This week will be a non-art topic. I wanted to explain why I had closed the online store and was not able to paint for the past several weeks. Rest assured, everyone is safe and healthy, and life is slowly returning to normal. We returned last week from an 8 week trip to the U.S. We had planned for a shorter trip, we left before the Canadian government warned against any travel, and we had a good reason to travel, as we needed to go and get our small “snowbirding” property ready to put on the market. We bought this little property in 2012, while the real estate market was still near rock bottom. We had really no intention of buying at the time, but when we saw the prices we thought we could not afford not to! We used it well for almost 10 years, and of course had to leave in a rush when Covid hit in March 2020 and there was talk of closing the border. We had already decided before that happened that we would be selling when we came back, the cost of maintenance and the worry about the next hurricane, combined with the exhaustion of driving there and back, having taken most of the fun out of the experience. The growing unease at knowing that our good Canadian money, through taxes or other purchases, was funding administrations that we could not support also helped us in the decision. But who knew it would be almost 2 years before we could go back! We got there and started to sift through the accumulation of stuff that had managed to find its way into the closets and cupboards! The place was completely furnished when we bought it, and we had replaced some of the furniture over time. We liked to hunt for things in thrift stores and second-hand shops, so there was little emotional attachment to most of the “stuff”. We took a lot of things back to the charity shops from whence they came, and gave away a lot of the furniture to neighbors. We had established a “test” to determine if something was coming back home with us: 1) does it fit? 2) is it irreplaceable (or costly to replace)? and 3) does it have a sentimental value? Thanks to this set of rules, we managed to more easily part with things and bring back really only the essential. Well, mostly…. But the good news is that we are still in this “semi-purge” mood and are getting rid of some of our tons of stuff at home. It is a multi-year project!! Without boring you with the details, we managed to sell the place, not once, but twice! Three weeks after signing the offer, the first buyer announced that she had changed her mind. So we were back to square one, or maybe it was square zero! Thankfully we had not yet given away the furniture she had asked that we remove!! A few days later it was back on the market and another buyer was found. The curious thing is that in neither case did the buyer actually visit the property! Buying sight unseen is a new reality in Florida real estate! Great time for sellers! We are still waiting on the final papers to go through, but there should be no problems with this buyer. We hope! The last few days there and the trip home were very stressful. To re-enter Canada, in addition to being fully vaccinated, you also need to provide a negative result from a Covid test taken within 72 hours of your return. The drive takes us about 72 hours. So in order to leave some wiggle room for car problems or weather/traffic delays, that meant we had to get the test somewhere on the road. To get a test, you must book an appointment. This means that you must know where you will be at a certain date and time. Of course you must book the test several days ahead of time, so we had to decide when we would be leaving. As it is Winter, we had to look ahead to find a travel window that would include as little bad weather as possible! This is where a wonderful App that I found comes in! It is called Highway Weather. I am sure there are many similar good apps but this is the one I used. This wonderful App allows you to put in your origin and destination of course, but it also lets you plan your travel ahead of time, up to several days in fact (of course based on the current weather forecasts). Although it will suggest the best time for leaving, you can also use a slider to pretty much instantly recalculate the temperature, precipitation and warnings along your route. I highly recommend it. It is a little short on instructions so it takes a bit of fiddling to figure out the screen, but once you have it, it is a lifesaver! I didn’t use it “live” as I didn’t have US data, but I consulted it each evening in the hotels and the results were spot on. I highly recommend it! Another App we had to use that wasn’t so wonderful was the ArriveCan App. This is the App that the Canadian government requires you to use to re-enter Canada. I assume it can really make a difference in the time required to process a planeload of travelers at an airport, but honestly, it just seemed to be a lot of work for arrival by land, one car at a time. I had downloaded the App a few weeks before we left to familiarise myself with it, and of course, it stopped working on my phone. I tried to get help through email but it was useless. In their response, they basically suggested I do everything I had told them I had already done in my e-mail to them! Googling the issue told me many people were having the same problem, and after a while, I stopped caring, thinking I could always use my tablet if necessary. Eventually, the App started working again. My biggest issue with the App is that you can’t simulate a trip so you can try it all out and make sure you have everything you need. After you have used it for a real trip, you realize you probably could have done so, but it’s too late anyway! Finally, may I recommend the Flytrippers website. Started by a guy from Quebec, this site is full of money-saving tips and information mostly for flying, but that is where I found out that you could get your Covid tests for free in the US. We followed the tips and it worked like a charm! Maybe someday when (if?) we resume flying we will check out the rest of the site! So there you have it. Happy to be back, safe and sound, and looking forward to an early Spring?
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AuthorMy name is Claire Bureau. Archives
March 2023
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