are in such short supply here on the sandbar.  Nope.  Our roof was repaired within mere days of it blowing away.  No, it took 8 weeks because our handy-dandy, insurance company recommended drywall installer could not manage to schedule the repair to our upstairs ceiling for 6 weeks...despite my almost daily phone calls to remind him that the work was yet to be completed.  I know what my next career is going to be, if this whole teaching thing doesn't work out, is all I'm saying.

Anyway, we went away at the end of May with the hopes and dreams that when we came back the interior work would magically be done and we could move forward with the next phase of the project which involved painting the entire rest of the house.  You read that correctly.  The.  Entire.  Rest.  Of.  The.  House.  90% by myself...but with exceptional taping produced by Buzz - he's an artist with a roll of green painter's tape, believe me!

So while it's kept me from posting here on any kind of regular basis, I have to say...it was well worth it because now...now...I have a house that after living in for almost 3 years I finally LOVE!  It's a thing of beauty.  I know I'm biased...but really, take a look...

Isn't it purdy?


So when the upstair ceiling got replaced and painted the resulting paint job was "cut" into the hallway walls.  And you know how old farmhouses are built?  One hallway leads to another and before you know it, painting one hallway leads to the livingroom, leads to the nook, leads to the mudroom and so on.  


We selected a lovely, buttery, creamy shade of "rattan" and let me tell you, does it ever warm up our home.  

We moved furniture about from the nook to the kitchen and from the basement to the nook thereby adding about 200 sq ft of space to our living-room that until now has been un-usable...

Added some framed photographs of island scenes I've taken during our time here...

And shabby-chic'd out one antique buffet for the mud-room I found for a steal...

And suddenly, this old house feels like something fresh and new...and lovely!