2023, a Disruptive Life-Changing Year!

It’s amazing how fast a year goes by!

The last 12 months have been a life-changing year, on many levels!!

I hope this post finds you all well. I apologize for not writing sooner, but life has really gotten in the way. Where should I start?

Let’s step back to early 2023 for a minute. Derek and I were living in Nova Scotia, Canada. Life was humming along nicely. He was thriving at his job and I was working on my surface pattern design business.

So much has happened since early 2023. I think my last post was in March of 2023 where and I had just announced my plans to pursue surface pattern design as my artistic career and I was also in the middle of taking Bonnie Christine’s Surface Design Immersion course.

When Life Get’s in the Way

Then BAM!!! Out of the blue, in late April 2023, Derek got laid off (along with 800 others) from his remote position with RedHat. Needless to say this was NOT the kind of life-changing year we had in mind for 2023. What’s that quote from John Lennon?

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”.

~ John Lennon

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons

What comes next after life hands you a bowl of lemons? You make Lemonade!!

After recovering from the shock of being laid off, we decided to go to our favorite pub in Bridgewater on the LaHave River, the River Pub, and have some dinner and talk about the latest challenge thrust upon us. We didn’t make any lemonade that evening, but we sure did enjoy the BEST lemon cake in Nova Scotia! Lemon cake helped us think through the days crazy events!

Time to make a Decision about our Future!

Fondly enough, earlier in February 2023, we spent an incredible weekend away at the beautiful Keltic Lodge in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where we discussed our plans for the future.

Our original plan was to stay in Nova Scotia for 3 years and then decide if we would stay or return to the States.

With Derek being the Spreadsheet King, he put together an incredible spreadsheet to help us figure out our next move. With the wind blowing and the snow falling outside, we spent many hours talking and weighing every possible pro and con under two categories. First category was “Stay in Nova Scotia” and the second category was “Return to the States”. Under each category we rated each pro and con from 1 to 10, with one being the lowest concern and ten being the highest. We tallied up the scores, and guess what? Yep, you guessed it, they were tied!!

How on earth could both scores be evenly tied?! We couldn’t believe what we were seeing and even double checked the math, twice. It was incredible! All that work only to end up being tied. We sat there, in the middle of a snow storm, in total disbelief. We knew it was going to be a difficult decision, but not this hard. In the end, it seems the Universe (or RedHat) made the decision for us. With no job, staying in Canada, wasn’t really an option. Here’s to the beginning of yet another life-changing year.

Because we arrived in Nova Scotia in the middle of a pandemic, Derek wasn’t able to get out and make any new business connections, thus making it difficult to search for another remote job without a network in place. Fortunately, he still had his network in North Carolina, so moving back to the states was the most obvious choice for us.

Plan B, the start of another life-changing year!

Plan B, meant back up and punt. All I can say is this… “we work best under pressure” and being laid off was definitely a high pressure situation. Instead of stressing out over what just happened, we sat down and basically said, with a big smile, “Well, ain’t this some shit?” — taking a quote out of my parent’s book, for a laugh. Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. We sat down together and proceeded to make a new plan to move forward. You can’t dwell on these kinds of things, only look forward.

Much to Do in a Short Amount of Time

It was important for us to keep a positive attitude and keep moving forward with this unfortunate situation. We proceeded to make a list of everything that needed to be done and set our sites on making yet another move.

International moves require a great deal of preparation. Even though we’ve moved more than most people, it still requires an incredible amount of work to make a move go smoothly. We almost have it down to an art at this point and below is a partial list of things we accomplished before we left Canada:

1. Research! Research! Research! So much research! The biggest project was deciding where we wanted to move and actually finding a place to live. Since I am a real estate hound, I immediately jumped on Realtor.com and started looking. As luck would have it, a super cute condo in New Bern, North Carolina had just hit the market. We called a realtor friend of ours and asked him to set up a virtual tour. It was affordable and met our basic needs. We made an offer and thankfully it was accepted!
2. Getting qualified for a mortgage… this was our second biggest challenge. We found out we no longer had US credit scores because we’d been out of the country for almost three years. Imagine that. Next step, working with my parents and our kids to get qualified. In the end we didn’t end up needing a mortgage. Thankfully we cleared enough from the sale of our Canadian home to pay cash for the small condo in North Carolina.
3. Listing and Selling our Home in Canada! Preparing the house for sale meant completing a few repair jobs with our contractor, selling off things we didn’t plan to take with us, and packing up the things we did. Derek did an amazing job of selling off things on Facebook Marketplace.
4. Legal Documents! Gathering up all the documents from our prior move and updating everything was another challenge.
5. Immigration and Customs! We needed to prepare EPA declaration forms in order to take our vehicles back across the border; all those import/export docs and getting in contact with immigration in both Canada and the USA to let them know when we were coming. Thankfully we’ve done this once before, so it wasn’t as difficult as the first time.
6. Networking! Derek started networking almost immediately with his peeps in North Carolina to try and find another job.
7. Pets! We had to get Mikey and Mango into the vet a get their shots updated and also get a copy of their medical records to take with us for immigration.
8. Financial Matters and Taxes! Closing accounts on our Canadian businesses. Not to mention getting in touch with our tax guy to figure out how we needed to handle selling the house and when to claim residency back in the states, etc.
9. Scheduling the CAT Ferry from Nova Scotia to Maine and lining up UHAUL trucks, not once, but twice. Once before we actually sold our home in Canada, and again after we sold.
10. Set up mail forwarding from Canada to the USA. Who knew how expensive that would be! Wow!
11. Booking movers, loaders, and unloaders to help us load and unload the UHAUL trucks! UHAUL.com was a godsend for finding good help.
12. Saying good-bye to our lovely Canadian friends. This was the hardest thing to do.

The above items just skimmed the surface of everything we had to do. But it gives you an idea of the life-changing year of chaos that ensued.

Round One… First trip down to North Carolina

Our house in Canada went under contract fairly quickly, and we ended up making our first UHAUL adventure to North Carolina in mid-June, taking the kitties and our first round of stuff to a small apartment in Greenville, NC. The buyers had a bit of difficulty getting their home sold, it took a bit longer than we had expected, but it all worked out in the end.

Round Two… Closing on the Canada Home

We flew back up to Nova Scotia in early July and spent two weeks packing and preparing for our final journey back to the states.

This was a busy time. Luckily our friend Penney (who normally lives in Halifax, NS) happened to be in North Carolina visiting her Dad. She was available to stay with our kitties at the short term apartment we rented in Greenville while we flew back to Nova Scotia to finish packing up and closing on our home. We can’t thank Penney and our Canadian neighbors, Vern & Linda, enough. As they all played an integral part in making this move possible. They are the best. We miss them more than we can say.

We closed on our house Friday morning July 21st. After closing, we started our drive to Yarmouth in some torrential rains. It actually started raining late afternoon of the 20th, right as we finished packing up the UHAUL trucks, and continued raining for days.

Needless to say, this drive was a challenge. It was the worst rain either of us have ever driven through. It was an insane drive to say the least! It took us over three and a half hours, driving through sideways blowing rain, with very low visibility in some places. Derek was driving a 26′ UHAUL truck and I was driving a 15′ UHAUL truck, pulling the Miata behind it. Not very fun conditions. Grateful we made it without any issues.

Once we got to Yarmouth we managed to find our hotel, and get settled into our room on the 8th floor, before the power went out. Going down 8 flights of stairs without emergency lighting was fun. So much for staying in a quaint OLD hotel. Thankfully, the CAT Ferry loading and operations area were all running on a generator and our trip to Maine was still a go on Saturday morning.

The CAT Ferry

Well worth the cost of the ferry. If you would like more information on how to book your ferry ride from Maine to Nova Scotia, see the link for the CAT Ferry here.

Our rides on the CAT Ferry in June and July were awesome. It takes only 3.5 hours to go from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to Bar Harbor, Maine, saving us from a grueling 9 to 10 hour drive (not including our time stopped at customs).

Nova Scotia’s Record Breaking Weather

It was only later, after we made it to North Carolina, we found out just how big the storm we drove through was and how it dumped over 25 cm (10 inches) of rain in a 24 hour period! This incredible storm caused over $170 million dollars in damage throughout the entire province.

We also learned, from some friends we talked to, that 19 bridges were damaged and 6 were completely destroyed. According to one news source, Nova Scotia hadn’t seen this much rain since 1971. Other news reports were saying that this storm was a “one-in-100 year” event, breaking numerous rainfall records. Sadly we also learned that 4 people lost their lives in the torrential flooding.

June and July were very difficult months for Nova Scotia. As they had just made it through some of the worst fires in the history of the province from late May into early June. According to The New York Times, there had been 195 fires in early 2023 as compared to just 153 in all of 2022. Needless to say, 2023 was a life-changing year for Nova Scotia too.

Life-Changing Year Trivia: did you know?!

Did you know money can actually be lost via a wire transfer? Why YES, YES it can!

While we were driving down from Canada back to North Carolina, our real estate attorney up in Nova Scotia wired our closing funds from the sale of our home in Canada to our real estate attorney in New Bern, North Carolina. We decided it would be best to to wire funds directly from one attorney to another. We thought this was the best option to avoid any issues. Boy were we wrong, this was one of the most stressful life-changing year events for 2023!

Our original plan was to wire our funds from our attorney in Canada, to our personal bank account, and then wire again from our bank account to the second attorney for the closing on our place in North Carolina. But, after talking to our attorney and CPA in Canada, we decided it was best to do one wire so we didn’t raise any red flags with the IRS, and also to avoid extra wire fees, not to mention, we wanted to avoid the chance of the money getting lost between too many wires. Ha!

Needless to say, there was a bit of confusion regarding the wire instructions from the US attorney, (which were totally confusing and not correct), so our attorney in Canada called to confirm the wire instructions. The North Carolina attorney’s office CONFIRMED that the name on the wire instructions was in fact correct (even though the name on the wire instructions did not match the name on the account where the wire was going).

Then, unbeknownst to all parties involved, the NC attorney’s bank REJECTED the wire due to the name on the wire not matching the name on the receiving attorney’s bank account. NOTE: the bank did NOT tell either attorney about the rejection. Now I ask, “Who’s fault would you say this problem belonged to?”

Sadly… NO ONE knew that the money was lost for several days. But, we knew it shouldn’t be taking this long for the funds to arrive as we had wired funds to the states several times in the past and the process took less than 24 hours for the money to arrive in our account. I called both attorney’s daily, asking about the status of our funds for nearly 2 weeks, before either side realized the money was lost in the ether — due to the intermediate banks rejection on day one.

At this point, we were just two days from our scheduled July 28th closing. Because of the debacle with the lost wire, the closing didn’t happen. Thankfully the sellers allowed us to move our belongings into the condo on the 28th, even without the actual closing taking place. We couldn’t have done it any other way, as Derek was scheduled to fly out to Austin, Texas on July 30th to start onboarding for his new job!

YES!! Derek found another job!! He landed a remote position with Grafana Labs! Another open source software company!! We couldn’t be more grateful!!

While Derek was in Austin, Texas, I continued to hound the piss out of the attorney in New Bern, daily. In the end, the money was finally located and we closed on August 3rd. Wow, talk about major stress!!

Surprise Trip to Florida

Before all the stresses of selling and buying houses… we did manage to make it down to Florida to surprise my Dad for his 80th Birthday towards the end of June!

Yes, my Mom was actually able to keep our arrival a secret! That alone was the biggest shock! But the look on my Dad’s face when we arrived was priceless and I couldn’t be happier that we were able to pull that surprise birthday gift off! He was so happy to see us! As part of our life-changing year events, we thought it best to get down to Florida to see my parents, as it ‘s not every day you turn 80 years old!

On our way down to Florida to see my parents, we made a quick stop in Athens, Georgia to see some close family friends, Bill & Renate Musser.

This quick stop allowed us to be there to celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary! It was a jam packed trip, but well worth it. As we later lost our beloved Bill shortly after Thanksgiving in 2023. He is missed by us all. Yet, another life-changing year event; losing a close family friend.

The Rest of the Year…

We spent August, September, and the first part of October getting settled into our new place. My bestie, Rhonda, from Michigan, came down for a quick visit to see our new digs and to check out New Bern.

While she was here visiting, she helped me and my Threads Art Group Ladies (see photo below) at our art show opening in Southern Pines, North Carolina at the Arts Council of Moore County Gallery. The show was called “Reflections” and it featured fiber art from the members of our Threads group. My lovely friend, Christine Hager-Braun worked tirelessly to organize this amazing event for our group.

Rhonda was a tremendous help by “herding cats” and basically (nearly one-handed) kept the reception running smoothly. The night went very well and I even sold one of my pieces!!

After the art show opening, Derek was off to Manchester, England for his first official business trip.

Rhonda and I had a nice visit and we even managed to get over to the coast to see the ocean in Morehead City, and took a sunset boat tour around Carrot Island.

We had hoped to see some of the carrot island ponies, but no luck unfortunately. So, she will just have to come down for another visit and we’ll try again.

Next Trip, Scotland!!

After Rhonda flew home on the 11th of October, Derek arrived back from Manchester on Friday the 13th. Guess who had a cough when he arrived home?! Yep, you guessed it, Derek. But nonetheless, he arrived home on Friday night, I did laundry on Saturday and we were off again on Sunday to Scotland!

We arrived on Monday the 16th and spent the first few days with some of Derek’s family outside of Glasgow. We were thrilled to be able to see Derek’s Aunt Maureen and Uncle Nigel in Largs, the west coast of Scotland.

Then we headed out and had a wonderful guided tour of Oban, Inverary, and Glencoe with and awesome tour bus company called Rabbies. After the tour we had a lovely dinner with Derek’s cousin Peter in Glasgow.

The next day we took the train down to Edinburgh on the 19th. Our plans were originally to meet up with more of Derek’s family once we arrived in Edinburgh, but… neither of us were feeling well at this point in our trip. After we checked into our AirB&B, I suggested we find a drug store and pick up a couple of COVID tests.

The Dreaded COVID…

Needless to say, we both tested positive for COVID. We ended up staying in bed until Saturday mid-day. After three days in bed, we didn’t get to see much of Edinburgh. What we did see, was a grocery store (to get some food) and the local drug store to get covid tests. We did wear our masks, as we figured we were sick, and didn’t want to expose others. After we checked out of the AirB&B, we were both still dragging tail, but we needed to catch the train back to Glasgow, get a cab to our hotel near the airport, then settle in for a bit more rest before our early flight back home Sunday morning.

November and December: More Challenges

Derek continued with the long covid cough and wasn’t getting much better. I was lucky enough to only end up with a bit of a minor cough. I did end up with a sinus infection and had some issues with my asthma. I had to get a new inhaler to help me get my lung capacity back. I was on the mend, but Derek, not so much.

The biggest life-changing year event for us was when Derek ended up in and out of the ER several times, and was admitted into the hospital twice. Once for Sepsis, the week before Christmas, and then again later for gallstones, likely due to the 6 weeks of antibiotics he had to be on for the sepsis. After the gallstone attacks, he ended up having to have his gallbladder removed.

For those of you who don’t know the symptoms of Sepsis, let me inform you…

Needless to say, our trip to Texas to see the kids at Christmas was cancelled and we’re still trying to reschedule our visit to see them.

On a Positive Note…

During all this mess, I did still manage to find the New Bern Ladies Business Group and have become a member. I’ve attended a few meetings and have met some pretty awesome people through this group. Including my new studio mate, Veronica.

Yep!! I have a new studio now in New Bern!! Veronica Campos-Hallstrom and I have a lovely space to work, collaborate, and make art!!

She and I have been lucky enough to find this great studio space in town that we now share. We have a lot in common and are becoming fast friends. We both love surface pattern design and we are both learning how to get our artwork licensed. It’s been a great few months together in our new space. If you’d like to see more of Veronica’s artwork, check out the link to her website at ClubCreativeArt.com.

Announcing Jackie’s New Website!

Along with all of the crazy events over the last life-changing year, I am also launching a new website: JacquelineCadzow.com. It is up and running, but Derek and I are still trying to work out a few bugs. This website will offer all kinds of things, including original works of art, prints of my original artworks, and print on demand items, such as prints, yoga mats, phone cases, purses, tote bags, and greeting cards using my artwork too. This is super exciting and I hope you’ll check it out.

Let me know if I can help you with any purchases you’d like to make on the site.

I am offering vegan leather totes, vegan leather crossbody purses, and silk scarves with my artwork printed on them. At the moment, these are available at a separate link through BigCartel; see link here: separate link and images below.

We are trying to get this link added to the new website. At the moment the prices are at a fairly low introductory price, but I will be raising the prices by the beginning of April. So, get your bags and scarves now before the prices go up!!

I have purchased samples of these products from ArtofWhere in Canada. They are absolutely beautiful products and I wouldn’t be putting my art on them if I didn’t like and approve of the quality from this print on demand company. I have already sold 10 totes, purses, and scarves. All of my customers have been extremely pleased with the quality of their products. Let me know if you’re interested in any of my products.

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