Four Days

I woke up to my fourth and final day of solitary confinement at home. I was up before the sun this morning, so I didn't lose a minute of my last day at home.

Four days. Here are the stats:

• Two days of work, totalling 12 working hours
• One home cooked meal (okay, I turned on the BBQ, charred three hamburgers and four hot dogs which meant I didn't have to share this food fest and my BBQ'd meal lasted all weekend)
• Two outbound text messages
• One, three hour long phone visit with a friend
• One entire day on the couch, watching TV
• One hour long walk (the only time I have stepped off the property)
• One work-related drop by delivery
• One pizza delivery 

Friday was my son's first day back at University. I was home. Alone. The phone rang once. I didn't have to leave the house. It was an absolutely awesome day.

Saturday was a highly verbal day. My telephone conversation with a friend was the next best thing to "being there". We shared laughter, tears and easy conversation that goes hand in hand by knowing someone who has been there through every bump and turn of "life", the past forty four years. This was followed with a highly interactive day of working from home. Lots of phone calls, conferring and putting our heads together.

Sunday, I felt absolutely wordless. I walked with a friend near the day's end but I listened more than I spoke and did not have it in me to prolong the walk with a cup of coffee at the end. I returned from my walk at the same time I normally return home during my work week. I came home, climbed into my pajamas and called it a night.

Which leads me to Monday. Today. A day I plan to spend immersed in photographs and memories. One box is mine; the other box came from Mom's.

It's been three years without Mom. Three years and I still have not unpacked all the mementos I brought home with me. It just dawned on me this morning that perhaps the reason these boxes never got unpacked is due to my duties as an executor. I was buried in numbers instead of memories. It is time. I am ready, revitalized and raring to go.

These four days at home have been just what I needed, when I needed it the most. 

Feeling Awesome

The feeling of "Ahhh ..." is coursing through my veins this morning. 

It is Friday. I don't have to leave the house today, tomorrow or even the next few days. All "must-do" errands have been run. I am home.

My son is starting back to school. While the new school year still holds its fair share of nerves and apprehensions, his world has become far too small the past six months. Routine, structure, learning and socialization will be a very good thing. I feel a sense of my "ahh-ness" extended towards my son.

My apprehension about leaving the province has been sanctioned by the powers that be. It is recommended to stay within the province unless absolutely necessary. So I have no guilt over remaining home this last long weekend of the summer. 

I spent almost half of my monthly income yesterday so my budget strings are tied tight. The challenge is to live within my means for the remainder of this month so I can breathe a little easier next month.

COVID restrictions, budget restrictions, a return of some semblance of normal for my youngest son and simply knowing though I have the option of leaving home, there are no obligations outside of our property line this long weekend equal a state of contentment within.

The feeling of "ahhh" is pretty "ahhhsome".

Happy long weekend to all. May a little bit of awesome find its way into your world.

One Day ... But Not Today

There will come a day when replacing my car is smarter than repairing it. Thankfully it is not today.

My car simply didn't start when I turned the ignition five days prior to the day it died. When it happened initially, I gave it a few more tries, panicked slightly as I wondered if that was my last "start", but when it started easily the next time (and the next nine start-ups) I began to wonder if I had imagined the one time it didn't start.

Long story short, it wasn't my imagination. My car died last night.

As I sat and waited for the tow truck to arrive, I mentally tallied how much I have saved and how much more I have to go before I can shop for my next car. I berated myself for believing I was in a relatively good financial position after paying down last years bills to zero. I started to believe I had jinxed my luck.

Then the tow truck driver arrived and had a few tricks up his sleeve.

When the car didn't start by boosting the battery and a little more troubleshooting, he said he had one more thing to try before he gave up. He slid under the car, tapped the starter, told me when to start the ignition and the car came back to life.

He suggested I keep the car running until I arrived at my final destination because the starter struggled a little before it started. So my car spent the night at my friendly neighborhood mechanic's parking lot and a new starter has been ordered. I should be up and running by later this afternoon.

A new starter verses a new-to-me car? The starter wins. I can coast for a little while longer.

Of all the times and places for my car to abandon me, I could not be more grateful to be stranded in the grocery pick-up parking stall, fifteen minutes from home. I quickly assessed my situation. My grocery supply had just been replenished, a long weekend (with an extra day added to it) was on the horizon and I had no where to go. I was dreaming of five days of being stranded at home and I was not disappointed.

Granted, shopping for a different car would have added a dimension to the isolation which would not be ideal. But hey, I was still grateful I hadn't been stranded an hour and a half out of the city, in a spot with no cell service (I know this, because I tried to make a phone call), with my aunt on the day my car first died.

Do I feel like I have a battalion of guardian angels watching over me? You bet I do. Of all the times and places for the car to quit, this was one of the best options. I was on my way home so I had fulfilled my obligations for the day (and just one day shy of getting through the week). The car died on a Wednesday which allowed one business day for my garage to get me back on the road again before the long weekend.

As much as I long for isolation, I am grateful for the knowledge I can go anywhere I need to go by having a fully functional car in the garage.

I am feeling incredibly lucky this morning. My only challenge is in attempting to squeeze both a new car starter AND house insurance out of one month's wages. It's worth a try. 

When I first started visiting my aunt on a regular basis, I remember the sensation of feeling my uncle (her husband) and my dad's presence surrounding us. It was strong and I could almost reach out and touch it. Initially, it felt like a warm hug but as time went by, it felt a little more like someone walking along side me as I made my way through the days. Over time, that feeling diminished and I thought of it less and less. Last night, before I left my aunt's, I looked up at a picture of her and my uncle and my heart skipped a beat as I remembered how palpable I felt his presence over the course of time. I silently acknowledged his presence and wistfully thought of the years I have walked this walk with my aunt. I thought of the idea of all my "heavenly angels" for a fraction of a second.

I snapped back into the real world and as I headed home, I had every reason to feel stranded and alone, but I didn't. In reality, it is because I had a cell phone and all the numbers I needed to make my way back home. It was less of a problem and more of a slight inconvenience. But the feeling I had as I glanced up at the picture of my uncle was still within my subconscious thoughts. My state of well being was more than the convenience of cell service.

One day, my car will not start again for me. It is not today. I am grateful for my handy dandy mechanic at the end of the block, the funds to keep it running, cell service to call for assistance as needed and if there is an angel or three watching over me and keeping life only mildly inconvenient instead of major catastrophies, I am eternally grateful.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

 I woke up before the sun today. 

It was chilly so I pulled on some brand new fuzzy socks, grabbed a sweater and turned on the under the counter lighting in the kitchen.

I padded around the dimly lit house and welcomed the darkness around me.

The sun and summer have felt like an assault to my senses this year. I am ready to hunker in and hibernate.

I'm sipping my coffee as the sun starts to rise and I feel a calmness within.

Hello Darkness, I have missed you.

Pandora's Box

We woke up to a fresh, new calendar page this morning. A clean slate. A fresh new beginning.

I look at my personal calendar and I feel refreshed as I look at a blank page with no appointments, no upcoming commitments and thirty days of empty boxes.

Then I open the door to my home office. The same thirty days is filled to the brim with must-do, hope-to-accomplish, and endless to-do-lists. 

How can the same calendar page, only eight steps away, feel so different? Does the inability to catch up with my bookkeeping job spill out into the hallway and zap my energy reserves I have within my own personal life?

I am grateful for my office-with-a-door. I close the door in the same fashion one manages a closet filled to capacity and the contents must be stuffed back inside as one struggles to shut the door. My home office feels just a little bit like Pandora's Box. 

Is it by accident or design that our vacuum cleaner has taken up residence just outside my office door? I thought I had left the vacuum cleaner out, to encourage a spur of the moment vacuuming binge over the weekend. Instead, it appears this cleaning appliance is sitting outside the door of plenty, just waiting for the moment to clean up whatever spills outside the door.

I think it's time to get to work.

Paid in Full

 Another pay day, one more big bill crossed off my list-of-bills-to-pay is paid in full. Oh, what a feeling!!

It was approximately a year ago when I borrowed money from my son's savings account to paint the exterior of our home. I have been playing catch-up ever since. It has taken a year to get back to "zero" and my income has remained stable throughout this time. 

At the beginning of COVID, I was uncertain how my income would be affected. I had a back up plan but it involved incurring debt. Had worst come to worst, I would have qualified for the payments our government provided which would have been a godsend. Taking on added debt without a regular pay cheque in sight is incredibly hard to make up.

I count my lucky stars for every month where my income rolls in as expected and on time. I realize my income sources are not a guarantee and know I need to create a contingency plan for the time when this changes.

It took a year to recover from borrowing $5,000. What if my income was cut by a third? How would I manage? Contingency plans run rampantly through my thoughts as there will come a day when that becomes my reality.

Now that I'm almost in the home stretch of paying my major annual expenses (house and car insurance left to go), I must take action to ensure I'm not so reliant on every penny I earn.

It always ends up this way. The moment there is a small amount of wiggle room within my budget, I find a way to create the scarcity I am accustomed to living with. I've made do with much less in the past. I always find a way.

Back up plans, cut backs on personal spending and making do. I am grateful for the stay-at-home recommendations throughout this time. It has made budgeting so much easier to attain. 

Last July and August my vacation spending equalled the amount it took me one year to save this year. Then, I went on to spend that amount all over again throughout the remainder of the year. Vacationing is expensive!

I'm on the right track but I must admit COVID restrictions have made all things possible. Finding my way back into the black is a huge incentive to keep going this way. As my son quoted something he read long ago, when one is continually living in debt and fighting to pay it off, the end reward is, "All that hard work and budgeting and all I have, is 'zero' ". 

Zero is good. Ground zero is a very good foundation. Working up to that foundation is not without its challenges, but when you get there the tendency is to try to keep your head above water. 

Staying afloat is a life long endeavor. I am grateful for what I have, how I got here and my ability to maintain the status quo. At least for now. 

How in the world does a person ever retire when living pay cheque to pay cheque has been your reality your entire adult life? I'm sure life will teach me this lesson. 

To be continued ...

A Sign

A sign of what's to come ...

One leaf today ... more coming soon.