Friday, July 18, 2008

Time for a change.

When I moved to Hawaii in 1989 I shipped a few big pieces of furniture with me, along with my trusty little yellow Toyota hatchback. The car was gone within a few years but the furniture…. well what year is it now?!

Let me put it this way, my friend Julie called me at least 5 years ago to say that she was writing her Will and was leaving me a bit of brass, but that it came with the following caveat. "If you haven't got rid of that fucking couch by the time I've croaked I've stipulated in the will you have to use that money for a new sofa"!

I’m pretty good at saving money, but spending over a couple of hundred dollars for anything will make me think twice. Hence my home has always been cozy-but in the cold light of day a bit worse for wear. "Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.

And so the time has finally come to start anew and all I can say is ‘thank god for Craigslist'! Confession, I didn’t want to have a garage sale because I wondered what the neighbours would think when they came over to check out my shit only to realize that it really was shit! And I didn’t want to put all my crap outside with a ‘free’ sign on it because what if nobody took it-oh the shame! So I’ve discreetly given almost all of it all away courtesy of the ‘free’ section on Craigslist and kept my dignity intact in the process.

So the house has been painted inside and out. The hot tub removed and the deck rebuilt, the carpet picked out and hopefully installed next week, the new art is on it’s way courtesy of my friend Alexis & some simple new furniture is here. The best part however, is that my old comfy crappy sofa is having the last laugh as it remains fully ensconsed until September, when they finally row my new one across the Pacific.

A proposito, the Italian rower Alex Bellini who really is rowing across the Pacific Ocean recently had his first communication with people in four months. The article reads “The communiqué described the rower's moral as excellent and his main concern was his jar of Parmesan cheese was emptying too quickly” Check out alexbellini.it for some amazing photo’s in his personal diary. We must become the change we want to see.Mahatma Gandhi.

As an aside and a cautionary warning to others I got a wake up call with all these changes as last week, dinner got cold because we were fiddling with the new flat screen and GP commented “all these stresses because of new stuff”. He’s right - stuff is just stuff and not worth fretting over, so with any luck I’m done for another 19 years!

When you're finished changing, you're finished.Benjamin Franklin.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stuff may be just stuff but a home is a home and somewhere that should be worthy of some imput be it a new settee or flat screen. I've just had my carpets cleaned and the pleasure I am getting from the emhanced appearance more than makes up for the work/chaos that simple task created.

Just think of the joy you will get when everything is in place AND you're back in Julie's will to boot.

Mater x

Anonymous said...

As an aside, you're definitely not your father's daughter. Tone would have paid someone to paint rather than do it himself:-)

mater x

Nancy said...

Why are you pretending to be the painter? The only work you did was write checks to everyone...if your wrist is sore from holding the pen, let me know..I have a wrist wrap you can borrow.

cammar said...

Sharon, if you're pretty good at saving money, I must be the world champion...

Sharon said...

Checks and paint brushes - I do it all!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Mater, well said.

GP you're certainly not the world champ at saving money if we consider your guilty pleasure of boards. Shaz is cruzing around on a crap board and your cruizing on a crap sofa (when you're in Kuau). I have a cruize on a crap board, a crap sofa, but I do cruize in some pretty sweet trucks - all our personal choice of spending.

Shaz, bet Julie changes her Will to you buying a car with that dough instead now ;-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks Meesh, I feel quite strongly about money being well spent in having a nice home.
GP you don't need to spend your cash as you spend half your time at Sharon's and get the pleasure of lovely surroundings without paying the coin for it!!!!!!

Is that really the way you spell cheques? Over here you check how much you have made your cheque out for. Confusing to anyone but a Brit.
Mater x

Anonymous said...

Enlarged the picture of you emulating Michaelangelo and noted that your navel seemed "rather high". Have you had a secret face lift and not confessed?

Just wondered 'cos, to my rheumy old eyes, you always look perfect!!
But perhaps they're getting rheumier than I thought?

Mater x