The Complicated Details of Trying to Make Life Easier

There is no doubt about it - simplifying your life is a complicated, convoluted, difficult task that takes far more time than it actually should. This I know first hand.

We're getting a new car because mine is The Shitbox - it leaks when it rains too hard, the seat is rusted in place due to all the water that has collected at the base and needs a whole lot of work that isn't really worth doing.

We're moving to a new apartment in town because living in Portugal Cove just isn't as good a fit as we originally hoped it would be. Plus, living in the city is just a whole helluva lot more convenient for the work/school dynamic and let's be honest, having a place 100% unto ourselves is more to our anti-social nature.

However, you would think that since we are (a) being given a replacement car for The Shitbox as a gift and (b) secured a new place rather quickly and at a decent price that all of this would be a fairly easy transition. That is where you would be wrong.

Shuffling the new used car out to Newfoundland and getting everything setup has been an entire day in the figuring, literally. Between Sarah and I we've been on the phone all day with either her dad - the person giving us the car (Thanks Garry!) - or my insurance provider to figure out the best possible solution to the owner/insurer/primary driver trifecta. It's 3 pm and we finally have it all sorted out, you know, other than actually getting the car out here, registering it and getting a policy in place. Basically, we have a plan...

Moving has it's own set of monkey wrenches being thrown at it. The place we're moving into - a cute little above ground basement apartment - is under construction. The ugly living room carpet has been pulled up to reveal beautiful original hardwood floors, the bathroom has been redone completely and well, pretty much everything is being revamped, which is awesome. Except that we wanted to snag the place a little early to facilitate an easier transition out of our current dwelling.

That's not going to happen, in part because we're not going to be back in town until the 21st, but still. Renovations may not be done which means our window of opportunity for moving gets smaller. Where we were going to have a full nine days to pack, slowly deliver boxes to the new house and get setup there has now shrunk to maybe 7 days, during which period I will be working 40 hours, still meeting writing deadlines and Sarah will be prepping for another semester of Nursing School.

Couple that with the unfortunate but inevitable awkwardness of moving out of a house we moved into with a friend and you get the picture. Oh yeah, we're dog-sitting from the time we get back until Boxing Day-ish too, which further limits what we can and cannot do.

My Bedouin Lifestyle of the past eight years has taught me a great deal, but nothing more important than this: find a place you want to set up roots and do so, as moving around is a real pain in the ass. Get a good car and keep it - you only get what you pay for and what you put into it, so invest wisely. Most importantly, find an incredibly patient partner who puts up with your being a broke-ass would be writer who does more for you than she even knows and thank the stars for her every day...