Losers can always learn

Hard times are instructional. What's the point of going through hell if you're not going to get something out of it? And I don't mean an opportunity for one-upmanship, the ever popular, "You think THAT's hard? Oh yeah???"

My older daughter plays soccer and I always tell her that we learn more from losing than winning. And as a frequent loser, I know what I'm talking about.

What do you really learn about good times anyway? Nothing. You just enjoy them. And here's another point about crappy times, without them we'd find it difficult to recognize the good ones. And here's another thing, what's "good" and "bad" changes, depending on where you're sitting.

With that in mind, I thought I'd outline what I've learned from some of our tribulations, starting with the most serious, and then ending with the bugs. Bugs are always on my mind and (more frequently than I'd like) on my head.

1. Heart failure:

• Every improvement counts, no matter how small.
• Things aren't always as dire as they sound at first.
• Someone should rename this condition in order to reduce the panic level among patients and their families.
• Young, healthy people get sick every day and everywhere.
• Waiting for the sky to fall is not living.
• Don't wait for retirement to really live.
• You can't live every day like your last. It's exhausting, especially if you could live another 20 years or so.
• When to push through and when to give in. It's not true that quitters never win. Go easy on yourself.
  
• When people offer to help, take it and tell them what they can do.
• Check your life insurance as soon as you have children. We never topped up my husband's and now, no one will insure him. What you get from the workplace is better than nothing, but less than you'd need if you died while your children were young. On the upside, my husband doesn't have to hire a food taster because he knows that he's worth more to me alive than dead. (He knows I'm kidding, right? I truly adore that man.)
  

2. Home renovations:

• Always get references, not just a quote. Cheaper is not necessarily better.
• If it's a big reno, like...say...a roof, consider hiring a home inspector to check the work. This can also prevent...say...rain in your basement in the event that the roofer skipped the important step of replacing the surface that was removed.
  
• Things always cost more than you think.

3. Buying and selling a home:

• Can you renovate and be happy?
• What you want versus what you need.
• Get a home inspection and fix the big problems before you sell.
• Sometimes going through lawyers is harder. Keep the lines of communication open between both parties, if possible.
• Get a long range forecast and if a tornado will be hitting your house in the foreseeable future, move. NOW.

4. Bugs:

• Gratitude: For having a washer and a dryer. If I was doing laundry on a rock by the river, I would have keeled over before the bugs did. On the other hand...
• Simplicity: If I was doing laundry on a rock by the river, we'd only have 1.5 outfits each and it wouldn't have taken as long. Pare your stuff down regularly.
• Reality check: No one dies from bed bugs (but you do go itchy-crazy).
• Don't accept used clothing or furniture unless you can poach, boil, immerse or freeze it. On that note, winter is a good time to get used stuff. Leave it outside for a while, preferably when it's a day like today and it's -33C with the windchill.
  
• If someone is getting weird rashes for no apparent reason, it could be bed bugs (I got hives, my husband didn't have any reaction and one of my daughters looked like she was thrown into an Iron Maiden).
• Get a canine inspection. Really. They now have dogs trained to sniff out bed bugs. There's a fella in Ottawa who does this through his company. It's money well spent. My daughter was getting a weird rash on her back in the fall and I was starting to hyperventilate. We got Patrick to come over with his dog Miley and we passed the sniff test. Whew.
• Check hotel rooms for signs of bed bugs before you flop.

What about you? What sort of trials have you been through and what sort of wisdom would you like to share?

Paranoid 3: Betting our hedge

The roof of our former house narrowly missed the car across the street. Photo by: Jennifer Oberhammer

Looking back over the past five less-than-stellar years has me thinking about luck. Most of us think in terms of bad luck and good luck.

I don't think it's that simple. There's good-great luck and there's good-could-have-been-much-worse luck.

An example of the former is having the winning lottery numbers. When I think of the latter, I think of a scenario like this:

A woman gets dragged under a bus for a mile or so and then is set upon by a pack of feral dogs, but is still alive. The newscaster reports that she's in a medically induced coma while awaiting a donor for a full-body skin transplant. The cop featured on the five-second sound bite says, "That's one lucky little lady."

I'd say that's my kind of luck, but I'm luckier because I have all my skin--and teeth. And we got out of there, by the skin of our teeth.

So far, I've recounted major house damage and then heart damage. Then, there were the scabies-that-turned-out-to-be bed bugs and the therapeutic demolition job.

Next up we have real estate snafus, lice and a tornado. But there I go again, rushing things.

When I left off, we were engaged in a full out war against bed bugs. For months, we watched each other carefully for any rashes or bite-like lesions. I felt like a scout for the porn industry: "Take your clothes off and stand over here." And that was just for guests.

And the nightmares! In the dead of night, I'd go from a twitchy prone position to standing with all the bedding in my hands and the light on in 1.2 seconds. It wasn't long before Oli stopped asking what I was doing. He'd just wait until I was good and ready to hand the sheets back.

Bed bugs and beyond

After a year, we were in the clear. Not one to just sit back and enjoy some free time, I started advocating to move. I wanted to live in a house where I didn't have so many bad memories. Not that all memories were bad. I'd brought home my two (colicky) infants from the hospital to that--. Yeah, now that you mention it, there weren't a lot of good memories, plus we were running out of room to store all the sports equipment we couldn't use, now that we were parents.

I found the perfect place, just blocks away. We put an offer on the house and it was accepted. In a divine stroke of luck, acquaintances expressed interest in our place.

But of course, when your last name is Murphy, things rarely work out the way you think they will. After we signed off on our home inspection, our inspector's "just-in-case insulation test" for asbestos came back positive. I wanted out of that purchase in a big, bad way. But the vendors were really great about it and got it removed and replaced, largely at their expense.

The home inspection on our place didn't go so well either and we had to pay for some big expenses there.

What's a life event without bugs? This time it was lice and all of us were afflicted. The treatment and the moving stress had me flirting with female-pattern baldness.

Hegemony (Phonetics: Hedge-eh-money)

The universe wasn't done with us yet though. The purchaser's lawyer had hedge issues with our place.

Our hedge's proximity to a property line had our sale teetering on the edge of oblivion. It was the most confounding situation and I can't get into details here because I fear angering the gods of property and libel law.

Our legal fees quadrupled, while my mental faculties halved.

My and Oli's parents swooped in as I unraveled. I could neither eat nor sleep because I felt so responsible for our impending financial ruin.

In the midst of all this, there were layoffs at work and I was called to an unscheduled meeting. As I walked down the hall, pondering rules for filing bankruptcy, I was ushered into the "survivors'" meeting and I almost fainted with relief.

Hedge-ectomy

Our lawyer hit on a solution at the 11th hour, which involved a night-time visit with a chainsaw and a headlamp. Oli's hedge removal was masterful. When he was done, there was no evidence that a 12-foot hedge had ever been there.

It really did work out in the end. I loved our new house from the first, but I could tell that my husband was a bit "meh" about the cost, the big mortgage and stress of the move.

But five months later, he developed a whole new appreciation for our abode.

The April after we moved in, a tornado stampeded through the old neighbourhood and tore the roof clean off our former house and deposited it in the middle of the road.

I'm sure the neighbours across the road were cursing us for upping the "R" value of the roof insulation because it looked like their giant maple tree was part of a pink ribbon campaign.

I felt so badly for our purchasers; what a beginning for their new home. I thought a fresh start would change the luck of the place. They've recently moved back in and much like us, I'm sure they have a whole new appreciation for home insurance.

That house could really do with a dose of good luck. An end to the bad luck would be a good start.

Now, I feel pressure behind my right eye. I wonder if it's a tumour.