Host Sherrilynne Starkie welcomes business owner Christine Lefebvre, proprietor of Particular Paint & Paper to episode 12 of the 50 Women Over 50 podcast. She talks about her rewarding career in the building trades and how she has found her place within a community of motorcyclists.
From the very start of working life, Christine has been in the building trades and often is the only woman on a jobsite. At weekends, you’ll find her touring the countryside on her 2019 Yamaha MT07 motorcycle.
Her fifties began with a double tragedy when she lost her mother and her boyfriend within a couple of months of each other. The grief and sorrow she suffered changed her fundamentally and made her see life from a different perspective. She’s now determined to take chances, have adventures and to live life to the very fullest. And, it’s this attitude that has led Christine into a new relationship that she describes as the love of her life.
Listen here:
About Christine Lefebvre:
Christine Lefebvre is the proprietor of the residential painting company Particular Paint & Paper based in Ottawa. She is skilled in-home staging, painting, wallpaper, set design, and residential homes. Christine specializes in wallpaper removal and installation, painting, colour consultation and design and also in kids’ rooms.
An experience motorcyclist, Christine rides a 2019 Yamaha MT07 and is a member of the WindSisters, a women’s motorcycle club and, in honour of her late partner, she cofounded the annual Epic Ride For Mental Health in support of The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.
Resources & Contact Information:
- Christine Lefebvre
- Particular Paint & Paper
- The Epic Ride for Mental Health
- The WindSisters
- Why We Ride, by Mark Barnes PhD
- 50 Shades of Gray, by E.L. James
About the 50 Women Over 50 Podcast:
Sherrilynne Starkie started this show as a creative project with the goal of interviewing 50 women past their 50th birthday to learn how they see the world, what lessons they’ve learned and what advice they have for us all. She’s been blogging and podcasting for 18+ years as part of a successful marketing and communications career and looks forward to learning from the women she will interview.
Subscribe to 50 Women Over 50 wherever you get your podcasts and please share it with your friends.
Machine Generated Transcript
What follows is a machine generated transcript. It may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the podcast.
50 Women Over 50 Podcast Episode 12
Hello, and welcome to episode 12 of 50 women over 50 a podcast for women whose personal confidence is born of experience. I’m your host, Sherrilynne Starkie. The purpose of this podcast is to interview 50 women from all walks of life who are over 50 years of age. About what they’ve learned by their fifth decade so that we can learn from them too. Today, I’m welcoming Christine Lefebvre to the show. She is the proprietor of the Ottawa based company called particular paint and paper, which provides residential painting services.
And from the very start of working life, Christine has been in the building trades and is often the only woman on a job site. At weekends, you’ll find you’re touring the countryside on her 2019. Yamaha Mt. Zero seven motorcycle. In this interview, Christine explains how suffering losses in her early fifties has changed her fundamentally.
Her new approach to life. Is to take chances and have great adventures. And it’s this fresh attitude that has led Christine into a relationship that she describes as the love of her life.
[00:01:13] Sherrilynne: Yeah. I’m just so glad that you, accepted my invitation to come on this call because. I don’t really know a lot of women that are working in the building trades. So, when I first had this idea and I started making up my shortlist of people that I’d like to get on, I thought, Christine would be so great to get on here. Given that, the way that you make your living and then also, I mean we’ll talk about that in a few minutes, but I know how you spend a lot of time at your weekends is Yeah.
[00:01:42] Christine: with the boys.
[00:01:45] Sherrilynne: I thought you would be a great interview, thank you so much for coming
[00:01:47] Christine: on. Oh, well I feel honored to participate in it too.
[00:01:50] Christine: Christine, how old are you? I am 54.
[00:01:54] Sherrilynne: 54. We are almost right. Smack dab in the middle of your fifties.
[00:01:58] Christine: Yep. Yep.
[00:02:00] Sherrilynne: And that means you turned 50 before Covid. What did you do to celebrate your 50th birthday?
[00:02:05] Christine: Well, my 50th birthday was a pretty good year and a sad year too at the, at the same time.
[00:02:10] Christine: I, my boyfriend at the time, Barry and I did two huge motorcycle trips. One of them was to BC and we rode all through the Rockies for, we were gone for 10 days on the bikes and then we made like a kind of a big trip out of it because it was his, his family lives out there as well. Wow., and then for my actual birthday, which is in September, we went to Gaspe, we did a, a bike trip there and, we rode all up and through there.
[00:02:39] Christine: Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t as pleasant as it was in BC. Right, right. Because it was raining and, but we made the best of it, and we still had a good time.
[00:02:47] Sherrilynne: When you do these trips, do you camp out or do you do, do you sleep in hotels
[00:02:50] Christine: that’s two things that for me, do not mix.
[00:02:54] Christine: I’ll go camping, I’ll ride a motorcycle, but I’m not doing them together. Okay. Okay. It’s just too much stuff to carry and at the end of the day, you’re tired and sweaty and I just want to have a shower and, Yeah. Go sit and have a beer and a, and a bite to eat or something. You.
[00:03:11] Sherrilynne: Well, yeah, I totally hear you on that.
[00:03:14] Sherrilynne: And especially if you’re riding in the rain, right.
[00:03:17] Christine: Yeah, exactly. And you’re cold or whatever. Yeah, it’s, it’s nice to be able to just go and sit down somewhere. Or even if you just want to order a pizza, sit in your room, Yeah. If you don’t
[00:03:27] Sherrilynne: feel social, for sure.
[00:03:28] Christine: Yeah. Yeah. You can’t do that in a tent.
[00:03:30] Christine: Boy, I guess you can, but I might be much …..
[00:03:34] Sherrilynne: Yeah. And you might attract bears, that’s
[00:03:36] Christine: for sure. That’s right. That’s right. So, and then at the end of that year, I lost. Barry and my mom. Oh no. And then a couple of weeks, yeah, one another. It was a bittersweet year, it was a, a really good year.
[00:03:51] Christine: Did lots of cool things. And then at the end of it, it was, yeah, kind of, kind of crappy, so, oh no, that was four years ago, actually, I guess coming up on four years for my mom, so, yeah.
[00:04:05] Sherrilynne: Yeah. And how did you.
[00:04:08] Christine: Not well at first. But then, eventually I kind of had to wrap my head around it and try to move forward and I managed to do that.
[00:04:18] Christine: Took me a while. Took me, I’d say a good year before I was kind of back to my old self, And then it still comes up, obviously from time to time. Something good did come out of that cause Barry. Very, we lost Bary to xxxx, which sparked the epic ride for mental. Which we did in 2019, and then again finally in 2022 because of Covid.
[00:04:44] Christine: We didn’t have, we weren’t able to do it.
[00:04:46] Sherrilynne: What, what is this ride for mental health? Tell me a little bit about it.
[00:04:49] Christine: It’s a motorcycle ride geared to raising mostly awareness for mental health. And, the, mental health is huge, especially after the pandemic. I mean, there, there’s so many people who, have suffered dearly cause of being shut in and not having any contact with people. And, and it’s way worse than it ever was. Yeah, and, and obviously we wanted to raise some funds. The first year we were involved with, cam H, which was out of Toronto, but this time we got the Royal Ottawa hospital involved and they.
[00:05:23] Christine: Over the moon to do the ride and, and, and raise the awareness for mental health we can, and you, you
[00:05:30] Sherrilynne: organize all of
[00:05:30] Christine: this. Well, John Armstrong, who was one, one of Barry’s really good friends, and I, and John Armstrong was also my cousin. He, he and I organized it together. The first year this year though, he, I just didn’t have the time and a little part of me had to pull back a little bit.
[00:05:48] Christine: Cause I think that there’s almost a little bit too much of me involved in it. Yes. If that makes any sense. It brings back un fond memories. I can imagine. So. He kind of spearheaded it a bit more and I helped where I could, which we’re going to continue to do in the future. He’ll run it and he’s fantastic at it.
[00:06:07] Christine: And I will help him wherever I can. And of course, we could go all kinds of volunteers and, lots of people who are willing to help and. Sign on. It was a, a huge success this year. And, there’s actually an article coming out, I believe in their, magazine that they put out, or newsletter, I guess.
[00:06:24] Christine: Right, right. And, all of, and the r will be on it, featured on it, so, they’re good to go for next year. Yeah.
[00:06:30] Sherrilynne: What did, did, were there any surprises for you about life after 50?
[00:06:37] Christine: I’m not as strong as I used to be. Yeah. I’ve discovered that. I mean, I’ve always been, worked in the trades, as, a painter.
[00:06:46] Christine: But I’ve always, had a, we had a farm, and I grew up on a, on a little hobby farm, and my dad never really treated me as a girl. I was always just, another working hand around the home, Right. So, But now I’m finding that, I go to do things and it takes a lot more effort.
[00:07:03] Christine: Or I just, I get my son to do it. We were trying to move a couch on the weekend, and I went to lift it and I’m like, oh, this thing’s really heavy. I’m like, why am we lifting this? I have a 25 year old living in my home, I’m just going to go get him. For sure, for sure., I’ll do it when I have to, but I think that’s probably one of the biggest things.
[00:07:21] Christine: And sometimes it’s, it’s. It sort of sets you on your heels. You’re like, oh, geez, I used to be able to do that. Or it was easier when I would do that. Yes.?
Yes,
[00:07:29] Sherrilynne: yes. How is this impacting your, your motorcycle riding, if at all?
[00:07:35] Christine: It doesn’t seem to affect me there. Thankfully because I used to only started riding later in life.
[00:07:41] Christine: I got my license at, 47. It was like I was 48. Okay. So, I’ve had my license for six years, it didn’t really impact me, although I had an accident, in 2021 Right. That slowed me down a little bit. right, right. Took some time to recoup from that, but, Other than that, no. It doesn’t affect my, my riding.
[00:08:03] Christine: I don’t find, I’ve got pretty good stamina there and I try to stay really active. Mm-hmm., walking and I do yoga and, and my job is physical, which helps. Right. Yeah. Really doing a lot of every day I’m, doing squats and climbing ladders and I don’t even think about it at the end of the day, like, wow, why am I so tired? But it’s cause you’re doing that, you’re up and downstairs all day. Whatever. Right,
[00:08:25] Sherrilynne: right, right.
[00:08:25] Christine: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:08:27] Sherrilynne: There’s two things I want to ask you now based on what you’ve just said, and they’re on totally different topics. The first thing is, when you’re out riding, and I know that there’s a big community of riders out there.
[00:08:40] Sherrilynne: Yeah. Are you, are you running into many ladies in their fifties and
[00:08:43] Christine: sixties? What? Yes. I, yes, there’s a lot more women riders. A lot of women my age don’t see as many because I ride a, what they call a sport tour touring bike more. not really a sport, not really a touring. So somewhere in between. Right. Don’t see as many women writing those. But there’s a lot of women on, on cruisers. I mean that it’s gained popularity for sure and a lot in my age group. Why do you think that is? You know what, I mean, women, women are definitely a lot more independent, than they used to be., I don’t really know. Maybe because. There’s, we’ve started to see more, a few more women riders and maybe that’s encouraging other rider and there’s lots of groups out there too. Like I belong to a group called the Wind Sisters and they really encourage, female riders. And once somebody gets started, and of course we have all these online platforms so you can go on and you can find somebody else to ride with,
[00:09:45] Christine: Cause a lot of women I find, don’t like to ride on their own.? They like to be other like-minded and get out there and ride. Maybe that helps. And what do you love about riding? All of it. I love, I love the people I love be getting to go places. I mean, I rode horses forever, like 30 years. And, motorcycles first of all are way less work and way more fun. But they’re also, I mean, you can, if you want to go somewhere, like you hop on your bike and you can, I can zip it to Merrickville and go for ice cream, in 45 minutes. Or I can take it and do a big trip. And when you’re riding. It’s like you’re part of it., like you, you, one of my favorite things is the smells. I always say, I smell the water. I smell fresh cut hay. I smell maybe somebody’s wood stove burning or. Even like gasoline by the water. It’s an odd smell, but I like it. Not so fond of the farmer’s fields, but you got to take the good with the bad.
Okay. I love the scenery, I love the camaraderie that goes with it. Like you could bump into a motorcyclist or biker or whatever you want to call us, anywhere. And as soon as that comes up in conversation, it’s almost like you’ve been friends forever. You can just have this whole conversation.
[00:11:05] Christine: Like, I’ve had people come to my house to buy like something I’ve had advertised on Kijiji, and it’ll be in the garage and open the garage. You’re like, oh, you ride. And then it sparks this 30 minute conversation With someone I don’t even know. So, what
[00:11:21] Sherrilynne: I’m hearing is, is a strong community.
[00:11:24] Christine: Yes. It’s a strong community and, I just love the fact that the adventure side of it as well, like that, I like the adrenaline rush a little bit to a point, but I’m not a, a speed junkie by any stretch of the imagination.
I just, I, I like the open road. I like this the getting to go places and travel, and now I’m older, I have the time and the money to do it. I’m very fortunate in that way. And my boyfriend rides as well and he and I go, We ride together most of the time, and it just, it’s so much fun, being able to share that with someone too.
[00:11:59] Christine: And you get to where you’re going and you’re like, oh, did you see that? Or Wasn’t that a great road? Or, at the end of the day you have a beer and sit down and chat about your day. And, it’s kind of, it’s pretty cool. I love it all. There’s nothing I don’t like except maybe riding in the rain, but you got to do that from time to time,
[00:12:18] Sherrilynne: And I’m wondering if the reason why it’s women our age that you seem to be seeing, seeing a, a rise in the population Is the fact that we, we are more. Financially independent than women our age would’ve been like even 10, 15 years ago. Right, right., us Gen Xers have come up as, we’ve always worked and we’ve always been financially independent and I think there might be part of that, whereas previous generations, they just wouldn’t.
[00:12:49] Sherrilynne: I’ve had the money and it’s not a cheap enterprise, is it?
[00:12:51] Christine: No, it’s cheaper than horses though. I can tell you that., I can tell you that with absolute certainty. That’s good to know. Just in case you’re thinking about getting a horse, Absolutely not. You know what I did find though? You asked if there was a, a lot of women riders and there is here, but my, a friend and I did a big trip to California in October.
[00:13:14] Christine: We saw one girl on a motor. The whole time we were saw lots of other like guys on bikes. Yeah. Only saw one. And it was the last day we were in San Diego, and she was just touring through town, and it was the only one. It’s funny it didn’t register right away, but we were talking one day, and we’d seen a bunch of Hell’s Angels and I’m like, have you seen any women?
She’s like, no. I’m like, no, me either. I’m like, it’s so weird because here you see them all the time. Thought it was odd, but maybe they like to ride passenger there more. I don’t know. I did that at first.
[00:13:49] Christine: That’s how I got started and I was like, this has got to be way more fun in the front because all I was doing was like looking around and I can’t see anything. I’m not doing anything.
[00:13:59] Sherrilynne: I totally hear you. I know I am a passenger on a bike every once in a while. Yes. And it’s very, very boring.
[00:14:08] Christine: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:14:09] Christine: Far more fun up front. You’re in control. I think you have to either have it or you don’t either want to do it or you don’t. I was terrified when I started. Absolutely. Terrified thing. Way, way, way too scared. Yeah. But then all of a sudden it was like a light went on and it was like, Ooh, I really like this. you. Yeah. Once I got past the terrified part, I wanted to
[00:14:31] Sherrilynne: ask you a little bit about the non-trad thing too, because like I know that a lot more women are going into the building trades now than even.
[00:14:39] Sherrilynne: A generation ago, but I feel like for our cohort, you must have been the only woman on the job site a lot, right?
[00:14:47] Christine: Yep. Most of the time I’ve been, before I was a painter, I worked, for a company called Sirone Casper Act. They were a little surveying company, and I was the only woman they had ever hired to work out in a field, right.
[00:15:02] Christine: And then, I worked there for five years. Loved that. And then after that I got a job at the gas company as a pipeline inspector. Okay. And now they had a few more women in the field there, but not a lot. I think there was three of us. But in, I worked out of the, Arnprior office and I was the only woman there, and they all got read the riot act before I got there about, Watch what you say, watch what you do.
[00:15:27] Christine: No swearing. And after about six months, I was like, wow, what’s wrong with these guys?? They’re acting pretty weird. And then there was a, there was a bit of an icebreaker moment, and somebody swore, and I was like, watch your language. And that was the end of it. So, right. They, they were all kind of like, oh, alright.
[00:15:43] Christine: She’s all right now. And how long ago would that. That was so it was just before I left when I had Jacob, so that was 25 years ago. And then getting into painting, that just kind of happened accidentally because my dad was a contractor and my brother was a contractor, so I just started doing a bit of painting for them and doing some painting for some people I knew and I got good at it and faster at it, and it became a business.
[00:16:14] Christine: And then I got into wallpapering and stuff as well. And, I don’t know, it just became its own little entity,
[00:16:21] Sherrilynne: You’re, you’re the business owner?
[00:16:23] Christine: Yeah. Owner operator. I don’t have any employees, but I’ll get, I’ll bring people in if I need to, like subcontractors, if I need help with something, if it’s too high or, or if it’s just too big.
[00:16:36] Christine: Because I’ve had jobs that are just too big for me to do alone. Yes,
[00:16:40] Sherrilynne: yes. How do you like being a business owner?
[00:16:45] Christine: I love it most of the time. The, the part I don’t like about it is, I mean, yes, it’s great. I can take vacation whenever I want. I can have a sick day if I need a sick day. But if I’m not there, the job’s not getting done, nor do I get paid.
So, you got to trade the good for the bad. But, right now I work four days a week., I try to take Fridays off on for the most part. And I, I get to work when I get to work and when I get up in the morning, we have coffee, we sit and chat, go for a walk. I do all of that in the morning.
[00:17:15] Christine: I get to work maybe nine 30. And I put in my day, and I come home. I, and, and I, I couldn’t do that working for someone else., I couldn’t, I couldn’t show up when I want to. I could, if I want to show up at nine, I show up at nine, I want to show up at 10, I show up at 10.? I like that part of it.
[00:17:32] Christine: I’ve been doing it long enough. I don’t have to advertise anymore. Thankfully, it’s all word of mouth. And I have enough work to keep me busy cause it’s only me. I just have to keep enough work to keep me busy, as busy as I want to
[00:17:45] Sherrilynne: be. Yes. That’s exactly how I feel about my business as well.
[00:17:50] Christine: I don’t think I could work for anybody else at this point.
[00:17:52] Christine: I think it would be difficult. It would be difficult., I know the only way I could do it is if they’re like, okay, well you can come and go as should please. Because then I’d be all right.
[00:18:02] Sherrilynne: And imagine in your line of business, right when you, when you leave the job site, that’s it. It’s not like you’re checking your emails at nine o’clock at night and, and that kind of stuff.
[00:18:10] Sherrilynne: Like you, you think it’s the.
[00:18:12] Christine: Thing would be I have to do estimates, of course. Okay. They are often done in the e like evening or at the end of my day I will go, or first thing in the morning, go do that, and then I have to come up with a, a quote or a price for the customer. But that’s not like constant.
[00:18:28] Christine: I have, I have enough customers now, but. They just say, come back and do it. They, some of them don’t even ask for a price anymore. Well, I feel like that is a sign of success and I, I’m kind of like that with some of my clients right now too, where they just don’t even care how much it’s going to cost.
[00:18:44] Christine: Just go do it and, and because I really hate writing proposals.
[00:18:48] Christine: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t like doing estimates either. And Yeah. But, but it’s part of the, part of the job.
[00:18:54] Christine: Most of my jobs are not huge. I’m on a, a big one currently, but, most of the time they’re, they’re small jobs. I can finish within, sometimes they’re a day, sometimes they’re, three, four days, something like that. They’re, they’re not monstrous, so, so, they’re just not huge price tags either.
[00:19:09] Christine: So, and I’ve got a good list of clientele now,
[00:19:13] Sherrilynne: so. Yeah. Sounds like you’ve hit the
[00:19:14] Christine: sweet spot. I think so now I’m going to retire. Now. . .
[00:19:19] Sherrilynne: Well, that’s one of my questions. Where do, where do you see yourself in 10 years?
[00:19:23] Christine: Definitely not working. Okay. Matt, the fellow that I met, this, this year, he and I are so on the same page.
[00:19:32] Christine: He’s already retired. He’s a retired military I’d like to retire at 55, 56, maybe somewhere around there might, it might be 57. I don’t know, we’ll see. But we want to do like some rental properties and, I might work a little bit when I’m here. But we’d like to be gone in the wintertime, like gone from like leave after Christmas and come back in April, like riding season.
[00:19:58] Christine: Nice. And just not be here when it’s cold. And then do the things we want to do. I love photography. I’d like to kind of get into that a little bit more. I actually just entered a photo contest a couple weeks ago, I got to keep my fingers crossed that maybe I did. Okay. Interesting. Something like that.
[00:20:14] Christine: At Ride, of course we want to do lots of traveling. I’m going to learn to surf this winter. Was, we’ll see how that goes. How does that
[00:20:23] Sherrilynne: work? We see that. Is that something you take lessons or a course for, or you just hop on a board and go out and figure it out? You
[00:20:29] Christine: can, yeah, you can. I’ll definitely take some lessons.
[00:20:32] Christine: There’s actually a, a little indoor place in Montreal. You can go. And, and they give you a lesson and it’s indoors and they like create a wave and you just pop on. And so only
[00:20:43] Sherrilynne: in Canada you
[00:20:43] Christine: say only in Canada, right? That you could do that? Yeah, but we’re going to, we’re going to Florida in February for a month.
[00:20:49] Christine: I said I would give it a try. We’ll see. May, I don’t know if I’ll be a good surfer, but we’ll see.
[00:20:55] Sherrilynne: Well, I think it’s, it’s a good attitude just to say, I’ll give it a try.
[00:20:59] Christine: Yeah. Yeah. But I, but I would try surfing. I would definitely try surfing.
[00:21:03] Sherrilynne: You’re probably going to find a new, a new passion. To, pursue along with your biking or your motorbike?
[00:21:10] Sherrilynne: What advice do you have, would you have for your 30 year old self,
[00:21:14] Christine: Would probably tell myself to relax a little bit more. I know when my kids were little and, and before I had kids, I was very. I’m a neat freak and I was really bad then.
Like you, my brother used to joke and say that you could eat off of every surface in my house at any given time. Right. I definitely relaxed in that department, because it’s not that important, And, but I used to like to fuss about it and stress about it and I would definitely tell myself that.
[00:21:48] Christine: And I’d also tell myself not to settle. I had to kiss a lot of frogs before I got, before I got to the relationship, I’m in right now. Barry excluded because he was a lovely man. He just, things didn’t work out for him there. But Matt meeting Matt has been fantastic. So, and I think I was just open to that.
[00:22:10] Christine: I knew I deserved someone like that. I knew I deserved. Better is not the right word. I just, I kind of just settled for, whoever came into my life for a long period of time and, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t do that again., I’d rather thank you be on my own than do that because you’re just unhappy in a relationship.
[00:22:30] Christine: I wouldn’t, I’d make sure that my little self knew that.
[00:22:35] Christine: Like anybody asks me how I’m doing, I’m like, I’m great. I got zero complaints, I got a good job. I got a great guy. I, my kids are good. They’re off living their lives and doing their thing. Wish they call their mother more, but that’s kids for you. Yeah, falling in love at this stage was lovely. Just lovely. Well, I
[00:22:58] Sherrilynne: like, I feel like that’s an inspirational message for our listeners because, I, a number of women of my acquaintance are in their fifties and sixties and find themselves single. Okay.
[00:23:10] Sherrilynne: Either, either all of a sudden or, they’re making some life choices as they’re coming into this decade to go it alone. And, it just seems kind of lonely to me to be at the, yeah,
[00:23:22] Christine: I didn’t want to be alone, but I, I actually went into this, I went online, is what I did, and I went into it being very, very cynical actually, because my girlfriend.
[00:23:33] Christine: Was the one who said, oh, you should date. And I was like, I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t think so. We went to Cuba, we came back, and I thought, ah, what? I’ll give it a shot. I put this silly little profile up on Tinder of all places and, It was kind of a joke.
[00:23:48] Christine: I said, you must have all your own teeth. You must be able to drink several beer without burping. You must be, you must have your own car. Motorcycle would be preferable. And I said a sense of humor was imperative. And I was thinking, okay, if anybody reads that, they’re going to realize I’m kind of kidding.
[00:24:03] Christine: Kind of not. Right. And, and Matt replied, and, we got to talking and, well, the rest is kind of history. He was he the only one who replied? There was a few others, but they didn’t really get it. Okay. He got it and we started talking and at the time he was out West visiting some friends. He lives here, but he was out West.
[00:24:26] Christine: Right. And after about a week of chatting back and forth, He, jokingly said to me, I asked him something and he said, oh, well you’ll just have to hop on a plane, fly out here and drive home with me and we’ll, I’ll tell you the story. Well, I did. I, I didn’t fly out right Then we talked for about another month because he was going back at the end of April and, I flew out, met him in Winnipeg and we drove the rest of the way home.
[00:24:50] Christine: It was, a four day date.
[00:24:53] Sherrilynne: I mean, that’s a fantastic story. I feel like you should write a book,
[00:24:58] Christine: Well, maybe I, I love telling the story because it’s just a, it still gives me kind of goosebumps because it was really taken a chance, but I was like, you know what? I was like, heck with it. Like, after when my mom and Barry passed away at that in such a short period of time, I kind of looked at life a little bit differently.
[00:25:16] Christine: I was like, that was part of the like, oh, well, let’s just, let’s just do it.
[00:25:20] Christine: I thought if nothing else, I just have to come home alone, Or, or he could be a serial killer. I don’t know., thankfully, actually his mother asked me that. She says, how do you know he wasn’t a serial killer? I’m like, well, cause he told me he wasn’t. Yeah. That was good enough for me, but I, I did do my homework where he was concerned, I talked to a few people that knew him and stuff like that, I didn’t go out there completely blind.
[00:25:43] Christine: But yeah, it was a, it’s a great story. And, and it’s turned out beautifully.
[00:25:48] Sherrilynne: well, congratulations. I’m really happy for you. Thank you.
[00:25:51] Christine: Yeah, I’m pretty happy too, I feel very blessed to have, met somebody like that and, and we’re just on the same page and we all the same things and yeah. That’s pretty cool.
[00:26:02] Sherrilynne: It is, it is. Because when you have a happy love life, the world just looks rosy.
[00:26:09] Christine: It does. It definitely does. Yeah. Must say. I mean, I was pretty happy before. Yeah., I was on my own for a few months and I was, I was, I was okay., I was doing all right, doing things I wanted to do, but having, Matt in my life has been, it’s, I’m, sometimes I don’t have the words, I can’t explain it.
[00:26:28] Christine: It’s just, it’s great. Yeah. Life is, life is very, very good.
[00:26:33] Sherrilynne: So happy to hear that. Thank you.
[00:26:36] Christine: Yeah. There is hope out there, if you’re willing to give it a shot, sometimes you got to jump in with both feet., maybe, maybe don’t look before you leap.
[00:26:44] Christine: Just. I like this saying, it says, follow your heart. Take your brain with you. So, yeah. Yes, that’s right. And that’s kind of what you got to do. I think you’re right
[00:26:57] Sherrilynne: about that. I have found in the past when I’ve. Not followed my guts on something, I sometimes I regret it going forward. You really do kind of have to lean into it. And at this age too, when, a lot of us are, we don’t have the same. Things holding us back, like actual responsibilities is what I’m what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. You don’t have, we we’re not chasing toddlers around and we don’t,
[00:27:23] Christine: Yeah. And you’ve got the, the means to go do those things that you want, like, you’ve got to do it.
[00:27:29] Christine: you, you got to grab the bull by the horns I think and just, and go, alright, let’s change
[00:27:35] Sherrilynne: track here. And, all right. You go to the quick ground.
[00:27:38] Christine: All right, are you,
[00:27:40] Sherrilynne: what are you reading? What are you watching? What are you binging? What are you doing to entertain yourself?
[00:27:46] Christine: Well, reading, I’m on the final book of 50 Shades,
[00:27:54] Christine: It’s funny, I didn’t think I would want to read them, but I actually am quite liking it, Well, there you go. I’m on the final one of that, and I still, I also have a little book on the go that I read sometimes. It’s called Why We Ride, which is a motorcycle book. It’s a bunch of little short stories.
[00:28:07] Christine: It’s really good.
[00:28:08] Christine: And binge watching. Well, Matt and I have been watching Yellowstone. Oh yeah. Enjoying that. Yeah. Well, I’d actually watched all the way up to season five, but he hadn’t seen it, so I watched it again with him.
[00:28:22] Christine: We’re in like season three I think right now. The other thing we were watching was the Power of the Rings. Power Rings of power, sorry, rings of power, which is a new series kind of based on the Lord of the Rings. Okay. But it’s like before the Lord of the Rings happen. But we’re at the end of it now.
[00:28:40] Christine: We have to. Oh no, that’s, I hate those things. or you, or you have to wait for them to put in another. Yeah. In season, that’s where we’re at with that.
[00:28:49] Sherrilynne: But hopeful, remember in the before times though, right? You had to wait for a show. You had to be there at a certain time, like Thursday at nine o’clock to watch your show.
[00:28:59] Sherrilynne: Yeah. And if you missed it, you had to wait till the summer.
[00:29:01] Sherrilynne: You say you’re not very computer savvy, but is there an app that you couldn’t live without?
[00:29:06] Christine: An app? I really like Pinterest. Oh yeah. How so? Yeah, I like, well I like to cook and bake, so, I find lots of good little recipes on there. Oh. I like that.
[00:29:19] Sherrilynne: Is there an over 50 life hack that you’d like to share
[00:29:26] Christine: I work smarter. I can’t tell you that much. Being in a physical job. I don’t know if you’d call that a life hack, but I’ve learned. To work smarter at work. Just because at the end of the day, I’m sore and I’m tired. If I, instead of, I used to go into a house, if I was doing the whole house, I would paint all of the ceilings in one day.
[00:29:47] Christine: Well, I can’t do that anymore. Not unless I want to be a cripple. I, I’ll tackle a couple of rooms and then I’ll do all the trim and then I’ll, work. Maybe patching in another room so that I just kind of, I get to do a little bit of everything in a day as opposed to just focusing on one thing and then I’m, I’m pooched the next day, so.
[00:30:08] Christine: Well, that makes sense. Yeah. I’m not sure if that’s a life hack or that’s just being smarter because you’re older., I’m not really sure. But I feel like
[00:30:17] Sherrilynne: it’s kind of 50 50 because I, I like what, what you’re saying. I can see how I apply that in my life too. Yeah. Just like I’ve just, we’ve been in this house for 10 years now.
[00:30:29] Sherrilynne: It’s the longest that we’ve ever lived in one home. Oh, wow. And so, we have 10 years worth of junk now, and I’m not
[00:30:36] Christine: used to that Well, I’m used to
[00:30:39] Sherrilynne: moving every, every two to three years or something. And then you have a big clear out of all your junk. Right. But Right. My, my objective that I set for my, myself this year was to get.
[00:30:49] Sherrilynne: the junk situation under control and what you’ve just said is kind of how I, how I’ve done it a little bit every day.
[00:30:57] Christine: Now, do you have a website?
[00:31:00] Sherrilynne: I
[00:31:00] Christine: have a Facebook, page. Oh, that’s perfect.
[00:31:03] Sherrilynne: Because I’ll put it in the show notes.
[00:31:04] Sherrilynne: Well, thank you so much for taking this time to chat with me. I think it was an excellent conversation and I appreciate you being so honest and genuine about some pretty difficult subjects.
[00:31:16] Sherrilynne: Huh. And some pretty happy subjects too.
[00:31:18] Christine: Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of a, like I say, it’s a bittersweet, Yeah. Like I’m, I’m very happy now, but it, I had to go through some sad and hard times to get to here. I always say, I compare that to motorcycle riding. You got to take the rough roads to get to the good roads, right?
[00:31:35] Christine: And then that’s in life as well. I’m on a good road.
That’s it for episode 12, this has been 50 women over 50 a podcast for women whose personal confidence is born of experience. Thank you to business owner, Christine for joining me today and sharing with us, her optimism and energy for life.
Her love story really is the stuff of fairy tales. And it looks like she’s set to live happily ever after on her own terms. I’ve put links in the show notes to Christine socials, along with links to the books, organizations, and other resources that we discussed on the show. So, check them out. And if you have a second, please drop me a rating or a review on apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
Let’s connect and create a whole community of wise women over 50 by sharing a link to the show with your friends and connections. See you next time on 50 women over 50. I’m your host, Sherrilynne Starkie.
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