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Performing a stuffectomy

/ edebock / 4 Comments

The same creative gal who originated Awesomeday introduced me to a new word this week: stuffectomy. In English, the suffix ectomy means to remove. A tonsillectomy is the surgical removal of the tonsils, a lumpectomy is the removal of a lump, and so on. A stuffectomy is, therefore, the removal of stuff!

For the past while, I’ve been performing a major stuffectomy. I started about a month ago by cleaning, reorganizing and getting rid of stuff from our basement storage room. The last time I performed such an extensive cutting out of stuff was four years ago when we were preparing to move to Japan for a year. In the three years since we’ve been back, clutter had once again taken over and the problem had spread to other parts of the basement. I’m currently working on the little room that was my office when I was still teaching school. It’s going to be a playroom for the grandchildren when I’m finished but I’m afraid that this phase of the stuffectomy operation is going slowly. Almost everything that was stored in that room has to come out and I have to find another place for anything that I decide to keep. Like a doctor cutting out cancerous tissue, I need to be aggressive!

I love getting rid of stuff but I hate to see anything go to waste. The question is always what should I do with it? I don’t want to clutter up my kid’s homes with my cast off stuff but several items did find their way to my daughter’s house this past weekend. Her children really don’t need more toys but they were delighted with the box full of stuffed animals that were Mommy’s when she was a little girl!

One of our three weight benches was dropped off at our youngest son’s place on Wednesday. We haven’t stopped lifting weights but we’ve had to adapt our exercise program to accommodate our aging knees and no longer need the third bench. It will be put to better use by Nathan and his roommates.

Lots of things have gone to the Good As New shop, the thrift store run by four local churches. The big challenge has been not buying more stuff while I’m there dropping things off!

I’ve even managed to sell a few items. I belong to a local Buy and Sell group on Facebook that has more than 1000 members and so far, everything I’ve posted has sold! It’s kind of like an ongoing multi-family garage sale but so much easier. I won’t get rich on the proceeds but a few extra dollars never hurt anyone!

As much as possible, things that can’t be reused have been recycled. We dropped an old computer, a couple of outdated monitors and a broken printer off at Centra Cam’s recycling centre in Camrose earlier this week. Centra Cam is a non-profit organization that assists people with developmental disabilities by providing them with training and skill development enabling them to reach their full potential and enjoy increased independence. It’s a pretty neat feeling knowing that my cast off stuff can play a bit part in something like that!

Alas, while I sit here writing this post nothing is happening in the basement so I’d better sign off and get back to performing the stuffectomy!

First stage finished - the storage room has seldom looked this good!

The job jar

/ edebock / 4 Comments

I’ve taken on the daunting task of cleaning and reorganizing our basement storage room this week. It doesn’t happen very often and when it does, I’m always reminded how abundantly blessed we are. There are so many families in this world who live in less space than that 180 square foot storage room and who, even in their wildest dreams, couldn’t imagine owning enough stuff to fill it!

While I was down there this evening sorting through everything from gift wrap to sleeping bags and luggage, I was thinking that it was time to write another blog post and wondering what it should be about. Suddenly, there it was… the job jar! Why in the world had I ever kept that thing? Obviously, it must have been so that I could blog about it! My kids are definitely going to roll their eyes when they see this one!

The job jar came into existence in 1992. That spring, Matthew was 12, Melaina 8 and Nathan 7. Though being a mom was always my first priority, I’d been back in the classroom teaching approximately half time for the three years since Nathan had entered kindergarten. As plans were being made for the following school year, I was offered a significant increase in teaching time. If I accepted, I’d be working almost full time. When I thought about all the lesson planning, marking and reporting that would be involved, I wasn’t sure how I’d balance that with the demands of a busy family. Richard and I talked it over, decided that I should accept the position and then called a family meeting.

Family meetings weren’t part of our normal routine so the kids knew that something big was up. We gave them a choice. Since I wasn’t going to have time to do everything that I’d been doing around the house, we could either spend some of the extra money that I’d be earning to hire a housekeeper or we could all chip in and do the housework together, save the money and spend it on a trip to Disneyland the following summer. The vote was unanimous; Disneyland, of course!

We decided that we’d clean house every Saturday morning. The next question was how to divide the labour to ensure that everything got done reasonably well and that no one got stuck doing the same mundane tasks week after week. The job jar was Nathan’s idea. Even at seven, he was a creative thinker and a problem solver. Put the jobs you want us to do in a jar, he suggested, and we’ll do whichever ones we pull out.

That’s exactly what we did. Since there were five of us, ten jobs went into the jar; five easier ones and five more challenging ones. Every Saturday morning, everyone pulled one from each category out of the jar and got to work. The only rule was that the chores had to be completed by noon. Of course there were times when we had to make exceptions because someone had hockey or another activity that morning.

For the system to work, Richard and I also had to be willing to adjust our standards. We didn’t put up with sloppy work but obviously we couldn’t expect a 7 or 8 year old to do the same job we might do. If the bathroom didn’t get cleaned quite as thoroughly when it was a child’s turn, that was okay. The next time one of us might pull that job. An added benefit was the fact that all three of our children learned how to keep house at an early age!

So what were the jobs that went into the old Mason jar? The easier jobs included

  • Dust the livingroom
  • Clean the small bathroom (actually a half bathroom)
  • Tidy the basement playroom and empty the garbage cans
  • Wipe the walls in the porch, kitchen, livingroom, hall and bathrooms (just fingerprints and scuff marks)
  • Wash the breakfast dishes
The more difficult tasks were
  • Vacuum the livingroom, hall and bedrooms
  • Clean the main bathroom
  • Tidy the porch and sweep the kitchen, porch and stairs
  • Wash the kitchen floor, the porch and the stairs
  • Sweep and wash the bathroom floors

Things went smoothly and there were very few complaints until one point when we all began to notice that Melaina, an early riser, was doing the same jobs every Saturday. At first, we were proud of her for getting up and getting starting on her chores while the rest of us were still rubbing the sleep out of our eyes but we weren’t quite so happy when we realized that she was going through the job jar and picking out the chores she liked best!  All in all, though, the venture was a huge success.

The summer of 1993 became much more than just a trip to Disneyland. We started by driving out to Vancouver for my brother’s wedding on the 3rd of July. Following that, a six week road trip with the tent trailer in tow took us down the Pacific coast all the way to San Diego where we made a day trip across the Mexican border to Tijuana, then across the desert to Pheonix, Arizona, north to the Grand Canyon, and eventually all the way back to Alberta. In addition to Disneyland, we toured Universal Studios and the San Diego zoo, walked the streets of Hollywood and the beaches of the Oregon Coast, hiked the red rock canyons of Utah and experienced so much more!

And what happened to the job jar when the journey was done? By that time, it had become such a part of our family routine that regardless of how many hours I taught it continued in use until the kids left home! Only then did it find it’s way to the storage room shelf!

Sometimes I need an ocean

/ edebock / 6 Comments

When life gets stressful, as it sometimes does, what I really want to do is walk by the ocean and be soothed by the sound of the surf. That’s probably because, as a child, I could hear the rhythm of the waves from my bed as I drifted off to sleep.

The past week has been a stressful one; a week of worrying about my parents. Dad hasn’t been well. That resulted in both parents literally sleeping through one entire day… no food, no water, no medication! If my sister hadn’t phoned that evening, who knows what might have happened?

Recognizing the need for a better emergency plan, my sis and I have spent the week making phone calls, gathering information, asking questions we’d rather not have to ask. Dad is Mom‘s primary caregiver and we’re a province away. What do we do if something happens to him? Is it any wonder that I feel like I need an ocean to walk by?

Alas, there are no oceans here on the Alberta prairie but as I mentioned in my last post, whenever I have the opportunity to walk by the sea I bring home all sorts of bits and pieces… shells, driftwood, sea glass. Many favourite pieces have found their way into our main bathroom. There’s a giant pink conch shell bought for $1 on a beach road in the Bahamas in 1977. We had just found out that I was pregnant with our first child. There’s a beautiful abalone shell, given to my husband by a ranger at a campground on the California coast in 1993. Then there are all the pieces that I’ve picked up over the years. Some are quite ordinary… oyster, clam and mussel shells. Others are special… moon snails treasured since childhood, a razor clam from the PEI beach where my grandfather probably played as a child, a tiny shell from our first visit to Japan, beautiful pieces of sea glass from Saipan and most recently, a shell from Costa Rica.

   


I may not be able to walk by the ocean and let the sound of the surf wash away my troubles but at least I can retreat to the bathroom and relax in a warm tub surrounded by my seaside treasures. Occasionally, a glass of wine even goes with me!

From drab to dramatic

/ edebock / 3 Comments

It’s amazing the difference a change of colour can make. After visiting Matt and Robin last month while they were in the midst of renovating their new house then stopping at Melaina’s on the way home and seeing how a coat of paint had taken her small bathroom from drab to dramatic, I came home all fired up to do a bit of redecorating of my own.

I began by tackling the feature wall in our bedroom. Down came the 1980’s wallpaper and on went several coats of paint. Choosing the colour took awhile and involved consultations with several friends. I wanted a colour somewhere between brown and burgundy but who knew that there would be so many shades to choose from. We looked at colours with fanciful names like Avent Garde and Arabian Nights but settled on Burnt Brick. It isn’t easy to imagine what a finished project will look like based on a 2 inch colour chip but I’m delighted with the outcome.

Before

After

Did you notice that we also raised the headboard on the bed?

So, if a new colour makes that much difference, is there something here that I should change? So far, I’ve chosen not to cover my ‘silver highlights’ but what do you think?

   

A changing view!

/ edebock / 6 Comments

Exactly one week after posting my latest rant about the unfinished house across the street a crew pulled in and started working on the exterior! I feel sorry for the men working out in the cold but finally, after sitting untouched for three years, the house going to be finished! I feel as if I’ve been given a gift. We’ll finally see something more attractive than that ugly monstrosity every time we look out our front windows. I’ve always loved the style of the house and I think the grey siding is giving it a very classic look.

I don’t think my rant had anything to do with the sudden change even though I did send a link to the new town administrator. Unlike her predecessor, she replied almost immediately telling me that the property owner had been given until December 20 to finish the exterior or the town would hire someone to do it and charge the work to him.

Rumours abound in small towns and one never knows for sure what to believe but we’ve been told that work on the house came to a standstill because the property owner was dealing with legal and financial issues that started when one of the subcontractors failed to complete his portion of the job correctly and then had a lien put on the house when he wasn’t paid in full. Apparently those issues have finally been resolved and work can now continue.

As a future neighbour, I tried to be patient and only complained to the town a couple of times. Like the rest of our neighbours, we would probably have been much more sympathetic if either the property owner or the town had communicated with us and given us some idea what was going on and when we might expect the situation to be resolved. I was startled recently when an acquaintance told us that that was none of our business! I’m trying to be generous and assume that that’s because he’s never lived in town and doesn’t understand why there are things like unsightly premises bylaws.

What do you think? What should a good neighbour reasonably expect to put up with?

Full circle

/ edebock / 6 Comments

In 1969, I was a grade 11 student at Argyle Secondary School in North Vancouver, BC. I was looking forward to graduating with my friends and heading off to UBC to study education. Those plans were dashed when my father accepted a job in Yellowknife, NWT and my parents refused to allow me to stay behind and spend my final year of high school living with my best friend’s family.

I had no intention of staying in Yellowknife any longer than I absolutely had to. I would return to the coast as soon as school was out and carry on with my plan to attend UBC. Life doesn’t always go according to plan, however, and I never did make it back to the coast to live.  Uprooted and rebellious, my life became a series of bad decisions culminating in an unhappy and short-lived marriage.

I did go to university and fulfill my dream of becoming a teacher but since I’d wasted the first year after high school, I decided to attend the University of Calgary where I could get the degree I wanted in four years instead of UBC where it would have taken five. Life went on. I settled on the Alberta prairie, married again and started a family.

Jump ahead about 30 years to 2006. That’s the year that our oldest son married, settled in Vancouver and entered law school at UBC. I hadn’t made it back to the coast but a whole generation later, Matthew had! He and Robin lived in a charming condo in Richmond until a couple of months ago when, having outgrown the condo by adding two adorable little grandsons to our family, they purchased a house and moved in. That house is located in North Vancouver just around the corner from Argyle Secondary School!

As I sit here in their livingroom, I feel as if I have finally come home! I gaze out the window across the creek that runs through their beautiful back yard and I see the roof of my school. I walk the streets that I walked as a teenager and, though many things have changed, they feel so very familiar. Life has come full circle and I am happy!