WWW.Workaway.info

This is the company that encourages people to travel; to follow that wonder lust.  We have had 4 girls with us for two months.  They assist us with Spanish, help with sewing, cooking and walking the dogs for room and board.  Two girls ( Paula and Juli) have been friends since childhood, the other two (Indi and Tati) were partners.  They have been the family that I could not share with over the holidays.  I thought I would share some of our work and fun pictures.

On the left is Tati, myself, Paula (wearing one of our designs), next is Indianna and on the far right is Julianna.  

 Pilates were completed at 2 pm, 

we all needed to stretch after sewing!

This is the whole gang including our Project Manager Juan, tough job eh?

Kito our puppy is trying hard to be patient as our Santa pup.  

This is Indi's shirt along with our pin cushion that 

is a part of The Three Wise Men now sporting blue eyes and a pink grin! The girls

had a great sense of humor and I would find things redesigned for me to discover!

This is Paula's sheep shirt, it has a front and back that is wiggly wool... it is so cute. 

Juli calling us all to her Christmas dinner,  

three of the girls had never had turkey before. 

Indianna packed up and is going on her next adventure, she was leaving

for Columbia with a friend to experience Carnival on Jan. 2, 2014.  I  admire

them all for being the women that take the challenge to experience life.  I love them all

because I see some of myself in all of them.  Fair Winds and Following Seas Indi.

We are moving again!!

We have a lovely large 5 bedroom house with a pool and a studio for our "Hot Tin Roof" clothing line. What we did not expect was the leaky roof that we cannot seemed to get repaired without signing away our life for another 2 years on this lease or the electrical issues that are down right dangerous.

We are tired of worrying about house issues, we paid too much for this type of treatment.  We are moving to the Middle of the World on the 15th of January.  We are so excited that the rent for our two bedroom house with studio and pool is $300.00 that is one fifth of what we are paying today and we get to take all our muttlies with us.

The blog has suffered as I have been trying to produce a line of clothing for larger women.  The people involved have been just extraordinary with their help and ideas.  Hot Tin Roof is off and running with lots of cotton clothing that is just so comfortable I hate to take the samples off.

Why a clothing line, well, I am a large woman size 18.  I am tired of not having clothing that fits well and is soft and breathable along with fitting my ever evolving personality.  I also believe that I have an obligation to share how I sew.  There is no feeling that comes close to the one that you get when you complete something that you have designed and it is hand sewn.

I had started with three local women and for three months it was a great relationship.  I spent three months teaching them to producing a shirt, a skirt and dress for themselves.   We then tackled a large size woman's dress.  They really outdid themselves and I felt secure to let them produce the product in their homes.   It was my dream that they could be there for family and still have sufficient time to sew. That type of thinking was a mistake, they were paid but we got nothing back in product.  I am a mother and wife too, but have always worked either in the home or out; needless to say I was disappointed.

It was time to stop and rethink my strategy for producing a product.  Their contracts were cancelled, we paid the compensation and started retooling the product process first.  We were thinking about part time and contractors when Etsy threw us another challenge.  They changed the policy on what was considered "Handmade".   A designer(me) could have their design produced by a company(outsourced) and as long as I designed the product it was considered handmade.  I would have to announce my production methods somewhere in my page that it was manufactured but still my design.  Designers like myself cannot compete with outsourced production and it was so far removed from my dream.
 
It was back to the drawing board for how to compete in the new marketplace.  I understand that there is no emotion in business decisions but it was hard to tell my heart.  I had finally gotten to the place in my life that allowed me to do what I had always wanted and I was still climbing over very high walls to accomplish my goals.

The saying that when a door closes a window opens happened for me too.  I decided to be a host house on a website that allows world travelers to exchange room and board for 4-5 hours of work.  It is called, "www.Workway.info".  We have had 3 young women from Argentina and one from Australia for two months who have learned quickly to sew, design and suggest great alternative designs for clothing.

The collaboration has been awesome for all of us, especially me, who thinks I know what is best.  It has allowed me to relax and enjoy teaching them how to hand sew, allowing them creative freedom on the product line and the relationships we have formed with each other has been precious.  It has been a learning experience from the get-go as only one spoke perfect English so I am learning Spanish as an extra reward.

I recently returned from Cuenca where I babysat for a friend's pets and while I was there learned that there might be an opportunity to have a trunk sale of my items for the expats wives that are hard to fit.
Ecuadorian clothing is small and it is hard to find clothing once yours starts to give up the ship.  I am taking this as another opportunity to make people happy.  I will be selling my clothing with a few smaller sizes and in kits for people who would like to try to produce it themselves.  I am so excited about this new adventure.  Wish me luck!

 Long sleeved lagenlook with applique

 Paula with her sheep with wool applique

This is our clothes line photo shoot with me!

Slow Going

I know, long time since our last post.  Well to catch you up, Ed-doh-gar has announced his retirement date, put in all his paperwork, wrote his farewell letter and been notified that he has a retirement ceremony upcoming at work.  I have to admit the letter he wrote was a tear jerker, very to the point and humbling.  His co-workers responses were just as touching and wonderful.
When we were filling out the pile of paperwork for retirement and struggling through the legalese we had a lot of  numbers and passwords and logins and notary places.  Ed had a moment of brain fart when filling out where to deposit our monies and instead of putting just our bank act number in the blocks, he added our check number to the end, this has been a nightmare to sort out as we are now more than two weeks waiting to see where the retirement funding is, it shows as dispersed.  I am hoping that just means taken out not sent to oblivion or to someone else's account.  I am worried sick over this and Ed-doh-gar is just like, "I'll call them today and see where we are on this."  He mentioned that he might have done the same thing on his Social Security deposit request...he will check.  I am dying a thousand deaths in this transition.  I am the scheduler and we are like way behind on the schedule and soon to be retired with money, but not where we can use any of it... Ed-doh-gar is checking on it.
We have had friends that Ed-doh-gar works with come with their daughter who is starting out on her first live alone adventure come and take things that she needed for her apartment.  We had other friends of this friend come and take more furniture, you would think we would be well on our way to an empty house, but we still have a lot sitting there staring me in the face saying, "Hello, could you find me a home too please?"
My routine is box and load the car one day and donate and do lighter work the next day, slow going but I am seeing more open space day by day.  The pups are loving the room, they tussle and run more now in the living room, they are very happy with  the more open living arrangement.

We have had a lot happen since I started this post.  My father was diagnosed with lung cancer and I flew back home to be with him and my family.  Richard Robert Czaplinski passed away on St. Patrick's day.  I will miss him very much.

I got to be with my younger sister Valerie McFarland and Brenda Niederberger and her fun family.  It was very bitter sweet to see them all.  I was glad of the opportunity but wished it was under happier circumstances.

I also got to see a very good friend that I had lost touch with when we moved to Japan for 10 years.  Claire Rominger was my matron of honor at my wedding some forty years earlier.  I drove to Bethlehem, PA to do some catching up and it was like we had never been apart.  We promised that we would stay in touch through Facebook and to this day we have stayed true to our promise.

The digging out of our house was a long and arduous process,  the memories were dispersed, the junk was trashed and the rest was donated to friends and neighbors.  The rest we packed and took along.

We have been pleased so far with our decisions, Ed though wished he had brought more tee shirts and not so many polo shirts with long sleeves.  We have only been through one small portion of the rainy season, I think he will be glad he brought them, but time will tell.

We landed in Quito on May 15, 2013.  We thought we had been abandoned but 45 minutes after coming out of customs with 10 bags, 4 dogs, two in kennels, and our computer, we were picked up by a van from our hotel.  It was a surprise that it was another $40.00 to be transported, as the hotel advertised that it was included.  Needless to say, we paid and got in.  One hour later we arrived at the Hotel Bonanza.

We were expecting an apartment, we got a room and a window and a bathroom.  We were too tired to argue the morning was arriving quickly and we were exhausted.  We slept like a rock until the dogs wanted to go out.

The hotel had three dogs, the other family there had two dogs and our four made a zoo.  Not everyone had their dogs on a leash and it was touch and go until we figured out when we could take our dogs out without having a ruckus on our hands.

We paid 825.00 dollars for a month and $1500.00 for our retirement visa paperwork to be completed by Nora Minga the owners wife.  We stayed one day past our date because it was the only day we were allowed to move into our rental and it was 75.00 for the room for 4 hours.  I almost died.

We were stuck because we had the dogs and they accepted them without question, but the experience was less than wonderful.

We had breakfast and lunch and dinner provided, the food was great but the flies were not.  The kitchen was full of them and it required us to swat and wave them away as we were eating breakfast and lunch.  I have no idea where they all went for dinner but they were not there for that meal thank god for small favors.

Patrick the owner of this hotel was away in North America our whole stay and his wife joined him for a week.  The staff was left to fend for themselves with a friend helping the Mingas' operate the hotel.

We were glad to move into our house, it was quiet, fly free and our dogs were not attacked everytime they went outside.  I realize that this is a venting, but I needed it.

We have been here for 90 days and love Quito and LaPampa where we are living.  The house has it's problems, but we have painted and cleaned and fixed vertical blinds, repaired the electric and learned how to operate the pool filter all on our own.  We are estatic.

Join us on our journey, our next adventure.

Love til the next time,,

Denise and Ed