Me

Surrender to what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be.– Sonia Ricotti

Welcome! My name is Elise and I am a writer with dreams…so many dreams…and a husband, Randy, who is a dreamer and a writer in his own right.

In 2017, we bought a 1982 Westfalia Vanagon and christened her, SweetEsther. We had big ideals of travelling everywhere, but we found ourselves still working just to pay the bills and mortgage; still having neither time nor money for the travel. Something had to change before anything was going to be different.

So, in 2018, we sold our condo in Surrey, BC, Canada (downtown Cloverdale, actually) and with the proceeds from that over-inflated market, we bought a project house farther north in Vanderhoof, where houses were cheaper and I could be close to my mother who was suffering with Alzheimer’s disease.

The original plan was somewhat loose. Turns out, our hopes were quite well defined and they have been sorely thrashed by the realities, both harsh and otherwise.

The plan was to find a house, a largish house where we could put in a rental suite. The plan was to have enough space for guests and hobbies. The plan was to have enough time for writing and visiting. We’d get a dog, at last! The rental suite would pay for the monthly house bills and we would be free to travel with SweetEsther. This blog was to be my travel diary as we boldly explored this beautiful continent.

So, we did buy a house in Vanderhoof, a bungalow with a spectacular view. But it is small. Very small. Much too small for guests or hobbies. There is no rental suite; this house must be supported, it definitely will not support us. And it requires work. Lot’s of work. Never mind travelling. I’m not sure when it happened, but we clearly lost the plot somewhere along the way.

Of course, when we found this house, we imagined building an addition that first summer, reinventing the inside over the winter, and the outside come spring. It would become either a home we loved so much that we would be happy to support it (hopefully with our writing) or a home so lovely that we would sell it for a profit to go find our forever home or just roam like gypsies for a while.

Now the only part of this plan that remains true is, well, nothing at this point! By the time winter hit, we had barely finished the unexpected structural work in the cellar, much less the decorating and homey stuff. Once again, not so much time or money for travel. But, I haven’t given up, I’ve just accepted that the path to the dream will not be quite as I thought it would be. This blog has become more ‘lifestyle’ and less ‘travel’, and I’m OK with that. In fact, I’m learning to be OK with the uncertainty. It has brought disappointments, but it’s also brought many wonderful gifts that I would otherwise not have had in my life, and I wouldn’t change it if I could. It’s an adventure!

So join me and my eclectic band of players as we learn to take it one day at a time, to savour the sweet and even the sad, to embrace every moment of this wild & precious life!

Elise