When 650 Equals 450

Closets and boxes and crap… oh my! (Old apartment flashbacks)

I have learned a schwack of lessons during our recent move. (Yes, a whole SCHWACK!) I am still processing the adjustment of everything on an energetic level (which partly explains my dire absence from the interwebs lately). However, while my delicate chakras continue to digest everything that’s happened to us in the past month, allow me to shine a light on a very particular lesson that I must have learned simply so you don’t have to. Read on and learn, dear friends– read. and. learn.

Two years ago, when we left our beloved winter cottage on the lake and came back into the city to rent something “basic and cheap” for Harbour season, we stumbled upon our ghetto apartment in the heart of Victoria. It met our sole criteria– “basic” and “cheap”– so we signed our names on the lease and thus ushered in an era of Pain and Suffering for ourselves. (That was Lesson #1, by the way: “In the future, craft a more extensive/less pathetic list of criteria for winning apartments”. CHECK.)

Anyway. Right after* (*yes, not right before) we had signed our souls away for the low, low price of $650 per month, I asked our landlord what the square footage of our glorious new residence was. I needed this information for tax purposes, and our landlord didn’t skip a beat when she answered “640 square feet”.

Okay– 640 square feet. Small. But manageable.

Since I am a mathematical genius and have a keen attention to detail, I proceeded to take the measurements of Marty’s studio space manually. I needed to know the percentage of Marty’s work space to our whole apartment (yay for home office deductions!), so I wielded the Measuring Tape, divided the size of Marty’s studio by 640 square feet and voila! I had a number I could plug in to the tax forms come tax time.

Aaahhh… Welcome to our bike room slash art studio slash plant storage space slash recycling depot! Yeesh!

During the next two years, we did nothing but complain about our 640 square foot apartment:

Yes, we have a lot of stuff in here, but gee– it feels so cramped in here!

It would sure be nice to live somewhere with 2 million square feet! At least! Then we could fit all of the art supplies, bike stuff, books, etc.

By golly, 640 square feet sure feels small!

(This wasn’t even factoring in our other complaints, like having elephants for upstairs neighbours and that time when the building leaked, flooded our apartment, and ROTTED OUR MATTRESS!! But I digress.)

For nearly two whole years, our apartment felt supremely tiny. We were horrified at the thought of having visitors there, so nobody was allowed to enter unless it was 100% essential. (My mom never actually saw our place, despite coming to Victoria several times during our lease. Cough. And when we needed to have a friend water our plants while we were away on holidays last year, I probably spent about three hours blathering about my supreme embarrassment before permitting her to even cross the threshold of the apartment.)

And then I proceeded to e-mail her helpful photos like this from Arizona, so she could locate specific items that could technically be ANYWHERE on our jam-packed shelves.

Needless to say, when I saw a listing for a much, much larger suite on the top floor of a heritage house, I lunged at the opportunity to jump from our microscopic ship. So we packed. We cleaned. We unpacked. We cleaned some more. And just before we had our final walk through in the old, tiny apartment, I decided to measure the whole place, just for kicks. (Yes, I am a nerd.)

I whipped out Ye Olde Measuring Tape for the last time there, calculated some lengths and checked them twice. A few days later, I plugged the numbers into my trusty adding machine and was stunned to discover that they yielded 445 square feet total, not even close to 640. Thinking I must have made an error in the basic length x width formula, I calculated all the areas again. And then again, when I arrived at the same number and thought to myself that I must have missed a decimal place or something.

Nope. 445 square feet. No wonder it felt so small!

For two years, Marty and I crammed an art studio, a fully-stocked inventory of art reproductions and supplies, a virtual Tour de France of bicycles, and normal things like a bed, couch, and dressers into a teensy-assed 445 square foot apartment! If somebody had asked us out of the blue, “Hey! Do you want to live in a 445 square foot apartment?”, we would have answered an emphatic HELLS NO! If we were methodically checking out places to rent, a 445 square foot place wouldn’t have even made it onto our radar. By a long stretch! And yet we lived in one, quite miserably, for nearly two years of our lives.

LESSON LEARNED: Use a measuring tape and figure it out for yourself.

ANOTHER LESSON LEARNED: If it feels small and cramped… it probably is.

So there you have it! Now you never have to live in a 445 square foot apartment unless you’ve made an informed, conscious choice to do so! Aren’t you glad that I learn these embarrassingly simple lessons so you don’t have to? You’re welcome! 🙂

Are You The Artist?

“Are you the artist?”

I get asked this question approximately twenty times per day each summer, and even more so on weekends and holidays. I can understand why people ask it– after all, I’m standing behind a table full of artwork and have a cheery, “Ask me Anything!” expression on my face. However, the question always makes me laugh. Why? Because, sitting less than a foot behind me– on a concrete pedestal, no less– is The Artist Himself, paintbrush in hand, easel and canvas on full display. He might as well be wearing a beret (though a straw fedora lends itself nicely to the artist stereotype as well).

Marty at the Harbour. He is literally right behind me, i.e. I spun around and took this photo of him painting.

(It’s also funny because we have numerous “Acrylic Paintings by Martin Machacek” signs plastered everywhere, some of them giant ones. A few of these signs even feature larger-than-life-sized photos of a bearded, blond man on them. With a paintbrush in his hand. I don’t know how much more direct we need to be with our messaging, but it appears the most crucial bit of information– the Not-So-Secret-Identity of the Artist– is still getting lost in translation.)

An actual sign at our harbour booth. This one is about 4 feet tall. But are you the artist, miss? (Shakes head in disbelief.)

Anyway. Sometimes, in response to the “Are you the artist?” question, I’ll state the obvious: “Actually, my husband is the painter”, while subtly tilting my head back in Marty’s general direction. Other times, I’ll let my sweeping Vanna White motions do the talking for me. [In exaggerated pantomime] Wow, right behind me is…. A NEW CAR! THE ARTIST HIMSELF! Would you look at that! [Imaginary clapping and fanfare]

The truth is, I am an artist, just not the capital-A Artist that people are referring to when they ask me The Question. I do lots of creative things, both business-related and in my spare time, but Marty is The Painter and understandably gets the spotlight when we are down at the Harbour. (It would be creepy and disturbing otherwise, no?)

Me being artsy. (Not to mention orange.)

Over the past few months, Marty and I hatched a way to blend his creative energy with my artistic awesome-sauce. After much deliberation and several bad ideas, we came up with videos. Time lapse videos, to be more specific. We figured, “Hey! You [Marty] make super cool paintings, and I [Dana] know nothing about making videos whatsoever! We don’t even own a camcorder (or whatever the hi-tech term is for those newfangled machines that record moving pictures)! Therefore, we MUST make videos of you [Marty] painting! THEY WILL BE AMAZING!”

Ha. This is how I suddenly became great friends with Google. After doing some preliminary research, I determined that:

1. This would be so much easier to do with a camcorder! But what fun is ‘easy’ when you can make things way more complicated than they need to be?
2. In the absence of a camcorder, I still didn’t own– or want to purchase– an “intervalometer” to help me time the photo taking remotely on my camera 
3. I definitely didn’t own– or want to purchase– a graphing calculator to help me time the photo taking remotely on my camera (because, hello— the lack of graphing calculators is the main reason why I majored in Communications in the first place)
4. I didn’t even want to borrow a graphing calculator from somebody else, because that would mean I’d have to program it to take time lapse photos, and even I’m not that big of a dork
5. I might want to borrow a camcorder from somebody else, but meh– I was too lazy for that and would rather spend hours on Google trying to figure out camcorder alternatives instead
6. Time lapse video making was still possible with our older camera. I’d have to rig up a tripod, many random cords, a camera, my laptop, and free software… in our kitchen… but making a time lapse video was still possible. Perfect.

And so (drumroll please), we did it! Marty hunkered down in his painting cubby (you can’t even call it a “studio”), I worked some serious nerd magic on the laptop, and our camera magically started taking photographs every five seconds. It took Marty a while to adjust to having his picture taken by the kitchen paparazzi every few seconds, but eventually, he settled into a rhythm and created his masterpiece. When he finished, I spent some more time poring over DIY video-making threads online and finally figured out how to stitch everything together into a bonafide time lapse video! Behold– my masterpiece:

Hey??? Are you super impressed or super DUPER impressed? Haha! I had caught the time lapse video-making bug– a rare but apparently potent condition. Ahem. So I made another time lapse video of Marty painting, this time taking my nerdiness to the next level and individually screening each and every photo (over 10,000 of them!) before stitching them together in a moving picture. So it could be crisp and perfect, obviously. (And don’t even start: I already know how deep I am into those dork-o-rama waters.) Anyway. I can’t even tell you how proud I am of this particular video (below), because doing so would reveal all sorts of geeked-out layers in my psyche, and I’m not prepared to do that just yet. We’re still at the “taking it slow” phase, right? But check this out:

I know. I KNOW!! I love this video because I can honestly say, “I made that!” at the end. Am I the artist? Hell, yes! Did I figure out a convoluted but effective way to create time lapse videos, without a camcorder or a closet full of geek equipment? Double hell, yes! Now all I need is a beret. And Vanna White. And then I’m set!   

A Serious Case of Serious-itis

I’ve always been a serious person. Even as a young girl, my default facial expression was “Furrowed Brows”, followed closely by “Deep in Thought”. When other kids my age were scampering on the playground and skinning their knees on the gravel, I was off to one side of the designated jungle gym space during recess, contemplating everything from how to pronounce “Chevrolet” properly to how best to display my growing collection of city bus passes on my bedroom wall. I often found myself thinking extensively about alarming topics– like why God would ever want to send anybody to hell FOREVER or what the real difference was between murder and suicide.* I was a pretty serious fourth grader.

This was me in sandstone form: stoic, unwavering, and intimidating to the uninitiated. All that, and I was only nine years old.

*’Say what? Suicide? What sort of Grade 4 class did you attend?’, you might be wondering. It came up in class discussion once, when Billy asked the teacher if people who committed suicide went straight to hell. I had never even heard the word ‘suicide’ before and thought it must be a synonym for murder… which I instinctively knew made no sense… because how would somebody go straight to hell if they had just killed somebody else but were still alive themselves? Maybe God was just marking them down right away for hell in the future, via divine Note to Self? Smote that bastard, ASAP! I was too shy to ask for clarification on this and many of the other burning questions I had. Hell, if Billy knew what suicide was, and he was a terrible speller and couldn’t even finish the Mad Minute quizzes on time, then I should definitely know the answer already. I wouldn’t dare let on to anybody that I didn’t. Hence, I contemplated, ruminated, furrowed, and reasoned on my very own, off to one side while the other kids played. Serious vs. Silly. Story of my life.

I know this dog is probably trying to be serious… but doesn’t he look silly?

Even today, I tend to take the world seriously (and literally, all too often). I take other people seriously. Worst of all, I take myself way too seriously.

June ushered in the Summer of Serious for me. Yes, I had recently returned from a 3-month holiday in which fun and games had surprisingly (for me) prevailed over lofty topics and capital-B “Business Matters”. However, being back at home meant it was time to re-install my factory setting– seriousness– and I was taking this matter of seriousness very seriously. I contemplated everything from how to boost subscribers to Marty’s art newsletter to My Definitive Soul Purpose: No Revisions, Add-Ons, or Mind-Changing Allowed. Deep thoughts. All-consuming topics. I read marketing books like a demon. I checked our sales numbers obsessively. I watched in horror as my svelte frame started to pack on harbour weight, and then I feverishly started reading more books on diet & nutrition, all the while imagining myself (in slo-mo nightmare mode) as the only chubby person in the history of Holistic Nutrition School. After some serious and extensive soul-searching, I eventually changed my mind about going to Holistic Nutrition School altogether but then panicked when I didn’t have anything definitive or “serious enough” to slot into its space. How could I justify “chilling out” as a legitimate off-season pursuit? How could anyone take me seriously if I was waffling through life instead of taking the bull by the horns and mapping out every last detail of my planned existence between now and infinity?

Dear Future: I am mapping you. (Nothing is more serious than a profile shot, right? Except profile shot + lighthouse in the background = boom!)

So I developed a serious case of Serious-itis this summer. On one hand, I’d gently chide Marty for trying to control the weather patterns (because controlling weather = impossible), but on the other hand, I found myself unwilling or unable to do anything that wasn’t explicitly harbour-related myself. I stopped working out. I stopped writing. I stopped reading other people’s blogs. I didn’t even knit! Everything that had kept me somewhat sane in previous years was abandoned for the sake of “The Business”– not at all at Marty’s beckoning, to be clear– but based on my own, hyper-aggressive commitment to setting personal records and blowing our sales targets out of the water. My feminine/masculine energy meter was totally out of whack. Stuck in the “Danger, Will Robinson!” mode (also known as the “THIS. IS. SPARTAAAAA!!!”, brute force mode). I was exhausted, literally bawling some mornings as I rode my bike to work– ugly tears streaming down my face and blurring my vision– and yet I refused to rest or take a day off. I convinced myself that I was the sole reason why our business was booming. Forget Marty actually creating the artwork– it was my commitment to the business that was paying off in lucrative sales, and we would most certainly falter and suffer without me there all the time, overseeing every transaction and personally engaging every single customer and potential customer. Ack.

Our art business depends on me like this ratty dog depends on the dude who is holding him on the tractor wheel. Seriously.

Needless to say, I engineered quite the punishing experience for myself this summer with the skill and cunning of a military strategist. Despite posting some impressive numbers, sales-wise, I emerged defeated after Labour Day like a crisp of my former self– albeit a puffy crisp, 25 pounds heavier in body and approximately 18 million pounds heavier in spirit. (I was like a human version of those puffed pork rinds, as revolting as that sounds. Crispy and greasy on the outside, hollow and cavernous on the inside. Not that I eat puffed pork rinds, mind you. Thank goodness I didn’t have to start school the very next day on top of everything!)

And thank goodness I discovered the top knot bun right after Labour Day, too. I feel like I’m downloading poise and positivity from Heaven itself whenever I style my hair this way now. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure out that Big Hair = Big Fun!

As crazy as this sounds… I have to become serious about having fun now. (Doesn’t it even SOUND fun to become serious about playing? Ha. I’m a natural at this! Right?) Self-care, relaxation, and even a little bit of pampering are of the highest importance to me this off-season, and I’m starting off my recalibration movement with this very blog post. Writing again? Check!

Operation: Dress-Wearing, Phoenix-Exploring, Depeche Mode Concert-Attending FUN. (Notice top knot again. I have a sneaking suspicion that wearing my hair this way will become like wearing overalls was to me in junior high, i.e. all day, every day, much to the chagrin of my no-longer-1990s self.

Welcome back, dear readers. Your off-kilter hostess with the mostest is back, albeit a little worn for wear.

What do you do for fun?

How do you stave off those serious cases of serious-itis?   

August.

I am so naive sometimes. This is our fourth season selling our artwork on the causeway in Victoria, and every year, August has taken me by surprise. I never learn just how cruel a mistress August can be! Each June, I think to myself:

This is a piece of cake!

I could do this all effin’ year long!

Bring on the sales, universe!

By July every year, I’m a bit wiser and my enthusiasm is a bit, um, tempered. I console myself:

Hey, at least you’ve only got 50 unread e-mails in your inbox, not 500.

Way to keep up with a twice-weekly(ish) workout schedule!

August will be totally manageable. It can’t be *that* much busier than July.

Then August hits.

Yeah.

I go from working out twice(ish) a week to working out two times the entire month (the 1st and the 31st, natch). The unread e-mails in my inbox pile up at an alarming rate, nearly outsizing the monstrous dirty laundry pile in our closet (you know, if e-mails had physical mass and volume). Marty’s parents leave frantic voicemails on our machine, ranging from “Hello? We haven’t talked to you in two weeks!”, to “Is everything okay?? Are you guys still alive over there??” Sadly, most of their calls go unanswered, mainly because a) we’re not home until midnight to check our messages and b) we pity the fools who try to phone us in the morning before we leave for work. Mornings are for silence. That’s our motto. Our other motto is Phone us before 10 in the morning and SUFFER OUR WRATH! Just saying.

Anyway. August is a demanding master, and we are her wretched slaves. I’ve come a long way since my days at the office, no? Scroll down to experience An Ordinary August Day in photos:

8 am

Why are we even awake at 8 am? Normally, I set an alarm for 8:30 and it nearly kills both of us to peel ourselves off the sheets. Don’t judge! This Ordinary August Day started off as it normally does (albeit a half hour earlier than usual): with me preparing our breakfasts (oatmeal and coffee for Marty; green smoothie for me) and Marty loading up our bike trailer for work.

11 am

This clock tower OWNS ME.

I arrive at the Harbour to join Marty, who has been working there since 10 am. (What? I was at home making our lunches.) I check on the status of my knitting (a staple pastime) and restock any inventory that needs touching up from the night before.

Our art booth, and– more importantly– my knitting!

12 noon

Marty paints. I knit and (hopefully) sell stuff. By 1 pm, I’ve devoured my weight in rye crackers and almond butter as a snack, and I’ve finished the first knit project of the day.

These are about the only foods I’m not allergic or sensitive to for the time being. Naturally, I eat about 8 million of these crackers every day now, so I won’t be surprised to see “rye crackers” and “almond butter” on my next allergy printout. Heh.

Tada! Cramp inducing preemie cap!

2 pm

Marty eats his lunch (avo sandwiches), and then I head to Evil Starbucks to fetch him an afternoon caffeine fix. It’s a necessary evil. Upon returning to the Harbour (a whole 10 minutes later), I chow down on a gigantic salad (kale, arugula, bell peppers, coconut ribbons, hemp seeds, homemade dressing– other foods that I am not allergic or sensitive to at the moment.) And just in case you were wondering: yes! I eat all the time. (3 times before 2 pm for those of you who are counting.) Marty and I are actually known to the other vendors and even the security guards on the causeway as the “people who are always eating”. Ahem.

Do you like my money clip? I got it from one of the other vendors at the Harbour. You can check out his shop on Etsy– Wood Bee Designs. Yer welcome!

2 pm to 5 pm:

Selling stuff. Knitting stuff. Painting stuff. Glancing up at the clock tower that OWNS ME every 10 or 15 minutes. You know, just working.

5 pm:

The dreaded Dinner Hour begins, and Marty takes his cue to head home to fetch our battery and warmer clothes for the evening ahead. Dinner Hour is dreaded because everything sloooooooows down for a period– plus, the sun starts shining directly in my face, so I have to whip out the One Step Shy of a Welder’s Mask Sunglasses.

Please, God: I don’t want my face to look 75 by the time I am 35.

6 to 7 pm

Marty returns with the battery. I go fetch dinner… from the mall (groan). Two cruise ships have just docked, so the streets are starting to fill up, and everyone and their dog (including me!) take photos of the local sights.

Look! There’s a horse-drawn carriage on the street! Hark! Those plants are shaped like whales!

Dear Sushi: I love you, but I hate you. Can’t wait to quit you! xoxo, Dana

8 pm

Yes, we kick it old school at the Harbour. We don’t have any electricity provided for us, so we have to hook lights up to our patio umbrella (our only shelter at the art booth) and haul one of those mega batteries to and from work each day. Good times!

The sun slowly starts to set, so Marty sets up our lights and plugs in our battery. The Harbour is alive with approximately 8000 cruise ship visitors (for real), and amazingly, a few hours pass without me even glancing at the clock tower that OWNS ME. I’m too busy selling things and telling people how amazing my husband is. 🙂

9 pm

What the eff? Somebody leaves a “free gift” in one of our display fixtures. Opening it up, I discover that Hell is So Hot. Thanks! (There’s always something crazy going on at the Harbour. Today, it just took until 9 pm for the crazy to start happening.)

10 to 11 pm

Marty is (faking) still going strong after 12 hours at work. Poor lad is still painting, only now it’s in the dark and the paint is taking forever to dry. I’m taking photos of our provincial government building, counting the minutes until we can start packing up for the night.

Can you see him painting in the background? Aw, precious!

11 pm

Yipee! We’re packing up for the evening and looking forward to all the work that still needs to get done at home. This is what the clock tower that OWNS ME says as we’re leaving for the night:

So what, the photo is blurry? It still says 11:30 pm. 🙂

Midnight to 1:30 am

(No photos to show you). We restock inventory, phone in our credit card transactions, wash our food containers, and fall into bed. Now, multiply this day by 31, and you’ll have our August. 🙂

How have you been lately, my dear but neglected readers? I miss you!