Sad Relief

Today we cancelled our five month reservation at our favorite place in Bucerias. We had talked about cancelling, but just kept stalling on actually doing it in the hopes that our reno would be done in time and we could still head south for the winter - but that is just not going to happen. So while it was sad to cancel, it also brought some relief, for now we do not have to panic when things are delayed, or rush about like chickens with our heads cut off to try to complete things in time. We still have to go to Puerto Vallarta to collect the things we had stored at Los Arroyos Verdes this spring, and to use a couple weeks at a resort in Punta Mita on our favorite beach (see pic) that we had already paid for.



So October 12-26 we will be fly down, fall exhausted on the bed - stare at the ocean, the Sierra Madre mountains, and the twinkling lghts of puerto Vallarta for two weeks in a state of sheer oblivion, and then come home and carry on - wishing we had not let go of our other five months of paradise.... Hopefully by December the basement suite will be ready to rent out, and if we are lucky, we can sneak away for awhile in January and/or February. After singing at Medici's a couple weeks ago we were approached by a couple who recently moved to Oliver. They loved our music, and said, "Hey, we have a 2 bedroom place on the beach in Panama where we go every winter. We would love to have you come down and sing at our local bar there. You can come down and stay with us for free!" Panama is the only country in Central America I have not been to, so maybe we will take them up on their offer!

Since we are staying home this winter, we have decided we will sign up for the local pickle ball and take in as many charity and music and food events as possible. We are going to get together with our friends that don't go south and play crib once a month, and hopefully our house will be in grand shape to host a bunch of dinner parties. The one thing we really missed while travelling was our friends and community, so we have a renewed sense of appreciation for all that Oliver has to offer, and want to take in as much in as possible.

Today is a busy day: we have to drive to Penticton to pick up a cargo van, go pick up a mid century table I bought, bring it home, unload it, then drive to Omak Washington to pick up some LED lights I cannot get in Canada, then to Oroville Washington to pick up my stove (so excited to use it), then to the farm store to pick up the galvanized steel watering troughs I am going to use as raised garden beds. They wanted $450 each at the Oliver farm store and 30 miles south in Washington they are $89.99. Price gauging I think - Cannot be all tariffs. My Mandalay bathtub and black stainless steel fridge also arrive today. Then tomorrow we have to drive to Kelowna to pick up the vanities for the bathrooms and a bifold door - I had to find a used, solid core door that I could cut because my contractor screwed up my rough opening, making it to small fr the bifold doors I already had - and they could not be cut because they are hollow. You gotta love Facebook Marketplace - lots of used things to buy for good prices. The door was free and I even got a good quality dishwasher for $50.

On Sunday the drywall guy will finish and then Stephane and I have only three days to paint the entire basement (walls and ceilings) and build an entire kitchen worth of cabinets. I do not know how I will manage - but I must as our guy from Calgary arrives on Wednesday to complete the reno. I used to be able to paint all day and into the night without taking a break. I remember once when I was 7.5 months pregnant I got up in the morning, got the kids off to school, popped off all the baseboards, pushed back all the furniture, painted the entire house, put the baseboards and furniture back all before the kids got home from school. Those were the good old days.

Now I drag my ass out of bed at 7, after being awake half the night ruminating about hood fans, drink two coffee, work all day at whatever it is I am working on that day, and by 2pm I feel like I have hit a brick wall. It is all I can do to scrape up enough energy to cook - in fact, most of the time I don't and Steph does it. Neither one of us is sleeping well - and it is taking its toll. We are trying hard to keep the mess out of our main living space, and maintain some semblance of order and calm - but it is near impossible. The mess is stressful, as is being weeks behind schedule, and operating on a few hours of sleep each night compounds it all.

Renovating houses is certainly less fun than it used to be. I LOVE the design part, and I love sourcing and buying materials although that part really stresses Stephane out. We have spent in excess of $40,000 in the past couple of weeks, and when he sees the money flying out the door without any visible progress he gets heart palpitations. I am not worried about the money. It is a cost of sales - so to speak. It is money I have to spend to make money. For me it is the hard physical work that seems so much harder than it used to. Moving drywall, shoveling gravel, carrying wood, climbing ladders, painting walls - I just don't seem to have the capacity to do as much, and each morning when I wake up I hurt all over and have to slide in to a hot bath before I can even bend enough to get dressed! When this reno is all over there will be joyous relief and some serious contemplation as to whether or not we will ever do this again.