Moving Day - Aftermath

6:36am It's bladder o'clock. Time to get up and return the rental truck.

10:06am I asked Fede to drive the truck back to the rental depot and I followed him in my car. After we returned the truck we went back to the old house, picked up the last few remaining items, swept the floor and locked up. "A year was not enough to become attached to this place," says Fede. Hmm, a year is how long we've committed to being at the new house. I think I will be attached to it by the end of that time.

On the way home we picked up breakfast at Tim Horton's and brought it home to share with Jan. Our first breakfast together, the three of us, in this new home.

I thought of going to my church for service this morning but ended up not going. I wanted to enjoy a leisurely relaxed breakfast and not rush to make it for service.

Jan's friend Marlene has come and brought a wonderful fruit platter and pastries. A second breakfast!

11:33am Went through the voice messages on my cell phone. My voice mailbox was full - a whole bunch of messages from Friday. I don't know when they came in; I thought I'd checked my messages Friday night. One of the old messages was from John Dunham. "We'll make things happen for you, Orest," he had said. Well he and his team certainly did, they certainly made things happen. I recall that they all had such a positive attitude too; I heard no grumbling about giving up a Saturday for moving boxes and furniture.

7:59pm Where did the day go? Jan's friend Monika was here and Mark Z came too. Dan Galler came for a couple of hours and helped us rearrange the living room. Mark Z helped make the living room more homey, lived in. So no boxes, no upturned couches in the living room.

We've had dinner, a nice homey dinner in the dining room. Lasagna - I picked one up at Sobey's, and Caesar salad. Seizure salad? We're settling in to watch a video. Red Dragon lost out to Left Behind.

11:20pm Turning in. Had a discussion about Revelations, Apocalypse, Rapture, after the movie. Mark commented that it was like having our own church discussion group right here at home.

My car keys disappeared today along with my keys to the storage locker. So I ended up not clearing out the locker. My entertainment unit is still there.

Although I enjoyed yesterday and felt engaged, today I feel myself crashing. Need to get back to self-care mode.

Moving Day

6:45am My alarm has gone off several times. Each time I've silenced it with the snooze button and willed my reluctant body to get up. The alarm I can't ignore is my bladder. My bladder has no snooze option.

7:29am I pour some cereal into bowl and add milk. Uh oh, where are the spoons? They've already been packed away. I can't eat this properly. Frame of fun - I stick my face in the bowl and gobble up a few pieces, like a cat eating out of its bowl.

10:09am Had some logistical challenges getting truck to the house - Pablo didn't bring his credit card, had to take him home to get it so I could add him as a driver. After getting the truck to the house we had a challenge backing the truck onto the walkway in front of the house. A neighbour's car was in the way, but the guys managed to back the truck in. Mike the Mover is here, Pablo, Joe Guitar, Ted Frank. Jan is looking after Pablo's daughter Carole. Carole is such a sweetie. She calls me Orest not Uncle Orest. I miss being called Uncle Orest.

1:36pm We've fallen behind schedule and are falling off track. The truck is full with Jan and Fede's stuff, no room for my stuff.

2:30pm The crew has rearranged the contents of the truck to make more room at the back. So it looks like we'll be able to finish emptying the house into the rental truck. Randy can come later with his truck - we should be able to use it to empty my storage locker.

I am experiencing the level of chaos now that I find most enjoyable, I am thriving in it.

8:02pm The work shifts have been coming and going, seamlessly. People show up, they help as long as they can, they leave, someone else shows up.

9:01pm Late shift here now, emptying what's left of my storage locker into Steve Oliver's 5x10 trailer (Bart Vance, John Dunham, Alex Garcia, Steve Oliver, Joe Guitar). Another crew is at the new house unloading the rental truck.

The guys keep telling me to sit down, not move stuff. It's hard to sit around and do nothing when the guys are working so hard to help me - but they're looking after me as well. My ankles are sore and inflamed and when I walk I waddle like a lame duck.

11:01pm The crew has all left now. What an amazing day. There are still a few things left at the old house to pick up tomorrow and some things at the storage locker - but that's a job for tomorrow. We have beds set up, though I don't have any sheets. If I find my sleeping bag I'll throw it on top of my bed. A bed! A mattress!

Valley of the shadow of moving

Lori from Extraordinary Learning wrote to me this week encouraging me to see this move through a frame of fun. That's a useful reminder for me. I have a number of things to take care of in the upcoming weeks and they all feel like responsibility things, head things, rather than heart things.

Looking at this move through a frame of fun is a better context than the one I've been holding - moving is hell, moving is stressful, I'm walking through the valley of the shadow of moving.

I think the key idea is to look at this entire event through a frame of fun rather than just adding a fun event to the agenda.

Now is the time

Several years ago I did a recording project - the only project I've done so far that I've brought my bandura into the studio. I recorded a cover of the worship song Come Now Is The Time To Worship. I performed all the bandura tracks and Jan sang the lead vocals. I was sick during the vocal sessions and my voice was about an octave lower than my usual range, so I put down a backing vocal track singing bass.

I've been wanting to revisit that project to remix it. That's one of my projects for 2008. I booked a session for last week thinking I'd kick off this project. Unfortunately Steve could not find an archive copy of the original project. I'm still in moving transition and most of my stuff is in a storage locker, so I have not had a chance to search my own archives. So this project will have to hold a bit longer.

On the plus side, this weekend is the date I'll be moving. Hooray. I'll finally get to start settling in, get my stuff unpacked, start to feel like I've got a home again, sleep in my bed again.

A vision for ODO

When I set out to clean up ODO (see ODO bloated) I recognized that I am not very good at cleaning up clutter. I tend to get caught up in the question of should I keep this or let it go? and when in doubt I tend to stay on the side of keeping it. This behaviour defeats the whole purpose of cleaning up.

I decided that a more effective strategy would be to focus on all the things I actually wanted to do with ODO and build that system or systems. By using this approach I would be using the Law of attraction to move towards something - a vision - instead of moving away from something - a cluttered system.

I realized that all the things I wanted to do with this machine, I could fit into one of three environments. The first was Administration & Communication. This environment is the one I would use for email, for word processing, speadsheets - in essence for office applications or for administration use. This would be my most stable environment, for once I have my preferred applications installed I would rarely install or experiment with other applications.

The other two environments I wanted to build would be subject to more experimentation and I want to keep my experiments and trials isolated from my Admin & Comm system. One is a Video Production environment and the other is an Audio Production environment. To date I have built my Admin & Comm system using Windows XP as base operating system, and I am looking at Ubuntu or Ubuntu Studio for the Video and Audio environments.

Time to catch up

February was a month of changes and stress for me. The biggest change I have made was splitting up with J and moving out. Moving is hell, I don't like doing it so I don't do it too often. However I will be doing it again at the end of the month. I'm staying with my friends Jan and Fede in their two bedroom apartment until the end of March and after that the three of us are moving to a house that we're leasing for a year.

Another stress in February for me was the cold cold cold and the snow snow snow. I know, I'm Canadian, I'm supposed to be used to it - but it got to me and I'd had enough.

My mom almost had a heart attack the other week and ended up in emergency. That wasn't good. Fortunately the angiogram they ran on her at the hospital revealed no blockages. A couple of day's rest for her, some medication, and she came home from the hospital.

It's time for me to go back to the studio and do another music project. I've got a list of projects I want to do this year including Magician's Plea which I never got to last year, and a list of worship songs I'd like to record.

Stay tuned for more.