The 'P' Part, I hate flies!

I hate flies!

God is pushing at the seams of my envelope right now.  I love to be outside but I really do hate flies.  You could say I'm manic about them.  (When they get in the house I hunt them down with a swatter until they are all dead)! But here in Rubite there are flies everywhere and I mean everywhere. This is a rural farming village with at least two herds of sheep/goats at about 100 head each that live right here.  One flock is just a few doors away from where we are.  They are driven past the house daily and where there are sheep there is sheep S...! Lots of it, plus all the mule, cat and dog S... from around the village and you get the picture.  That is my reckoning on why there are so many flies.  So each time I sit outside I'm literally covered in flies and the less I have on, it been in the 20's, the more flies are on me, not my clothing, me, Yuk!

What is the meaning of this? Who knows, what could I possibly be being prepared for? I don't know, I don't think I want to know. I do know I still hate flies but I am able to function in a place where they rule the roost, which I think is a good thing.

Thanks God :)

PS, it's a rather windy day today, so mercifully there are far fewer flies than normal as I sit out here and write.  It's a good day in Rubite.

UK 3

We made some new friends in Fetcham and were invited back to cook for them anytime, kinda cool really. I left Fetcham on Sunday and Rick dropped me dropped off in Horley, just north of Gatwick airport at a Best Western there. I met Penny at the train station early evening, she came down from Holmes Chapel after visiting the other part of the family up there. I didn't go because of all the baggage and the transfers we would have had to make including one leg on the London Tube, not fun! Anyway, we had a couple of days in Horley and went up to London on one of them. I love to walk London, one of my favourite places on the planet to walk around, so much to see, the history and all the activity!!! We walked from Victoria station past Parliament and Big Ben,

10 Downing Street, just missed Mr. Cameron, Horse Guards

and then by Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square.

Down The Strand past the Savoy Hotel and took the scenic route (the wrong way) to the British Museum. We did stop at the New London Theatre and picked up some decent seats for Warhorse that night. Tough day :)

Now the The British Museum... Most of us have seen the old movies of mummies and the Egyptologists and all, well this is where is all comes from. That and more!!! Penny and I walked up to the a great stone edifice that is “The British Museum” (which is free to enter by the way), left the backpack at the coat check, walked into the main gallery and were immediately blown away by its sheer size, a great round “inner edifice” inside a huge inside space (sorry no pic here). A quick “biffy” stop and we were off to the rooms on the left. We did not get a map and only used the tall standing map in the room, so we knew we were off to Egyptland LOL. The first thing we beheld as we entered the room was the Rosetta Stone!

I was completely over come with emotion as I was seeing with my own eyes one of the “wonders” of archeology, the means of deciphering hieroglyphics to Greek via an intermediary of Demotic text. You know, you read about things and see pictures but nothing prepares you for when you see the “thing” with your own eyes. I just stood there for several minutes and took it in. It was the highlight of the entire museum for me! Then off we walked through all the Egyptian and Assyrian rooms on the ground floor of the museum seeing things 3000-5000 years old. We think in North America we have history at 300-500 years maybe back 1000-1500 but nothing like this…

We wandered the museum for about 5 hours seeing artifacts from 7000 to a few hundred years old. Bone and stone tools, 2000 year old glass, a clock from the mid 16^th century that was still running and playing beautiful tunes with bells.

You could easily spend days in the museum reading all the placards and pouring over all the displays but we only had a few hours and throughly enjoyed it all!

Time to leave the museum and head for the show, “Warhorse”, but first a little pizza and pasta with some red wine at a close by restaurant, it was grand! “Warhorse” is the stage production of the movie from a few years back where the actors are mostly human (some mannequins) and the animals are all puppets with human puppeteers “running” them. The adult horse, Joey, had three men wearing, cabling and poling the legs and all but after a few minutes, it was just as some other friends of ours who had seen it earlier this year said, all you see is the horse. Amazing! The show was superb. The goose puppet pretty much stole the show! Back to Horley late and an early start, 5am, for the airport and a flight to Spain...

The 'P' part, chance encounter ?

Chance encounter ?

So there we were heading out for a day in London. We walk to the train station in Horley, the short way that we know now, as we've done it a time or two at this point.

We leave time to pick up our pre-booked and paid for tickets via V. Trains as we've also learned that can get tricky sometimes too.

As we get close to the station we notice a couple rolling up the hill with a large red suitcase.  We bump into them a few minutes later at the ticket machine as the four of us jockey back and forth in the tight corner with the suitcase, our lattes and confirmation numbers.  Tickets are dispensed and each of us become absorbed in our own worlds as we tuck return tickets away and prepare for the trains arrival.

Now standing in the middle of the station there's a rail employee letting passengers know the 9.41 to Victoria station will be delayed about 10 minutes. No problem, it won't make much of a difference. This will now give us a few minutes breathing space. We make our way down the stairs and out to the platform.  There is a young lady out there wearing way too much perfume, so I quickly lead us down the platform a ways.  Yep, you guessed it, the couple with the red suitcase arrive at the same time and we're just about shoulder to shoulder.  In my usual outgoing manner I ask the woman where they are off to and a whole conversation follows.

They are on a one year sabbatical!  He's from Australia and she's Canadian. Their home is rented out to a family of recent Russian immigrants to 'down under'. Their belongings are spread out amongst family, a storage unit and supportive friends.  He's in IT, she's a nurse.  Just on their way to store the camping equipment they have been using for the past 90 days all around Europe, with another friend in Redhill, then off to Canada where they'll stay through Christmas.

They have been going on faith for much of this journey, not knowing where or how they are going next. Monique gave an example of them disembarking a ship with the question where now God? Harry and I couldn't help but smile.

So until the train arrived and for the one stop down the line until they got off we went back and forth with bits of our stories, managed to share each other's email addresses and were both encouraged to meet another couple on a similar adventure.

If the train had not been delayed we probably wouldn't have had such the depth of conversation and the chance to hear about their journey.  Sorry to the rest of the train load of passengers who had to wait for us!  Life is like that sometimes, chance encounters that are really not random at all, but for us, preordained.

Harry will share his thoughts on our day in the city, so stay tuned for that.

UK 2

UK 2

We have been at the house in Fetcham for a week now and the people we are sitting for have been in southern Portugal for about 5 days. We walked to Leatherhead for a wander around and a shop at Lidl's (a Germany supermarket chain). 

We have met up with Penny's school friend Hilary and her husband David and have gone out on some drives around the Surrey Hills, quintessentially English!

We also had a very nice pub meal at The Stephan Langton Inn, thanks Hilary and David!!!

http://www.stephanlangton.pub/

The Langton is owned by friends of the people we are house sitting for and they graciously reserved a table for the four of us on Sunday afternoon (no mean feat!) where we had a wonderful Sunday roast dinner and a few pints of the local Tillingbourne Brewery beers. The people that own the pub also own the brewery! 

http://www.tillybeer.co.uk/

On Tuesday, Hillary picked us up and we went to the top of Leigh Hill (D'Oh, guess who forgot the camera) and climbed Leigh Tower, a 250 year old foley, the highest point in southern England. We looked north to London, east to Gatwick Airport and unfortunately, it was hazy so we could not see the sea. 

This was followed by more great pub grub at The Plough Inn in Cold Harbour along with more local beers, yum!

http://www.ploughinn.com/

Lots of walks from Fetcham to Leatherhead and Bookham. The walk from Bookham goes through the Bookham Close which is National Trust land laced with paths and lanes and all covered in golden leaves (yep, no camera again LOL). The weather has been sunny and 17 or 18 to cloudy, rainy and cool about 8 or 9.

Now a few pics of our charges, lets see there is Max, Molly and Tigs the dogs.

Then there is Gus the cat, not doing too bad at 21 :)

Oh yes, the nine chickens that lay very yummy eggs! Um... You know what chickens and eggs look like ;)

The First European House Sit

The First European House Sit

Surrey, UK

Sorry for not posting for a bit, it has been a very stressful and tiring time, which allowed me to actually catch a touch of flu and get over it and catch it again, blah, blah, blah... With the sleep clock off a bit and all the processing going on in my head about what we have just done… Well it took a bit to get back to “normal” but here I am and here is the first bit of our UK house sit.

I will digress a bit to when we landed in the UK at London Heathrow, all well and with out any drama. We caught a coach (bus to you Norte Americanos) to Bristol and taxied to Penny's dad's place in St. George in the east of Bristol. They provided us with a very soft landing indeed! We pretty much slept and ate and Penny went for walks with them as I mostly slept myself through some flu. We had a very fun night out at a local church, St. Aidens, where the Vicar and his troops of thespians put on a amusing panto (pantomime: a very, very British form of theatre) about the bishop's visit. It was cute and funny, and hey, you got a free glass of wine in the deal, woot!

Back to the the National Express (the UK's verions of Greyhound) station for a coach to Leatherhead, well kinda… You see there is a great transportation system in the UK with the Tube, public buses, trains, coachs and all. However, not all of them come together in an easy fashion in some places. You guessed it, Leatherhead is not one of those places that is easy to get to without a number of transfers (on the train) or just one on the coach. As you read from Penny's last post, we are NOT traveling light. I imagine that we look quite comical actually to other travelers with our big bags all linked together in a “train” and trying to move from one place to another leapfrog style as we are working very hard to not have any of our stuff “nicked”. Yes, we are in the UK, land of the very high property crime rate and it is not unusual at all to have your belonging “nicked” if you so much as turn your head for a minute (personal family experience here). You, yourself are mostly quite safe, your stuff not quite so (hmm… there's that stuff thing again!) As the coach made it's way from Victoria Coach Station in London (yes, we had to go all the way into London on the coach then transfer to another to head south) south, we went through central London through Clapham and Tooting (where Penny is from) and as we got further and further from the city centre, well the buildings and the houses started looking, well rather nice and in good repair and kept getting more so. We get dropped at the side of Brighton Road in Banstead about 100 metres down from a very, very nice European sports car mart. We noticed immediately all the very, very nice cars whizzing past us and the looks we were getting. Can you see where I am going with this? “We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto!” I have to admit, I felt oddly uncomfortable not being in my usual social element, we were/are at least 2 or 3 rungs up from “normal” (Oak Bay ain't got anything on this neighborhood!)

As I was walking back to the “bus stop” after a futile attempt to find a completely nonexistent pay phone, a large black SUV pulled up next to Penny and our pile of rubble. I trotted up just in time to hear, “Well I knew I would find the lost travelers with the pile of bags...” We were saved! Our house sit person was right there and recalled the description I had sent in an email from the coach (yes they have WIFI on the buses here!!! And yes Peter, the iPad has come in very handy indeed!) We plopped all our baggage into the back of said black SUV and were off on a drive down country lanes, small village high streets over a century old bridge that spans a rail line, sharp right and down a very narrow dirt lane and turn left and up a very nice driveway and viola! We are “home”. WOW! Did we ever land on our feet here. Very nice! Not too many details, privacy and all, but the cooker, WOW! It is an Everhot,

what a pleasure it is to cook on and I am savouring every second that I do as I will probably not ever own one.

Blog the 'P' part, travelling light?

Blog the 'P' part, travelling light?

So my high school friend emails me a few days ago as we made plans to connect for Sunday lunch. “Whatever happened to travelling light?” she writes, as we'd been describing some of our adventure back and forth. I thought back, no one said anything about travelling light, doing life light I guess but travelling light, nope!! I scanned back through the email thread just to check, no nothing there, I was right! But she had hit a nerve for sure. What was this trip all about? Doing life light, didn't that mean travelling light to match?

Back to the beginning of the travelling part of this adventure. About 10 days ago now as we were dropped off at the Nanaimo ferry terminal and the bags were unloaded and we start to get them into the terminal the thought going through my mind was 'we've still got too much stuff'. Knowing the amount of travel we had in front of us, and still have, my heart sank a bit more. I'd basically been up all night hours before catching the 8am ferry at our dear friends home going through my suitcases, a large tote and various boxes of all I had left to my name for the final pack. I didn't know what I still even had or where it was. Favourite items of clothing and bits and pieces I was continuing to hold on to were now being left behind. I was so tired but had to keep picking up the next thing my hand fell to and make a decision about it. Pack it? - is there room/weight left in the suitcase, thrift store? - put it in the tote, or tuck it into the few remaining spare square inches of the 3^rd trunk we had allowed ourselves to keep and store at this same friends home. I didn't and still don't know if I'll see those items again, or at least for a few months, will it matter, blah, blah, blah!!

10 days later and a variety of planes, trains, coaches, cars and the odd porter my mind is still a blur, I still don't know what I have dragged this far.

Stuff – why is it so important to us? Why is it still so important to me? 95% of what I owed a month ago is gone, sold, thrift store or given away. Is that why what I had left, and am dragging around I'm holding on to so tightly?

Harry and I broached the subject yesterday as we had to make the final decision about where to fly to Malaga from, Manchester or Gatwick? We had previously discussed a visit to my Mum and sisters, just outside of Manchester after this Surrey house sit and before we head to Spain and then to France. That will entail both of us, 4 large - 50lb suitcases and 4 'carry on' 20-35lb each bags. A train or coach/train trip with a variety of changes in order to get from here to there. Harry's take is 'he's dragged everything this far and isn't ready to now dump 50% of it to make the rest of the trip easier'. I just kept quiet, 'cos, as much of a hassle it is, I want to hold on to it all, still. New plan for visiting family up north. Harry stays at the house sit, I go to Manchester for a couple of days then return here before Spain via a much closer airport that we can be dropped off directly at.

Right now there are thousands of refugees all across Europe with literally just the clothes on their back. I have no idea how much they used to own, what they left behind, and what choices they had to make, or were made for them. The degree of urgency and danger give life and stuff a different perspective. Now that Harry and I caught the ferry that took us to Vancouver in time to catch our flight is behind us there is little urgency. There is no one chasing or threatening us, so there's very little danger either.

The invitation that Harry and I have accepted is to live light for a while, lighten the load, kick back for a few months. Take a breath and look around, truly open our eyes and see what's going on around us, at least a bit more than you usually can working 40 hours a week, keeping up a home and all of life that goes with that. The analogy, if that's the right word, was voiced several years ago on a Sunday morning at sharing time at our local congregational meeting, 'church'. God wants to give me, show me, let me experience a whole new bunch of stuff but my hands, my life are so full Deb said that I don't have room to hold these new 'things'. I first have to empty my hands, my life of all the extra clutter and stuff I hold dear before He can fill them with what He has in mind. It's the bowl of weevily peanuts in exchange for the bowl of Brazil nuts (for me) or Cashews (for Harry). Now, at least 10 years later I, we are at the same point. God has extended a very similar invitation to us, to see where He is at work, what He's doing and offer us a new way of doing life, and perhaps joining Him on His adventure.

Back to the luggage. Do you see where this is heading? The tighter I hold on and the more I hold on to that is where my focus is, and where my energies literally go to. Harry has been inspired by the story of another couple who house sit all over New Zealand and have whittled down their belongings from a home's worth to a couple of ruck sacks, (back packs). Not only do they do life light, they travel light too. My guess is very little energy goes into sustaining what they have. But what have they opened themselves up to by doing this? How much more are they able to take in and enjoy? How flexible is their life? Is what they are doing right for us? Is what we're doing right for us? Harry keeps telling me, this year, the one we started a few weeks ago is an experiment. We have a lot to learn, a lot to process and I think a lot more to give up. What will be our gain at the end of it? I'm waiting for the biggest bowl of Brazil nuts there is, and I'm looking forward to how good they are going to taste once I put down my bowl of weevily peanuts.

I haven't given up on 'part 2' of the blog, but really felt I needed to share this to help me process. I'll get back to it. Thanks for reading!

P.

Friends (Relationships)

Friends (Relationships)

So… The auction is over, the stuff is gone… What is important? Well… not the stuff! My marriage is important. My family is important. My friends are important… But my friends, well in less than two weeks, they are gone, physically anyway. Some are close, some not, some are very, very close.

Saturday night I worked my last shift at a place I have to admit, I have a love and hate relationship with. I am sure, most of the people reading this can relate. But the people I work with, oh the people. OMG, I love them, the young, the old. The men, the women. The good, the bad… I am sitting at my computer early in the morning after my my last shift and I have to admit, I am very melancholy. I have used a pack of tissues (thanks, you know who :) ), drank a few glasses of wine and pondered in my oh so deep mind, LOL, all my friends that I had just left.

So… What happens when you quit your job, move away… Facebook, Instagram, email, Skype… Sure you can text or video or whatever, but what happens to the touch, the smells, the looks, the smiles, the poke in the ribs, the smirks, the hugs… And I ponder the following questions… What have we become? “Hey add me as a friend.” Send me a tweet, or a snap or whatever… Where is the relationship, the depth… the humanity? How do we stay friends? And hey, what are friends?

I remember the first time I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, I was holding on to the wing spar, the jump-master gave me the thumbs up and I let go. I LET GO!!!! I remember watching the plane move away and get quite small in a very, very short span of time and I thought...”What the *&^%##$%%^ have I just done???!!!???” Then the parachute opened and WOW!!!! What a view! What a sensation! Totally brand new, never before happened to me and I forgot about the plane, the security I thought I had had in it and savoured the moment.

After the auction last week, I/we, had a ”What the *&^%##$%%^ have I just done???!!!???” moment. Then the chute opened…

Saturday night and another ”What the *&^%##$%%^ have I just done???!!!???” moment...

Sunday morning here and well… The chute hasn't quite fully opened yet and I am still a bit raw and in the ”What the *&^%##$%%^ have I just done???!!!???” state. When it is fully open, I am waiting to experience that next “thing”. It seems, friends are much harder to give up that stuff. Stuff can't hug you, make you mad, tell you a joke, comfort you when you are down, kick you in the butt when you need it. A friend can and will. I will be traveling with my best friend, Penny, but I will miss my work friends, my “better” friends, my good friends, my coffee friends, my “special” friends. I know I will make new friends but I like my old friends (looking at you Paul and Janie :) ). Will I ever see any of you again? God alone knows. That is, however, the way I have decided to play out this chapter of life with all it's ramifications and consequences. I accept that and I love you all!

More later… (where's my tissues…)

PS Well… another of those “Best Laid Plans” weeks and it is a few days after last Saturday & Sunday...

Stuff II

Stuff II

OK... So... The auction happened. It was... Let me digress a bit please.

Thursday I walked into our now former “home” and it looked like a thrift store, the auction people had moved everything we owned to the main floor and arranged it to be sold quickly and efficiently. Please keep in mind that we love thrift stores, most of what we wear comes from va... oops a certain thrift store in Nanaimo and Victoria and... (not sure I can name names on the blog ;) )

Anyway, it was kinda weird seeing all our worldly belongings laid out and arranged to be sold. I have to admit, I had a meltdown when I saw a few of the things that were up for sale. I am not as stoic as I thought I would be (i.e., I am a sap). Monday when I went into the house, it was empty except for a few things that had not be picked up yet. About 10 minutes after I got there, the auction people showed up to take the last few boxes of things that didn't sell to a local thrift store (irony, eh?). Seems that in the digital age, books are not big sellers. The lady that ran the auction came in and we hugged. She asked me how I was doing and with quivering lip, I said OK (yep, sap). She then handed me a bag with all the chits of all the things sold (prices marked on each one) and a cheque for our cut of the sales.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

25 years together and another 30 or so of life prior to being together reduced to 4 figures. All the hours and wages and toil and sacrifices to amass all the stuff that was sold suddenly reduced to a cheque with 4 figures on it. Kick in the gut does not exactly express the sentiment. When I showed the cheque to Penny, she was reduced to tears (for those that know Penny, you will know that this is no mean feat). Now here I sit tonight writing this blog entry after a few, ahem, glasses of wine while reflecting on what just happened.

Pause and reflect…

1… 2… 3… 4… 5...

About 2 months ago, the house next to our former downstairs neighbour's new abode burnt to the ground in the middle of the night. The people in the house were lucky to get out with their lives, let alone the clothes they had on when they went to bed. They lost everything, totally and completely. Any sentimental or precious stuff they had was suddenly gone, poof! I have been thinking about this everyday for the past month leading up to the “AUCTION”. You see, Penny and I have chosen to give up our stuff, they did not choose. Yet… we feel the tug, the attraction, the hold that our stuff had on us. The people who lost everything, well they LOST it, no choice in the matter. I am sure they feel the tug and attraction just as us, maybe even more so. So I keep thinking, why do I feel the way I do when I choose to “lose” 98% of my stuff? I wish I had a good answer right now, I don't…

But… It has really made us start to realize what is important in our lives and that, well, stuff is just stuff. Sure the family pictures, memorabilia has emotional strings but other than that, its just, well… stuff. Chairs can be replaced. Computers can be replaced (with better and faster ones for sure :) ). Clothes, well they are just covering for the body and if you are not a slave to fashion (love David Bowie's 80's tune “Fashion”), you can just go to va… well, that thrift store and get some more body coverings. And the automobile… LOL one of our friends lent us a white, smallish, older SUV with a hole in the exhaust. Talk about status! I am sure cool driving it (legend in my own mind!!!) You see, I sold my really super cool, black 49cc scooter so I need some wheels for the last week of work. Did I mention that there is a huge, homemade, honkin' trailer hitch on the front bumper of said white, loud, smallish SUV :) (you rock Norm!).

And you know, regarding security that stuff brings you… well… It's crap!!! Penny and I both feel free, liberated! (I am sure the marketing people of whatever corp. that owns this bloggosphere are ready to cut me out right now!!!) There is no security in the stuff or amount of stuff or the type of stuff or the value of the stuff that we own! Take that consumerism! Truly, that 4 figure cheque we got today, well, that is the price of freedom (OK, picture Mel Gibson's Braveheart here or that goofy Scottish elevator skit on You… that video site) FFFFFFFFFFFFRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Editor's Note (LOL) This was written a few days ago and posted today, like last time, best laid plans...

Blog the 'P' part

Blog the 'P' part

And how it all began! For me.....

As Harry mentioned we had one of our regular meetings with 'John'. My previous birthday I had turned 50 and I was ruminating - is it time to slow down, scale back, work less and settle in to middle age or did I want to still 'go and do something'. Ever since we closed down HP WorkShop I missed the flexibility of being my own boss. I would like to have my own business again but what would I do? The conversation started around the table and the “I think you and Harry are getting too complacent” comment was uttered. A spark was lit in me. I had options!! Life for the next 20 years didn't have to be punching a clock somewhere for 50 weeks a year and having 2 weeks of vacation. God had more in store for me, for us. Options to spend more time with family in UK and AZ, places to visit, experiences to have. People to touch, to help, to spread the gospel. I was ready right there and then to 'GO'!! We got in the car and then Harry's and my conversation began, it's still continuing......

But we had a house with a mortgage, jobs, pets, community and friends all around us. We led a home church even. We had to have a plan and queen of the lists wanted it all to happen ASAP so I could cross things off and be on my way. Marriages do not work like that though. Life does not go at my speed either and certainly God does not!

First was getting the house sold. I won't go into all the details but the short version is it took 2 and a half years. We started trying to sell it ourselves, the 'need' to maximize on the sale was very important at the time. That morphed into Property Guys, a company that helps home owners to sell. That didn't work either. Time for Bonnie, way overdue, but we had to work though the process of letting go I guess. Bonnie is for Harry and I the 'Pulse of Chemainus'. She's a realtor with ReMax who we met before we even moved to Canada. Bonnie has been instrumental in buying, selling and renting our Chemainus homes for 17 years,  even providing a reference that has helped us with securing the house sits we're off to do. During the time it took for the house to sell prayers were answered. Our 20 year old cat passed away without having to be moved or the worse option, you know the one. We did loose 'Maggie' Harry's canine buddy, very quickly due to bone cancer and buried her in the back yard along with the rest of the gang. In fact when the house sold and we were moments away from leaving the property for the last time it wasn't the building but our 'family' all buried in the garden that was tough to say good bye to. We walked down to the 'back 40', holding hands and said our final good byes to Sadie and Scoot our two Arizona dogs, Nairobi and her sister Euphrates the cats I drove up to Canada with in our VW bus. VerVer, the 'Jimmy Dean' of cats, too fast to live and too young to die, run over one night shortly after we'd returned home from a visit to UK. Of course Maggie was there too! Yep that was a tough evening.

Meanwhile we were both working at the hotel. Harry was the Maintenance Manager and me Assistant GM. 

Stuff 

We all have it. Some have lots of stuff. Some have very little stuff. Some is blue. Some is large, 5500 square feet. Some stuff goes very fast, 220 MPH. Some stuff... The list goes on and on but we all have stuff. Or... Does stuff have us? Does stuff have cloying fingers that reaches into the very cores of our souls? Does our stuff give us security? Does our stuff give us status? Does our stuff give our lives meaning? What is stuff anyway and why do we strive so hard to keep getting more stuff? 
WOW! I was just going to write about a little life diversion my wife and I are taking for 6 or so months and THIS is how I am going to start it!!??!!! I sure wish I had all the answers to the above questions. I tell you what, how about you follow us on our journey for the coming months and find out what we discover. 
I'll tell you something, it started with a conversation about 4 1/2 years ago with our “financial” guy (who I will call John) that went something like this... 
Penny- “I wish I didn't have to work 40 hours a week and could only work 1/2 or 3/4 time.” 
Harry- “That would be great! You need a break.” 
Penny- “I just feel like I am in a rut and am going to have to keep punching the clock for the next 15-20 years.” 
Harry- “Yeah, after the biz and becoming wage slaves... I miss the biz.” 
John- “You guys sound too comfortable. You've become too complacent. What would happen if you could work in Canada for 6 months and then be out of the country for 6 months, maybe volunteering, visiting family...” 
And so the seeds were sown for our adventure. An adventure coming to fruition. You see, we are off to house sit in Europe for the next 6 months. A major event in the time line of our little adventure is the auction coming up on Sunday. An auction where we are selling all our stuff. Well not all our stuff, everything except 2 suitcases each and 1 steamer struck each of stuff that we just can't part with (steamer trucks are staying in Canada for when/if we come back). So, stuff... pretty quick, we won't have much. I'll let you know how that feels real soon. Stay tuned. 

(As it happened, the auction was yesterday but I am posting today. Ah life... funny how plans morph :) )

The journey has started! The auction was yesterday, look for my next blog titled "Stuff". Thanks for following... H&P