T-17: OMG

The to-do list we’re working on is completely unmanageable. I move from obligation to obligation.  What has to be done right now?  What can be delayed a few minutes, a few days?  What is essential, what is not?  As I try to make sense of this, I feel as though I am in a haze.

Here’s a quick overview of the many strands of action I am managing:

Preparing the house for house sitting: getting rid of all the excess that needs to go the Salvation Army, beginning to store all our personal items so the house sitters can have space for their goods; purchasing dog and cat food ahead, making sure all the repairs are done; making sure the animals are up to date with their shots; preparing the “care and feeding of house and animals”  document; getting a debit card to pay for animal expenses; clean, clean, clean… repair whatever needs repairing.

Preparing the yard for our absence: get all the beds in order, weeded, mulched, and organized; prune the overgrown shrubs; replace the rotten garden timbers with brick; make sure the tools, mower, hoses, etc. are in good order.

You may think this sounds over the top. It is to a degree, but it is also defensive.  In the years we have been using house sitters, we have discovered that sitters will do and allow things that owners never would.  A case in point: one year, we left the seldom used basement toilet with a wonky fitting.  We told the sitter to make sure the valve re-seated if the toilet was used.  When we came home, we heard water running.  Sure enough, the basement toilet was running and apparently had been for weeks, given the size of our water bill.   Another example: rare oh rare is the sitter who will maintain the garden.  For renters and sitters, watering and mowing the grass alone is pretty challenging.  If we don’t weed, mulch, and prune, we come home to a jungle with aggressive plant likes grape vines and coltsfoot, circling and killing our perennials.

Getting ready for the trip itself: getting the bikes overhauled and prepared for long-term travel; making sure we have all the maps for the trip.  (We just received maps for our routes from Portland to north of Seattle where we join the Northern Tier route we will follow across the country.  We also received the maps from Portland, Maine to Boston at the end of our trip.  www.adventurecycling.org). We have joined www.warmshowers.com, which is a website that connects touring bicyclists to people who are willing to let you camp or stay at their house. 

We still need make arrangements to ship our bikes and BOBs from Detroit and Laramie.  We think through the pack again and again: do we have the right clothes?  Do we need better rain gear?  What safety and health preparations are prudent and which are extra weight?  We have a flight from Denver to Portland, but how will we get to Denver from our mountain cabin?

Driving across the country:  We will drive across the country to our cabin in Wyoming before leaving.  We have a whole variety of furniture, dishes, and other materials that need to be packed to take to Centennial.  We think we will camp across the country, but because we will need to travel fast, we better make sure we have reservations. 

Wes’ 60 birthday/retirement/bon voyage party: We are hosting a party before we go, so there are invitations to be sent, food to be prepared.  We will spend the weekend getting the backyard ready for the party.  (See above)

Getting our bodies ready:  We both have had extensive dental work and mine is still not done.  I am still trying to get to the gym (although I am supposed to be there right now as I write these words) to continue my strength training.  We have also been trying to get as many bike rides as possible before we go.  I should go to the optometrist, but it is looking like that will wait.

Making sure the retirement and financial changes are complete: There is a mountain of paperwork, new insurances, changes of accounts and more that have to be managed.  Wes has been nagging me for more than 3 weeks to get my IRA transferred.  I say, “soon, soon” and keep it on my to-do list.  We need to make sure we can pay all our bills online, something we have never done to date.  So far that is a “soon, soon.”  But time is running out and I regret we did not do this change last January.

Of course, these are ONLY the preparations on the personal side.  The to-do list for the company and for Wes to close out 30 years of teaching are twice as big and twice as complicated. 

Right now, we are like buffalo facing a vicious snowstorm blowing in from the east.  There is nothing to do but put our heads down, accept that pleasure is not going part of the picture for a while, and keep on plodding to our goal.

So, while we can see that our escape is coming, we are deeply experiencing the tangling bondages we have so tightly wound around our life.  The irony is nearly overwhelming.  We want the weaving to stay intact while we carefully extract ourselves from the weave.  So many threads to unravel, so many threads to re-weave.

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