Pipe Dreams & Reality Checks

The Artistic One does not live on the same planet as the rest of us. He inhabits a place (in his mind) where rules and plans are for sissies; where bank coffers automatically stretch and replenish to meet the demands of checks written and where traffic citations can be ignored with impunity, especially if you have lost the paperwork, so considerately supplied by the kind police officer, and not updated the address on your drivers' license that, "Oops!" you can't find anyway. (That will be a post for another day; mandatory "one-on-one" time with a traffic court Judge and French translator, July 17th).
A declaration, made as a New Year's Resolution, that "This year, we will close up our business for a month and spend the whole month of July in Europe" seemed far-fetched at the time; Clients were not knocking down our doors to place orders; the phone was ringing with reminder calls from those nice folks at the finance, credit card and utility companies and an over-abundance of rainfall was paralyzing the construction projects of our industry, already mired in the general economic morass. 
Not seeing any value in being the Killer of Dreams at that time, I embraced the idea with a few "If everything goes our way" and "I hope we can afford that" disclaimers. I even spoke to the dog-sitter and had her pencil in the time slot, just in case of a miracle.
Well... Here we are...June already. How time flies when you are having fun! On the plus side, we are still standing. There's even some positively hopeful energy in the air as far as work is concerned. (We have three Venture Capitalists in our client portfolio; one High Tech and two Medical and Green Energy crossovers). The big boys are getting their confidence back.
In addition, some of Hubby's paintings have been selling through the gallery on the East Coast. Checks are slow in trickling in from that source and there is much whining and attempts to get the gallery percentage to increase above the negotiated 50%. "Paint it yourself!" is the answer to that one.
Hubby has been invited to show some canvases in Paris again in September; in the exhibition space under the pyramid in front of The Louvre. The exhibit is called "Grand Masters of Tomorrow" and there will be no living with the Ego now, but it did give me a reasonable and non-confrontational excuse to broach the possibility that it might be better to postpone our (Imaginary) trip until September and take care of everything at once.
This time, I actually believe that it might happen, although maybe three weeks rather than a month is more likely. The dog-sitter is booked up for other canines on the new dates so I have to find a solution for my girl Diva who is too old and fragile to go to the kennels. Tickets will cost a chunk less then and a large number of those nice tourists and their children will have their noses in their school books or back to the grindstone.
We are not yet surfing the waves but we have progressed from drowning in a stormy sea to doggy paddling towards a distant, but visible shoreline.

Retail Therapy

When all else fails, there's always shoe-shopping to boost morale.

Cruddy week of hubby having a "Man-Cold" and then me getting sick with "Mere Mortal" cold.

We still have not had a conversation about what our future might hold, both drugged up on antihistamines and cough syrups, probably not the best time.

Tomorrow is Saturday. Full of potential. Famous last words.

At least I know what my feet will be wearing this summer, if not in which country they will be.

Something's Got to Change, contd.

Trying to examine my options can only be accomplished once I pin down what I want to achieve. This is my "thinking out loud and trying to answer my own questions" phase and blogging really helps.
One thing I am now sure of is that my husband must soon retire from our physically arduous stone-carving business. Unless we find someone else to invest in or buy our business; which was our original retirement plan, but is unrealistic in today's market; we will have to call it quits without reaping any substantial return on all those years we put in. We have lived well, no complaints, and I /we have a network of contacts, clients and friends that are a treasure.
I know a lot of people who could help me find my niche in the job world. I am not sure that I can single-handedly pull in enough money to stay in our large, rented home. I am not sure that I want to!
We live in an expensive area and hubby likes his space. Our house is ideal with a bedroom used as an office, a large bonus room for the main Art Studio and the formal dining room as a Water-Color studio.
It is just a house and not even ours. I could leave tomorrow and not miss a piece of furniture or a dish or a painting. I would take my passport and my file containing "people and places of interest", as well as the "quotes and poems" file. I'd need some clothes and my riding boots, my address book, of course. My daughter would become the keeper of photo albums.
I am no more tied to this area than to the house we live in. Once that conclusion is reached then there are almost too many options to consider.
Southern California is appealing. Work is not the only thing in life, having friends and spending time with them creates a good balance. Life is cheaper and sunnier there. Work is a question mark but not impossible.
Daughter is top of my list of important factors, although she and her husband are self-sufficient and we could handle being apart. Being in the same Country is easier.
I miss England, and the English. If I had a life with real vacation time I would spend it there. I have a Sister and Aunts and Cousins and many places to visit and enjoy.
I pragmatically didn't even stay for my Mother's funeral a few years ago. I had sat with her for two weeks as she died, in a sunny nursing-home room with a view of the sparkling summer-sea and peacocks strutting in the garden. I sat and played tapes of Frank Sinatra and my mother's own piano playing and drank more tea than one would think possible, crying as I composed her Eulogy.
I felt that my responsibility was to my living family and, of course, the business.
That is one of the decisions I most regret in my life and someone should have told me to stay and take my time. I am way too convincingly independent. Blame is mine alone.
England would be my first choice for my new beginnings, although the climate would take some getting used to after so many years away. Another draw-back is that Hubby would not live in England, unless he was doing the "Independently Wealthy, Jet-Set Artist Lifestyle", and there we go again with believing his own P.R.
France is a possibility. The French generally annoy me, but I married one so I am used to that. We would be far from our daughter, but she would visit and hubby has other family there. From France it would be easier to visit England, without an eleven hour plane ride.
There are jobs I could do in France. I lived there for five years so I know what I'm getting into. My spoken French is fluent but my written French is unacceptable and never going to improve. I can translate French to English and verbally do the opposite. I wing-it on verb endings. They all sound right as long as I don't have to put it in writing.
The choice that doesn't seem palatable is to keep doing what we are doing and wait for our lives to implode.

Wow! I've come a long way in my self-analysis. I have a notion of some steps to take to move myself forward.

Action List (I have a client who calls it that, instead of a To-Do list)
Put together some kind of resume
Look at house prices and rentals in France and jobs in San Diego.
Don't completely exclude England.
Get input from friends.
See what thoughts tomorrow will bring.

Something's Got to Change

Partly due to the event of my recent birthday, partly the economy, but mostly just waking up and asking myself what the heck the future holds and, if it's more of the same, do I want that?
My husband is averse to planning ahead. One thing he cannot "spontaneously un-plan" is his seventy-fourth birthday, which looms in May.
He is an Artist, a Creative Soul, and we have lived and worked together for more than twenty-five years. That's the good and the bad news.
I have created a monster! He believes in his own P.R. but I wrote it. There are clever pull-quotes in some articles that, when people ask, "Did he really say that?" I reply, "He would have, if he'd thought of it"
I put a positive spin on most everything and often we succeed just by creating our own momentum. But we don't have a plan. Other than perpetually getting up and doing the whole thing over again tomorrow, there is no plan.
It may come from a deeply female, nurturing instinct from the past but I want to know which cave I will be coming home to, in the event the dinosaurs overtake my cave-man.

to be continued...