Month: May 2024

…..but hour by hour. I have no extra time – seriously and I won’t go into the details. So much to share BUT I /we have no free time. Get up early and “work”. We changed banks on May 15 and I am still dealing with the fall out. The weather is not good. However we did have a wonderful showing this past Monday ( they loved our home and we even have the same while leather sectional and glass coffee table) and will have another tomorrow morning. As you know we are perfectionists so will be up early before Colin has to leave for a photo shoot.

Time is of the essence is I am sharing this with you – I sent this to a friend today and it pretty much describes today.

So I got hearing aids today( trial for a few weeks) and they are making me go insane. It has been a stressful day. My new VISA card would not work and we had to wait in line at RBC for 45 minutes before we saw someone. It took so long that we just had to leave. The vet was calling us at 4:30. Got home one minute before the phone rang. Carlie is not dying but she does has a chronic problem ( took $800.00 worth of bloodwork to figure it all out.) She needs help. Basically she is unable to produce enzymes to digest protein. This leads to loose stool and weight loss. She no longer has severe pancreatitis like she did on the Isla earlier this year. That was when she was in so much pain that she could not walk and I gave her heavy duty meds to take her pain away. So now we are working on a solution which is rather gross. Details in the days to come. However we have no kitchen lights and are working to set up for a 9:30AM showing on the morning. Our kitchen lights are a big feature but the realtor is still ok with bringing his clients in. Maybe we will have two offers this weekend. We may have no kitchen lights for 1 -2 – 3 weeks waiting for a new tranformer. We can live with that. So that is my que pasa for today. Oh and Colin has a job tomorrow ( first one this year ). A friend is letting us stay in her home for 30 minutes tomorrow during the showing – so I can spy on who is looking at our home😎 Colin and I are both so very very very ready to get out of Canada and onto the Isla. More details in the days to come…….hmm think I will use this for a blog post. My readers are wondering what is happening.

And on Saturday we will be having another garage sale. Hopefully one day I will come up for air. Thanks for all of your support.

Let’s start with the girls. It finally got warm enough midday, a day or two ago and the girls began their war cry. They were informing us that they had found a snake. Only it turns out that the snake had already been passed back and forth. As it was being shaken the body and the guts were flying. Colin rushed to save the critter but it was too late. He said that it was about 3/4 of an inch thick.

Thursday morning I had another ( hopefully my last for a few weeks)  medical appointment. I have not been looking forward to this one. I may have mentioned that last September my optometrist had discovered a cataract in my right eye. So a referral was made and several months later I finally met the eye surgeon. I could not believe it when he said that I also had a cataract in the other eye as well. At the moment they were booking four months out, whether I paid to have it done at the clinic ( which includes a superior corrective lens – so that I possibly may never need to wear eyeglasses again ) or paid for by our medical care in the hospital. They found one opening in the clinic ( $$ ) on August 28th about 3.5 months away. Fortunately a second opening was found one week later on September 4th. However recovery is about 6 weeks and we are scheduled to be leave before those 6 weeks are up.

We do have to be in Mazatlan no later that a certain date in late October re our residency renewal. I am somewhat in shock. We booked those surgery dates as they likely would be gone quickly. So now we have to rethink our departure date and several other things.

Last Wednesday we changed our personal banking from where we have been since 2003 to a new bank for us. It was recommended that we do this as our investments are with the same bank. I won’t go into detail I have had nothing but trouble since the change. It took 2 days to figure out how to get online. All kinds of new numbers with fancy names. I am used to one back account number, simplicity.The advisor at the bank was helpful but rushed us and so we left with our heads spinning. Got that sorted out yesterday but then today I found out that I can’t get into that account nor the investments accounts. Also yesterday I discovered that you need to have the new bank account for 30 days before CPP and OAP will be auto deposited.

Of course this is a long weekend so I will have to wait until to speak with the powers that be for all the banking issues. I did make a big mistake. What with so much happening all at the same I took the new banks advisor’s instructions without thinking it through. We totally closed down the first bank – all the accounts. So now there is no direct deposit going to be made month end 🙄 I guess I just love creating more work for myself.

The last few days have certainly been unexpected. I was not happy to have lost the last three business days. All I can do now is to once again start listing things for sale on FB Marketplace.

The good news is that I now know why I have been having so much trouble being on the computer, reading maps and doing taxes. It will be lovely to see clearly once again.

Looking back ( to what I can recall ) it has been an extremely full two weeks. Good thing I didn’t know how busy It would be.

Today I finished the company taxes as well as our personal taxes. Happy to boast that I balanced the company to within 3 cents. Fedex will be delivering my work ( a small not thick package ) to the accountant in Vancouver tomorrow morning for a mere $74.00CAD. Last year it was $50.00. We can’t afford to live here much longer. I have done what I can with the taxes. The accountant in Vancouver plays with the personal and company figures so that we pay the least amount tax possible. He is worth his weight in gold – well maybe quarters – or nickels 😛

How long have I been doing this for Colin? I worked it out today. This was my 32nd time. I have been doing this since 1992.  And it will be my last. I assume that when we close the company later this year that there will be more to do BUT I am done. As far as I am concerned it can be sent to Vancouver. Dare I say that I am officially retired 🙁

Yesterday I had my other leg vein treatment. For some reason it was a painful experience. She did suggest that I come back in September before we leave. My legs are so much better with these treatments – so I might, Well I will book it and then I can cancel if needed. When I left the office yesterday I asked how long I had been going there. The one ‘girl’ who I remember from day one said “forever” and rolled her eyes. Another one looked up the info online and say “oh my!!”. I have had between 3 to 2 treatments per leg per year.  Since 2009 😮 – definitely a long time.

So what have I been doing in the last 14 days, other than 22 loads of laundry 😳 As mentioned in the last post I had a successful garage sale on May 4th. Since then I have been selling larger items online including our sauna and the golf cart. We have sold many things but there are many many more to go. The only way it makes sense to me is that I say that I have paid my rent for the next 13 months 😉

We have still only had the one showing and as much as they love and want our home they have had to say no. A difficult decision for them but other things in their lives have recently changed. No worries. we continue to wait for the perfect person to fall in love with our home. We are confident that it will sell.

Sadly Carlie is not doing well again. She has not had any more episodes of not being able to walk. By the way we discovered that the reason she appeared paralyzed to us was because she was in extreme pain which totally consumed her. So her pain level I now more controlled but she is having problems. While I worked on taxes ( we always went together to a vet appointment but I could not this time ) Colin took Carlie to our local vet. First thing he said was the medication ( that we thought was working until about 5 days ago ) was only good for acid reflux 😥 Perhaps it was her kibble or this or that….we all agreed that her blood needed to be tested. Colin will take our #1 girl ( she is 2 and 1/2 hours older than her sister Ciela, whom we call the baby ) in first thing in the morning for fasting bloodwork. I get so sad and upset when she is not well.

Later tomorrow we will be opening a new bank account which will make our life much easier while living in Mexico. First of all our investment advisor can deal with that account and best of all we can do wire transfers for up to $50,000.00 CAD to one of our two banks in Mexico at no charge. At this point it is my understanding that this can be a daily process. Bur why would I need to transfer that much money that often but then why would I have that much to transfer. Perhaps once we sell the house.

Oh and we have listed the Lexus for sale. There are hundreds of scammers out there and it was taking all my online time! Some very special friends hooked us up with a source that will help us with the car. Such a relief. This will save me at least 2 hours more per day. So let’s see how that works out for us.

So yes, I feel that in all honesty I can say that the past two weeks have been over the top busy.

And then the Canadian hockey season is at its peak of activity with playoffs. Many Edmonton Oiler fans on our street, they are tied 2-2. Game 5 will be Thursday in Vancouver against the Vancouver Canucks. I have lived in both cities but my heart will always be with the Oilers. I swear I could hear my Dad yelling tonight, watching from that big TV in the sky.

We are still starting out our mornings with the furnace and fireplace on. Meanwhile most of Mexico is sweltering with heat waves. Mazatlan weather appears to be just perfect for me. Only 145 sleeps until we head south permanently.

 

 

 

We arrived home a week ago today, last Tuesday, April 30th. No problems at the Canadian Border. I actually had prepared a blog post Sunday the 29th and was to publish it on the 30th but I was extremely tired. I will get back to it.

We arrived home about 1PM on the 30th. Together we carried load after load into house. I have done 19 laundry loads in this past week.

We are freezing cold here and swing both the furnace and the fireplace at times throughout each day. The girls certainly knew where they were. They chased each in our yard for almost a full 10 minutes. The were happy to be back. I think they would be happy to be wherever we are.

I had braced myself for coming into the house. I was a bit sad but realized that selling the house was the way to a new future and adventure for us.

Wednesday we listed our home for sale.

When I had a few spare moments here and there I began a pile of things to sell at the garage sale. We had so many things. I had to keep borrowing tables – in the end we had seven tables. Somehow no photos were taken. Special tanks to Cindy, Dianne and Kelly for their help.

Friday Colin moved the RV back to storage and I spent the day pricing items. Two of my friends told me that I had to be prepared to let things go at much lower prices. The first few times I was speechless and in shock to see some of my special things go for peanuts so to speak. In was a success. We made just over $1000.00 at the sale and I have since sold $500.00 of larger items on Marketplace. It’s not over I still have hundreds of items to sell.

I have been going to bed as early as 9PM. We are both exhausted. doing so much in such a short period to time. I stood from 7:30AM last Saturday until about 2PM. I could barely walk. The next morning I had trouble walking but I have lubricated the old joints and I am once again on the go.

Sunday I started listing the larger items on Marketplace. Within half an hour I was inundated with emails from people wanting to buy what I had listed. I was on the computer most of the day.

Early Monday morning it was time for my annual vein treatment. Just over 40 jabs. I do the left leg next Monday. After that I will have to get my treatments done in Mazatlan. I believe that that will be an adventure 🙁

Monday early afternoon, our realtor came by for a detailed tour. Tuesday ( today the 7th ) we had our first showing at 11AM. We spent the rest of Monday and Tuesday morning cleaning. We were trying to declutter the house. So Colin got my car from storage and we stuffed the Lexus with “stuff”.

The people loved our home but of course have to make decisions re our home and their future. Que sera sera 😉

I finally had time this afternoon to finish up the Marketplace stuff. The rush is over until we list more items and we still have a lots to sell.

Tomorrow I have no choice but to start our taxes. Both personal and the company year end. We also have to decide if we are no longer working through CJPS INC. Of course Colin has some jobs lined up. Big decisions to be made.

Both Thursday and Friday we have appointments for half the day.

As you can see I have had no option but to juggling many things right now.

Thanks for sticking with me and your many emails and comments asking me ‘que pasa’. Of course I will go back and catch up. But right now I can only deal with each day as it happens.

 

Sorry no time to check for any errors in this post.