Katie Regan

Writer. Editor. Explorer. Creator.

Tag: Housesit (Page 2 of 2)

Baby’s First House Sit: Tenerife

June 25, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Some thoughts and reflections from my very first house sitting gig.

As I’ve mentioned before, there are two specific things that are making this journey possible for me: my Registered Companion status on a major US airline, and various house sitting gigs through Housecarers.com. We all know that house sitting is a genius idea that I stole from travelers before me. I get to live somewhere for free and meet and hang out with new animals, it’s perfect.

Cat Lounging

Grey taking a wee nap

Before I came, a friend pointed out that she wasn’t sure she would like it; wasn’t sure she’d be able to feel at home or be cozy in someone else’s space. So far, that is not the case for me. I remembered just a few days ago that, in my experience, even when one temporarily rents out an apartment in a foreign city, it is usually already furnished. You don’t populate an apartment with your own stuff. This is more or less the same.

Also, besides the animals, you are in the place by yourself. It’s not like being a guest in someone’s home and always being concerned that you are in their way. Just keep everything clean and functional and keep animals alive and you are just fine.

There is one important distinction to note. Traveling alone by house sitting is not the same as traveling alone by hostel. At hostels, there are all sorts of people doing the same thing, out of their respective elements, looking to make friends. House sitting, you don’t get that immediate network. House sitting, there are all sorts of… cats who want you to clean up after them. They’re also usually pretty unwilling to go out and grab a beer or a bite.

Lots of Pets

It’s a veritable menagerie in here

Something that I didn’t necessarily consider before, but will consider in the future, is the number of animals in any given house sit. Going into this gig, I figured seven cats aren’t much different than one, and birds and fish are easy. Turns out, the fish actually required the most work. Some of them have a special diet, which needs to be prepared, AND their water needs to be changed every four days. Seven cats means seven opportunities for vomit. Seven cats means a lot of fur. Seven cats means you can’t wake up and immediately get to writing with fresh ideas, because overnight seven cats have been using the litter box and eating the food and they need both those things freshened before starting the day. Birds are pretty easy, though I feel badly for them regularly. Birds also poop, a lot, and they don’t really care where they fling it

It has been fun watching the cats slowly but surely come around to me. When I got here, they were all pretty spooked, some even hissing and running away. The first few days were dedicated to winning them over. Slowly, one by one, they stopped running (some of them stopped hissing), then, they started to be okay when I initiated pets. Finally, they would come to ME for cuddles. As of writing, there is only one cat who is still not into me, but he HAS voluntarily sniffed me a few times.

Cat snuggles

When they snug, they SNUG

Judgemental cat

Fufy is not into my shenanigans

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, my first house sitting gig was quite successful. My hosts were beyond friendly. They treated me as a part of the family as soon as I arrived. They took me all around and even bought me a most decadent birthday cake. The animals, while time consuming, have been wonderful. It’s fun seeing the different personalities of all the cats. The home is clean and safe, plus there is a pool! Not too shabby for my first experience.

Casualty count: 1 fish, 1 bowl, 1 lock… could be worse.

Broken Lock

I came VERY close to being locked in for my last 24 hours here

Tenerife Takeaways: Part 1

June 20, 2018 / / 4 Comments

I’ve been house sitting in the Canary Islands for about two weeks. Here are some takeaways.  

Tenerife Sunset

Sunset on my first night on Tenerife

I planned on writing about a post a week while I was here, but lo and behold, I am already down to the end of my stay, so, instead I wrote four posts in a day. Efficient? Maybe. Procrastinatey? Definitely. The remaining three posts will surface in the days to come.

Originally, Oakland was supposed to be my first house sit; getting my feet wet in a city with which I’m familiar and friends just around the corner. For many reasons, that trip falling through was a blessing in disguise, but it lead to me starting this whole process here, on a foreign island in a foreign country in not my native tongue. I’ve already learned a few things.

Tenerife El Teide Volcano

Halfway up the volcano. There’s green up here!

Language Sidebar: My Spanish is decent. I’m very good at reading it, not terrible at listening to it, and less great at speaking it due to forgetting words. It definitely gets better as I practice, but upon arriving here, I experienced something I never experienced before. For the first two days of interacting solely in Spanish, I felt it getting better. It was exhausting, but I was improving. On the third day, however, something very strange happened.

This was the day where my host had to explain all the animal and house-related duties I would need to carry out over the next two weeks. After hours of absorbing information in my second language, something broke. More specifically, my Spanish skills broke and I was sent hurtling backward. All of a sudden, I was unable to recall so many words and grammar rules that I already knew. I had tried to store too much in my brain at once and it snapped. This lead to me feeling embarrassed when I had lunch with my new friends the next day and my Spanish was not up to par. So strange.

Also, let’s all remember this when talking to people who are struggling to get a handle on our language. It’s taxing. Experience empathy!

For the first week or so, when I talked to people back home, everyone was asking questions such as:

“What awesome things have you been doing?!”

“Is it totally amazing!?”

When I wasn’t able to answer with the grand adventures I was having or the amazing things I was seeing, I started to feel guilty. Am I not doing enough? Seeing enough? Everyone was expecting me to soak up everything, to be immediately meeting all the new people and experiencing all the things. I let myself feel guilty for a while until I realized, that’s not the entire point, is it? The point of this journey is not to be a hard-partying, super active tourist in every location I go to. If I treated every destination the way I would a week-long vacation, I’d be exhausted, I’d get nothing done, and frankly, I’d be out of money pretty quickly.

Tenerife Patio Sunset

Sunset from the patio.

Yes, I could have gone whale watching or scuba diving and I could have taken a ferry to another island or even spent every day at the beach. I could have really hit the nightlife scene hard. But, for what? The point of this, at its core, is to give me a free place to stay so that I can get writing done; hopefully to create something worthwhile, but also to make my portfolio more robust so I become a competitive candidate for work that I really want to do. It is a (most excellent) bonus that I get to travel the world and do this in places that I’ve never seen before and experience cultures on a very local level.

So, I stopped feeling guilty. I’m sorry, y’all. I didn’t do all the tourist stuff. I didn’t go out and meet the random British partiers, or tons of locals. What I did do, was make a few awesome new friendships thanks to a connection facilitated by an old friend. I experienced generosity, was able to see a large part of the island due to this generosity (though it was still just the tip). Otherwise, I lived a pretty normal, kinda boring life… a lot of which involved caring for seven cats, seven birds, and two tanks full of fish.

Tenerife Cats

Four out of seven cats

Over the next few days, I will go over my island experiences in a bit more detail. This was my starter gig, and it helped me to navigate things such as jet lag, time management, animal care, and striking a balance between tourist and temporary resident. As for now, I will leave you with a snapshot of things I miss from home and things I love about being here.

Things I miss most (besides humans because that goes without saying and y’all don’t need to hear that shit):

  • Toaster ovens. Man, I really rely on a toaster oven. Making toast, making melts, reheating leftovers. A toaster oven can’t be beat. Sure, the “grill” setting on Spanish microwaves is cool, but it doesn’t really compare.
  • Swiffer. How can someone have SEVEN cats and not have a Swiffer? Normal methods of dusting just don’t come close. No, they don’t sell Swiffer here… or Drano. Challenges.
  • Fresh produce. I thought I was coming to Spain, so was excited about very affordable fruits and veggies like I used to get in Barcelona. What I forgot was, this is an island. An island essentially in Africa. I paid 4 Euro for an onion.

Things I love:

  • Spanish window shades. I first encountered them in Barcelona a decade ago and I don’t know why they aren’t more prevalent. I think they are meant to keep the sun out for temperature purposes, but boy oh boy they are good for sleeping.
  • Old friends like Schweppes Límon, Principe Estrella cookies, Non-USA Coca-Cola, Zumo de Melocotón (peach juice!), Receta de Campesina flavored Lay’s, decent chorizo for sandwiches. Also, somehow a Mars bar tastes way better than a Milky Way, even though they are the SAME THING.
Spanish Snacks

Snacks I can get in Spain! Yay!

 

The Breaking Point

February 27, 2018 / / 9 Comments

Imagine it was a cold, grey evening. Except don’t, because I was so far in the hole I wasn’t paying much attention to the weather, I’m just trying to set the scene. Actually, considering that it’s Denver, it was probably infuriatingly sunny and crisp. A perfect day out of many, many perfect days. I believe it was late November as I was sitting down to pay my December mortgage. I was feeling alright. Sure, I had gotten laid off in August. There had been some hairy months there, but I had just picked up a seasonal part-time job. Surely, that income would help me to meet my mortgage, buy me a little more time.

I pulled up my accounts. Reality, in the form of numbers, came rushing at me. At first, it was crystal clear, then blurry, then clear again. I didn’t necessarily expect to avoid dipping into my savings at all, but I was hoping not to make such a big dent. Math strikes again. After I paid my December mortgage, I would have $400 in my account. Four. Hundred. Dollars. January mortgage was a thing of fantasy. A joke, really.

Stormy Denver

What the weather SHOULD have looked like

My world swirled in and out of focus. I couldn’t pay my mortgage. I could not pay for where I lived. I was 34 with no job prospects, working as many retail hours as they would throw at me to try to, what? Buy myself some time? Heroically attempt to make my mortgage, but not do much else? Live no life but to keep this roof over my head?

I was sent whirling. Falling. Spinning. Down. Down. Down. This was a dark day. Potentially the darkest. I was at the bottom of hopelessness. Denver has not been kind to me, friends. And this was the culmination of many years of repeated defeat and disappointment. Many, many years of job hunting and (wrong) job getting. Some awful jobs and bad decisions. Now, the newest iteration. I had been applying and applying for months (years, really) with no light at the end of the tunnel. Any jobs I thought I wanted, I couldn’t get a call. Even with jobs I didn’t want, I would find myself deep in the middle of a panic attack on the way to interviews. Wait, why did I pluralize interviews as if I got many? I didn’t.

I feel fortunate because I have a strategy that serves me well on these darkest days, a strategy I used on this day. When I get knocked over, I wallow. Not forever, but for one day I allow myself to really FEEL it. I sit in it and writhe around. I let the pain, fear, loneliness, and hopelessness wash over me. I think on it, I learn from it. I don’t chase it away. Then, nine times out of ten, I’ll wake up the next day with a clearer head, ready to take action to actually get out of the hole– or at least make the hole a little more comfortable.

The resulting moment of clarity was my biggest one to date. And I’ll tell you, fair reader, that once I made the decision and figured out the answer, it was like a cloud lifted. While I certainly didn’t have anything figured out, and I certainly would run into a lot of trouble along the way, taking control of my own destiny gave me back much of the agency that I had lost in recent years.

Cheesman Park

Starting to feel a little more like normal Denver weather

I realized that I was working all these hours at my retail job, supplementing it with temp assignments and substitute teaching simply to pay my mortgage. I was not giving any time to passion projects or actual future plans because I had to focus on certain money. And I had run out of time. Time would keep moving, my bank account would keep shrinking, and I had no control over my trajectory. I could apply for 1,000 more jobs. I could NOT control if they’d call me, and I could NOT control what a job would be like once I got into it.

I decided to take my mortgage out of the equation. If I took my biggest bills off the table, I would have to make much less money to survive, which would give me the time to actually create something worthwhile. This way, if I ever chose (or needed) to pursue a brick and mortar career again, I would have something to show for myself beyond an array of experiences that only show me trying desperately to find my place somewhere that maybe I don’t belong.

In order to regain control, I plan to either sell or rent out my apartment, sell my belongings, pass off my cat to a loved one, and go rogue.

I am not a religious person, but I do believe in some things. I believe that the universe has been screaming at me for years that Denver is not the right place for me. I have ignored these screams out of convenience, or misguided hope. Year by year, those screams have gotten louder and louder. It just so happens, right as I was getting let go from my last full-time job, I was simultaneously gifted free flights on a major US airline. The best gift I could ever, EVER have asked for (thanks, Marie!) landed in my lap right as I lost the last thing tying me here. The universe had now started jumping up and down in addition to the screaming. 

So, I am going to take my flights, and whatever meager cash I get from selling my stuff, and I am going to travel. I am going to live nowhere and everywhere all at once. I am going to housesit (using Housecarers.com) as much as possible (that’s free living!). I am going to get out of my comfort zone and see what that does for my creativity. I am going to make money any way I can. I’ll teach English lessons either in-person or online, I’ll freelance write or edit. Maybe I’ll land in a place where someone needs any kind of help and is willing to hire me to do it.

Additionally, I will work on my projects. One of those projects will be this blog. At first detailing all the emotions, struggles, and victories of preparing to leave, and then reporting my experiences on the road. Come along with me, won’t you?

Formentera Bathing

Me, soon

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