Moving Day is Finally Here!

After one long year, moving day has finally arrived. Tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m., two men and a truck will arrive to whisk us away to our new house.

If you've been following this blog, you know that on March 29, 2013, OG and I set out on our grand adventure--moving from the Twin Cities in Minnesota to Carmel on the central California coast. We bought an uninhabitable wreck of a house with glorious views, moved into our vacation condo, and commenced work. Now, nearly one year later, we're finally ready to move in. We've sold our condo and are happy to be turning it over to a young, single woman (first time buyer), to begin her adult life as a homeowner. She's thrilled, and we hope she enjoys it as much as we have.

The house turned out to be a much bigger project than we initially anticipated. If I had it to do over, I'm not sure I would. Due to vermin, dry rot, and asbestos, we had to strip it to the foundation and studs and start from scratch. The upside is that we have a completely new house. The downside is that we had to pay for a completely new house. 

"Before"

As with any new house, there were hundreds of decisions to make, both large and small, and we didn't always make the right ones. For example: neither we, the designer, nor the contractor properly envisioned the laundry room door until it was hung and blocked half the cabinets. They were able to re-hang it to swing to the right instead of the left, but now it blocks the utility closet door. If we'd been thinking, we would have asked for a pocket door instead. As it is, OG will probably take it down and store it in the garage. Also, the master shower is enormous. We could have added a foot to the toilet room on one side and the linen closet on the other and still have had a plenty large shower. OG thinks the fireplace is out of proportion to the living room and we should have switched the locations of the guest bath and the laundry.

"After"

Oh well, live and learn. I'm sure we'll adjust to most of these things over time. The others will undoubtedly be changed (at great additional expense). However, I plan to concentrate on what we do have--a lovely, new home in a great location with a fabulous view. I'm excited to learn how to garden in this very different environment. Due to the daunting size of the project, I hired a landscaper to install the paths, irrigation, and basic plants, but I'm looking forward to adding things and tweaking the design over time. The deer came in the first night and stripped eight of the allegedly deer-resistant plants, so my first task will be replacing them with something less appetizing. 

Finished Back

The plants look tiny in the photos, but with the near-constant sunshine and twelve-month growing season here, they'll grow fast. I plan to post pictures of my progress, so stop back by from time to time and catch up!

OG is Bored - Heaven Help Us!

Hopefully by now you are well enough acquainted with OG to grasp the importance of that statement. Before we moved to California, he had an entire sixty-year-old house to work on. There was never a shortage of projects to keep him out of trouble. Since the move he's been cooped up in a condo half the size where most of the work has already been done by professionals.

You'll note I said most. Until last week, there remained one potential do-it-yourself project--the shower in the master bath hadn't been touched in forty years, and the tile was starting to buckle. No longer! Our daughter visited us for Car Week on the Monterey Peninsula in the middle of August, and two days after she left OG ripped out our shower. It turned out to be a very good thing.

Beneath the tiles, we discovered plywood--nothing more. No waterproofing of any kind, just soggy, moldy plywood. If you know anything about construction, you know this was not an approved method even forty years ago. OG cut out the plywood, re-plumbed the shower with a non-scald balancing valve (yaaay!), and is putting up concrete backer board. Next comes the tile, then a new shower door. 

I have no idea how long this may take, but I told him I'd like it finished by my birthday the first week of October. He laughed, but I have enough experience with his home improvement projects to be cautious. When he remodeled the master bath in our last house, it took six months. He's quite skilled, but (oddly) not quite as young as he used to be. Besides, with any construction project things happen. They just do. You might as well expect it and make peace with it.

Since he started this project, OG has taken a bit of a physical beating. The shower stall is small, and it's hard on the legs to spend a lot of time working in a crouched position. His hands are scraped from cutting and screwing the backer board, but having a project with a goal is well worth the aches and pains.

OG retired a number of years ago and has always struggled to keep himself occupied. In contrast to the many years he spent working in an office, he prefers to work with his hands on projects that produce a tangible result. Since I retired from insurance and we moved, I've been very busy with my career as a writer and designer, but OG hasn't had much to do. The shower project has been good for his psyche, if not

his body.

Our contractor is building him a workshop under the family room in our new house, where I hope he'll find enough interesting things to do to keep boredom at bay for several years to come. If he can't stay busy at home, I might have to resort to renting him out just to preserve my sanity.

The Haircut Song

Are any of you familiar with Ray Stevens' The Haircut Song? It's a classic from the great era of story-songs and one of OG's all-time favorites. We listened to it a few weeks ago while crossing the wide open spaces of Utah (or maybe Nevada, I forget which--they all blended together after a while). To give you a taste, here's the chorus:

When you get a haircut, be sure to go back home
When you get a haircut, get a barber you have known
Since you were a little bitty boy sittin' in a booster chair
Or you might look like Larry, Moe or Curly if a stranger cuts your hair

If you've been following this blog, you know that finding a new barber has been one of OG's main concerns in our relocation to California. So far, he's avoided dealing with the issue. He's getting bushier by the day but told me he plans to try to go another week or two before facing the inevitable.

I, on the other hand (being the bolder), dove right in. The lady in the condo across from us owns a salon in the shopping center a couple of blocks away, so last week I stopped by and made an appointment. Friday afternoon I had my hair cut by someone new for the first time in more than fifteen years. What do you think?

I've worn my hair basically the same way for more than twenty years and never this short, but I love it. I've even managed to style it by myself with reasonable success. It's quick and easy, and OG thinks it compliments my gamine personality. Ha!

Of all the changes I've embraced in the last few months, a new hairstyle seems the least frightening. After all, it's only hair. If I hate it, it will grow back. But I don't hate it. Like so many of the other changes, I find my new hair liberating. 

Let's keep our fingers crossed for OG.

Too Good to Be True?

I don’t know about you, but these days I’m counting my blessings. The world is a scary place, and every day we make it through unscathed is a triumph. My niece is a student in Boston and could easily have been a participant or spectator at the Marathon on Monday. Thankfully, she wasn’t, but so many others had family and friends injured or killed that it’s impossible not to feel there but for the grace of God...

Meanwhile, OG and I are settling into paradise. Every day seems to bring another reminder of how lucky we’ve been throughout the whole process of uprooting our lives and relocating half-way across the country. So far, not a single thing that could have gone wrong has. How often does that happen? It can only be considered miraculous.

First came the sale of our Minnesota house for a very good price and without ever going on the market. Since the buyer was a remodeling contractor making the purchase on behalf of a client, we had none of the usual worries about condition. I didn’t even have to leave it particularly clean since the place was about to become a construction zone. When the sale closed on Monday and the money arrived by wire, we breathed a sigh of relief. (I think OG had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but honestly, so many things have gone well that I’m almost starting to get used to it.)

We had perfect weather for our long drive to California, but as soon as we arrived a huge storm hit the very highways we’d just traversed. I-80 was closed through Wyoming, thirty inches of snow fell in Rapid City, and Sioux Falls declared a state of emergency. We could so easily have been stranded in the middle of that. I can’t even count the number of times it has snowed in Minnesota since we left three weeks ago. It’s as if nature is telling us we did the right thing.

Last week, I hired a small army of landscapers to clear the overgrown and dead trees and shrubs at the new house. When the dust settled, we discovered our view is even more gorgeous than we expected. As an added bonus, we received a booklet from the fire prevention association detailing the best ways to protect your property from wildfires and found we had inadvertently done all the right things.

Some days I have to pinch myself to believe how beautiful everything is here. I joined the local garden club, and the very next day joined them for a tour of several members’ private gardens. I’m sure I’ll never have anything as elaborate, but what a treat. How often do you get the chance to be served lunch on the terrace in an olive grove? Serendipity strikes again. I was so inspired I bought a dwarf orange and a dwarf Meyer lemon tree for our patio. I’ve never grown citrus, but I can’t wait to see how they do.

Whether you believe in divine intervention, karma, or just plain luck, sometimes things simply work out. We still have our huge remodeling project ahead of us, and it’s sure to bring complications and frustrations. But right now, life looks good from every angle, and that’s not always easy to accept.

What about you? Do you expect the best? Are you surprised when it happens? 

A Day Outside Time

Today was a day outside time, truly perfect. The kind of day that renews your faith in everything.

First, I was able to go back to sleep after the beep, beep, beep of the garbage trucks backing up at 6:00 a.m. I've managed to fall asleep immediately and sleep 6-7 hours each night for the past week. That, in and of itself, is a miracle.

The day dawned with streaky low clouds blanketing the sky, heralding a blustery, overcast spring day, but by the time I finished on the treadmill, every cloud had vanished. The air was cool, the sun's rays warm. Perfection.

I drove five miles out into Carmel Valley to take some things to the new house, and it got even better. I stood on the deck with my face turned to the sun like a morning glory, absorbing the view of the mountains, and listened. It's so quiet in the valley that every individual sound has its own distinct presence. Today, I heard the very distant hum of some type of machine. It could have been a leaf blower or a chain saw; it was so far away I couldn't tell. The sound was just enough to remind me I wasn't the only human on earth. Otherwise, the silence was only broken by an occasional bird call and the crow of the rooster who lives somewhere in the distance down the valley.

When I left the house, I couldn't bear to go anywhere inside, so I drove to the garden center at the bottom of our hill. It will be months before I can begin planting my garden at the new house, but I was looking for inspiration. I found it. Everything I've dreamed of planting--roses, rosemary,   more types of lavender than I've ever seen, sages, orange and lemon trees, ceonothus; even the exotic kangaroo paws and bottlebrush from Australia. I was in heaven.

When I got home, I ate lunch on the patio, sunning myself like a lizard. It was wonderful, although we're going to have to get a patio umbrella or I'm going to have to start wearing a hat. Even with sunglasses, it's so bright I can barely see. Also, coming from Minnesota, I'm just not used to being able to be out in the sun this much. I have to start considering my skin.

After lunch, I drove into the village of Carmel-by-the-Sea, parked at the end of Scenic Avenue, and walked the length of the beach and back. A brisk off-shore breeze chilled my cheeks, and the wide, white beach and rolling breakers were postcard-perfect. On top of that, I had the place nearly to myself.

When I got home, I still didn't want to stay inside, so I walked up to my favorite independent coffee shop. They make a mocha chai latte so good that my daughter dreams of it back in Chicago. Chai in hand, I stopped at the chocolatier next door and bought the ultimate indulgence--a box of tiny truffles, all for me. I hope I have the willpower to make them last through next week.

On my way back, I passed a big orange car carrier delivering someone's new red Ferrari--a sobering reminder of the price of paradise. Many of the people who live here are indeed very wealthy. But as I continued on to our modest condo complex, largely inhabited by retirees and regular working people, I realized money isn't the essence of Carmel. It isn't about Ferraris and mansions. It's about the breathtaking beauty of the natural surroundings. It simply feeds the soul.

Today reminded me why this is my inevitable place.

The Power of Being Alone

When was the last time you were alone, really alone, when your days were completely yours to fill? If you're like most of us, you probably can't remember.

I'm in Carmel and on my own for nearly two weeks for the first time in thirty years. I came out to take care of as many details as possible in advance of our move while OG stays in Minnesota to finish up a few projects and supervise the estate sale ladies who are charged with selling everything we're not bringing with us. I'll fly back just in time for the packing and loading before we set out on our big cross country drive.

Being alone is strange, but wonderful in its own way. Yesterday, I took care of a little business--sorted the accumulated mail, made some calls, arranged to meet the landscapers. But I also watched the sunrise gild the mountains while I ate breakfast. No newspaper, no computer, no TV. Just me and the black cows on the hillside across the river. When I came upstairs to my office, I watched the hills on the north side of the valley come to life as the sun streaked across them. I could never do that any place else.

I also worked in my little garden at our condo and have the aches and pains today to prove it. The first major weeding session of the season always reminds me how little time I normally spend on my hands and knees grubbing in the dirt. But it was glorious. This close to the sea the air is soft in a way you just don't find deep in the Midwest. Around the patio, my lavender and brilliant yellow daisies are in full bloom, and in the tiny front gated garden, I have soft pink camellias and hellebores and a couple of bright red primroses. Since we'll be living here for a few months while the new house is being remodeled, I plan to make the most of it and go to the garden center this afternoon to buy more flowers. 

Last night I started reading Natalie Goldberg's masterpiece, Writing Down the Bones, for the first time, and a remarkable sense of peace enveloped me. I could feel my breathing  slow and my muscles relax. I've slept seven hours for two nights in a row. I know I'll feel lonely and miss OG well before my time alone here is done, but I need this time--probably more than I ever imagined--to take a break from the whirlwind that has been my life for the past few months. I need to slow down, an almost impossible task for me. I'm determined to make the most of these days so I can tackle the challenges ahead with a refreshed body and mind. Wish me luck.