The magic number is 7

Good grief -- the magic number is 7! 

There are SEVEN houses on our street with Canadian flags.

I have attended (will be attending) seven quilt retreats this year, not five as I mentioned yesterday. There are times when my mind goes into denial! There are only three scheduled for next year. 

So, yes -- you can't believe everything you read, especially on this blog. I sometimes lose my mind! 

Retreat houses come and go. The very first one we went to was Quilter's MisBeehaven near Bracebridge, and we went there for many years. The owner eventually sold, and we've been to numerous other retreat houses over the years. Now I might be resistant to change, but I'm a bit miffed at a recent trend. 

Each house operates slightly differently, but for the most part, check-in is at 10 AM and check-out is at 3 PM. I would have loved to have an earlier check-in, like 9 AM, but 10 works. I think there have only been two times in the past twenty years that our group or I have stayed until 3 PM. Most people are gone by 1 PM. 

Some places are now changing their "rules," with check-in at 4 PM and check-out at 1 PM. I completely understand the change to the check-out time, but what about the check-in time? Sadly, like most things, this benefits the retreat house, NOT the customers. With the old method, the house would be empty between groups for that one night while it was being cleaned. 

With the new method, the house can be fully booked for 100% of the available nights. 

What I'm not a fan of is that the consumer doesn't get a break on losing those extra hours. I have wanted to do the math ever since I heard about this, so here it is. 

Let's say you are gone for 3 nights, from Monday to Thursday. Under the old system, you had a total of 77 hours, with 14 hours on Monday, 24 hours on each of Tuesday and Wednesday, and 15 hours on Thursday. Let's say the fee is $650 a night to rent the house. So, three nights would total $ 1,950 - I'm not including tax. Then divide that by the number of hours, and you are paying $25 an hour to rent the house. 

Under the new system, those three nights now equal 69 hours. The rate is the same, so the hourly rate is $28 per hour to rent the house. 

Now that's not really a big deal - $3 per hour more, BUT the hours that you lose were the most fun hours -- you lose an entire day of sewing (6 hours!) 

I completely understand that some people didn't arrive until later in the day, but my group? They were waiting in the parking lots for 10 AM!!! I just can't wrap my head around getting to the house at 4 PM, setting up, and having dinner; that's pretty much my day gone. I did it once when we had an embrioery retreat - we arrived at 7 PM because that was how it was set up. I wasn't a fan, but that's me!

You know I'm an old dog and I hate change!!! That's not true -- I don't mind change when it's in my favor, but when it's not? I struggle!

Thankfully, there are still retreat houses that allow us to arrive at 10 AM, and I'll book those. 

I must give more thought to the revised sit-and-sew day. I'm all for that. It won't happen every month, so I'll see how to work it into the schedule. It might be as simple as inviting someone to sew, and they can borrow a machine so they don't have to bring their own. 

Yesterday was a bizarre day. There was a lot of coming and going in the house, and I find that extremely distracting while working. I had the furnace serviced, which is a rental, but I must say that I was a bit annoyed with the service person. He was an older gentleman, and from the moment he walked in the house, I knew it wasn't going to go well. 

He was here to service THEIR furnace. It's not mine - I just rent it. I also had a water leak from one of the hoses. I did not take a picture of the hose, but as soon as he entered the furnace room, he informed me that the leak was coming from the foundation. WHAT? I don't think so! So he traced the leak to the humidifier, which is NOT covered under the furnace rental program. WHAT? It's part of the furnace? OH - I guess not. 

There is a filter in the humidifier, which was clogged - the first time I had heard of a filter in the humidifier. And apparently, it's not something that can be washed or easily replaced. WHAT? So he unclogged the hose for the humidifier, closed it back up, without explaining how to replace it. His response? Everyone knows their humidifier has a filter, and you can simply Google how to cut a new piece of screening to replace it. Seriously??? 

I asked again if he had serviced the furnace, since that was the real reason he was there. OH - I didn't see that in the work order was his response. Well, he said, I checked the inside, it's dry. I checked the hoses, and they are in good condition. Yep - that's the service. That is NOT the service. He asked when I last cleaned the filter - I told him this week - he didn't even bother to look at it. Well, I guess he didn't really need to, since I cleaned it. 

I had an issue with the thermostat, and when I asked him, he asked me if I had the book to reprogram it. The seven-day programming feature had been disabled. Rather than show me how he re-enabled it, he asked me if I had the manual, and I said yes. I don't need a ^&*(&^ manual to program the thermostat. What I didn't know was that those features had been disabled. Why - I have no idea. 

All in all, it was NOT a good experience with their service technician. I will call or write the company because, seriously? The guy was an idiot and made me feel like one, and he didn't even bother to put his booties on when he came in the house, although he went to take them off when he got to the door. I did NOT like him at all. 

That set my mood for the day! I needed two naps to get over that! However, it's tough to get a good nap with two pesky pups!

We're helping you sleep!

However, I managed to complete several other tasks, so it wasn't a complete wash - some videos were filmed, some writing was done, and some trimming was accomplished. I also have a bit more homework to prep for the weekend classes. 

With all the coming and going - there were pick-ups and drop-offs, I didn't even get a chance to walk the girls. The boy got his walk, but not the girls, and it wasn't until dark that I had an opportunity to go to the grocery store. The issue was that I had a rather large and expensive pick-up scheduled, and I didn't want to leave it on the front step. That was supposed to happen between 10 and 4. They didn't arrive until almost 5 PM. 

Walking through the forest at dusk

However, there was good news! The office is looking pretty empty right now! There were not one, but two sewing machine boxes in here, which took up a lot of space since one of the machines hadn't been packed in the box yet. An embroidery unit, and a whole pile of quilts, as well as two boxes of donation stuff. Guess what? All of those items have been removed from the office and are now stored in the Pony Express staging area. The items are scheduled to be picked up or dropped off within the next week.  

The Pony Express staging area is clogged!

Sadly, there is still a lot of paperwork to clear up, but that's OK. Every little bit helps. 

There is only one box left to unbox in the office, and that's the new computer. I need to get it open and start using it. 

On that note, I'd better get myself organized to walk the girls and the boy, or I won't make it through the day! The girls were NOT happy yesterday. 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!