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Dobra Dosli!

Prepping for 6 months abroad

Deciding to live abroad for 6 month is a big decision.  If you have never really thought about it, take a minute… think of all the things you would have to do to get your affairs in order… are you amazed at the list you came up with?  Well now add that you are going to rent your house while you are away, and not to just one person but as a vacation rental property. 

Over the last 5 years I have been working towards spending 6 months in Canada and 6 months in Croatia and this is the year that it has all come together.

It is funny when you look around your home, that you have been living in for the last 12 years and all of a sudden there are a million things to do for the "new people" that will be occupying your space.  Why is it that it has been ok for you to live in but it is not ok for someone else to live in?

So prep for me started with a kitchen renovation last November.  I am a designer by trade and so I really enjoyed designing the space.  I decided to use Ikea cabinets as I had heard wonderful things about their kitchen products, and I was not disappointed.  The installation went well but the owner turned out to be a …. well I will let you use your imagination. By the end of November I had a new kitchen and I loved it. 

May 1st was my departure date and so I sat down with my calendar and started placing tasks that needed to be done, working back from May 1st.  I wish I could show you my calendar!  You would not believe how quickly the days filled up and I would need to start mid-April.

I will summarize quickly: all bills needed to be paid via internet, mail needed to be re-routed, property manager needed to be hired, several rooms in house needed to be painted, house needed to be de-personalized, valuables stored, gardens mulched, planter boxes planted, snow tires removed, find storage for car, cleaning supplies purchases for cleaning lady, confirm cat on flight, cat to have all shots required by EU regulations, phones cancelled and put on hold.  I am sure there is more but you get the point.

I consider myself a pretty organized person and I am happy to say that on May 1st, everything on my list was done. 

What was great about this experience is that I organized my house and was able to get rid of a lot of stuff that was tucked in that back of a cupboard somewhere.  I joke with my friends about the amount of stuff that went out, but as I am a bit of a pack rat, only I would notice the difference.

The hardest thing about this experience, was wrapping my head around someone else, infact many someone else's, living in my house, my home, my space.  But I was lucky because I own the house next door and have been renting it out as a vacation rental for the last 3 years and, knock on wood, have never had a bad experience.  I like to believe that people are good and from my experience they are exactly that.  So last week I had my first renters in my house, and the report back was that everything went well and the house was in fine shape. yay! 

Two weeks into this adventure and I have let Canada go… i believe this is what you have to do.  I am now in another country, experiencing what they have to offer on a day to day basis.  I do not consider myself a tourist but a citizen, and really my day to day life is not that different from what I would do at home.  Its kind of neat really.

If you have lived abroad, I would love to hear your experiences and if you had any tips that I might not have thought of?  Until then, see you at my next blog :)

6 month start in Europe, a bit rocky...

Well I have arrived in England.  For those of you that do not know, I will be here for the next 3 months and for the following 3 months, I will be in Croatia  Why you ask?  Well why not?

Part of my heart has always been in Europe and for the last 10 years I have been moving towards getting out of working in an office, to working for myself, so that I could travel.  And this is the year that it has finally happened.  I have a friend here in the military for the next 3 years, so why not take advantage of living in a new country and hanging out with a friend as well.

We, I say we because I brought my cat, Noodle, arrived last week on May 2, 2012.  Noodle has never travelled before and it was up to her mom to make sure her papers were in order… I failed.  Now I am not going to take complete responsibility as the paper work is not clear.

England, Australian and Europe (I am sure there are other countries) all work on a pet passport, which means that all the animals information is contained in one booklet, and therefore you do not have to run around getting paperwork signed by a multitude of people.  Canada and as far as I can tell, the USA, do not have pet passports. So we have to print out Annex II and have it filled in. Annex II is for the European Union but as England has stopped quarantining animals they now accept this paperwork.

Unfortunately there is no one in Canada to help you fill out these paper, not all vets are familiar with travelling pets, and Air Canada Cargo sees these papers everyday but only photocopy them and attach them to the crate.  So you have to muddle through on your own.  I want to mention, that I did call PET SCHEME in England and all they said was that she needed a rabies shot and a microchip.  They were not even familiar with the paperwork that they were suppose to accept!

And so I filled out the paper work.  Where did I go wrong?  I did not get a Canadian Authorized Veterinarian stamp.  Now to me, my Vet was a Canadian Authorized Vet…. apparently not.  I talked to one woman from Halifax and she called Health and Welfare (I think thats who she called) and they told her there is a Vet at the airport that you have to meet to get this stamp.  Do you not think that this is something the Cargo people might know? again apparently not.

Also the microchip # was not on the SAME page as the rabies vaccination. All my paperwork was referenced so they knew it was the same cat but it had to be on the same page.

ARC (Animal Reception Centre) at Heathrow Airport was wonderful, especially Ann.  They assured me Noodle was ok.  That she had water and had been offered food but I was not allowed to see her.  I should mention that I arrived at 7am, and was at ARC by 8:30am.  I was told I would have Noodle within the hour… not to be.

After the discovery of the stamp I was told that I would have to wait for the Vet to arrive, which would be at noon.  Once the Rabies/Microchip issue was found I would still have to wait for the Vet and I would have to buy a Pet Passport. ARC would also have to fax my Vet in Ottawa, get them to sign a sheet and fax it back… my Vet opens at 7:30am which would be 12:30pm London time…. If this sheet was not signed by the time the British Vet was finished at ARC (he is only there twice a day for an hour), I would have to wait till 7pm for him to return.

Poor Noodle… She had been in that crate since May 1 at 3:30pm (8:30pm London time)…. if my vet did not get this paper back, Noodle would have to be in the crate for almost 24 hours.  Then she would have to drive in a car for 3 hours to get to my friends house.  This is when you start to question the logic of bringing your pet with you.

So we waited…. bad news, my Vet has an automatic response that says they will get back to you in 48 hours… We saw the British Vet arrive…. Ann came out and gave me the thumbs up….I was elated!  They had reached my Vet!… Better said Ann, the Vet has agreed to sign the Pet Passport without the signed paper as he is comfortable with the referencing of all the paperwork.  I would have Noodle in an hour… I almost burst into tears!

So, at 1:45pm, Noodle was released.  She came out with eyes wide like saucers, terrified.  I took her out of her crate and hugged her…. she was shaking.  I let her walk around on the grass for a bit and then we headed to the Jeep.  There is a 250 Pound fine here, if your animals are free in the vehicle… thankfully Roberta is a animal lover and saw how distressed the poor Noodle was, so she sat on my lap and off we went.

I am happy to say that she was quick to recover.  She did not sleep but she did curl up on my lap and rested.  We arrived at Roberta's home around 5pm and noodle scouted out her new home. Pretty soon she was claiming the back of the couch so she could look out the window.

So in the end, I think it was worth it.  Noodle is not a lover of other people nor other animals and when she spent 5 months with my sister, her dog and her cat, 2 years ago, I was told it was not a happy experience for anyone.  24 hrs of hell but 6 months with me, I do believe Noodle is happier.  Ultimately if someone else is looking after your pet for 6 months, then really, is she your pet?

I would love to hear other stories of travelling with a pet, so please feel free to share.

Cat on a Cold White Toilet

Have you ever tried to train a cat to use the toilet?

This is what I have endeavoured to do over the last year…  I should mention, the instructions say 6 weeks!

So it all started because I had decided to bring her overseas with me when I travel to Croatia to run my painting & photography tours.  Lets face it, if I am gone for 6 months and someone else is looking after my cat, then she really is no longer my cat.  Besides I really love the furry little critter :)

So I figured it would be better if she did not have a litter box.  Research on the internet, confirmed that toilet training was a doable and so I decided to try.

I first started out by moving her litter box beside the toilet and then every week I moved the box higher off the floor until it was inline with the toilet bowl.  This was easy, she did not make a fuss at all.  

I found some kits that you could buy but decided I would try with the do it yourself ideas I had found first.  This was not so successful as it was just a piece of cardboard with a hole and you were still suppose to use litter… my cat scratches for China and so you can imagine it was everywhere….she was also confused about the hole.

So I bit the bullet and bought the kit.  It sits over the bowl, so it is secure, and has as a little dish about 1" deep, so that it contains the litter you are still suppose to use.  Ok, no problem, she is on the toilet, in the dish and doing her business.

So then, every week you are suppose to remove a piece of the dish… there are perforated disks that you just pop out.   Technically, 6 weeks later you have a cat using the toilet.

Alas this was not the case….If your cat gets confused then you need to slow things down.  I should mention that I thought my cat was pretty smart, I mean I taught her to sit and give a paw before I feed her…it might have taken 3 days. I am not sure how much I slowed things down but like I said, it has almost been a year!

So this toilet thing was not going smoothly.  She seemed to always have her feet in the dish and not on the toilet seat, so as the disks were removed you would think she might get the idea that her feet could move forward onto the seat… umm no…. do you know how hard it is to catch your cat using the toilet, so that you can grab her feet and move them into position?  once she learns what your intentions are, she literally waits until I leave the house to go!

I suppose I should give her credit where credit is due…. she was a peeing queen! no problems there.  But pooping was another story… good thing my floor is covered in tile…. she might have been at a 50% success rate.  But then when we got to removing the last disk and removing the plastic tray completely, she completely lost it… like I said, good thing my floor was tile.

So to end this long story, I have given up.  She has her litter box back and is scoring 100% on accuracy. 

I leave for overseas soon and she will not be toilet trained…. perhaps she thinks that all the other training, like driving around in the car in a crate to get used to motion, or sleeping in her crate for 8-10 stretches, will also stop.  Boy is she going to get a fright when that plane takes off!  Perhaps the toilet will not look so bad after all? 

Wordpress? Love it or leave it?

For the last week, I have been revamping my website and I am happy to say it is finally complete and I am very pleased with the new look.

However, I had to learn to use Wordpress.  For those of you that don't know, it is a site that makes it easy for you to design you own site. It gives you templates to choose from, you can add plugins like the one that make your site mobile friendly, you can upload all you favourite photos, etc.

I had been adverse to changing to Wordpress because my first experience with it years ago, was very negative.  I tried it and was so frustrated, I went straight to weebly.com, at the recommendation of Tim Ferriss, author of "The 4-hour workweek".  Weebly was easy and so user friendly.  The site I did then, did not need a lot so maybe that is why I thought it was so easy?  

For the last year, two PR friends of mine have been telling me I need to go to Wordpress… and wouldn't you know it, my domain host had Wordpress as part of their options.  So I  gave in, and started to work on my NEW website.  Johanna (PR friend #1) offered to start it for me and soon I was adding pages, making columns, adding pictures, organizing menus… it was all coming together.

Was it easy? No.  I do believe that you have to have help or some web design knowledge. I have been managing my own websites for years, and in the process have learned some HTML code…which in some instances was the only way I was able to have the Wordpress page look how I wanted it to look.

Am I glad that I learned Wordpress?  Yes.  Once you start working with it, as with everything, it becomes easier, and Wordpress really does offer a lot of options.

So I guess, in the end I have to concede that I love it.  If you remember my old site, then take a minute to visit the new one and let me know what you think?

Terry Jarvis Workshop 2013

How do you like that? 14 mths ahead & Terry already has 2 clients!

http://bit.ly/AboutTerry 

Croatian Music Evening in Ottawa

Join me for a Croatian Music Night in Ottawa
If you live in Ottawa, please pass this on. Thx! There will be wine tasting too!
http://bit.ly/CroatianMusic

Weather in Europe...

Every time I turn on the computer or the TV, I see all this bizarre weather happening around Europe... and here I sit in Ottawa, where we are used to quite a bit of snow,  and really our winter has been quite mild.  Ottawa's Winterlude is on right now, and with the temperatures around 0, the canal is not frozen, which means no skating on the longest skating rink in the world.  According to the American groundhog, it says 6 more weeks of winter, the Canadian groundhog says spring is on the way.  Who are we to believe?

I wanted to share this picture of Split.  Keeping in mind Split is only 2 hours by boat from the Island of Korcula.

I am totally blown away! I cannot believe that I am looking at palm trees with snow on them!

I talked to Renci and Silvana in Lumbarda on Skype today, and for those of you who don't know them, they are the owners of the wonderful accommodations we stay in... and Silvana is our amazing chef!  Anyway, all is good on the island and they had a little snow but nothing like the picture above.  They did mention the Bura was very strong.

The Bura is a northern to north-eastern wind.  The changeable Bura can often be felt all over Dalmatia, Istria, the Slovenian Littoral, Trieste, and the rest of the Adriatic east coast. It blows in gusts. The Bura is most common during the winter.  Once my sister and I flew to Croatia for Christmas and arrived in Frankfurt, only to be told that we would have to fly to Split, not Dubrvonik (where our dad was picking us up!) because the Bura was so strong it had closed the airport and the main bridge.  Mother nature is a wonderful woman!

As we prepare for our spring tours I can only hope that the Canadian groundhog is correct and we are all in for an early spring.

I hope this finds everyone well and why not tell us, how has your winter been treating you?

Lori Putnam painting demo

Lori Putnam painting demo : Balance and Harmony http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xee0aqggsAY

Tom Francesconi - September 1-10, 2012

Had a wonderful conversation with Jean yesterday and it looks like she is coming and bringing 2 friends!  Do not wait to sign up for Tom's tour, if you miss this year you have to wait till 2014!