Received this sign from my grand daughter this week. Do you think I am making an impression on her?

 

 A Trip begins with a Move

We need to be out of Canada more than six months out of every year now we are U.S. residents (since 2013).  This is somewhat problematic as we rented our house in South Carolina for four months this winter for a a number of reasons.  One reason has been the need to support our daughter with some childcare while she travels for work, the other to help with my mother who is 91 with a few health issues.  Into the middle of this throw in a move.  Our daughter Katie sold her house after 19 months on the market and therefore had to move.  She found a lovely little house about eight (8) miles from her old house in an area of mixed vacation and permanent houses.  She is renting it until she can figure out where she wants to be permanently.  We departed Canada on Wednesday of this week.  We woke up to a snowstorm and proceeded to go through more types of weather in a couple of miles than we could imagine.  We left in bright sunshine and blue sky, drove 5 miles and we were in the middle of a blizzard with blowing snow and whiteout conditions, drove into blue sky and sunshine again and then into more snow and finally when we crossed the border we had dry roads and clear skies for the rest of our trip to New London, NH.

Lots of packing had already taken place but much more needed to be done.  Also needed was some painting at the new residence so John and I took on that task.  We discovered when redoing rooms at #58 that we actually enjoy painting together and that we each bring different skills to the task.  I love the detail work with a paint brush and John likes to use the roller or a paint pad.  We are big fans of audio books and right now we are listening to The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson which is hilarious and wonderful to listen to when you are painting.  Nothing like laughing out loud when you have one more wall to paint!  So the master bedroom and bath are done and one more bathroom to go.  There is nothing like the Moses family for moving.  John and I have moved 10 times in 47 years, sometimes long moves as in the move from Delaware to Maine, some shorter from one house to another.  The person with the record however is our daughter Margot.  We moved her from her condo to campus back to condo back to campus into storage back to condo and back to campus then to a new school and finally to Asheville all in a space of 7 years.  Katie has been the most stable member of the family having lived at #58 for 14 years.  All of that is to say we are really, really good at this so it is no real surprise that we managed, with the help of a good friend with a truck and two extremely strong 15 year old boys with infectious giggles to move Katie and family into her new house in three days.  We all slept in the house Saturday night – exhausted and happy.

The unpacking is coming along and then we will head off even farther south to visit friends in South Carolina and to visit Margot and Hadley in North Carolina before returning home to Canada again.  This gets us out of Canada for most of March and we will be gone for part of April too until we depart for our southern home for May and part of June.  It has been a fun and different kind of winter but also unsettling too.  Truly, I am a homebody and living out of a suitcase most of the month isn’t necessarily the best way for me to live.  I do not think we will do this again next winter.

Renovations

The beginning of the week brought the final step in a small reno project in our house in Canada.  As mentioned above we enjoy painting together so we decided to brighten up our kitchen and paint the cabinets.  They were a very dull cream and burgundy combination and therefore it was quite dark. In addition, the counter tops were made of solid pieces of wood but these had become very worn over the years and they also contributed to the darkness.  The house has a great deal of wood and we love that about it but we also find that wood can be very dark.  So the cabinets were painted and the counters were put in this week.  We are very pleased with the outcome and may venture into other areas of the house as well.  In the meantime we will enjoy what has been done.

 

 

Food for Thought

Those of you who have followed along with me for over a year now know that I am a fan of Dr. Mark Hyman.  He has just released a new book Eat Fat, Get Thin.  I have just ordered it so cannot comment on the contents just yet but I am intrigued.  In my continuing experiment with myself to find the most nutritious food combination for my heart and health I am beginning to wonder what is next.  I know that carbohydrates are really not my friend.  I love them, don’t get me wrong, but they are not conducive to providing me with the best outcome for my health.  Controlling my blood sugar is very high on my list and lowering my cholesterol without damaging my body is also a priority.  I throw this out for you here to give you another option in your own journey.  If you do buy the book and read it I would love to have a discussion about your thoughts and whether you are going to try this style of eating for your own health.  I will let you know what I find out after I experiment with myself.

 

Fur Peace

 

And I leave you with the following pictures taken this past week in our home in Canada where the fur crowd are staying with their favorite Canadian fur-sitter. They get to stay in Canada as they are not affected by residency requirements.

Have a wonderful week.

Louise