Are We There Yet?

It’s June 12.  I should be well into the summer routine of blogging weekly about our adventures in camp. The trailer is clean, the generator is gassed up and the propane tanks are full.  The hitch is installed in the truck.  The bedding is washed.  The pantry food is packed.  So why aren’t we in camp yet?

We knew when we requested Washington Lake that it usually didn’t open until mid-June at the earliest.  But with the mild winter we had this year we were sure we’d get in earlier, and planned accordingly.  Then May hit, and single-handedly brought our water year up to normal.  Rain in the valleys has always equaled snow in the mountains.  We just didn’t think it would be that much snow.

The US Forest Service policy is to open campgrounds only when the snow has melted naturally.  As of last Wednesday, this process was happening at an accelerated rate now that the snow has (finally) stopped falling.  But there’s another snag – a couple of trees were uprooted by strong wings and need to be cleared out before the Forest Service will deem the campground safe for campers.  When they will do this is anybody’s guess.

So we wait – not exactly patiently.  I’m sure that has a lot to do with managing our own expectations, combined with minimal communication from our new area managers.  In their defense, the area is new to them and there’s a lot of work to open the lower campgrounds.  And they have no more control over the weather and the Forest Service than we do. 

Our current planned departure date is Wednesday, June 17.  Will we make it?  Keep tuned.

Emotional Intelligence and Body Language

I recently had the opportunity to hear Laura Arellano, Senior Leadership Trainer for CHG Healthcare, give a keynote presentation on emotional intelligence in leadership.  As part of her presentation, she confirmed that emotional intelligence is a skill that can be learned and applied to leadership, particular to leading volunteers.  My takeaway from her presentation, however, had nothing to do with leadership and everything to do with body language.

I’ve always had trouble controlling my physical reaction to being startled.  The best example is when I am riding in the passenger seat and something that is happening on the highway startles me.  I literally jump.  This in turn startles the driver (usually my husband) who has been known to react to my reaction by chastising me for reacting. 

But that’s not my only body language faux pas.  That same week I was accused twice of being nervous when I felt no nervousness at all – at least, not consciously.  From my vantage point, I was merely standing and patiently waiting.  Apparently when I stand and patiently wait, I appear very anxious.

Fortunately, I’m doing OK at controlling the verbal outbursts that often flood my mind after being chastised for my body language.  Why are you yelling at me for something I can’t control?  Be calm??? You might as well tell me to be six feet tall. Here’s where Laura’s message comes in.  She gave what she called a Profound Statement:  The job of the Subconscious Mind is to do what the Conscious Mind tells it to.  She then went on to say the brain follows the body.  The two statements almost sound counter-intuitive, but when you think about it, they can be complementary.  Calm the mind – calm the body AND calm the body – calm the mind.

It’s not that I can’t control my body language.  It’s that I haven’t tried.  Those of you who know me personally know that the word calm and my name are never used in the same sentence.  It’s time to try to fix that.  And the fix will need to come from both calming the mind and calming the body. 

So I’ve been practicing.  I’m trying to move a little more slowly.  I sit in the car with my feet on the ground and my hands folded in my lap, and I’ve noticed that just that posture has helped me control overreacting to what’s happening around me.  I’ve tried to sit quietly and take deep breaths to calm myself.  Is it working?  Time will tell.  Hopefully I will not only take Laura’s lessons to heart, but to mind and body as well.  

Red Rock Relay Moab

Last Saturday, May 9, team Girls Day Out ran their third Red Rock Relay together – this time in the Red Rock country surrounding Moab, Utah.  The decision to run Moab was pretty much made for us when Red Rock Relay canceled the Dixie run for 2015.  We were a little bit nervous about the course, but the thought of a girls’ weekend away and running together again far overshadowed the anxiety of a more difficult course.

Our team has become known in Red Rock Relay circles as a team of “experienced” runners, referring more to life experience than to running experience.  Our oldest team member was 70 years, 11 months and 10 days on race day.  And while she may not be the fastest runner on the team, she is by far the most inspirational. 

And not only to us!  When we approached the exchange for Helen’s second leg, a much younger runner saw her coming and said out loud.  “This lady coming in is my hero.  Whose team is she on?”  Of course we claimed her in a nanosecond and told everyone her name.  So when she came in, the entire group of runners who were either waiting for their teammate or for the bathroom cheered and shouted her name.  Way to go, Helen!

The course, combined with the weather, did present its challenges.  Our first runner had to hop two fences to get back on course after a large group of early runners were misdirected.  And nobody told her about the steep switchbacks on her second leg.  The difficulty rating of leg 7 was seriously underestimated. 

The runners on the high elevation legs 7, 8, and 9 got the treat of running in snow.  It was light and not sticking to the ground, but it was SNOW!  So as I waited for my final leg, 11, I put on a long sleeved shirt and a jacket.  Too soon!  When it was my turn to run the sun was shining and the temperature was in the low 50s.  Off with the shirt and jacket.  Toward the end of my 8 mile run I was really wishing for a little of that snow.

Warning – this is the place where I seriously brag about our team.  We finished the 61 mile course in 10 hours 21 minutes for an average pace of 10:09, which was well under the 11 minute mile pace that we had predicted.  A few of us, me included, set personal records for speed over distance.  We all felt good after the race.  We finished early enough for some great photo ops before we had our traditional Mexican food dinner (with margaritas, of course,) and champagne at the hot tub. 

In the end the course was far more difficult on paper than it was in real life.  And while before the race we were thinking about what new relay to run next year, after the race we are seriously considering running Moab again.  Go Girls Day Out!  

Do You Wanna Be a Snowbird?

Snowbird: Informal: a person who vacations in or moves to a warmer climate during cold weather.

After three years of spending summers away from home (campground hosting) and struggling with all the work that needed to be done around our home and our rental properties, AND after struggling with running in the bad air that plagues our valley during the winter months, my husband and I realized that we are spending the wrong season away from home.  So we are planning to spend next winter in a warmer climate.

We learned from several of the couples we've met in our camp hosting adventures that there are no paying jobs in warm climates in winter.  The best we could do would be to find a situation where working a certain number of hours a week would pay for our trailer spot.  We decided that we would choose to afford to pay a reasonable monthly rent for a spot and will not be seeking work.  One of the considerations as we select a location will be availability of an affordable trailer spot.

So – where to go?  We’re too far west to consider going to Florida, and after spending a week in Phoenix for Spring Training last month, we confirmed our decision not to winter in the Phoenix area.  Why not?  Too many people; too much traffic.  We reached out to two couples we wanted to visit while we were in the area.  Both invited to cook dinner for us in their homes.  Wow, we thought, sounds great.  Until we had to drive there during drive time.  I’ll never complain about Salt Lake traffic again!  But we’ve broken the code.  In Phoenix, it’s less stress for even the most kitchen-phobic of individuals to prepare food than to drive to a restaurant in drive time.  But I digress…where to go? 

In reality, we would like to stay less than a day’s drive away from family and friends, so we’re looking at Southern Utah, the little corner of Arizona that hosts the Virgin River Gorge, and the southern tip of Nevada.  We ruled out St. George for the “too-many-people-too-much-traffic” reason, although we expect to use St. George as the “big city” for shopping and entertainment.  We’ve narrowed our search to three towns:  Hurricane, Utah; Beaver Dam, Arizona; and Mesquite, Nevada.

Now – what to do?  One of the nice things about camp hosting is that there is a work to do.  We’ll want to choose a location where we can get involved in the community, perhaps volunteer, and take advantage of outdoor recreation.  My list includes training for a marathon, golfing, fishing, sightseeing, and continuing our work with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. 

It’s time to evaluate the three locations, looking for availability of an affordable spot and availability of the activities we are looking for.  We’ll look at each of the three towns and compare our wish list with what’s available.  This should help us come to a final decision.   Wish us luck!

Re-Upholstery Lessons Learned

The chair is done.  It looks great and works perfectly.  But I still give myself only a B- on the project.  Why?  I made a lot of mistakes – many of which could have been avoided if I had planned better and/or executed more carefully. 

So in the interest of helping someone else avoid the mistakes I made, here are my lessons learned:

1.  Take pictures.  Take lots of pictures.  Take more pictures than you think you’ll ever need.  Take a picture at each step of disassembly – both of the overall unit and of each piece. The more time it takes to complete your project, the more the pictures will help you put things back together.  The pictures were very helpful in putting together pieces that needed to be sewed.  The old fabric you’ll use as a pattern won’t have nice markings and notches, nor will it have a sheet of instructions on which was two straight-looking pieces go together to make a curve.  Take pictures.

2.  The air compressor is your friend.  If you can, use compressor-driven staples.  With the number of staples we used to attach the fabric to the wood, we would have been exhausted trying to manually drive them. 

3.  Fit multiple times, staple once.  Those great compressor-driven staples are almost impossible to remove once they’re in, so be certain that the piece is exactly where you want it before you install a staple.

4.  Allow extra fabric for pieces that will need to wrap along an edge and be stapled.  How will you know?  If you've taken pictures in the disassembly, you’ll see where they wrap and attach.  If, like us, you didn't take quite enough pictures, any piece that isn't sewn and doesn't have a finished edge is a likely candidate for stapling.  Cut it long.  You can always cut off excess fabric. 

5.  Tack strip is your friend.  As I was taking some of the pieces apart I noticed that there was half-inch wide cardboard strip along some of the edges.  I didn't know what it was called at the time, but I knew I needed to get some.  It comes in rolls and you can get it at fabric and craft stores.  I thought it was kind of pricey, but it’s really great for the nice finished edges.  And, if like us, you cut a piece that should have wrapped around too short, you can use the tack strip and another piece of fabric to finish the edge. 

6.  A needle and thread is your friend.  I made patches for a couple of areas where I messed up either cutting or stapling.  I used a straight needle, and while it was awkward I could still manage to get it to work.  I was told later that this is why curved needles were invented.  Oh, well.  The fabric I chose was very forgiving; you can’t even see the stitches. 

Here’s hoping that these lessons will help someone out there somewhere.  Happy re-upholstering!

Re-Upholstery 503

The lift chair has been in our family for over 20 years. During that time it's been passed around to those needing it as they recovered from illness or injury. So when we got it back it was rather hammered.  Looking back, attempting a recliner as one's first re-upholstery project was not smart.  But hey, we thought, we’re retired.  We had time and we could take our time. 

And so it began.  I took photos as my husband disassembled the chair, handing me all the fabric pieces so that I could remake them.  I carefully measured each piece and wrote down the dimensions.

I then manually drew out each piece on graph paper so I could determine the amount of fabric I’d need.  After looking at three fabric stores and grabbing dozens of swatches, we decided to go with a fabric that matched our existing chairs.  I needed eight yards.  There was exactly eight yards on the roll when I took it for cutting.  A good omen to be sure.

Using the old pieces as patterns, I tore apart, cut, put back together, and re-stuffed all the cushions. The pads needed to be replaced, but I was able to wash and reuse most of the stuffing and all of the lining pieces.  I took photos of each piece in the various stages of dis-assembly so I could remember how to put it back together. 

The fabric pieces were all completed at the beginning of March, and we began the process of putting the chair back together.  Starting at the bottom and working our way back up, we stapled fabric and cushions to the bottom, installed the lift mechanism, the base, and the footrest, stapled the seat cushion, attached the back, and finished the chair assembly.  I used the time-honored needle and thread to patch up a couple of small mistakes.

On March 29, 2015, I finally stitched the last piece into place and stuffed the last pillow.  Total calendar time elapsed was almost sixteen months.  Granted, I took several breaks in the action – two months to make draperies for our daughter’s new condo; four months for summer camp hosting, a month to make appliance covers for my parents’ new house, and a month to make pajama pants for Christmas.  And I didn’t work on the chair eight hours a day.  But it must be said that this was a very complicated project. 

We did it!  It looks great!  And re-upholstering the dining room set will be a piece of cake!

Why I Love St. Patrick's Day

I have no Irish heritage.  Zero.  Zip.  Zilch.    But I absolutely love St. Patrick’s Day.

In 2002, my daughter and I visited Ireland.  She was 16. I was, well, a bit older.  The trip was arranged by her high school French teacher.  When Lisa approached her father and me about going on the trip in the early fall of 2001, I told her that I thought it would be a marvelous opportunity.  Did they need any adult chaperons?

Shortly after the trip was announced, the unthinkable tragedy that we now refer to as 9/11 occurred.  People were afraid to fly – for good reason.  But reason prevailed and the trip would go on – albeit a little more sparsely attended than planned.  My seat was secured; my presence was welcomed.

After flying all night, we landed in Shannon on June 6, 2002.  From there we boarded the bus that would take us throughout Ireland.  We fought sleep as we toured a beach, viewed the amazing Irish countryside, visited a castle, and took photos of the fabulous Cliffs of Moher. 

We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant and gift shop.  As we ate and shopped, we noticed that a single song played over and over.

My heart is in Ireland; ‘tis there I long to be
Her hills and her valleys are calling to me
Though born here in this land, my heart is in Ireland
The land of the old folk is calling to me.

Annoying as it was at the time, we found we couldn’t get the song out of our heads.  We grew to love it, and my daughter and another teenager from the trip sang it frequently – usually with an audience.  It became the theme song of the trip; even as we went on to visit Wales, England, Scotland, and finally, France.

I chatted with my daughter’s French teacher on one of the long bus rides that bound our adventures.  He commented that I would always cherish this trip, as this would likely be the most time I would ever get to spend one-on-one with my daughter.  His wise words have proven true. 

She is now 29.  I am now even older.  But every year we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.  We drink Irish coffee and Guinness stout.  We play Irish music.  We wear matching green socks with shamrocks.  And every year on St. Patrick’s Day our hearts go back to Ireland.